The nature of celebrity has changed over the years and has become more democratic.

That was one of the conclusions of this fascinating discussion between writer and interviewer Lynn Barber and author Gordon Burn on the Brighton Festival's opening weekend.

Fifty years ago, they mused, magazines such as Tatler concentrated on the blue-blooded types.

Now we have celebrities who have only been in the public eye for a short time, sometimes have little talent to merit their status and who constantly want to remind us they are like anyone else. The old celebrities tried hard to be so very, very different.

Barber, best known for her interviews in The Observer these days, decided celebrity and fame were different.

Celebrity has to do with appearance, a face you can recognise. Playwright Tom Stoppard is famous but he is not a celebrity because most people don't know what he looks like.

Burn, who has most recently written a novel about a comedian whose best days are behind him, said the popularity of celebrity reality TV shows had helped puncture the cult of celebrity, creating a two-way relationship between the public and the well-known.

And that's democratisation.