I’d like to add to what Derek Malcolm and Peter Bradshaw have said about the kindness of Philip French. In 1965, I was a struggling young critic in London and Philip, as a BBC producer, gave me not only a vast amount of constructive advice but also vital commissions: he first asked me to review two short BBC Third Programme plays by a then totally unknown writer just out of Bristol called Tom Stoppard. For those of us who went on to work on The Critics and Critics’ Forum, Philip’s advice to “keep the first round short” is forever engraved on our hearts.
I also had wonderful evidence of Philip’s encyclopedic memory. Flattered to be included in the same batch of OBEs as Philip two years ago, I ended a congratulatory telephone call with the jokey line, “See you at the palace.” Quick as a flash, he replied, “As Dirk Bogarde said to Bill Kerr in Appointment in London in 1953.” A great man.
