AWRF 2011 - House full sign up for A.A.Gill

Brilliant, charming and vicious food and travel writer A.A. Gill is famously dyslexic. Photo / Gil Hanly

I didn't envy at all popular NZ chef and tv personality Al Brown his task of interviewing the famously acerbic but very funny restaurant critic and food and travel writer A.A.Gill. But after a day out fishing together they had an obvious warm bond and the largely hilarious exchange that flowed was enormously entertaining.
Gill is so very very funny and he had the audience in stitches  as he sent up the Scots, Israelis, chefs, newspapers, travel writers, Al Brown's weight, reality television, the Isle of Man, Gordon Ramsay, the French and much else.
But he also showed occasional flashes of seriousness and became quite emotional when talking about his Dad who died last year, an Alzheimer's sufferer.

It was a great way to finish the day's Festival programme. A.A. Gill was a great performer but Al Brown, right, (who happily played the fall guy), also made a significant contribution to the entertainment..

In this morning's New Zealand Herald the Michele Hewitson weekly interview (always a highlight in the Weekend Herald) features A.A Gill and here is how she begins:

That brilliant, charming and allegedly vicious travel, food and television writer A.A. Gill has been staying at the Langham this week.

He cuts quite a figure. He was wearing a bespoke tweed jacket, a wristful of those ethnic chic bracelets smelly backpacking youth pick up on their travels, and fingering a set of Islamic prayer beads, made from seeds, as he strolled the hallway.

He looks like Bertie Wooster's homosexual brother, a description nobody should attempt to better. You can guess who came up with it.

He blew in to New Zealand on the night of a storm. He said he felt as though he was in an episode of Dr Who. "It was like being blown back to Hull - 30 years ago."

He is a clever bugger, but I already knew that. He is also languidly charming, and, really, the most generous person to interview. He said, "Actually, can I tell you, about the interview? Make up whatever you need." I will, I said. "No, I mean it. I don't mind."

He makes up stuff about himself all the time, in interviews, then other people make up stuff about him and then people like me ask him, in interviews, about all of the mad, made-up stuff.

The rest of the interview ( it is well worth a read) at the NZHerald.