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Chapter 4
Kevin Dutton and Elaine Fox
Kevin Dutton’s biography reads like that of any preeminent academic, he is also the author of three best-selling books and has appeared numerous times on both television and radio and well as being the Executive Producer on Channel 4’s much-acclaimed Psychopath Night.
However, when you speak to Kevin, the voice you hear is very different to the stereotypical image that I had in mind of him having read the profile. This is what makes him so interesting.
The first call I had, I asked him how he got into psychopathy. This is the first story he told me, and I can quote it verbatim. He started studying psychopaths to figure out his old man. His old man was a market trader, not in the stock market. He was a bit like Del Boy; he worked on the street selling all kinds of crap to anybody. He was one of the most persuasive men he had ever met, and he could probably even sell shaving foam to the Taliban. He was ruthless, fearless, charming, not naturally violent, of course you do not need to be violent to be a psychopath. He never once saw him embarrassed, and he told me this story which is well worth a read.
By Harvey Thorneycroft
Chapter 4: Kevin Dutton and Elaine Fox
I got an email on 29th May 2015 from Debbie Schiesser, the agent of Jason Bradbury, asking if I would like to meet one their clients, Kevin Dutton. “Kevin is free next Friday afternoon and said he can meet Harvey in the Ivy club if that works for him.”
An unusual place to meet an Oxford Academic, I thought, I will do a call instead. Brilliant Minds come in all shapes and forms and when you read the backgrounds, you normally get a good understanding of what you think you are going to hear when you speak to them for the first time. So this was the biography I was presented with: Kevin is a research psychologist at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford as well as a writer and broadcaster.
Honestly, it is such a privilege to speak to people who are so accomplished, but the voice that I was presented with on the mobile at 3.45 that afternoon was not at all what I was expecting. One of the best calls I have ever had and what a discovery. The purpose of the call was to see whether we could get some corporate work for Kevin. Debbie at Arlington had had a good go but felt that my clients would probably be more suited to Kevin’s material than hers. Arlington had been in the business of talent representation for over 30 years and during that time, they had been the official agent to many of the country’s best known and best loved TV presenters, including some of my favourites: Alan Titchmarsh (taught me how to trim my wisteria), George Clarke, the architect, who inspired us to renovate our Georgian House and, of course, Phil Spencer whom we watched on ‘Relocation, Relocation’ and someone I would just love to have a beer with. Kevin was very different to all these people I have mentioned. Kevin was not presenting lifestyle programmes. In fact, to use his own words, “I do elite cognition (the individual components of it), psychopaths (and related themes), and persuasion and influence (the key principles thereof).”
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