Norman Shelley

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Norman, where were you born?

Norman Shelley0:10

I was born in Chelsea.

Presenter0:11

Did you see a lot of theatre as a child?

Norman Shelley0:13

Oh yes, quite a lot. My father and mother were both very keen theatre goers. I started seeing Shakespeare at a very early age with the Benson Company.

Norman Shelley0:21

And of course a lot of uh Gubbin Sullivan.

Norman Shelley0:24

Was acting your first ambition?

Norman Shelley0:27

I think so. But a sort of latent Scots caution I am slightly Scots suggested to me that it was probably rather a dicey thing to do, but I was the son of a painter, that was dicey enough.

Norman Shelley0:39

So, when you left school? When I left school I was intending to become an aircraft designer, which was a thing I was absolutely mad about.

Norman Shelley0:47

I was going to start in the drawing office of de Havilland's.

Norman Shelley0:53

in January of nineteen nineteen.

Norman Shelley0:55

But that didn't happen. Why?

Norman Shelley0:58

Well, for a very pleasant reason, the interminable years of the 1418 war ended on November 11th, 1918, and with it my job.

Norman Shelley1:08

And then came one of those strange sort of accidents. I went with my sister, who was a dancer, to a rehearsal

Norman Shelley1:17

of a Christmas season given by Rosina Filippe, and the great trainer of actors and actresses.

Norman Shelley1:23

Of earlier days

Norman Shelley1:25

And a young man hadn't turned up to rehearse, and Rosina Muller said we all called her Rosina Muller, by the way.

Norman Shelley1:32

This silly young man hasn't turned up a direct read for him.

Norman Shelley1:36

I did. He said, Are you doing anything to morrow? and I said, No. Well, if this silly young man doesn't turn up, would you like to play all his parts?

Norman Shelley1:44

For the Christmas season, which I did.

Presenter1:45

Yeah.

Norman Shelley1:47

And um

Norman Shelley1:48

She then said, Well, this is terrible advice to give anyone, but you have got to be an actor.

Norman Shelley1:53

And I believe in it so much that I want to see your parents, and I shall guarantee to train you.

Norman Shelley1:59

And I shall guarantee you a year's work at the Old Vic afterwards. So that's how it all started. And what was your first professional appearance? My first professional appearance was as Jack Rugby and the Merry Wives of Windsor at the Old Vic.

Norman Shelley2:11

What was

Presenter2:11

The next step when you left the old va.

Norman Shelley2:13

Yeah.

Norman Shelley2:14

Well, I did things like where the rainbow ends and um

Norman Shelley2:18

One or two odds and ends in London.

Norman Shelley2:22

Almost immediately after I left I did a season at the Crystal Palace with Norman V. Norman and Beatrice Wilson doing some more Shakespeare.

Norman Shelley2:30

And then I joined the Doran Company in um nineteen twenty.

Norman Shelley2:35

I was with them for three and a half years. It was remarkable company to be in. And my contemporaries were m Cecil Parker, Rafe Richardson, Donald Wolfit, Barbara Everest, Stevie Sharp and

Presenter2:48

And after you left the Doran company?

Norman Shelley2:50

Then after him I went to Ben Greet and Edward Stirling and then with the Marsh Company. Still Shakespeare. Still Shakespeare.

Norman Shelley2:58

with um some incursions into Greek tragedy and old comedy, Sheridan, etc.

Norman Shelley3:05

This was all on tour. That was all on tour, and I was on tour. You see, in those days one could work on tour, and learn your job properly outside London.

Norman Shelley3:13

And um my life was been in sort of seven-year ladders, and this was a seven-year Shakespeare ladder.

Norman Shelley3:20

When I got to the top of that, I didn't want to have a label hung round my neck, Norman Shelley, Shakespearean actor, you know.

Norman Shelley3:26

So I thought, well, now I must go to London.

Norman Shelley3:29

and I'll do the very reverse.

Norman Shelley3:31

I went to Peter Godfrey, the founder of the Gate Theatre in Coven Garden.

Norman Shelley3:37

Well, we did some most exciting things. The most exciting thing I did there was

Norman Shelley3:42

the lower depths of Maxim Gawky, where we created such an effect that I remember the audience used to sit spellbound scratching like this. You could hear them. It was wonderful.

Presenter3:53

What other place would we know from those days of the

Norman Shelley3:55

Uh Georg Kaiser's From Morn Until Midnight, Simone Gontillon's Maya, which I played opposite Gwen Frankson Davis, lovely performance she gave, absolutely beautiful.

Presenter4:01

Drive this.

Norman Shelley4:06

Oga's children got wings.

Norman Shelley4:09

How long did you stay at the gate?

Norman Shelley4:11

Seven years, another seven years. You were also working at the Children's Theatre at the same time. Yes, that was a five-year stint, done in parallel, as it were.

Norman Shelley4:19

I was working about fourteen hours a day and earning the princely sum of five pounds two shillings, three guineas in one and two pounds in the other, it was a great one.

Presenter4:28

Yeah, and then?

Norman Shelley4:29

The bone?

Norman Shelley4:30

And then I got sort of involved in various West End productions, of course, at the same time. I met

Norman Shelley4:36

Basil Dean.

Norman Shelley4:38

Did a show for him and worked with Raymond Massey.

Norman Shelley4:42

in a lovely play written originally for broadcasting, strange enough, by Reggie Barclay, The White Shadow. Finishing up, I joined Gladys Cooper.

Norman Shelley4:51

In a play of Somerset Mormons called The Painted Veil, and I was working with Lewis Casson, Sir Lewis.

Norman Shelley4:57

And he invited me to go

Norman Shelley4:59

Off on the world tour with them. Wonderful.

Presenter5:03

What was the next excitement in your career?

Norman Shelley5:06

Well, I suppose um

Norman Shelley5:08

Two really

Norman Shelley5:10

Fairly shortly after I came back to England.

Norman Shelley5:14

I started broadcasting quite seriously. In fact, um one of the nice things happened on the way home. We came uh across the Pacific and at Panama there were three B B C contracts waiting for me. Um which was very pleasant.

Presenter5:26

Uh

Norman Shelley5:26

Yes. You had made your first broadcast long before that. Oh yes, I'd done my first broadcast actually as far back as nineteen twenty five or six.

Presenter5:29

Oh yes

Norman Shelley5:33

And um from 1927 on I had started doing more and more broadcasting.

Norman Shelley5:39

I had realized that

Norman Shelley5:42

If I went on as I was going in the theatre, I was likely to be condemned to be playing just nothing but old men, parts almost exactly identical, and I didn't think that was what I was an actor for.

Norman Shelley5:52

And that I liked the microphone, and the microphone liked me.

Norman Shelley5:56

So I decided to burn my boats theatrically, and I went to Val Guild and said, Look, I'd like to do this if you'll play. And he said, Yes, we'd be very pleased to have you. And that's how really

Norman Shelley6:06

Uh

Presenter6:06

I got thrust upon you all. Radio has been your main occupation for the past thirty years.

Norman Shelley6:11

Yes.

Presenter6:12

Uh Yes. When war came along, you were one of the select group of artists standing by to keep broadcasting going.

Norman Shelley6:17

Yes, I was. Yes, we engaged the time of the Munich crisis.

Norman Shelley6:22

and a rather vague commission you will go into action when the balloon goes up, and be prepared. It wasn't till about six weeks before we were actually told where Hogsnorton was.

Presenter6:34

Hogsnorton was the the secret hideout that you went to Woodnorton Woodnorton.

Presenter6:39

You didn't stay wi with the rest of the

Norman Shelley6:41

No, I managed to escape after about a year and a half for the simple reason that I was determined that I was not going to be cheated of flying in the Second World War. They wouldn't let me fly because I was too young in 1418. I went to them, I said, now you can't throw me out this time, because um I have six hundred hours as a pilot now and at least if I may be over a military age I you I can instruct and they said would you mind looking at your grey hairs and off.

Norman Shelley7:08

Well then my friend Philip Wills and General Delanger, the banker, had

Norman Shelley7:13

Founded ATA, our transport auxiliary.

Norman Shelley7:17

And I ultimately joined their organisation. As a ferry pilot. As a ferry pilot, yes.

Presenter7:21

Well Norman, thirty-eight years of broadcasting, thousands of parts in all sorts of programmes. I think most of us think of you as Denis the Darkschund in Troytown and as Winnie the Pooh and as Doctor Watson.

Presenter7:34

We've named the parts we probably know you in best. Wh which ones do you like to remember?

Norman Shelley7:39

Oh,'cause I love Dennis, of course. Toy Town is fantastic. You see, I first played in Toy Town thirty years ago, I think, just after I came back from Australia.

Norman Shelley7:48

When you're the poor of course you created on the earth. Yes, yes, in the war years.

Presenter7:52

Mm.

Norman Shelley7:53

Beloved Pool.

Presenter7:55

And you played in lots of comedy variety series as well as drama. You remember the old one too? Yes.

Presenter8:03

And lots of books at bedtime.

Norman Shelley8:05

Yeah, yeah.