Focus: Blenheim Pacae Palace's Tony Byrne

As special adviser to the Blenheim Palace and Oxford literary festivals, Tony Byrne has learned to expect the unexpected.

A typical scenario, he explains, is that one of the main speakers cancels at the last minute.

Or, five important people no one wants to offend arrive for a dinner that is already fully booked.

Surprisingly, since the start of the Blenheim festival is just days away, the 66-year-old sounds incredibly relaxed.

He jokes his motto is ‘keep calm and carry on’, or what he calls the Michael Winner approach of ‘calm down, dear, it’s only a dinner’.

His involvement came about 10 years ago, completely by accident. A friend invited him to take a look at the Oxford Literary Festival, where he met festival director Sally Dunsmore.

She asked for his help with fundraising and administration and that led to them working together on Blenheim.

The latter, which runs across five days, attracts 7,000 visitors who come to hear 100 speakers from the world of politics, literature and art.

This year, the line-up includes Sir John Major, Ruth Rendell, Rick Stein, Max Hastings and TV historian Lucy Worsley.

Back in March at the Oxford Literary Festival, it was an even bigger juggling act, with 550 speakers over nine days.

“My role during festivals is firefighting,” Tony said. “If someone doesn’t turn up, I have to be ready to step in and introduce a speaker and have to fill in where and when needed.

“I always produce a hit list beforehand of the events I want to attend, but sadly I don’t get to many.

“I think there’s this idea we have this wonderful time swanning around with famous people. “Whereas, in reality, if you manage to say ‘hello’ when they arrive, and ‘thank you’ when they leave, you’ve done well.”

A consequence of the calibre of speakers they are dealing with is that they work on two- and three-year cycles. “People at that level have tremendous commitments,” he said. “If we don’t get them first time around, then we’ll get them for the second or third year.”

But booking a prestigious speaker is only half the story.

“If someone has suffered bereavement or illness, or something has gone catastrophically wrong with their life, they are not able to turn up,” he said.

“This year, we had Rupert Everett booked at Oxford but his doctor ordered him to rest and he had to cancel. “We had to refund £12,000 worth of tickets.”

He juggles these festival duties with his ‘day job’ as director of Somerset House Trust, the organisation behind the neo-classical building at The Strand which is transformed into an ice rink each winter and hosts open-air concerts, films and art exhibitions.

Divorced with two daughters in their late 30s, he lives in Woodstock but grew up in Rutland and studied at Lancaster and Cambridge universities.

Since then, he has carved out a career that is impressive by anyone’s standards.

In the early 80s, he worked at Bristol Arts Centre, where he conjured much-needed funding to bank-roll the creation of the city’s Watershed complex. Home to a new radio station, cinema, film and TV library, it was hailed as a national first. A couple of years later when he spotted a BAFTA advertisement for the post of director, he went for it and, to his surprise, was successful. “It was that era when many of the Hollywood greats were still around so you had events celebrating the careers of people like Sir John Mills, Sir David Lean and found yourself looking after Audrey Hepburn for the weekend.” But far from being all glitz and luvvies, it included some shrewd negotiating, including a four-year deal with Shell UK which netted £1m per year, hardly a trifling sum 20 years ago. Although he is obviously a natural, he does not particularly enjoy that part of the process.

“It’s excruciatingly time-consuming and difficult but you have to get the money to make things happen,” he pointed out.

Similarly high-profile and prestigious roles followed, including director of development for Corpus Christi in Cambridge and a similar post at The Marine Society and Sea Cadets.

BAFTA’s theatrical style must have rubbed off, because while at the Royal Navy, it was his idea for HMS Ark Royal to be sailed up the Thames and 500 people invited aboard for lunch every day for three days. Ask him to spill the beans about difficult authors and cantankerous customers at either festival and he remains tight-lipped. “It comes back and bites you,” he said warily. “All I will say is, there are people who have three stars beside their name as being exceptionally difficult to deal with.

“We pride ourselves at having the most civilised green rooms amongst literary festivals and there is always plenty of excellent wine and food on offer. “But it is very rare that anybody is ‘under the weather’. “Ironically, the only times people have complained about someone being under the weather, they hadn’t been drinking at all.

“The other classic, is when you have someone who is monosyllabic while being interviewed. They might be a brilliant writer but they just aren’t able to talk about it.”

Setting up deals of the size required to fund major festivals requires the tact and patience of an international diplomat.

“Some committees leak like sieves,” he said.

“There are always those who, when told something in confidence, think that means telling only one person.

“It can cost you millions in terms of lost sponsorship, if someone says something stupid and the company just walks away.” Despite the economic downturn, literary festivals are thriving, something Tony attributes to public anxiety about what he describes as the dumbing down of our media. He pointed out: “In my childhood, sermons were important and politicians gave speeches in public halls around the country and were questioned and heckled by audiences.

“But all our politicians do is sound-bites for TV and radio and never appear in public, unless it’s carefully stage-managed.

“People are starved of proper dialogue and discussion.

“One of the most successful elements of our literary festivals is the debates.

“If we know a speaker is a prominent advocate of something, we find someone who is passionate about the complete opposite, to make it as sparky as possible. “Sally has lots of people saying we shouldn’t give such-and-such a person a platform for their beliefs. “But if you can’t discuss these ideas at Oxford, where can you?”

The Blenheim Palace Literary Festival runs from Sep 18-22. Call 01993 812291 or see blenheimpalace literaryfestival.com