The Beechwood Airship Interviews

by Dan Richards

A journey into the headspaces and workplaces of some of Britain’s most unique artists, from the co-author of the critically acclaimed Holloway.

Bill Drummond. Richard Lawrence. Stanley Donwood. Jenny Saville. David Nash. Manic Street Preachers. Dame Judi Dench. Cally Callomon. Sheryl Garratt. Vaughan Oliver. Jane Bown. Steve Gullick. Stewart Lee. The Butcher of Common Sense. Robert Macfarlane.

Artists. Writers. Photographers. Musicians. A comedian. An actor. A printer. An airship.

The people interviewed in this book come from all corners of Britain’s cultural landscape but are united in their commitment to their craft.

At the beginning of this extraordinary memoir, Dan Richards impulsively decides to build an airship in his art school bar, an act of opposition which leads him to meet and interview some of Britain’s most extraordinary artists, craftsmen and technicians in the spaces and environments in which they work.

His search for what it is that compels both him and them to create becomes a profound examination of what it is to be an artist in 21st Century Britain, and an inspiring testament to the importance of making art for art’s sake.

Genres: Nonfiction

546 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 30, 2015

About the author

Dan Richards' first book, 'Holloway', co-authored with Robert Macfarlane & illustrated by Stanley Donwood, was published by Faber in 2013.

In 'The Beechwood Airship Interviews' (HarperCollins, 2015), Dan explored the creative process, head-spaces and workplaces of some of Britain's most celebrated artists, craftsman and technicians including Bill Drummond, Dame Judi Dench, Jenny Saville, Manic Street Preachers, Jane Bown & Stewart Lee.

'Climbing Days', his third (Faber 2016), saw him set out on the trail of his pioneering great-great-aunt and uncle, Dorothy Pilley & I.A. Richards. Following in the pair's foot and hand-holds, Dan travelled across Europe, using Dorothy's 1935 mountaineering memoir as a guide. Ending up atop the mighty Dent Blanche in the high Alps of Valais.

'Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth' (Canongate, 2019), is an exploration of the appeal and pull of far-flung shelters in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts; landscapes and which have long inspired adventurers, pilgrims, writers, and artists.

'Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark', a book celebrating the night and exploring the nocturnal operations which sustain, repair and protect the world whilst most of us are asleep, is set to be published by Canongate in March 2025.

'Only After Dark', a BBC Radio 4 series with a similar focus to 'Overnight', was broadcast in December 2022.

Dan has written for various newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, Economist, Esquire and Monocle.

He lives in Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

Another case of my reading a book because it looked interesting, with no memories attached to the author's name, and then realising I had in fact read something by him before. Dan Richards was, it turns out, the co-writer of Holloway, which granted is the second Rob Macfarlane book I'd go for if I were on Pointless (as a former victor recently told me I should be) and the category was Rob's books, but even so. And Rob is one of the interviewees here – indeed, one of the ones who inspired me to pick it up, alongside Bill Drummond and Stewart Lee. Others range from names I know and can recognise as quality personnel but wouldn't actively have sought out – Jenny Saville, Vaughan Oliver, Stanley Donwood – to ones which, much like the author's, rang no bells for me whatsoever, such as the printer Richard Lawrence. But all of them make for interesting company. Dame Judi Dench, even while complaining about most of the interviews she has to do and which she clearly sees as both impertinent and irrelevant to the work, seems nevertheless to enjoy this one. And listening to Donwood discuss the artwork for Radiohead's noughties albums is much more fun than listening to the bastard things ever was. Elsewhere, if the conversation with Drummond inevitably covers some familiar ground, Richards is at least aware of that, and makes a few valid-feeling stabs at possible insights into the career and drives of that remarkable individual. Possibly having some particular insight on account of his own quixotic projects: the title derives from an enormous airship which he built within an East Anglian student bar, as you do, and a big part of the book's motive, in so far as it has one, is a celebration of the remarkable results when people are allowed to follow their creative urge wherever it may lead. The corollary inevitably being a lament for the constrictions increasingly placed even on art school educations – something which has, of course, only got worse in the seven years since this was published. But then that's true of most everything, isn't it? And the book itself stands as a wonderful, inexplicable artefact. You know those comedy quest books, Round Ireland With A Fridge or whatever, and how they often aspire to some deeper significance, which they may or may not attain? This has the same relationship to those as Daniel Kitson's storytelling shows, which are no longer even attempting to be comedy per se, have to the regular run of Edinburgh shows which think they're being sneaky when they reveal a heart. With Richards, as with the people he talks to, the work is what it is because that's what it needed to be, and that only became apparent through the making of it.

[Yue · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Uni Reading done. Well it's not reading through but I did manage to get a sense of the whole picture and also peeped into what held interest to me personally.

The book started with a part-time MA student in Creative Writing wanting to built a beechwood airship, a gigantic physical thing, because "I had a lot of questions, had gone off piste with my MA to fill gaps in my heuristic knowledge and in so doing become convinced that something was amiss and the answers lay elsewhere, in the heads and hands of people at work (p22)".

He went on to interview a bunch of artists across different fields and just talked about their art and the process of creation. "He put the idea in motion that people who love what they do, are immersed and consumed by their work, are wont to speak about it with an engaging and infectious generosity (p9)"

In the introductory part about the project there was one interesting idea concerning a sense of "place" in an artwork, "Virginie was of the opinion that all artists create and respond to a space, be it site-specific sculpture like the airship or an environment attuned to making work (p19)".

But most importantly the idea of getting your hands dirty, of "Work comes out of work (p122)", of encouraging people to build things out of their creativity came very timely. "A lot of the book is born sitting still and thinking and talking and reading with my bum fixed firmly on a seat; and the other part of it... pubs and kitchen tables and studios and houses are all involved" (p479)

[Natty Peterkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very interesting interviews mixed with some that were unfortunately less engaging.

[Martin Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gem of a book.

[Carol Traveny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. A quirky exploration of the thought behind artistic process. An engaging cast of characters, the author most definitely included!