Tintin’s back on the big screen and Michael Farr’s coming to spread the word. DAVID WHETSTONE talks to the leading Tintinologist

IN this new age of texts, Twitter and the internet, it’s good to see that an old-fashioned cub reporter is about to become a huge draw on the big screen. Yes, Steven Spielberg’s new Tintin film is out this week.

In the leading role is Jamie Bell, originally of Billingham, Teesside, but now based in Los Angeles, who burst upon the world 10 years ago, aged just 15, as Billy Elliot.

And nobody is more excited about all this than a one-time roving reporter and lifelong Tintin devotee who is coming to the North East at the weekend to talk about the new film, about Tintin creator Hergé and about his own book, Tintin: the Complete Companion, newly reissued by publisher Egmont.

Michael Farr lives in London but one of his best friends lives in Newcastle, which is why he is finding time to come and give a talk in the North East before flying out to talk Tintin across Canada and America.

There can be no bigger Tintin fan – or Tintinologist – than Michael. “I have a great theory, yet to be disproved,” he tells me, “that anyone who has ever read a Tintin book loves it and that any critics or detractors haven’t read the books.

“We first discovered him in this country in the late 1950s so people of that generation loved him and loved the books and then passed them on to their children, so it’s self-renewing. Tintin’s never really gone out of fashion.”

That said, and thanks to Spielberg and his film, which will showcase an innovative film-making technique involving animation based on live action, Michael reckons another Tintin boom is upon us.

Certainly The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn – produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson – was conceived as the first of three films.

So how did Michael Farr become a Tintin fan?

“It was the first thing I read. I was born in Paris because my father was based there as correspondent of the Daily Mail and like a lot of French-speaking children after the war, it was the first thing I was introduced to.

“I remember when I was about four years old sitting at the dining table and my mother reading it to me. I remember the first one I read vividly. I was grabbed by it instantly.

“Then my father was relocated to London in the year he first appeared there so I could continue reading his adventures in English.”

With a father who was a journalist and a fictional hero who was a journalist, it was perhaps inevitable that Michael should become a journalist too.

He joined the Reuters news agency (and later the Daily Telegraph) and recalls that his career uncannily mirrored that of Tintin, taking him to exotic locations in Africa and Eastern Europe.

He swears that all the foreign correspondents he bumped into were Tintin fans living out their fantasies.

“My biggest break as far as Tintin was concerned was in Brussels in the early 1970s. It’s dull at the best of times but I remember I was scrapping about for some sort of story and I thought I’d try for an interview with Hergé.

“All my colleagues said it was a waste of time because he hated publicity. ‘You won’t get anywhere,’ they said.

“But I believed there was no harm in trying so I rang the number and a young girl answered.”

Before she could speak, Hergé himself had taken the phone. Listening to Michael’s invitation to lunch, the reputedly media-shy comic writer and artist – properly known as Georges Prosper Remi – said: “Non, pas question” (No way!). But then there was a pause and Hergé asked if Michael would be free the following Thursday at a (rather swanky) restaurant called Comme Chez Soir.

Michael recalls that he turned up and thought Hergé hadn’t kept the appointment. But then a waiter led him to table in the corner, behind a screen, and there he was, patiently waiting.

It was true, says Michael, that Hergé hated publicity and the idea of celebrity (this at a time when his books were selling in their millions) but he believes curiosity prompted him to make an exception.

“I was young, in my 20s, and I spoke French but was British and it puzzled him. He was terribly nice but it was the worst interview I’ve ever done. Whenever I asked him a question, he would pause and then ask me a question.”

But Michael says Hergé was interested in young people and also in art. Michael had studied art history at university.

“I’m very interested in music but more classical than contemporary and I was surprised when he quizzed me about Pink Floyd. He was in his 70s but he was really very with it and not at all fuddy-duddy.”

Michael believes Hergé would have been intrigued by Spielberg’s treatment of his famous creation – despite the fact that he was very protective of Tintin during his lifetime and was “a bit of a control freak”.

“He was terribly keen on the cinema. When he was a small boy and living in occupied Brussels during the First World War he used to go with his mother to see silent films at the newsreel cinema.

“The way he did Tintin was very cinematic. He became a great fan of Alfred Hitchcock.”

But he was also “really grabbed by” Spielberg’s first film, Duel, about a rogue truck, and afterwards made a point of seeing all the American director’s work.

In 1982, says Michael, Spielberg wrote to Hergé asking if they could meet in Los Angeles. A friend of Spielberg had pointed out that Tintin was not too dissimilar from Indiana Jones and might make a good film subject.

Hergé was willing but was suffering from leukaemia and was too weak to travel. Instead it was agreed that Spielberg would fly to meet him the following March but Hergé died just days before the planned meeting.

“That was that,” says Michael. But Spielberg did reach agreement with the Hergé estate and bought the rights to make a Tintin film.

Nothing happened and the rights expired. But then Spielberg bought them for a second time in 2002 and this week’s film is the result. You can’t say the director hasn’t had time to get it right.

Michael Farr will give a talk and slide show about Tintin in St George’s Church Hall, Jesmond, Newcastle, on Saturday at 3pm. Tickets (£5 adults and under-16s free; including tea and cake) available from the church office (0191 281 1659) or on the door.

To see a video of Jamie Bell talking about his role in the Tintin film, visit www.journallive.co.uk/culture