When James Runcie recalls his late wife Marilyn Imrie, the much-loved drama director, he does so in colour. First there is the extraordinary skin, pale as milk, which he noticed the first time he set eyes on her at a BBC meeting in the early 80s. Later, in the course of their 35-year marriage, he learns to relish her vibrant fashion palette: “She generally wore clothes as boldly as those old Soviet posters in red, black and white, with accents of silver, pink and blue.” He knows – and cares – enough to itemise her favourite pieces: a deep-purple blouse from Issey Miyake, a jacket bought from Biba in the late 60s, an antique Japanese kimono. The impression Runcie paints is of a bird of paradise flashing across the muddy pond of conventional good taste.
Sound is part of Imrie’s extraordinary call to her broken-hearted widower, too. “I had always thought she had the most…
