Vikram Jayanti features on BBC Radio Four

Oscar-winning documentary-maker and Old Tonbridgian Vikram Jayanti featured on BBC Radio Four’s comedy panel game The Museum of Curiosity this week.

Hosted by John Lloyd and comedian Lee Mack, the show, originally broadcast on Monday 5 November, also featured writer Bridget Christie and historian Andrea Wulf.

Vikram (Sc 68-72) briefly discussed his time at school and the fact that his father actually named a ship after him. “I was trying to keep a low profile in my first year at Tonbridge and suddenly I was called down to the Junior Common Room, which had the school’s only television,” he recalled.

“The news was on, and the ship, the Vikram Jayanti, was on fire in the English Channel. And so I had to sit there while I became the most notorious boy in the school, over the course of a three-minute news item.”  

Vikram also recounted some of his experiences interviewing controversial figures such as Garry Kasparov, Phil Spector and Uri Geller. “I like larger than life characters who are difficult … often geniuses in distress,” he said. “I try to have a real conversation, and then they get emotionally and intellectually engaged.”

A film producer and director, he has made a number of well-known documentary films. Two of his works have received Academy Awards for Best Full-Feature Documentary; the 1997 blockbuster When We Were Kings, and Born Into Brothels (2005).

The programme can be heard here.

Picture: Vikram Jayanti (far right) with fellow guests on The Museum of Curiosity.