A remembering of Mavis Nicholson

A few words on the life and work of one of the great cultural journalists

The other day, on X-formally-known-as-Twitter-soon-to-be-known-as-Elon Musk’s-spleen, I saw an account mention the death of Mavis Nicholson. Oh no, I thought, how sad. One of my heroes, one of the great interviewers of the golden age of the chat show, has left this mortal coil. I thought, I should write something about her. I thought. And I thought a bit more.

And then, as we all always do, I took a moment to wonder if… well… I thought to myself, I thought she was already dead. With the danger of sounding dreadfully insensitive, isn’t this one of the most common reactions to the news of the demise to a celebrity of a certain age? Particularly when said celeb has been out of the public for some time.

So, it turns out, on this occasion, it was a useful reaction. Mavis had died in 2022.