In the Psychiatrist's Chair: v. 3 Book

For those who have listened avidly to Anthony Clare's on-air analysis of some of the UK's luminaries, here is another opportunity to explore great minds. This third volume of In the Psychiatrist's Chair features several faithful transcripts of Clare's hour-long sessions on BBC Radio 4 with people of such varying experience as BBC war correspondent-turned-MP Martin Bell, spoon- bender Uri Geller, actor and writer Stephen Fry, violinists Nigel Kennedy and Yehudi Menhuin, writer Paul Theroux and MPs Anne Widdicombe and Tony Benn. Clare's great skill is to get his subjects to talk eloquently about themselves, their childhoods, their fears, what has shaped them into the people they are today, without letting them just ramble on, and challenging them persuasively when they become defensive. The result is that one learns a great deal about each of them and feels one is party to a series of very intimate, searching conversations about the meaning of life. Martin Bell is perhaps the most guarded of Clare's subjects here but Clare insistently focuses on this reticence and shows it to be the key to his character and the choices he has made. Stephen Fry is much more willing to be analysed but battles with his need to hide behind masks. Uri Geller provides fantastic tales of childhood experiences which are tinged with fantasy but convinces Clare of his supernatural powers by bending the studio producer's car keys on air. Clare allows one to get to know these brilliantly successful people much more deeply than many biographers or ordinary interviewers could, because he is both fascinated and sympathetic, and earns their respect. --Emily OrmondRead More