- The Guardian, Wednesday October 31 2007
It is 25 years since Anthony Clare, who died this weekend, began his radio interviews with celebrities for In the Psychiatrist's Chair. The programme was not the first, even on the BBC, to subject the rich and famous to a more intimate form of questioning than they were accustomed to. Nor was it universally admired, especially by more puritanical psychiatrists. Clare's style was criticised for being too emollient towards his guests and comparisons were even made with Delia Smith - though clearly by writers who perversely thought this an insult. Yet Clare was a natural radio performer and the series irresistibly became a classic. To the frustration of its detractors, In the Psychiatrist's Chair ended up as one of the longest-running and most successful Radio 4 programmes. The resulting claim that Clare did more to popularise psychiatry than anyone since Sigmund Freud was hubristic and parochial but is still recycled. It was especially unwelcome to Clare, partly because of his antipathy to the father of psychoanalysis but also because of his own deeper uncertainties, eloquently expressed in his recent writing on masculinity. Clare's interviews stood on the watershed between the emotional privacy of postwar Britain and the confessional Britain of today. They helped people look deeper into themselves - a mixed blessing which troubled Clare. Yet at least the comparison with Freud gives historians a clue that the professor's interviews had a wider significance in the evolution of modern Britain.
Staff
Contributor
You have characters left
Please read our community standards.
Closing this window without pressing "Post your comment" will result in your words being lost.
Are you sure?
Thank you for your comment. This has been submitted for moderation.
Your comment has been successfully posted.
Sorry, something has gone wrong and this action cannot be completed. Please try again later.