Alan Plater

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 20:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a man who says he's excited by a blank sheet of paper. He's been filling hundreds of them very successfully since the early sixties writing for radio, television, the theatre, and the cinema.

Presenter0:41

He served his apprenticeship in television in the dangerous days of live drama. He was the author of Zed Cars and after that Softly Softly. Then he widened his field to include situation comedy and series like The Barchester Chronicles and latterly Fortunes of War. He's won many awards for his work, but success has not altered his plain tastes and plain talk. He likes snooker and soccer, and he calls himself a craftsman rather than an artist. He is Alan Plater. Alan, is that the the work ethic in you that fiddling about with words isn't really a man's job?

Alan Plater1:19

I think it's a combination of things. I I I'm descended from a genera several generations of craftsmen.

Alan Plater1:26

My father was apprenticed as a blacksmith in the shipyard. My grandfather was a steelworker. I've got a huge respect for things that are made and the word playwright is spelt the same as wheelwright or shipwright. And

Alan Plater1:40

Play is made, it is not written, it's made in a rehearsal room, on the stage of a theatre, or in a studio.

Alan Plater1:47

So that's part of it. The other thing is I get very worried about people who have

Alan Plater1:53

Condition known as Art in the Head.

Alan Plater1:55

The idea that I'm gonna make some art.

Alan Plater1:58

In other words, Michelangelo was just saying, I'm going to make a really good job of this ceiling.

Alan Plater2:03

So, that people will be pleased with what I've done. He didn't say, I'm going to make a great piece of art. He said, I'm just going to do the job. And I think.

Alan Plater2:11

to engage too self-consciously in the act of making art.

Alan Plater2:16

is almost always a recipe for disaster.

Presenter2:18

But is there a part of you too that is perhaps um slightly surprised to find yourself, considering your background?

Presenter2:26

making money out of doing something that is really rather less than physical.

Alan Plater2:30

Oh, I'm utterly astonished. Every day is Christmas. I wake up thinking, I'm writing and that's my job and

Alan Plater2:38

Pay me to do it.

Presenter2:39

But you're still very much the the son of your father, the son of your family, which was, as you say, very very working class, very

Alan Plater2:45

Well, I yes, I I think rather you see there are all kinds of gradations within our wonderful class structure of in in this country.

Alan Plater2:53

and I always regarded my family as working class aristocracy.

Alan Plater2:58

meaning my grandmother, who probably left school at twelve or thereabouts, was an avid reader who would go shopping and bring home a picture with the groceries.

Alan Plater3:07

So I was brought up in that context of a family that believed passionately in reading and in looking at pictures, so that the arts in a very practical daily sense

Alan Plater3:18

were a necessary part of living.

Presenter3:20

And did they teach you a love of music?

Alan Plater3:22

Yes, because they love music. So if you're surrounded by people who think music is important, it you just assume that that is the natural way to live.

Presenter3:31

So let's begin to find out about what music is important to you and have the first record. What is it?

Alan Plater3:36

Well, hand on heart, I mean, I'm an unreformed jazz freak, and the one man who's given me more pleasure than any in the jazz field is Duke Ellington.

Alan Plater3:45

And I thought this piece, which is from the Ellington Ben Webster Blanton band of Kirker, nineteen forty,

Alan Plater3:52

Just a sittin' and a rockin' seems fairly appropriate for a desert island.

Speaker 24:14

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:58

Duke Ellington and the Blanton Webster band with just a sitting and a rocking. You you've even got a a dog named after Ellington. Yes.

Alan Plater5:04

Yes, my dog is called The Duke not Duke, but The Duke, and he has it on his little disc, and he's a very handsome, elegant Irish setter.

Alan Plater5:17

No great discipline.

Alan Plater5:18

But enormous heart.

Presenter5:20

And he likes jazz, I'm sure.

Alan Plater5:22

He's a very cool dude, yes.

Presenter5:25

So tell me about life in in Jarrow and Hull in the thirties and forties. The depression, the war and the blitz. I mean, it must have made it pretty tough.

Alan Plater5:32

I was born in'thirty five. We left Jarrow in' thirty eight,'cause my dad got a job in Hull.

Alan Plater5:38

And the cute way I express it is we we waited until the depression was over and moved to hull because we wanted to be in good time for the blitz.

Alan Plater5:46

The truth is it was a wonderfully privileged childhood. I've dis discussed this with my with my sister, who's a little older than I am. We were

Alan Plater5:53

brought up in Hull during the war years and spent long hours in the air raid shelter.

Alan Plater5:58

We don't ever remember being frightened.

Alan Plater6:01

And I suppose intellectually we must have understood, broadly speaking, what was going on. All I remember is if there was an air raid after ten o'clock at night, we didn't have to go to school the next morning.

Alan Plater6:12

So we'd kind of say, Oh, great, there go the sirens, we don't have to go to school in the morning.

Alan Plater6:17

The immense achievement this represented.

Alan Plater6:21

on the part of our parents

Alan Plater6:23

A they didn't evacuate us.

Alan Plater6:25

Um

Alan Plater6:26

So clearly they took an objective decision saying if we go we go together

Alan Plater6:31

Having made that decision, they then manage to

Alan Plater6:34

Turn the whole thing into an adventure.

Alan Plater6:37

And that kind of courage is quite amazing.

Presenter6:40

And you were very close to your grandparents as well, weren't you?

Alan Plater6:42

Yes, my maternal grandparents, who are the the ones who lived in Jarrow, each school holiday, we would go to Jarrow and I would say people would say, Where are you going for your holidays? and I'd say, Jarrow, and they would laugh and I didn't know what was funny because I used to wonderful times. My grandfather worked night shifts, so

Alan Plater6:59

We would go out during the the afternoons. You we'd go to the park to watch the men playing bowls or we'd go to the pictures. We were

Alan Plater7:06

We were like.

Alan Plater7:07

The lust of the summer wine just wandering around, having having silly little adventures. He'd take me to the river and

Alan Plater7:14

Show me the ships and explain what they were and where they were going and so on.

Alan Plater7:19

And it was a a wonderful relationship. And I still wear his signet ring, which was what my grandmother gave him on their wedding day, and I still wear my dad's retirement watch. It means that when I'm sitting working at the typewriter, I've got two generations sitting on my left arm saying, Don't tell any lies, Alan, because we're watching.

Presenter7:40

Right, second record, what's that?

Alan Plater7:42

Second record is a kind of Damascus road choice. I remember.

Alan Plater7:45

Around about the age of fifteen, sixteen, very important event. My parents were out and I did something I'd never done before, which was to tune in the wireless to the third program.

Alan Plater7:55

And the reason was I read in the Radio Times that Dylan Thomas was on.

Alan Plater8:00

And I knew him as a kind of buccaneering bohemian drunken poet, and I thought that seemed quite a nice thing to want to be. I mean, it fitted my

Alan Plater8:08

Role model at the time. So I thought I'd better see what this man is all about. And'cause what I heard was something quite startling.

Alan Plater8:15

And it was the first and most powerful lesson in the strength of the spoken word, and it's Do Not Go Gentle.

Alan Plater8:24

Do not go gentle into that good night Old age should burn and rave at close of day Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Alan Plater8:38

Though wise men at their end no dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning, they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn too late they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

Presenter9:17

Dylan Thomas, raging against the dying of the light, is still don't remember.

Alan Plater9:21

It's interesting because I abstracted those words and used them in a trilogy I wrote for B B C Two in the late sixties, so attributed and everything. And interesting Alan Bleasdale also picked up on it and used it in, I think, in Boys from the Black stuff. And I mean, others have done it. It's the trick of writing

Speaker 19:35

Um

Alan Plater9:39

simply in short syllables, and do not go gentle.

Alan Plater9:43

It does a kind of

Alan Plater9:45

Authorised version ring to it, which I suppose springs from the Welsh Valleys in some way, and I don't know.

Presenter9:51

Tell me about the school in Hull. Um you were presumably top in English.

Alan Plater9:56

Yes, I was topping English from time to time, but the the the big blow was at fifth form level when

Alan Plater10:03

I didn't win the English Prize, but I won the Maths Prize, and that upset a lot of people, including the Maths teacher, who didn't really believe it, because he didn't rate me all that highly.

Speaker 110:12

Uh

Alan Plater10:13

But no, the great adventure of school at that level was learning about the world, learning about Dylan Thomas, learning about

Alan Plater10:23

Theatre and jazz and

Alan Plater10:25

Pictures and the friendships. Probably my best friend in school was Tom Courtney, who was.

Alan Plater10:32

beginning to dream dreams about being an actor and I was beginning to dream dreams about being a writer.

Presenter10:37

Were you even then? Both of you?

Alan Plater10:39

Oh yes, we confide I I wanted to be James Thurber at that time. I was going to be the world's next great humorous essayist and cartoonist.

Alan Plater10:47

And I hadn't it hadn't cohered into anything.

Alan Plater10:50

Resembling writing plays.

Alan Plater10:53

I think I really wanted to be self-employed and it didn't matter too much what it was I did as long as I could be my own boss.

Presenter10:59

Was that because you didn't want to be like your father and your grandfather before you? You wanted to control your own destiny?

Alan Plater11:05

Yes, I think so. Yes, I didn't want to be owned by anybody and

Alan Plater11:10

I mean I I later on

Alan Plater11:12

Worked for a year and a half in an architect's office and enjoyed it, enjoyed the people I worked with, liked the boss very much.

Alan Plater11:19

Didn't like the obligation of being there at nine o'clock. Um tended to get there about half past nine and read the paper till ten o'clock as a kind of gesture.

Presenter11:27

Did you ever design anything?

Alan Plater11:29

Oh yes, I did a few things. I mean there are in existence in in whole

Alan Plater11:34

Various small buildings, bathroom, veranda extensions, shop fronts.

Alan Plater11:40

Nine houses

Alan Plater11:42

Uh one or two bungalows.

Presenter11:44

They should put plaques on them, should they? Alan Alan Plater designed this.

Alan Plater11:48

I rather wish they wouldn't. I mean, I hope they don't, because they

Presenter11:50

Man.

Alan Plater11:52

Breathtaking in their ordinariness.

Presenter11:56

Right, let's pause and have the next record.

Alan Plater11:58

This is a song called The L'Oreal Eye written by The Gershwins, which has, I think, one of the most perfect combinations of music and lyrics. I mean, I'm a great fan of lyricists anyway, and that one of my unfulfilled ambitions is to write the lyrics to a great popular song, and one day I might do it.

Speaker 212:16

The law

Speaker 212:21

Yeah.

Presenter12:22

She used to love in a strange kind of fashion.

Presenter12:28

With lots of hay?

Presenter12:30

Holy ho, hidey high.

Alan Plater12:35

And I can guarantee I

Speaker 212:37

I'm full of passion, like the Lord.

Presenter12:47

Ella Fitzgerald singing The Lorelei

Presenter12:49

So, how did Plato the architect become Plato the writer then, Alan? What was the big break?

Alan Plater12:55

Well, I s

Alan Plater12:56

Spent say a year and a half in an architect's office. I then left and went freelance and through all that period I was moonlighting, I was writing pieces of journalism.

Alan Plater13:07

uh trying to write plays. The first play I ever wrote, I think was around 1958, 59.

Alan Plater13:13

For let's give them credit, the Cheltenham Arts Festival, who had a a television playwriting competition.

Alan Plater13:20

The play I wrote that didn't win was actually about a discontented architect, would you believe?

Alan Plater13:25

And I wrote three or four more plays, which again nobody wanted, and I shopped them around the B B C in the usual places.

Alan Plater13:32

And eventually a man called Alfred Bradley, who was a B B C sound.

Alan Plater13:38

drama producer in the North region, took an interest, came to see me, we talked, I showed him a short story I'd written.

Alan Plater13:45

and he commissioned me to adapt it as a radio play, and that was nineteen sixty sixty one.

Alan Plater13:52

And suddenly I was up and running and

Presenter13:54

And you've never been out of work since?

Alan Plater13:56

No, no. Um

Alan Plater13:58

It's one of these strange things you think, will it ever happen, will it ever happen?

Alan Plater14:03

And suddenly it's happened and you didn't quite notice.

Alan Plater14:07

but it that it's taking place.

Presenter14:08

It has to be said you haven't neglected radio since, have you? I mean, is there a sense in which you prefer writing for radio?

Alan Plater14:14

Yeah, I love radio. Having said that, it is a a little while since I wrote anything for radio and uh

Alan Plater14:20

I feel a little pang of guilt at that fact, but uh oh I'll be back.

Presenter14:24

But i in a sense, writing for radio means that you're asking much more of your audience.

Alan Plater14:29

Oh, absolutely, yes. I mean, when people say what is the difference between writing radio, television, theater and so on, the difference is in what you expect of your audience. You can expect very little of a television audience because there's a lot of other things going on in the room.

Alan Plater14:43

You can expect a kind of collective response from a theatre audience. You can you enter into a conspiracy with a theatre audience, and that can carry you anywhere.

Alan Plater14:53

A radio audience is generally speaking one or two people in a room. It's a very intimate connection and you ask them to make a huge contribution as individuals.

Presenter15:02

Let's have the fourth record.

Alan Plater15:04

Oh, this is uh nostalgia time. Nineteen sixty eight. I

Alan Plater15:08

wrote a stage musical called Close the Coal House Door with Alex Glasgow and Sid Chaplin, and this is a a celebration of the the coal miners of South West Durham Coalfield.

Alan Plater15:21

This is a song called When It's Ours, All Ours and it's two Pitmen celebrating nationalization.

Alan Plater15:27

And it's Jackie and Geordie, played here by Alex Glasgow and the great John Woodvine.

Speaker 115:42

Ready?

Alan Plater15:43

All night.

Alan Plater15:45

When it's ours, Geordie lad, when it's ours.

Speaker 115:47

When it's our

Alan Plater15:48

Man, what glorious times we'll have when it's ours!

Speaker 115:51

Yeah.

Alan Plater15:52

What's the future hold for me? You can retire at twenty-three on full pension naturally when it's ours all

Presenter16:02

Alex Glasgow and John Woodvine singing When It's Ours.

Presenter16:06

So tell me about Zedcars. It's it's nineteen sixty three and and and the BBC is living dangerously, transmitting live television, which presumably could have gone wrong at any minute.

Alan Plater16:15

And often did, yes. Um

Alan Plater16:18

The Zed Cars have I had done two or three television plays which had attracted the attention of the Zed Cars team, the producer David Rose and script editor John Hopkins, and Zed Cars had been on about a year.

Alan Plater16:31

and I got a phone call saying would I like to meet John Hopkins and talk about writing for Zedcars. So I was it was like getting a papal blessing at that time because everybody wanted to be associated with Zedcars and I met John, we got on enormously well.

Alan Plater16:44

And I ended up doing eighteen episodes over the period of

Alan Plater16:49

of those on the show.

Alan Plater16:52

And it was so very exciting and

Alan Plater16:55

Very free.

Alan Plater16:57

In in the sense that I I mean I did two episodes, one where nothing happened at all. I I was sent on a research trip to Kirby, which is the town on which Newtown was based, and spent a night shift riding around in the car with a couple of guys, and predictably nothing happened at all. And they said, Why don't you write this one? and I said, What one? They said, The one where nothing happens, where we sit around being bored out of our skulls, but having to be on the alert in case somebody robs a bank in three minutes' time.

Alan Plater17:24

I wrote an episode called A Quiet Night Where Nothing Happened.

Alan Plater17:28

I also did one with five stories in it, because we used to read each other's scripts to k keep a track on the overall development of characters and so on, and some of John's episodes had fifty or sixty scenes in them, and I thought it should be possible to do the ton.

Alan Plater17:42

And

Alan Plater17:43

I logicked it out that I could only do this with a lot of stories, so I wrote an episode with five interlocking stories and managed to achieve one hundred and three studio scenes and twenty filmed inserts. And subsequently led me to believe I actually invented Hill Street Blues, because I've since verified that any Hill Street Blues episode actually has five stories running it.

Presenter18:05

But it's no wonder things went wrong if if there were that many scenes going on. I mean, presumably people were rushing around behind the set the whole time.

Alan Plater18:11

Yes, yes, there was a lot of activity on the floor. I mean the big disaster that happened on one of mine was when the the machine operating the filmed inserts, the teleceni machine, actually broke down. So we just had to leave those bits out and

Alan Plater18:25

I remember Eric Barker was in that episode, the comedian actor.

Alan Plater18:29

Eric was lifted and carried and pushed across the set and said, Just do the next scene. Don't ask questions, just do the next scene.

Alan Plater18:36

And the other famous one was the hundredth episode, which uh

Alan Plater18:40

David Rose won't thank me for reminding everyone about this, but he directed himself and

Alan Plater18:45

I think it was Frank Windsor who opened the door and there were four cameras lined up waiting for their next shot.

Presenter18:51

But you wrote your first stage play, I think, um, after you'd done some Zedcars, didn't you?

Alan Plater18:57

The first stage play that was

Alan Plater19:00

was probably yeah, around the same time. It was a piece called Ted's Cathedral that I did in Stoke with Peter Cheeseman's company.

Alan Plater19:08

First one that moved into London was'65,'66, and that was a piece called The Smashing Day.

Alan Plater19:15

We decided to do it as a play with music.

Alan Plater19:17

And we had two young ASMs did the music. They were not yet good enough to be in plays as actors, and they were Robert Powell and Ben Kingsley. And I have photographic evidence from rehearsals with

Alan Plater19:31

Bob and Ben with guitars and mouth organs, doing the music, wishing they were good enough to be in plays.

Presenter19:37

Little did you know. We'll talk in a moment, if we may, about adapting other people's work, which you've also done quite a lot of. But before that, let's have some more music.

Alan Plater19:46

Yeah, this is Thelonious Monk and it's a piece called Mysterioso which uh I stole because all writers are thieves uh as and used as the title of my first proper grown-up novel which I wrote a couple of years ago.

Presenter20:54

Thelonious Monk playing Mysteriozo. Alan, you've adapted many other writers' work, from Conan Doyle to Trollope, from D H Lawrence to Olivia Manning. But you don't like calling it adaptation, do you?

Alan Plater21:07

Yes, Chris Hampton has complained about this. People say to Chris, are you doing are you writing at the moment? Are you just adapting? And it's just a different discipline. And it's a it's a very privileged thing, I find, to

Alan Plater21:21

take on the work of somebody like Olivia Manning or Trollope, any of these people, and

Alan Plater21:25

spend a few months inside their heads.

Presenter21:27

So what do you do? Do you read everything that the person, the Olivia Manning, or or the Trollop has ever written, and soak it all up, and then see what comes out of you?

Alan Plater21:36

No, I read the the work in hand and I read anything that seems immediately relevant. I read Trollope's autobiography, I remember. I read

Alan Plater21:44

one or two essays about him and I read essays about Olivia Manning and so on and so forth. But I just read the book itself over and over again and I do a detailed precye.

Alan Plater21:55

So that I can then

Alan Plater21:57

Mark up the praisie with little

Alan Plater21:59

coloured underlinings so that I know when characters first appear. I put asterisks against what seem to be absolutely key moments, key scenes, things that you couldn't under any circumstances omit.

Presenter22:12

But if you're not careful, surely it becomes a bit mechanical, it becomes a bit of a a mathematical exercise, ticking things off to make sure they're in.

Alan Plater22:19

The the trick, I think, is to know when to stop the analysis and when to start.

Alan Plater22:24

my writing, as it were, and there must always be something to find out on the page in the writing.

Alan Plater22:31

So that whether it's an adaptation or an original, I I never know everything before I start. It's rather like a twelve bar blues, if you will, that

Alan Plater22:40

You know that in twelve bars' time you have to finish.

Alan Plater22:43

You know the the broad theme, but you then improvise and you know what structure you're improvising on, but you don't exactly know which notes you're gonna play.

Presenter22:53

Do you then do you feel as if you have some kind of muse, some kind of genie that's sitting on your shoulder when all this comes pouring out?

Alan Plater23:00

I think it's probably deep in the subconscious.

Alan Plater23:03

I think that writing

Alan Plater23:07

consists of digging out things from inside. I don't believe in external forces helping.

Alan Plater23:13

Cause one

Presenter23:13

Of course, one of the other things that's that's happened in in um dramatizing well known writers is you've had to make things up for them. I mean you made up a Trollope sermon once, didn't you?

Alan Plater23:23

Yes, because Trollope in Barchester Towers has Obadiah Slope preach a sermon which turns the town on its head and inside out with

Alan Plater23:32

Ideological disputations

Alan Plater23:35

And

Alan Plater23:36

The one thing he doesn't do is write the sermon.

Alan Plater23:38

It it just it describes the effect.

Alan Plater23:42

So I had to write this sermon, which was terrific. I mean, for a cheerful, guiltless atheist like me to write a sermon.

Alan Plater23:49

That was terrific father.

Presenter23:49

But do did the experts spot it? Did people write to you and say, Trollope never wrote this?

Alan Plater23:54

No, no.

Presenter23:55

Really?

Alan Plater23:56

No. Um I mean they probably were smart enough to realize why I'd done it, that the sermon had to be seen to be preached and therefore it would had to be written and and all the rest of it. I think that uh no, they didn't. And

Presenter24:08

You give them the credit of having noticed. Perhaps they didn't notice.

Alan Plater24:12

Well that if it feels right then it's right. And it it became a bit of a game between me and Betty Willingale, the producer, of look uh looking at the script saying, Is that one of his or one of yours? And uh if if we if neither of us could remember then that was a good sign.

Presenter24:30

Through record number six, what is it?

Alan Plater24:32

Record number six. This is really to honour all the theme tunes, you know, from Zedcars to Fortunes Award to very British coup and it's uh the theme from the the the Beiderbeck series, Beiderbeck Affair Tapes Connection. And it's a tune called Crying All Day, originally recorded by Big Spider Beck here, played by the BAFTA Award winning Frank Riccotti and his all-stars with Kenny Baker up front.

Presenter25:25

The theme from the Beiderbeck series Crying All Day, played by Frank Riccotti, All Stars. I'm a man who likes taking risks, Alan.

Alan Plater25:33

Professionally speaking, yes. For example, I had a phone call some years ago from Norman McCandlish in BBC Scotland saying.

Alan Plater25:41

Would I like to write a film about George Orwell writing nineteen eighty-four? I knew that Orwell never talked about his work while he was writing it, and

Alan Plater25:51

that this was a ninety minute film and that

Alan Plater25:53

A man writing a book occupies about thirty seconds of screen time. I said, okay, that sounds fine, because that sounds impossible, Norman, so let's do it.

Alan Plater26:03

I'm more inclined to accept a a proposition if it sounds crazy.

Presenter26:08

What about the proposition, then, of going to a desert island? Could you cope?

Alan Plater26:11

Uh that's that involves physical bravery and courage, and I'm not very good at that. I think I'm a kind of quivering coward at heart. Uh I d I think I would cope exceedingly badly. A sitting in a rocking in the rocking chair I could that bit I could do.

Presenter26:26

It's a disappointment, really. I mean, I'm sure your your forefathers on uh Tyneside were

Alan Plater26:30

Would be deeply ashamed. Yes, they would. I mean, I suppose I could cope with the element of shelter.

Presenter26:31

Yes.

Alan Plater26:37

because I can remember enough elementary building construction to build uh a hut. The thing that would really terrify me would be the food element, because I'm not a vegetarian. On the other hand, I couldn't begin to kill anything. I would be utterly dependent on a lobster crawling up onto the beach and having a heart attack.

Alan Plater26:56

Yeah.

Presenter26:56

But but would you in all of that, would you remain optimistic, or is there a sense in which you might just go and walk over the nearest precipice?

Alan Plater27:03

Oh no, I I would be optimistic. I see I'm basically a writer of comedy.

Alan Plater27:07

And in in my

Alan Plater27:10

Ganocosmic Horse Race Comedy wins by tragedy.

Alan Plater27:14

Buy a shorthad after a photo finish

Alan Plater27:17

So I would be optimistic. I bet that there would be I'd find the milk and honey somewhere.

Presenter27:23

There's rarely a year goes by these days that you you don't or something you've done doesn't win an award or two or six. I mean is that how you measure your achievement thou now? Is that how you know you've arrived?

Alan Plater27:35

I I think it's all a a whole nonsense, this this thing of arriving, but

Alan Plater27:40

When people say, When did you realize you'd arrived? I tell them that it was the the evening my sister phoned me and I can't even put a date on it, but years and years ago and she said, You are the answer to twenty-three across in the Radio Times crossword I thought this is it.

Speaker 227:55

Uh Uh

Presenter27:55

Uh

Speaker 227:55

Uh

Alan Plater27:55

And that and I've been in the Guardian Quick crossword three times and in the T V Times crossword this year. So that's it as comprehensive arrival.

Presenter28:02

So that's it, that's it.

Presenter28:07

But you are nevertheless these days. I mean, you're only fifty four. But you're you're treated in many ways like a a grand old man of television and radio. I mean, do you do you feel that? Do you feel that your your career has developed in these phases and now you're where it's at?

Alan Plater28:22

I I tend to meet directors and script editors and people like that and

Alan Plater28:27

I have a great urge to say bless you my children because they all look about sixteen. I learn I I can handle that, yes.

Presenter28:36

Record number seven.

Alan Plater28:37

Record number seven, back to the spoken word, and this is to celebrate my many years spent in Hull.

Alan Plater28:43

And my

Alan Plater28:45

I I think I can call it friendship with Philip Larkin. We used to meet occasionally for cheerful lunches. And it's Philip Larkin reading a poem called Here, which is about the city of

Speaker 128:55

Both.

Alan Plater28:56

Yeah.

Speaker 128:56

Swerving east from rich industrial shadows and traffic all night north.

Speaker 129:03

Swerving through fields, too thin and thistled to be called meadows,

Speaker 129:07

and now and then a harsh named halt that shields workmen at dawn

Speaker 129:12

Swerving to solitude of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares, and pheasants, and the widening river's slow presence, the piled gold clouds, the shining gull marked mud,

Speaker 129:26

gathers to the surprise of a large town.

Speaker 129:29

Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster beside grain scattered streets, barge crowded water.

Speaker 129:38

and residents from raw estates, brought down the dead straight miles by stealing, flat faced trolleys, push through plate glass swing doors to their desires.

Speaker 129:49

Cheap suits, red kitchenware, sharp shoes, iced lollies.

Speaker 129:55

Electric mixers toast

Presenter29:56

part of the poem here.

Presenter29:58

Read by its author Philip Larkin.

Presenter30:02

You're now seen uh as such a guru that you're asked to teach people how to write. Uh how on earth do you do that? Surely that's quite impossible.

Alan Plater30:10

It is impossible, yes. I I I actually think that any teaching is impossible. I think all you can do is enable people to learn more quickly. And I this is true all education, I believe.

Alan Plater30:20

You can't teach, you can only enable people to learn. You have to start from the premise that the person that the student you are addressing has some talent. I mean, you can't teach somebody who is tone deaf and has no

Alan Plater30:33

digital coordination to play the piano. I mean that that is self-evident. And similarly with writing.

Alan Plater30:40

If you have someone who has talent, you can, I think, enable them to learn more quickly.

Alan Plater30:45

by offering a great tray load of

Alan Plater30:48

Sample ideas, thoughts.

Alan Plater30:51

Saying have a look at that lot, see what

Alan Plater30:54

Fits your psyche.

Presenter30:56

But if there has to be an initial talent, that means that is God given that means that surely it must be an art and not a craft, as you said in the beginning.

Alan Plater31:06

Oh gosh, that's a tricky one to throw in at this stage in the conversation.

Alan Plater31:11

I think

Alan Plater31:12

Well, I would I would have to deny that it's God given. I think it's environmental and genetic and

Alan Plater31:18

and a series of historical accidents that

Alan Plater31:21

would combine to produce.

Alan Plater31:23

I mean, every individual human being comes out different, and that's the the great miracle of nature, that everybody comes out different. And I think there's a sense of

Alan Plater31:34

destiny inside of people that tells them what they are.

Presenter31:38

It's just that you have to be able to hear the voice when it calls.

Alan Plater31:41

And have the courage to respond, that's the tough bit.

Presenter31:45

Shall we have your last record?

Alan Plater31:47

Yeah, this is uh the the last recording ever made together by Billy Holliday and Lester Young, and it's just a a one minute, twelve second fragment of Fine and Mellow, and every jazz buff in the world will shed a tear on hearing this.

Alan Plater32:04

He wears hydrate pants.

Speaker 232:07

Uh

Alan Plater32:09

Stripes are layer

Speaker 132:13

Uh

Alan Plater32:13

Uh

Alan Plater32:17

Hybrid fan

Alan Plater32:21

Stripes all the link.

Speaker 132:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh

Speaker 132:25

Yellow

Speaker 132:29

But when he starts into love

Alan Plater32:31

Me.

Speaker 132:31

Yeah.

Alan Plater32:33

He is so fine.

Presenter32:39

Billy Holiday and Lester Young with Fine and Mellow.

Presenter32:43

You have to choose one of those records, Alan, of the eight, that's more important to take with you than any of the others.

Alan Plater32:49

An impossible choice, but I think I'll take Billy and Lester with me.

Alan Plater32:54

To remind me of the great universal truths.

Presenter32:57

And a book. I'm sure you know that you've got the Bible and you've got Shakespeare.

Alan Plater33:01

Yeah. The book is called The Smell of Sunday Dinner, and it's a collection of essays and short stories and short pieces by Sid Chaplin.

Alan Plater33:11

who was my grave father figure among writers, died in nineteen eighty six.

Alan Plater33:16

Uh

Alan Plater33:17

X. Pittman.

Alan Plater33:19

Turn writer.

Alan Plater33:21

And this is one of the few non-reference books that I've always had in my study, wherever my study has been.

Alan Plater33:27

And

Alan Plater33:29

When I feel a chill descending on my soul, I reach for it and

Alan Plater33:34

I find warmth.

Presenter33:36

And a luxury.

Alan Plater33:39

A luxury, well, I've got to cheat a little bit and use the generic phrase writing materials.

Alan Plater33:46

Uh because I I figured a typewriter and paper was two things. So if I say writing materials, because uh I'm just as I must have music every day, I must have some writing every day.

Alan Plater33:57

and I'll put a play together and hope that a bottle washes up on the shore.

Alan Plater34:01

and I'll float it off in the general direction of my agent's office and trust to the winds and currents, which is very much what I do the rest of the time anyway.

Presenter34:11

Alan Plater, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 234:23

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.