Lynn Barber

Britain’s most ferocious interviewer asks whether celebrity interviews serve any useful purpose and ponders the ethical problems they raise. ‘I’m a great believer in prurient curiosity,’ she says, ‘but I also believe that interviews can serve a wider purpose. They also raise tricky ethical dilemmas. What is a fair interview? Is it wrong to be judgemental? And what about the practical problems of ever-tighter time constraints, the increasing power of PRs, the growing insistence on copy approval?’ In this revealing and thought-provoking lecture, Lynn Barber makes a plea for us to read interviews with greater critical awareness.