In Conversation: Margaret Drabble & David Mitchell

23rd October 2020

It was a real pleasure to watch and listen to our Patrons Margaret Drabble and David Mitchell talk about our Find The Right Words campaign, stammering and how we can achieve change.  

The discussion, which marked International Stammering Awareness Day (22nd Oct), looked at the current campaign Find The Right Words, and the impact programmes like Open All Hours had. David Mitchell reflected that the morning after the programme aired, "laughing at stammering had been justified nationally…. and I was going to be on the receiving end of that." 

Margaret followed by noting the difference between Derek Jacobi's portrayal in 'I Claudius' and Ronnie Barker's Arkwright in Open All Hours, where stammering is used in the latter for "setting up the character as a target for fun."

Tim Fell, Chair of Stamma, hosted the evening and led Margaret and David through a discussion touching upon the extent to which stammering influenced their writing and their need to write.

Watch the full video at the top of the page.