Johnners' A View From The Boundary Test Match Special

Oct 6, 2024 2:18 PM

Author:Barry Johnston,Michael Parkinson,John Cleese,Christopher Lee

John Cleese, Christopher Lee and Michael Parkinson share their passion for cricket with the great broadcaster, Brian Johnston. During the lunch interval on the Saturday of every Test in England, BBC Radio’s ‘Test Match Special’ used to invite a well-known guest into the commentary box for a chat with Brian Johnston about themselves and their passion for cricket. Some turned out to be able cricketers, but they all had stories to tell about matches they had seen and cricketers they had met. Barry Johnston - Brian Johnston’s son - has selected five chats from the series ‘A View from the Boundary’, beginning in 1980 with the playwright Ben Travers, and his vivid recollections of W.G. Grace and other characters from the golden age of cricket. He is followed by Michael Charlton, the political broadcaster and former cricket commentator, who covered the great Australia v West Indies tied Test in 1960, and John Cleese, a lifelong Somerset supporter, who tells some funny stories about ‘Monty Python’ and ‘Fawlty Towers’. Hollywood film star Sir Christopher Lee recalls watching the legendary Jack Hobbs and Don Bradman, and Sir Michael Parkinson talks about opening the batting at Barnsley with Dickie Bird and how he nearly played for Hampshire. Publisher’s note: This recording was taken from part of the cassette release of ‘A View from the Boundary’.

1 CD. 1 hr 15 mins approx.

Reviews

To understand Ireland, you have to understand the GAA. To understand the GAA, you have to read this book. A masterpiece.

—— Tom Humphries

An extraordinary saga - unflinching in its honesty. This book is to hurling what Eamon Dunphy's seminal Only a Game? was to soccer writing

—— Richard Fitzpatrick , Irish Examiner

This is one of the best sports that has been written in Ireland. You'll cry a lot, if you have a soul. And if you love sport, you'll love this book.

—— Ger Gilroy

Deserves its place among the most courageous Irish sports books ever conceived, and one of the finest ever written

—— Michael Foley , Sunday Times

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit

—— Christopher Hitchens

For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day

—— Marian Keyes

Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists

—— Susan Hill

It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him

—— John Humphrys

Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already

—— Lynne Truss

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection

—— Julian Fellowes

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

My only problem with Wodehouse is deciding which of his enchanting books to take to my desert island

—— Ruth Dudley Edwards

P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive

—— Olivia Williams

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language

—— Ben Schott

A genius ... Elusive, delicate but lasting

—— Alan Ayckbourn

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry

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