This year's most talked-about summer talk show features Sigge Eklund's most intimate portrayal of his grandfather, actor Bengt Eklund, to date. However, those who expected scandalous material due to Eklund's "feud" with Sveriges Radio will likely be disappointed.
Author, podcaster, dramaturge, and director Sigge Eklund has for several years directed harsh criticism at "Sommar i P1" in general and program manager Bibi Rödöö in particular, among other things because he – until 2024 – had not been asked to give a summer talk.
Therefore, many raised an eyebrow when it was announced that he is one of this year's 58 summer hosts.
Podcast colleague Alex Schulman, who has produced Eklund's summer talk show, previously told SVT that it "must be the best, not just this year, but the best in many years for Sigge to get away with it".
Smoky living room
Sigge Eklund's "Sommar i P1" is an intimate portrayal of grandfather Bengt Eklund, the Dramaten actor whose legacy (to his immense dismay) is forever marked by the role as Tjorven's father in "Vi på Saltkråkan".
The listener is taken on a journey back in time to the 1980s, where the setting, the grandfather's smoky living room in Gamla stan in Stockholm, becomes a physical presence in the story, just like the narrator and his grandfather.
"The ace on Fårö"
Much time is devoted to detailed descriptions of how director Ingmar Bergman, referred to as "the ace on Fårö", is the force of pure and unadulterated evil that single-handedly ruined Bengt Eklund's life.
Or? It turns out it's not that simple, in Sigge Eklund's portrayal of abuse, codependency, shame – and how the truth is not an absolute concept.
Bibi Rödöö, on the other hand, is never mentioned by name.
In a memorable part of his summer talk show, Sigge Eklund recounts how his grandfather Bengt Eklund, already at the age of 13, experienced Ingmar Bergman's sadistic side:
"Bengt was only 13 and playing among the graves outside Hedvig Eleonora church one day when he found a small bird's egg in the grass, and picked it up in the palm of his hand to take a closer look. Then suddenly it exploded, and egg yolk and egg white splattered on his face. 'It was him', Bengt says 50 years later. 'It was Bergman who stood with a slingshot a few meters away, grinning and laughing. Who had shot a pebble at the egg. I should have understood then', he says, 'the pure evil. But I let myself be fooled'. Despite the egg incident, they got to know each other."
