Recording dizzying changes in culture and politics, the playwright’s elegant essays range in subject from the photographer Lee Miller to a former Archbishop of Canterbury, from actor Sarah Bernhardt to rapist Jimmy Savile, from a celebration of Mad Men to a diagnosis of the incoherence of Conservatism in the 21st century.

The poems, in contrast, are private: tender meditations, filled with love, memory, vulnerability and the melancholy of ageing. This is a powerful compilation of prose and poetry by one of the distinctive thinkers of our time.

He discusses his work with writer and broadcaster Francine Stock.