“This is quite true” Geoffrey Palmer reads Evelyn Waugh letter to his wife (31st May 1942)

• published: 14 Jul 2015
• views: 141

LETTERS LIVE: http://letterslive.com/ As World War II raged in May of 1942, three years before the publication of what has since become his best-known novel, Brideshead Revisited, English author Evelyn Waugh was in fact a newly-assigned member of the British Army’s Royal Horse Guards, a cavalry regiment then stationed in south-west Scotland to which he had recently been transferred. Back home, in dire need of some light relief, his wife of 5 years, Laura, was steadfastly holding fort whilst just weeks away from giving birth to their fourth child, Margaret. Entertainment soon arrived, in the form of a letter from her husband in which he expertly and with pitch-perfect comic timing told the story of a tree stump on the Earl of Glasgow’s estate. Geoffrey Palmer OBE is an English actor known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Ben Parkinson in Butterflies and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By opposite Judi Dench for over a decade. His distinctive voice also gave him a career in advertising and television voiceovers, and as the narrator for the BBC series Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Holidays. Geoffrey Palmer narrated audiobooks and he regularly voices books for the blind. LETTERS LIVE is a series of live events celebrating the power of literary correspondence. Inspired by Shaun Usher's Letters of Note, Letters Live is an initiative by publishing company Canongate and Benedict Cumberbatch’s production company SunnyMarch. It has become a phenomenon wherever is has played in the UK. The idea of LETTERS LIVE is simple: we ask talented, inspiring and high-profile artists from various disciplines to read letters out loud to our audiences. LETTERS LIVE celebrates letter writing and the art of correspondence first and foremost. For more videos, please visit our website http://letterslive.com/