Dr Johnson at the Proms Literary Festival

Dr Johnson is one of my literary heroes so Wednesday night at the Proms Literary Festival it was a joy to hear Lynda Mugglestone and Matthew Parris share their enthusiasm for the great man of letters celebrating his 300th birthday this year. Johnson is primarily remembered for his dictionary with its brilliant if idiosyncratic definitions but what came through on Wednesday was a man of wide-ranging literary interests, of great wit and compassion who was deeply serious about language and the meaning of life.

The dictionary was expensive compared to its rivals (the price of a very good suit of clothes, Lynda Mugglestone told us) but though it became a huge success Johnson often found himself in financial difficulties. We don't know the full story of what happened to the money he made but we know he gave much of it away and Matthew Parris recalled a description of Johnson going around London putting coins in the hands of sleeping children and the other homeless on the streets. (If you ever get the chance to visit the fascinating Johnson house and museum in Gough Square in London you can climb the steep stairs to the garret where Johnson laboured on the dictionary for so many years with his assistants whom he often employed to rescue them from poverty).

The discussion of Johnson was one of sixteen Proms Literary Festival events in this the second year of the festival. From the beginning we took the decision to programme it quite broadly, exploring the wider cultural world of which music is a part. Sometimes of course, as in Tuesday's focus on W. S. Gilbert, the subject relates very directly to the evening Prom. I loved the story we heard from Gilbert expert Ian Bradley that Gilbert's original plan for Patience was not to write a satire on the aesthetic movement but on the church including a character called the Reverend Lawn Tennison - what would Dr Johnson have made of Gilbert? Samuel Johnson was in the spotlight just before an evening of Handel and though both became big figures in London society Johnson was no great lover of music - indeed he found opera rather frivolous, describing it as an 'exotic and irrational entertainment'.

One of the highlights of the festival to date has been Fiona Shaw and Andrew Motion on Tennyson - Lord not Lawn - the event was filmed and will be up on the website through the whole season so do take a look. (And on the subject of Tennyson we've a decidedly off-beat celebration of Tennyson's love for Skegness, and the townspeople's love for Tennyson, coming up in this Saturday's Between the Ears.) There are also several more Proms Literary Festival events to come - I'm particularly looking forward to hearing the climber Stephen Venables and Chris Smith, former Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, on their choice of mountain writing (August 27th) to be broadcast before An Alpine Symphony.

After each Literary Festival recording it's a race backstage to get them edited for the twenty minute interval slot. Unfortunately there's no time to broadcast the audience questions which is often a shame as they're almost invariably interesting. Audiences in the Royal College of Music seem to be enjoying the Literary Festival hugely and this year it feels to me a natural complement to the concerts across the road. But it would be great to get some feedback on the broadcasts, particularly as we'll soon begin planning for next year...

Abigail Appleton is Head of Speech Programming and Presentation for BBC Radio 3

• All the events in the Proms Literary Festival are free of charge and take place in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall at the Royal College of Music, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BS, behind the Albert Hall. Check the programme for details.
• The picture of Dr Johnson is from the Wikimedia Commons.