Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg of Wigton, FRSL, FRTS (born 6 October 1939, in Wigton, Cumbria) is a British author and broadcaster.

He started his career in 1961 as a producer at the BBC; he moved into his role as writer and broadcaster in 1967.

He is known for the London Weekend Television (LWT) arts programme The South Bank Show, which he has written, edited and produced since 1978. He has been Controller of Arts at LWT since 1990 (including a stint as Head of Arts from 1982 to 1990). He is also known for his many programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week, which he presented for ten years, In Our Time, and The Routes of English, a history of the English language.

Bragg was appointed to the House of Lords in 1998 as a Labour life peer, under the title Baron Bragg, of Wigton in the County of Cumbria. He is a friend of Tony Blair, the current Labour Prime Minister.

In 1999 he became Chancellor of Leeds University. Bragg is also President of the National Campaign for the Arts (since 1986) and a Governor of the London School of Economics (since 1997). He was made Domus Fellow, St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1990. He became a member of the Arts Council Literature Panel in 1969 and has since become Chairman.

Lord Bragg is a prolific novelist and writer of non-fiction, and has written a number of television and film screenplays.

Lord Bragg's 2003 non-fiction book, The Adventure of English, has been criticised as containing errors.

As screenwriter:

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
The Music Lovers (1970) (also known as Ken Russell's Film on Tchaikovsky and the Music Lovers)
Isadora (1968) (with Clive Exton and Margaret Drabble)
Play Dirty (1968)

On October 17 2005 Bragg officially opened the "Melvyn Bragg Drama Studio", named in his honour, at Millom School, Millom, Cumbria.

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