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Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Francis Bacon in Your Blood

Adrian Scarborough

Michael Peppiatt

Richard Hamilton

Justine Willett

Book of the Week: Francis Bacon in Your Blood: Episode 4: Poor George

Factual: Life Stories

Francis Bacon in Your Blood

Episode 4

Episode 4: Poor George

Poor George

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Francis Bacon in Your Blood, Poor George

Michael Peppiatt's account of his 30-year friendship with Francis Bacon continues with death, guilt and inspiration.

Adrian Scarborough reads Michael Peppiatt's intimate and very indiscreet account of his thirty-year friendship with the defining artist of our time.

Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death in 1992.
For decades, Peppiatt accompanied Bacon on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, witnessing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life'. And despite the chaos Bacon created around him Peppiatt managed to record scores of their conversation, and here he shows Bacon close-up, grand and petty, tender and treacherous by turn, and often quite unlike the myth that has grown up around him.
Today: death, guilt and inspiration.
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Writer: Michael Peppiatt is an art historian, curator and writer. His 1996 biography of Francis Bacon was chosen as a 'Book of the Year' by the New York Times.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett.

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Michael Peppiatt's intimate account of his 30-year friendship with Francis Bacon

Adrian Scarborough reads Michael Peppiatt's intimate and indiscreet account of his 30-year friendship with Francis Bacon. Abridged by Richard Hamilton

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