Alan Brien by Paul Johnson

Alan Brien was the best light essayist of his day, first in the Spectator, then in the New Statesman. He could conjure up a thousand words of gossamer prose out of nothing and make it flavoursome, tangy, touching, ribald, pointed and, on occasion, riotously funny and even robust. The tone depended entirely on his mood when he wrote it. To produce these confections he deployed immensely wide but discerning reading, an enviable memory for incidents both delicious and striking, a wide acquaintance among the great, talented and notorious, especially among actors, writers, politicians and media people, and a taste for the grotesque. He had a good ear, too, for accents, speech patterns and verbal eccentricity. Into his tales he would weave individual anecdotes, of which he had an immense store, which he accumulated, improved, sharpened and detailed with delicacy and gusto.

These little masterpieces involved a vertiginous method of last-minute improvisation. Alan was always up against the deadline, and he needed to hear the rumble of time's chariot to be stimulated into producing. Sometimes I had to lock him in. But he always got the stuff out in the end, and it was always worth waiting for.

I salute the passing of a master wordsmith, a sharp, saturnine, jovial, hugely resourceful and original giant of his craft - a craft which has punctuated the history of English letters, and of which he was an exemplary practitioner.
Paul Johnson