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Mark Gerard Lawson (born 11 April 1962 He is also a Guardian columnist, and presented Mark Lawson Talks To... on BBC Four from 2006 to 2015.

Life and career

Born in Hendon, North London, Lawson was raised in Leeds, where his father was a marketing director for the Civil Service and British Telecom.

He was brought up a Catholic, and was educated at the independent Catholic school St Columba's College in St Albans. He then took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers included John Sutherland and A. S. Byatt.

Lawson became a freelance contributor to numerous publications in 1984, beginning on The Universe in that year, and for The Times from 1984 to 1986. He has written a column for The Guardian since 1995, having previously written for The 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" on The Guardian is typified by Lawson's "embedded presence".

Lawson presented The Late Show on BBC2 in the 1990s and presented its offshoot The Late Review (later Sunday Review and from 2000 Newsnight Review) until the 2005 "review of the year" edition of Newsnight Review, broadcast on 16 December, which marked the end of his association with the format. In 2004, Lawson made a documentary for BBC Four called The Truth About Sixties TV, criticising what he called "golden ageists" who, he said, had a rose-tinted view of television's past.

Lawson became the main presenter of BBC Radio 4's daily arts programme, Front Row, in 1998. In 2022, Lawson wrote about this encounter and his personal experience of Savile in British society.

Lawson's connection with Front Row ended in March 2014 for "personal reasons" in a joint agreement with the BBC. 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. Lawson denied bullying. In his 2016 novel The Allegations, 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 <blockquote>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.</blockquote>

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015.

Lawson has been a supporter of Leeds United FC from childhood, but also follows Northampton Town FC and frequently goes to games, both at Sixfields Stadium and away. He lives near Towcester in Northamptonshire.

Bibliography

  • Bloody Margaret: Three Political Fantasies (Picador, 1991)
  • The Battle for Room Service: Journeys to All the Safe Places (Picador, 1993)
  • Idlewild (Picador, 1995)
  • Going Out Live (Picador, 2001)
  • Enough Is Enough: or, The Emergency Government (Picador, 2005)
  • The Deaths (Picador, 2013)

References

  • Guardian columns by Mark Lawson
  • BBC Radio 4 profile
  • Mark Lawson interview techniques, BBC Academy