An Evening with John Sergeant

ALISON CROOSE

The political correspondent is used to an audience of five million faceless television viewers, but at Lynn he came face to face with 500 people keen to learn more about the cut-throat worlds of politics and television.

The former political editor of ITN, who also spent 30 years with the BBC, is clearly enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle talking about his career – and coincidentally promoting his first book and a second he is working on.

Sergeant is obviously comfortable with a warts-and-all confrontation with a live audience because his roots lie in entertainment and one of his themes was the crucial decision he had to make about whether to pursue a career as a comedian or as a journalist.

His memoirs, Give Me Ten Seconds, reflect a rather larger ego than the self-effacing character who entertained an audience eager for behind-the-scenes titbits about the big players in the current political maelstrom.

He demonstrated the deadpan humour that has made him a popular guest on light entertainment programmes and, prompted by questions from the audience, talked about his wide journalistic experience, citing examples of the humour which relieves the tension on foreign assignments and the profound effect of witnessing history in the making.