To celebrate the upcoming Richmond upon Thames Literature Festival's 20th anniversary, organisers - along with the quirky angling, arts and ale-loving folks at Caught by the River - are holding a spot of boat-bound merrymaking, featuring a specially commissioned piece by writer and broadcaster Michael Smith. Run-Riot's John Beck caught up with Smith to discuss his work, influences and disco eccentrics.

Run Riot: The Fringe Festival Birthday Party isn’t the first time you’ve teamed up with Caught by the River [Smith contributed to their anthology On Nature] and they’re obviously big admirers of your work. How did that relationship come about, and what’s your take on their rather unique mix of topics and mediums?

Michael Smith: Robin who runs it sent me an e mail saying he'd seen a programme I’d made and liked it, so I had a look at the caught by the river website and i instantly felt an affinity with what they did. I remember they had a bit up about Arthur Russell, the eccentric disco visionary who used to make music with Larry Levan and Philip Glass etc, next to something about the enchanted dilapidated wilderness of the Essex coast. I just liked their sensibility. It’s rare to find that wide and eccentric a frame of reference, they seemed interested in similarly skew whiff stuff to me

RR: You obviously share a passion for the countryside with CbtR, and in [Smith's short film] Drift Street, for example, your attraction to the wilder spots which exist even in built up areas is obvious. Do you make a point of finding the uncultivated amidst the urban sprawl?

MS: It’s not something I consciously do but I always seem to end up there. And whenever I stumble on those places, something about them seems to haunt me afterwards and inevitably pulls me back. 

RR: Similarly, you have a talent for finding an intriguing eccentricity, speck of romance, or cause for reflection in the most crushingly mundane of settings. Is discovering the unusual in the everyday a preoccupation of yours?

MS: Yes, absolutely, its one of the things I find most satisfying to explore in my work

RR: The constant, but never attained, quest for a man-made utopia is a consistent theme in your work. For you, is [as Smith says in his ‘video postcard’ series] Amsterdam really the closest we’ve come?

MS: Haha no, I think that about lots of places I visit and fall in love with, it just depends which one I’m in at the time... Amsterdam is one of my favourites though... I've found most great cities I’ve been to an inspiration, because they are these embodiments of a reaching out for a better life that invariably goes tits up at some point. Great cities all have these heroic and tragic elements to their stories. Cities are probably my big inspiration.

RR: One reviewer described your spoken style as "philosophy for the rock ‘n’ roll generation", were the beat poets a big influence on you?

MS: Probably when I was younger and more impressionable, they were one of many influences, but no, they're not really much of an influence in my work... I find the idea of youth culture, or rock n roll, or an Americanised frame of reference quite limited and boring these days. I suppose I’m just turning into an old git. 

RR: Can you give us a preview of the piece you’ll be reading at the party?

MS: Its a secret!

RR: The anniversry bash will also feature On Nature’s contributing authors spinning their favourite records. What’s your perfect musical accompaniment for a water-borne shindig?

MS: Whatever seems appropriate on the player at the time. Or Arthur Russell!

Richmond Upon Thames Literature Festival
3-27 November 2011
www.richmondliterature.com
Follow @richmondlitfest
Fringe Festival Birthday Party! Hosted by Caught on the River & Michael Smith

Info and Book Tickets

Michael Smith
www.michaelsmithwriter.blogspot.com