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Podcast title	The South Bank Show
Website URL	http://www.itv.com/southbank
Description	The new series of The South Bank Show will be the first ITV1 programme to be available on the internet in both podcast (audio) or vodcast (video) format for free. The audio and video versions of the show available will feature an extended 25 minute Melvyn Bragg interview with each subject profiled alongside extra material exclusive to online. This season, Melvyn Bragg is talking to a host of high-profile names, including Robbie Coltrane, Victoria Wood, Irvine Welsh, Nick Park, Damien Hirst and J.G. Ballard.
Updated	Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:34:09 +0000
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Category	Literature
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Vote for this podcast	Currently 4.33/5 Rating: 4.3/5 (3 votes cast)
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Episodes
1. Wayne McGregor download (video/mp4, 51.11Mb) Description: Get the free Wayne McGregor vodcast now
2. LeeHall download (video/x-m4v, 65.40Mb) Description: Get the free Lee Hall vodcast now
3. Coldplay download (video/mp4, 59.01Mb) Description: Get the free Coldplay vodcast now
4. William Goldman vodcast download (video/mp4, 72.67Mb) Description: Get the free William Goldman vodcast now
5. South Bank Show Sarah Waters Vodcast download (video/mp4, 18.50Mb) Description: Get the South Bank Show Sarah Waters vodcast here
6. Billy Joel Vodcast download (video/mp4, 41.50Mb) Description: Get the free South Bank Show Billy Joel vodcast here
7. Billy Joel Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 8.48Mb) Description: Get the free South Bank Show Billy Joel podcast here
8. South Bank Show Gore Vidal Vodcast download (video/mp4, 18.72Mb) Description: Get the free Gore Vidal vodcast
9. South Bank Show Annie Lennox Vodcast download (video/mp4, 33.58Mb) Description: Annie talks to Melvyn Bragg
10. South Bank Show Vodcast Tim Burton download (video/mp4, 14.61Mb) Description: Tim Burton Vodcast
11. Kevin Spacey vodcast download (video/quicktime, 114.27Mb) Description: Melvyn Bragg meets Kevin Spacey
12. Eric Clapton podcast download (video/quicktime, 66.70Mb) Description: Get the free Eric Clapton podcast
13. June Whitfield podcast download (video/mp4, 15.64Mb) Description: Get the free June Whitfield podcast
14. Joan Didion podcast download (audio/mpeg, 8.88Mb) Description: Get the free Joan Didion podcast
15. Emma Kirkby podcast download (audio/mpeg, 2.43Mb) Description: Melvyn Bragg talks to soprano Emma Kirkby in this South Bank Show podcast.
16. Marianne Faithfull Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 13.83Mb) Description: Marianne Faithfull is British pop royalty and in this honest, open and moving portrait The South Bank Show tells her story through her songs including: Vagabond Ways, Why D'Ya Do It? and Ballard Of Lucy Jordon.   Marianne Faithfull was born in Hampstead the daughter of a British spy and a Jewish Austro-Hungarian aristocrat. She first achieved fame in 1964 when Andrew Oldham famously spotted her at a London party.   Just 17 years old and still attending convent school in Reading, he launched her recording career with As Tears Go By, the first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.   She later became Mick Jagger's girlfriend, gaining further notoriety when they were arrested in the now infamous Redlands country house drugs bust of 1967.   Marianne subsequently spiralled into heroin addiction for many years, and even lived on a wall in Soho, but in 1979 made an incredible comeback with her album Broken English.   She emerged as one of the UK's most original female singer-songwriters, and since then she has performed worldwide, made further albums and acted in several movies and plays.   Melvyn Bragg meets her in Paris during her most recent concert tour; and the film explores the resilience of a woman who has survived a serious suicide attempt, years of drug abuse and more recently a breast cancer scare to become a celebrated and much loved British icon.   The film also includes new archive footage of Marianne as a young woman.
17. Michael Sheen Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 22.11Mb) Description: Michael Sheen has recently enjoyed major successes playing real-life characters both on stage and screen. The South Bank Show focuses on three of his most famous roles – Kenneth Williams, David Frost and Tony Blair. The Welsh actor has established himself as a major player on the theatrical scene, and has recently been seen on the London stage in Frost / Nixon, Caligula and Look Back In Anger. He is currently re-creating the role of David Frost on Broadway in Frost / Nixon and will then make the movie version, to be directed by Ron Howard. His film work includes playing Tony Blair in The Queen, Wilde, Bright Young Things and Underworld; and on television the multi-award winning films Dirty Filthy Love, and The Deal again playing Tony Blair. In specially shot sequences The South Bank Show explores his creative processes when approaching each role, and the challenges an actor faces when playing a character so well-known to the public. Melvyn Bragg catches up with Michael Sheen in his home town of Port Talbot in Wales (the birthplace of two other actors – Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins), where he discusses his own life and how it led him to become an actor. Contributors include: Sir David Frost, Rory Bremner, Barbara Windsor, directors Michael Grandage & Stephen Frears and Dame Helen Mirren.
18. Jarvis Cocker Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 37.79Mb) Description: Jarvis Cocker, the charismatic former front man of Pulp, is one of Britain's best-loved musicians and cultural icons - and the subject of The South Bank Show. Melvyn Bragg meets him in Paris to talk about song-writing, politics, his ambivalent attitude towards fame and what he likes about his new life in France. Jarvis formed Pulp while still at school in Sheffield in the late 1970s. As an awkward teenager he felt that pop music did not adequately inform him about the disappointments of growing up, and wanted to write songs that included "the bits which other pop songs had edited out". It took Jarvis more than a decade to find success with Pulp who went on to become one of the most popular bands of the 1990s, with hits including Do you Remember the First Time and Common People. Although Pulp have never officially disbanded, Jarvis moved to Paris four years ago with his family, taking a break from the band and the spotlight. Last year he re-emerged, releasing his first solo album, Jarvis, for which he received a Brit Award nomination for Best Solo Male. The South Bank Show filmed Jarvis' recent concert of new material at The Roundhouse in Camden. Jarvis takes The South Bank Show on a tour of some of his favourite places in Paris. He also returns to Castle Market in Sheffield, where he worked as a teenager on a crab stall, "probably the only proper job I've had in my life". The musician Scott Walker also gives a rare interview about Jarvis as a songwriter.
19. Shane Meadows Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 43.28Mb) Description: Shane Meadows is one of Britain's leading independent film directors. His films are often set in Staffordshire, his hometown, and are described as ‘kitchen sink' dramas with a post-modern twist. His films have included Once Upon A Time in the Midlands, TwentyFourSeven, A Room For Romeo Brass and the phenomenal hit, Dead Man's Shoes, which won numerous prizes including Best Film at The South Bank Show Awards in 2005. Few directors have tapped into their damaged roots as consistently or as brilliantly as Meadows. His ability to make an original screenplay from the tiniest of budgets has made him one of Britain's finest guerrilla film-makers. In Spring 2007, he is releasing his next feature This Is England which is a rites of passage story based on an 11-year old boy growing up in Uttoxeter in the North of England, in the early 80s, joining a gang of skinheads who all become involved in the rise of the National Front. Through Meadows, the film will give an insight into what life is like for British independent film-makers, and the state of the British film industry.
20. Isabel Allende Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 3.30Mb) Description: The Chilean novelist Isabel Allende has sold 15 million books in 30 languages over the past two decades. Few living writers receive the critical acclaim, popular following and consistent record of bestselling works that she has enjoyed since the publication of her first and best-known novel, The House of the Spirits, in 1982. Forced into exile after the overthrow and death of her uncle, President Salvador Allende, in the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile in 1973, she became a novelist, known particularly for her storytelling and her passionate exploration of the human condition. Isabel Allende travels from San Francisco, where she now lives, back to Chile, the homeland she left in 1975. Melvyn Bragg meets her in Chile's capital, Santiago, and there explores her relationship with her homeland, the effect her upbringing and exile has had on her writing, her feelings about the Pinochet years in Chile now that the dictator has died, and how she finds it impossible to tell a story without embellishing the truth!
21. Isabel Allende Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 43.64Mb) Description: The Chilean novelist Isabel Allende has sold 15 million books in 30 languages over the past two decades. Few living writers receive the critical acclaim, popular following and consistent record of bestselling works that she has enjoyed since the publication of her first and best-known novel, The House of the Spirits, in 1982. Forced into exile after the overthrow and death of her uncle, President Salvador Allende, in the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile in 1973, she became a novelist, known particularly for her storytelling and her passionate exploration of the human condition. Isabel Allende travels from San Francisco, where she now lives, back to Chile, the homeland she left in 1975. Melvyn Bragg meets her in Chile's capital, Santiago, and there explores her relationship with her homeland, the effect her upbringing and exile has had on her writing, her feelings about the Pinochet years in Chile now that the dictator has died, and how she finds it impossible to tell a story without embellishing the truth!
22. Humphrey Lyttelton Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 3.18Mb) Description: Humphrey Lyttelton has been voted one of this country's top 100 National Treasures. He's best known for his twin careers as a jazz trumpeter / band leader and a broadcaster, most notably as chairman of the antidote to panel games on Radio 4, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. As a jazz musician Humphrey's career spans an incredible 58 years, from his first band in 1948 to a performance with Radiohead in front of 45,000 rock fans. He's somehow also found the time to write seven books and establish a record company. At 85 he's busier than ever; his band still tours and after 34 years he's still going strong as the reluctant chairman of radio's most anarchic quiz. Melvyn Bragg films Humphrey during recordings of his music and of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, plus interviews with panellists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer.
23. Victoria Wood Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 48.20Mb) Description: Victoria Wood the comedienne, actress, singer and writer meets Melvyn Bragg as she prepares for the national tour of Acorn Antiques – The Musical. Wood has written and starred in live stand-up comedy and songs, sketches, plays, films and is often regarded as among the top sitcom writers in Britain owing to her understanding of British culture. Her most recent film, Housewife, 49, was widely acclaimed in the pre-Christmas schedules. So diverse is the work of Victoria Wood, that this is the second South Bank Show on her.
24. Mark Wallinger Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 2.48Mb) Description: The highly politicised British artist Mark Wallinger is best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo. Wallinger studied at the Chelsea School of Art and later at Goldsmith's College, where he was also a tutor from 1986. He exhibited throughout the 1980s, and later showed work in the Young British Artists II show at Charles Saatchi's gallery in 1993 and at the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition in 1997. In 2000 a retrospective of his work, Credo, was exhibited at Tate Liverpool. Wallinger has a new and highly controversial work opening at Tate Britain in January 2007 and Melvyn Bragg follows the preparations for this major art event.
25. Mark Wallinger Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 42.40Mb) Description: The highly politicised British artist Mark Wallinger is best known for his sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, Ecce Homo. Wallinger studied at the Chelsea School of Art and later at Goldsmith's College, where he was also a tutor from 1986. He exhibited throughout the 1980s, and later showed work in the Young British Artists II show at Charles Saatchi's gallery in 1993 and at the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition in 1997. In 2000 a retrospective of his work, Credo, was exhibited at Tate Liverpool. Wallinger has a new and highly controversial work opening at Tate Britain in January 2007 and Melvyn Bragg follows the preparations for this major art event.
26. Damien Hirst Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 23.41Mb) Description: Damien Hirst 01/01/2007 22:45 Brit art superstar Damien Hirst is preparing to bare his soul on the first South Bank show of the New Year. The art collector and business man was the main catalyst and front man for the vibrant Brit Art scene of the 1990s, but his interests have always stretched far beyond producing art. From November 2006 The Serpentine Gallery will exhibit a show of some of Hirst' art collection – the Murderme Collection – an eclectic mix of work by artists of his own generation (Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, Marcus Harvey, Banksy), his American contemporaries (Michael Joo, Richard Prince, John Currin) and his artistic heroes (Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Jeff Coons). An avid collector of artefacts and objects since his childhood, in recent years he has built up an art collection, estimated to be worth millions of pounds. One of Hirst's motivations for his growing collection is Toddington Manor, a stately home purchased for £3 million, which will one day house his collection. He shows Melvyn Bragg around Toddington Manor, outlining his plans for its future in terms of his art collection. They discuss his art collection, the artists he admires and why, the art market and the relationship between money and art: charting how he made his fortune of £100 million, which has enabled him to form ambitious plans for the future and to build up his impressive art collection. The film shows Hirst at work in one of his studios in Gloucestershire with his teams of assistants. He explains how his studio system works and how his company Science works as a business. Contributors include Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Jeff Coons; the show airs on Monday 1st January.
27. Damien Hirst Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 3.32Mb) Description: Damien Hirst 01/01/2007 22:45 Brit art superstar Damien Hirst is preparing to bare his soul on the first South Bank show of the New Year. The art collector and business man was the main catalyst and front man for the vibrant Brit Art scene of the 1990s, but his interests have always stretched far beyond producing art. From November 2006 The Serpentine Gallery will exhibit a show of some of Hirst' art collection – the Murderme Collection – an eclectic mix of work by artists of his own generation (Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, Marcus Harvey, Banksy), his American contemporaries (Michael Joo, Richard Prince, John Currin) and his artistic heroes (Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Jeff Coons). An avid collector of artefacts and objects since his childhood, in recent years he has built up an art collection, estimated to be worth millions of pounds. One of Hirst's motivations for his growing collection is Toddington Manor, a stately home purchased for £3 million, which will one day house his collection. He shows Melvyn Bragg around Toddington Manor, outlining his plans for its future in terms of his art collection. They discuss his art collection, the artists he admires and why, the art market and the relationship between money and art: charting how he made his fortune of £100 million, which has enabled him to form ambitious plans for the future and to build up his impressive art collection. The film shows Hirst at work in one of his studios in Gloucestershire with his teams of assistants. He explains how his studio system works and how his company Science works as a business. Contributors include Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Jeff Coons; the show airs on Monday 1st January.
28. Steve Reich Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 4.62Mb) Description: Get the free Steve Reich podcast now!
29. Spamalot Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 2.22Mb) Description: On the eve of opening in the West End, the South Bank Show goes behind the scenes of Spamalot, described as ‘a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. Written by Python Eric Idle and directed by Mike Nichols, it has been a runaway success since it opened on Broadway last year, winning three Tony Awards. The South Bank Show explores the Python phenomenon and how Spamalot has became a huge Broadway hit, whilst remaining typically and profoundly British. The film has exclusive interviews with all the Pythons: Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. Interspersed with classic Monty Python extracts from television shows, films and stage performances; they discuss the creative processes behind Monty Python. Devotee Python fan, Eddie Izzard, talks about why Python's unique and groundbreaking humour has endured. The film also has exclusive access to Spamalot's London rehearsals plus some musical interludes from Eric Idle on guitar - following the holy grail of a show, as it comes home from Broadway to the West End.
30. Thomas Hardy Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 2.56Mb) Description: To coincide with her major new biography on Thomas Hardy, A Time-Torn Man, THE SOUTH BANK SHOW joins multi award-winning writer CLAIRE TOMALIN on the trail of the well-loved novelist and poet. The film follows CLAIRE TOMALIN to Dorset, Cornwall and London as she visits key locations and landscapes in her bid to get to know the fascinating yet elusive Hardy. MELVYN BRAGG and CLAIRE to discuss how novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure could provide the real key to understanding one of the most important figures in English Literature. In a series of specially filmed reconstructions, the film also features Geoffrey Beevers as Thomas Hardy, Simon Johns as Jude and Amy de Bruhn as Tess. CLAIRE TOMALIN has worked in publishing and journalism all her life. She was literary editor first for the New Statesman followed by The Sunday Times. She has written six highly acclaimed biographies most recently Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize in 2003. Her books have also won the Whitbread First Book Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the NCR Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography. CLAIRE TOMALIN is married to the playwright and author, Michael Frayn.
31. Nick Park Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 6.83Mb) Description: The South Bank Show opens with presenter Melvyn Bragg's trademark introduction…but this time it's a little different. Melvyn has been crafted out of plasticine and animated by master animator and four-times Oscar winning film director Nick Park, the creative genius behind Wallace and Gromit. This spectacular opening leads the way for an intimate portrait of this usually publicity-shy filmmaker, providing an unprecedented insight into his background, his working practices, and where he plans to go next. The film examines the secret of Park's success, and despite his polite public persona, reveals him as strong-minded and hard to please; a director who insists on perfection, no matter how hard it is to achieve. The film also portrays Aardman Animations, the creative community that nurtured Park, allowing him to evolve from a brilliant but painstakingly slow animator to the Oscar-winning film director he is today. This November Aardman are releasing their first CG feature film – Flushed Away ¬– and although the characters are clearly reminiscent of the “Nick Park look”, Nick is not involved in the film. Nick talks candidly about his love of plasticine and whether it has a future in a film world increasingly dominated by CG films.
32. Nick Park Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 117.67Mb) Description: The South Bank Show opens with presenter Melvyn Bragg's trademark introduction…but this time it's a little different. Melvyn has been crafted out of plasticine and animated by master animator and four-times Oscar winning film director Nick Park, the creative genius behind Wallace and Gromit. This spectacular opening leads the way for an intimate portrait of this usually publicity-shy filmmaker, providing an unprecedented insight into his background, his working practices, and where he plans to go next. The film examines the secret of Park's success, and despite his polite public persona, reveals him as strong-minded and hard to please; a director who insists on perfection, no matter how hard it is to achieve. The film also portrays Aardman Animations, the creative community that nurtured Park, allowing him to evolve from a brilliant but painstakingly slow animator to the Oscar-winning film director he is today. This November Aardman are releasing their first CG feature film – Flushed Away ¬– and although the characters are clearly reminiscent of the “Nick Park look”, Nick is not involved in the film. Nick talks candidly about his love of plasticine and whether it has a future in a film world increasingly dominated by CG films.
33. Thomas Hardy Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 40.30Mb) Description: To coincide with her major new biography on Thomas Hardy, A Time-Torn Man, THE SOUTH BANK SHOW joins multi award-winning writer CLAIRE TOMALIN on the trail of the well-loved novelist and poet. The film follows CLAIRE TOMALIN to Dorset, Cornwall and London as she visits key locations and landscapes in her bid to get to know the fascinating yet elusive Hardy. MELVYN BRAGG and CLAIRE to discuss how novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure could provide the real key to understanding one of the most important figures in English Literature. In a series of specially filmed reconstructions, the film also features Geoffrey Beevers as Thomas Hardy, Simon Johns as Jude and Amy de Bruhn as Tess. CLAIRE TOMALIN has worked in publishing and journalism all her life. She was literary editor first for the New Statesman followed by The Sunday Times. She has written six highly acclaimed biographies most recently Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize in 2003. Her books have also won the Whitbread First Book Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the NCR Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography. CLAIRE TOMALIN is married to the playwright and author, Michael Frayn.
34. Spamalot Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 28.36Mb) Description: On the eve of opening in the West End, the South Bank Show goes behind the scenes of Spamalot, described as ‘a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. Written by Python Eric Idle and directed by Mike Nichols, it has been a runaway success since it opened on Broadway last year, winning three Tony Awards. The South Bank Show explores the Python phenomenon and how Spamalot has became a huge Broadway hit, whilst remaining typically and profoundly British. The film has exclusive interviews with all the Pythons: Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. Interspersed with classic Monty Python extracts from television shows, films and stage performances; they discuss the creative processes behind Monty Python. Devotee Python fan, Eddie Izzard, talks about why Python's unique and groundbreaking humour has endured. The film also has exclusive access to Spamalot's London rehearsals plus some musical interludes from Eric Idle on guitar - following the holy grail of a show, as it comes home from Broadway to the West End.
35. Irvine Welsh Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 8.28Mb) Description: In a powerful interview with Melvyn Bragg, Irvine Welsh reveals that he takes a "hard line on addiction" which he views as "a disease of stupidity". Focussed substantially on his new novel, "THe Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs", the interview also reveals him to be a fitness fanatic - an image quite at odds with the received notion of an ex junkie and amoral wastrel. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Irvine Welsh is shown to be a moralist whose work is characterised by an intense religiosity - the central character in "The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs" is called Skinner - combining the notions of sinner and skin - for it is indeed a work exploring the sins of the flesh (particularly contemporary drinking culture in Scotland) and the punishments they incur. This compelling interview is illustrated with explosive dramatised extracts from the new novel.
36. Robbie Coltrane Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 7.02Mb) Description: Robbie Coltrane is one of Britain’s best loved comedians and actors, and is now a global movie star. On the eve of his return to television drama as the boozing, gambling and brilliant criminal psychologist, Fitz in the much acclaimed drama Cracker, Melvyn Bragg interviews him for the South Bank Show. The son of a police surgeon, and graduate from an exclusive Scottish boarding school and Glasgow’s School of Art, Robbie Coltrane never had any formal training as an actor, but his natural ability as a performer and his wit took him to the alternative comedy circuit in Edinburgh in the ‘70s. Comedy played an important strand in his exceptionally diverse career. This led him to the burgeoning theatrical scene in Scotland, and in 1978 he joined the Traverse theatre and established a special relationship with writer John Byrne, who created Slab Boys and then Tutti Frutti for television, co-starring Emma Thompson, which was considered landmark television, and paved Coltrane’s way to some of the best roles in British television drama – notably criminal profiler, Fitz, in Cracker written by Jimmy McGovern. Now Coltrane is a bona fide movie star after the international success of films including the Harry Potter movies, in which he plays the gentle giant Hagrid. Melvyn Bragg interviews this intensely private man and offers a fascinating insight into Coltrane’s personality, politics and process. A talker as charismatic as his heroes Orson Welles and Samuel Johnson.
37. J.G. Ballard Vodcast download (video/x-m4v, 147.19Mb) Description: Over a career spanning 50 years, JG Ballard has proved himself to be one of this country’s most thought-provoking writers. He enjoyed mainstream success with Empire of the Sun, his fictionalised account of his childhood spent in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, but he has always engaged with controversy, most notably with his 1973 novel Crash, which dealt with the sexual potential of car crashes. His novels and short stories have helped to redefine science fiction, moving the genre away from aliens and outer space to concentrate on the psychology of the near future, and bringing the apocalypse into the suburban home. JG Ballard talks to Melvyn Bragg about his fiction, and the themes and obsessions which dominate his prophetic and unsettling “cautionary tales.”
38. J.G. Ballard Podcast download (audio/mpeg, 8.57Mb) Description: Over a career spanning 50 years, JG Ballard has proved himself to be one of this country’s most thought-provoking writers. He enjoyed mainstream success with Empire of the Sun, his fictionalised account of his childhood spent in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, but he has always engaged with controversy, most notably with his 1973 novel Crash, which dealt with the sexual potential of car crashes. His novels and short stories have helped to redefine science fiction, moving the genre away from aliens and outer space to concentrate on the psychology of the near future, and bringing the apocalypse into the suburban home. JG Ballard talks to Melvyn Bragg about his fiction, and the themes and obsessions which dominate his prophetic and unsettling “cautionary tales.”