Mark Lawson | |
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 Lawson in 2013 | |
| Born | Mark Gerard Lawson (1962-04-11)11 April 1962 (age 63) Hendon, London, England |
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| Nationality | British |
Mark Gerard Lawson[1] (born 11 April 1962[1]) is an English journalist, broadcaster and author. Specialising in culture and the arts, he is best known for presenting the flagshipBBC Radio 4 arts programmeFront Row between 1998 and 2014.[2] He is also aGuardian columnist, and presentedMark Lawson Talks To... onBBC Four from 2006 to 2015.
Born inHendon, North London,[3] Lawson was raised in Leeds, where his father was a marketing director for theCivil Service andBritish Telecom.[3] Both of his parents originated from the northeast of England.[4]
He was brought up aCatholic,[5] and was educated at the independent Catholic schoolSt Columba's College inSt Albans. He then took a degree in English atUniversity College London, where his lecturers includedJohn Sutherland andA. S. Byatt.
Lawson became afreelance contributor to numerous publications in 1984, beginning onThe Universe in that year, and forThe Times from 1984 to 1986. He has written a column forThe Guardian since 1995, having previously written forThe Independent (1986–95), and has twice been TV Critic of the Year, as well as winning many other journalism awards. However,Richard Gott, a former colleague, commented in 2002 that the "prevalence of the bland and the obsequious" onThe Guardian is typified by Lawson's "embedded presence".[6]
Lawson presentedThe Late Show onBBC2 in the 1990s and presented its offshootThe Late Review (laterSunday Review and from 2000Newsnight Review) until the 2005 "review of the year" edition ofNewsnight Review, broadcast on 16 December, which marked the end of his association with the format. In 2004, Lawson made a documentary forBBC Four calledThe Truth About Sixties TV, criticising what he called "golden ageists" who, he said, had a rose-tinted view of television's past.[citation needed]
Lawson became the main presenter ofBBC Radio 4's daily arts programme,Front Row, in 1998.[3] He has written several radio plays for the network, includingSt Graham and St Evelyn (2003) on the friendship between the Catholic novelistsGraham Greene andEvelyn Waugh andThe Third Soldier Holds His Thighs (2005) onMary Whitehouse's unsuccessful litigation against theNational Theatre production ofHoward Brenton's playThe Romans in Britain. Lawson has also written episodes of the television version of the BBC sitcomAbsolute Power appearing as himself in the series 1 episode 2, "Pope Idol". He is one of many celebrities impersonated by theDead Ringers team, referred to as "Britain's brainiest potato" and "the thinking woman's potato" because of his baldness.[citation needed] His in-depth, one-to-one interviews forBBC Four, entitledMark Lawson Talks to …, ran from 2006 to 2015.
In addition to his work in print journalism and the broadcast media, Lawson has written five books, both fiction and non-fiction. His first,Bloody Margaret (1991), is a collection of novellas on late 20th-century politics in the UK, including an eponymous satire concerningMargaret Thatcher. This was followed byThe Battle for Room Service (1993), a travelogue of people, politics and culture encountered by Lawson as a journalist. His 1995 bookIdlewild is analternative history novel in which bothJohn F. Kennedy andMarilyn Monroe survived the 1960s.Going Out Live (2001) focused on contemporarycelebrity culture and the media, andEnough is Enough (2005) is a satire set in the government ofHarold Wilson during the late 1960s. Lawson chaired the judges for the 2011Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.[citation needed]
In 2006, Lawson witnessed, and reported to the BBC, a sexual assault on a BBC staff member byJimmy Savile, later found to have been a prolific sex offender. This was recorded in theDame Janet Smith Review report of 2016.[7] In 2022, Lawson wrote about this encounter and his personal experience of Savile in British society.[8]
Lawson's connection withFront Row ended in March 2014 for "personal reasons" in a joint agreement with the BBC.[2] An internal report completed in January investigated claims of bullying within the BBC Radio Arts, which producesFront Row, and identified one producer and presenter as responsible.[9]The Daily Telegraph reported on 5 March that Lawson was the presenter involved and he had been accused of "browbeating junior staff" who are often young freelancers.[10] Lawson denied bullying. In his 2016 novelThe Allegations,[11] a lecturer at a fictional English university faces disciplinary action and dismissal for "B&H" (bullying and harassment). Dr Tom Pimm is accused of sighing during departmental meetings, "divisive social invitations" and "visual Insubordination (sic) towards senior management". Pimm attends a hearing during which he is told that "if someone felt you were being insensitive then, to all intents and purposes, you were". In the book's afterword, Lawson writes
It is the case that during a long, generally privileged and happy career in the media, I suffered one devastating experience of institutional group-think, baffling and contradictory management, false accusation and surreally sub-legal process; and have personal knowledge of the damage to reputation, employability and health that can result from such an ordeal.
He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015.[12]
Lawson has been a supporter ofLeeds United FC from childhood,[13] but also followsNorthampton Town FC and frequently goes to games, both atSixfields Stadium and away. He lives nearTowcester inNorthamptonshire.[14]
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