Q&As must die — and that’s my final answer

Nothing makes the heart sink quite so fast as the phrase ‘followed by a Q&A’, with ‘join the debate’ running it a close second. When did they start, all these questions and answers? Was William Shakespeare obliged to take part in a Q&A following the first night of hamlet?

‘ What’s your writing routine, William?’ ‘What sort of quill do you use?’ ‘have you ever actually seen a ghost?’ ‘in your view, William, which is better — to be or not to be?’ ‘What’s your opinion about the current situation in Denmark?’ ‘have you ever actually taken arms against a sea of troubles, and, if so, what was it like?’

no: the literary Q&A is a peculiarly modern institution, the product, as Auberon Waugh once observed, of contemporary readers being fed up with reading and contemporary writers being fed up with writing. in fact, literary festivals offer a complete holiday from literature: instead of reading and writing, readers now listen and writers talk.

Most literary festivals even discourage writers from reading aloud from their own work. As the author tim Parks has pointed out: ‘they’re afraid you’ll go on forever and bore them to tears.’

But at last the iconoclastic American playwright David Mamet has decided that enough is enough. he has just announced that he is banning all Q&As with performers, directors, set designers, etc, following his plays, and he will certainly not be taking part in any himself.

theatres that violate his rule will be liable for a fine of $25,000, and the right to perform the play will be withdrawn.

Some have reacted to this news as though the Q&A is a basic human right. ‘oh dear, oh dear,’ says the veteran dramatist Ronald harwood. ‘ What’s his reason? i like after- the- show discussions . . . i think it’s ridiculous, quite honestly.’

But many of us are jumping with joy. Whenever i see that a performance is to be followed by a ‘conversation’ with the writer and/or the director, i make a point of booking the seat closest to the exit, so that i can rush away before the words, ‘And now i’d like to welcome . . . ’ have been uttered.

this may sound like philistinism, but is in fact the opposite. An author works hard for years to create a work of art, writing and re-writing, correcting, editing and polishing, so that all their initial hesitations, pretensions and imperfections are excised from the finished work. if anything seems too self-indulgent or long-winded, it is whittled away, so that all that remains is what matters. But then what happens? once the book is published or the play performed, the author is now expected to pop up onstage and reverse the process, turning all that careful writing into aimless chit-chat. Before the audience’s very eyes, the careful knitting is unravelled, and, amid much applause, the beautiful cardigan is pulled apart, reverting to a tangle of wool. the literary festival is like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight: what was once a work of art is transformed back to its original ragged jumble of half- formed sentences and self-indulgent rambling. tim Parks gets it well. ‘Convinced you will be underestimated and misunderstood, you launch into a long “explanation” of your book, the initial idea, the models that inspired you, the particular spin you were looking for, but even as you do so you are aware that at some deep level, none of this is true.’ So why is there such a thirst to see an author, an actor or a director rabbiting on instead of doing what they do best? i think it has something to do with our current obsession with personality. is this or that famous author a normal sort of person? What would he or she be like as a neighbour? Are they pleasant or unpleasant, stuck- up or down- to- earth, easy-going or tense? of course, the truth is that a wonderful writer can be a ghastly person, and vice-versa. Yet the Q&A forces all but the most selfconfident author to put on an act, so that the audience will think them pleasant, and buy their books.

PERSONALLY, i yearn for those pre-festival days when authors were not afraid to be nasty. to the best of my knowledge, evelyn Waugh never appeared at a literary festival, and the few interviews he gave were notable for their terseness. in one BBC home Service interview, he is asked:

‘Do you find it easy to get on with the man in the street?’ ‘i’ve never met such a person.’ ‘What about on buses or trains?’ ‘i’ve never travelled in a bus and i’ve never addressed a stranger on a train.’

And whereas today’s authors love to make a song-and-dance in Q&As about how impossibly hard it is to write a book, Waugh takes quite a different line.

‘nothing easier,’ he says.