Critic and essayist
He worked as a television critic for
The Observer between 1972 and 1982. Selections from the column were published in three books ...
Visions Before Midnight,
The Crystal Bucket and
Glued to the Box ... and finally in a compendium,
On Television.
He has written literary criticism extensively for newspapers, magazines and periodicals in Britain, Australia and America, including, amongst many others,
The Australian Book Review,
The Monthly,
The Atlantic Monthly, the
New York Review of Books,
The Liberal and the
Times Literary Supplement.
The Metropolitan Critic, his first collection of literary criticism and other essays was published in 1974, followed by
At the Pillars of Hercules (1979),
From the Land of Shadows (1982),
Snakecharmers in Texas (1988),
The Dreaming Swimmer (1992),
Even As We Speak (2004),
The Meaning of Recognition (2005) and
Cultural Amnesia (2007), a collection of mini intellectual biographies of over 100 significant figures in modern culture, history and politics. A powerful defence of humanism, liberal democracy and literary clarity, the book has been seen as the fruition of 40 years of James' learning and experience. A further volume of essays,
The Revolt of the Pendulum, was published in June 2009.
He has also published
Flying Visits, a collection of travel writing written for
The Observer.
Poet and lyricist
James has always been active as a poet, regularly publishing in periodicals all over the English-speaking world. He has published several books of poetry, including
Poem of the Year (1983), a verse-diary,
Other Passports: poems 1958-1985, a first collection, and
The Book of My Enemy (2003), a volume including lyrics that takes its title from arguably James's most famous poem,
The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered.
He has published four mock-heroic poems:
The Fate of Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media: a moral poem (1975),
Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage Through the London Literary World (1976),
Britannia Bright's Bewilderment in the Wilderness of Westminster (1976) and
Charles Charming's Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne (1981), the second of which is notable in particular.
During the seventies he also collaborated on six albums of songs with Pete Atkin:
- Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger (1970),
- Driving Through Mythical America (1971),
- A King At Nightfall (1973),
- The Road Of Silk (1974),
- Secret Drinker (1974), and
- Live Libel (1975).
A revival of interest in the songs in the late 1990s, triggered largely by the creation by Steve Birkill of an internet mailing list "Midnight Voices" in 1997, led to the reissue of the six albums on CD between 1997 and 2001, as well as live performances by the pair. A double-album of previously-unrecorded songs written in the seventies and entitled
The Lakeside Sessions: Volumes 1 and 2 was released in 2002 and "Winter Spring", an album of new material written by James and Atkin was released in 2003.
James has acknowledged the importance of the "Midnight Voices" group in bringing to wider attention the lyric-writing aspect of his career. He wrote in November 1997 that, "one of the midnight voices of my own fate should be [that] the music of Pete Atkin continues to rank high among the blessings of my life, and on my behalf as well as his I bless you all for your attention".
Novelist and memoirist
In 1979 he published his first book of autobiography,
Unreliable Memoirs, which recounted his early life in Australia and was a tremendous publishing success which has by now extended to over a hundred reprintings. It was followed by four other volumes of autobiography:
Falling Towards England (1985), which covered his London years;
May Week Was in June (1990), which dealt with his time at Cambridge;
North Face of Soho (2006), and
The Blaze of Obscurity (2009), concerning his subsequent career. An omnibus edition of the first three volumes was published under the generic title of
Always Unreliable.
James has also written four novels:
Brilliant Creatures (1983) which was a bestseller,
The Remake (1987),
Brrm! Brrm! (1991), published in the United States as
The Man from Japan, and
The Silver Castle (1996).
His book,
Cultural Amnesia, was listed among the best books of 2007 by
The Village Voice. John Gross included James's essay 'A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses' in the
Oxford Book of Essays in 1992, and included an excerpt from
Unreliable Memoirs in
The New Oxford Book of English Prose in 1999. In
Pure Pleasure, published in 2000, John Carey chose
Unreliable Memoirs as one of the fifty most enjoyable books of the twentieth century.
In a review of
The Revolt of the Pendulum,
The Daily Telegraph's Lynn Barber wondered why James "needs [the reader] to know that he is a polymath and a polyglot", and was of the opinion that the book's criticism "neither explains nor illuminates". Reviewing
North Face of Soho,
The Spectator's James Delingpole criticised the book for moments of false modesty and the "showing off" of striving for effect, and dismissed James's knowledge of film trivia.
Television
He developed his television career as a guest commentator on various shows, including as an occasional co-presenter with Tony Wilson on the first series of
So It Goes, the Granada Television pop music show. On the show when the Sex Pistols made their TV debut, James commented: "During the recording, the task of keeping the little bastards under control was given to me. With the aid of a radio microphone, I was able to shout them down, but it was a near thing...they attacked everything around them and had difficulty in being polite even to each other."..
James subsequently hosted the ITV show
Clive James on Television, in which he showcased unusual or (often unintentionally) amusing television programmes from around the world, notably the Japanese TV show
Endurance. After his defection to the BBC in 1989, he hosted a similarly-formatted programme called
Saturday Night Clive (1988—1990) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094542/) which later became
Sunday Night Clive. In 1995 he set up Watchmaker Productions to produce
The Clive James Show for ITV, and a subsequent series of this launched the British career of singer and comedienne Margarita Pracatan. James hosted one of the early chat shows on Channel 4 and fronted the BBC's
Review of the Year programmes in the late 1980s and 1990s, which formed part of the channel's New Year's Eve celebrations.
In the mid-1980s, James featured in a travel programme called
Clive James in... (beginning with
Clive James in Las Vegas) for LWT (now ITV) and later switched to BBC, where he continued producing travel programmes, this time called
Clive James' Postcard from... (beginning with
Clive James' Postcard from Miami). He was also one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's
The Late Show, hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights.
His major documentary series
Fame in the 20th Century (1993) was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, in Australia by the ABC and in the United States by the PBS network. This series dealt with the concept of "fame" in the 20th century, following over a course of 8 episodes (each one chronologically and roughly devoted to one decade of the century, from the 1900s to the 1980s) discussions about world famous people of the 20th century (for example Charlie Chaplin, Al Capone, Clark Gable, Adolf Hitler, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Madonna,...). Through the use of famous and less famous film footage featuring famous things done by these celebrities, James presented a history of the phenomenon "fame" which explored its growth to today's global proportions. In his closing monologue he remarked, "Achievement without fame can be a rewarding life, while fame without achievement is no life at all."
James presented the 1982, 1984 and 1986 official Formula One season review videos. A keen motorsport enthusiast, his style of witty narration was popular with fans. He also presented
The Clive James Formula 1 Show for ITV to coincide with their Formula One coverage in .
One of his most famous quotations concerning television is, "Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world".
Radio
In 2007, James started presenting the BBC Radio 4 show
A Point of View, with transcripts appearing in the "Magazine" section of BBC News Online. In this show James discusses various issues with a slightly humorous slant, not dissimilar to a newspaper op-ed. Topics covered included media portrayal of torture, young black role models and corporate rebranding. Three of James's broadcasts in 2007 were shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize.
In October 2009 James read a radio version of volume 5 of his Unreliable Memoirs,
The Blaze of Obscurity, on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week programme.
In December 2009 James talked about the P-51 Mustang and other American fighter aircraft of Word War II in
The Museum of Curiosity on BBC Radio 4.
He has posted vlog conversations from his internet show
Talking in the Library, available via Slate.com, with, amongst many others, such notable cultural figures as Ian McEwan, Cate Blanchett, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Miller and Terry Gilliam. In addition to the poetry and prose of Clive James himself, the site features the works of other literary figures such as Les Murray and Michael Frayn, as well as the works of painters, sculptors and photographers such as John Olsen and Jeffrey Smart.
Theatre
In 2008 James performed in two self-titled shows at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival:
Clive James in Conversation and
Clive James in the Evening. He took the latter show on a limited tour of the UK in 2009.
