Tim Adams

Tim Adams has been writing insightful and emotionally astute interviews for the Observer for many years. The three pieces submitted reflect the range of his ability to bring the reader close to the heart of a story, with tact and intelligence. His exclusive interview with Anthony Seldon became a way of channelling outrage at Boris Johnson’s time in office, immediately before the prime minister’s removal. His take on Seldon’s own measured anger at the government - “a considered constitutional appraisal of rats in a sack” - helped to shape the political weather in the political weeks that followed.

Tim’s interview with Frank Field, suffering with late-stage terminal cancer, showed a different aspect of his writing: compassionate and not flinching from questions. He says, “I’m still haunted a bit both by asking Frank,toward the end, if he had ever been in love, and hearing his answer.”

His encounter with the performance artist Marina Abramovic either side of a trip she made to London on the Queen Mary from New York, meanwhile, was an example of his ability to keep a clear sense of the gap between a subject’s personal mythology and more mundane reality. The story helped to set the tone for Abramovic’s self-styled “one-woman takeover” of London, with mix of high drama and quiet comedy.