Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize review: an enjoyable look at how the literary fiction prize keeps book lovers agog

As the literary world awaits the announcement of the 2018 Booker winner, Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC Four) was an enjoyable, if workaday primer on how the literary fiction prize has been keeping book-lovers agog, and sales figures spiralling higher, for decades.

Unlike many of the books nominated for the prize, the emphasis here was firmly on entertainment. A fairly easy task given the self-regard of some of the authors, critics and judges featured. But despite the title and an introduction that spoke of back-biting and bitchiness, fierce rivalries and bruised egos, it was a mostly straightforward history occasionally enlivened by pithy anecdotes and footage of well-known public incidents – such as 1972 winner John Berger’s speech lambasting then sponsors Booker McConnell for their colonialist past, or Fay Weldon’s 1983 speech tearing strips off the publishing industry for treating writers badly.

As with so many other things now, the urge to smooth, spin and PR-manage every aspect of the major event that the Man Booker has become means that almost all of the really good scandal came from the early years of the prize. As publishers and authors became more media savvy – and the financial stakes got significantly higher – the gaffes and ding-dongs dried up.

As such, the latter half of the film confined itself to what a good thing for book sales the prize has been, and the spectacular effect a win can have on a writer’s career and a publisher’s bottom line. Jamie Byng, the founder of Canongate, spoke revealingly of the impact Jan Martell’s winner Life of PI had on the fortunes of his then small publishing house.

In the end, everyone agreed that what mattered most was the manner in which the prize has always put the word out, introducing evermore readers to successive generations of writers who really do deserve to be read. The 2005 winner John Banville summed it up: “To have a prize that will raise a book – a good book – from 5,000 sales to 500,000 sales, that is an achievement. Long may it last.” Amen to that.