High achiever he certainly is, but Melvyn Bragg still has ambition, he tells JOHN DOCHERTY. IN spite of considerable achievements, Melvyn Bragg, now Lord Bragg of Wigton, is still fired with ambition.

The man who pioneered book reviewing on television, was a member of the great BBC arts programme, Monitor, at the age of 22, revolutionised TV arts coverage by putting The South Bank Show on a commercial television channel and has published reams of novels and factual books, still has things to achieve.

"Oh yes!" he said eagerly. "I want to do better books, better radio and television programmes, I want my next novel to be the best ever, and I want it to have every bit of energy I can muster.

"I have just written three novels on inter-related themes and, at the moment, I am letting the reservoir fill up before I start the next one."

Lord Bragg, born in 1939, was at Salisbury Playhouse recently for the first night of his musical, The Hired Man. Like so much of the writer's work, it is set in his beloved Cumbria: John and Emily are a young couple starting life together in the early 20th century. John begins as a land labourer and The Hired Man follows the pair through their hardships.

The musical, which premiered at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, in 1984, came about because the composer, Howard Goodall, then aged 21, approached Melvyn with the idea of using his novel The Hired Man as a project.

Of all the things he does, writing is probably the most important to him, he said. He has essayed a shelf full of highly-praised titles but he doesn't want to disparage his broadcast work.

"When I'm doing a television or radio programme I work hard at it until it's done and when I am writing a book, I work at that every day," he said.

Asked how he finds the time for writing in a crowded schedule, he replied: "I don't go to conferences or literary parties, so I have time. Anyway, the idea of writing as a fulltime job is quite recent.

When I started in '60s, everybody I knew had a job, John McGahern, for example, an Irish writer who's a friend of mine, was a teacher. Even Graham Greene had another job until he was in his 40s."

Melvyn Bragg's work, including The Hired Man, invariably has a strong sense of location. His admiration for Hardy and Wordsworth is well known. But had he been influenced by other writers?

"When it comes to American writers, I discovered them for myself, Steinbeck, Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Dos Passos, on through to Mailer and Updike.

"In the European canon there was Maupassant, Sartre, Thomas Mann. These were not on any curriculum. I had that delightful feeling I was discovering them all on my own," he laughed.

In spite of his great success, material and artistic, he does not feel that his left-of-centre view of politics has changed. It has been consistent since the days when he marched with CND and protested at the Vietnam War, he said.

He was very interested in politics, he added, but had not stood for Parliament, considering the time and effort involved - though he did take his work as a Labour back-bench peer seriously and had been closely involved in debates on the Communications Bill.

Was he a fulfilled man?

"I don't know how you interpret that word," he said thoughtfully. "I am surprised that things have turned out so well. I could not have imagined that I would have had books published and television shows on by the time I was 30. But I still get anxious and have been unhappy and both these things have surprised me."