The self-censoring at the BBC became quite oppressive

With his new exhibition and a gig at LBC, Andrew Marr is ready to ruffle feathers. The broadcasting heavyweight talks to Melanie McDonagh about his audience with Putin, ‘shameful’ Partygate and why Boris is not safe yet

- Melanie McDonagh

YOU can buy Andrew Marr, you know. For about five thousand quid, or £440 on a small scale. At Eames Fine Art in Bermondsey Street — yes, very on trend — he’s got an exhibition of his latest work, 100 Drawings and a Few Paintings. The paintings are bold in outline, strong on colour, childish in a good way. “That’s what Matisse said, isn’t it?,” he says. “Always try to see with the eyes of children.” So, if he had to psychoanalyse himself through his pictures, what would he see?

“It’s not really like that,” he says, “it’s more conscious. I’m really interested in colour combinations; the shape of the drawings comes second.” Well, if we’re looking at the colour, they look exuberant. “They are happy pictures, by and large,” he says. As for the drawings, they’re done in an odd way, drawing with a knife on white paper, so he can’t really see outlines until he’s coloured it all in, in pencil. “This is my invention, my contribution to world art.”

Being Andrew Marr, he’s had advice from the best: David Hockney — “I’m lucky enough to be a sort of friend” — advised him on what oil paints to buy (Michael Harding) and he knew the late great modernist Gillian Ayres slightly, a heroine of his. His paintings occupy the space between figurative art and abstraction. This is entirely a product of his stroke nine years ago, after which he found he couldn’t carry chairs and easels, and wouldn’t be able to pick up his kit if it got blown over in the open air.