Prunella Scales

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 ninety two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is an actress. She's probably most easily recognised as that epitome of suburban shrewishness, Sybil Faulty, wife to John Cleese's manic hotelkeeper in the television series. That role, in fact, represents a tiny portion of what she's done. Her versatility has kept her continuously employed since she made her debut in Bristol forty years ago. But she achieved new heights with a recent theatrical and television role. She played the Queen in Alan Bennett's A Question of Attribution. She is Prunella Scales. Let let's deal with the Queen first, Prunella. I mean, am I right in thinking that it was the first time a reigning monarch had been portrayed on the stage? Apparently.

Presenter1:07

That presumably made it really very difficult for you because you would lay yourself open to attacks of being disrespectful, so it better be good. No, I think what what what it did, I mean, I assumed that my employers had ascertained that it was legal, um, so I didn't worry too much about that. But what it does mean is that the the blasphemy factor was absolutely splendid. I mean, the fact that it was the first time

Presenter1:27

The actual Queen had been seen on stage where she has never been seen before.

Presenter1:32

The Royal National Theatre, no less, meant that people were hanging on your every word, and it was extraordinarily easy to get the laughs, which was a a big bonus.

Presenter1:41

I enjoyed it way less on television, although I thought the play was very successful on television, because we see the Queen all the time on television.

Presenter1:48

the real Queen and and so, you know, when you saw this person coming on and you went in and close up and it wasn't the real Queen, it was only boring old me in a wig, you know, it it was it was to me terribly disappointing and I can't believe that the public could mustn't have been

Presenter2:01

A bit disappointed as well. But it must have been quite difficult, um, because unlike normal roles that you play, here you were playing somebody whom everybody knew. Everybody knows her background, her voice, her mannerisms, so you had to be very, very accurate. Yes. On the other hand, she is very, very well documented. There's a lot of footage of the Queen.

Presenter2:19

As it were, being herself. But then your audience would be much more critical because they know exactly who she is. Yes, I suppose there was that. Yes, I suppose there was a lot of.

Prunella Scales2:25

Yes, I see.

Prunella Scales2:26

So

Presenter2:28

In a funny way, the British public

Presenter2:31

The British theatre-going public love their monarchy and they are so

Presenter2:35

Keen that it shall be the Queen. There's a sort of act of faith rolling at you across the footlights. And they so badly want it to be the Queen that even if you got it quite wrong, I think they'd still forgive you because they want it to be her and they're prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. She didn't come and see it herself.

Speaker 32:50

Oh, not as far as I

Presenter2:51

What would you have done if you'd known she's a bad person?

Prunella Scales2:52

Yeah.

Prunella Scales2:53

I didn't die.

Presenter2:58

The person who knows more about it than anybody else in the building. Well, if the real person's sitting out there, you you might as well go home. Let's get down then to the business of a view on the desert island. Uh w what do your desert island discs mean to you?

Presenter3:10

Well, the whole idea of being on a desert island is so horrific to me.

Presenter3:14

Lip

Presenter3:15

The desert island discs I've chosen are simply

Presenter3:19

a means to stop myself going mad sooner rather than later.

Presenter3:24

And the thought of being stranded, away from my family, without knowing.

Presenter3:29

How they are.

Presenter3:31

Is

Presenter3:32

Dreadfully painful.

Presenter3:34

What's the first one?

Presenter3:36

I suppose if you really were stranded on a desert island, one of two things would happen. Either you'd give way to total despair,

Presenter3:42

or you would eventually acquire some sort of extra spiritual apprehension that would carry you through until somebody took you off. And in either case I think it would be very nice to have a massive devotional work to listen to.

Presenter3:54

And I'd like to take um Bach's St. John Passion.

Presenter3:58

And I like the recording conducted by Harry Christophers with the Sixteen Choir and Orchestra.

Presenter5:04

The chorus Root Valle ir Heiligen Gebeine from Bach St John Passion with the sixteen choir and orchestra conducted by Harry Christophers and a faith sustainer for you on your desert island. I hope so. Gotta have something. Let's tackle Sybil Faulty. The most amazing fact, I think, about her is that you were only concerned with her for twelve weeks of your career. Well, twelve working weeks. We we talked about the whole series for a number of weeks before that because John Cleese and Connie Booth who wrote it with him are extremely meticulous and very rigorous and we read all the scripts round a table before they were finalised.

Presenter5:41

So there was a certain amount of

Presenter5:44

Pre-production work went into it. But still only twelve weeks to do how many series?

Presenter5:49

Twelve episodes a week each. And that was the last one was back in 1978. That's right, David. But it lives on.

Prunella Scales5:53

That's right.

Presenter5:55

Do do you mind that? Do you mind do you feel it's taken up a disproportionate amount of the attention that people pay to you?

Presenter6:04

I do do sometimes worry, because if if somebody recognizes in the streets, sometimes they say

Presenter6:10

Oh, aren't you nice? In terms of pain and surprise. So maybe, you know, I I did too good a job with with with Sylvia. Mind you, I don't even think she was a dragon. I thought she was a saint and a a heroine, but others don't see it that way. Did she leap off the page, though, when you first saw her?

Prunella Scales6:21

Well never to be married.

Presenter6:28

Well

Presenter6:29

Obviously her function was to be as irritating as possible, and I think their original idea was that she was a bit of a a drone that she didn't work hard round the hotel, she sat and painted her nails all day.

Speaker 36:37

Hmm.

Presenter6:38

I think that I thought maybe it would be more irritating if she were good at catering, rather better at it than Basil, and and I think eventually that's I think that may have been my idea, that she was she was a bit more efficient than he was. But she might also have looked on the page as if she was a a sort of feed for John Cleese. Well, perhaps she was certainly she was, but but a absolutely in the end you made it your own and you made her into something really very special in her own right, didn't you? Oh well I can only say hooray, because I certainly the function of it was to feed Basil.

Prunella Scales6:53

Well, certainly she was, but

Presenter7:05

Do you think that however short a time and this just this twelve weeks that that you were acquainted with her really do you think she changed your life in a fairly fundamental way, your professional way?

Presenter7:15

Yes, it opened doors rather than closing them, I think, yes. Uh people say, you know, did it limit your

Presenter7:20

your work and I don't think it did.

Presenter7:23

In the theatre, it's always an advantage to have been connected with a a well known television series because it means that the theatre going public may be going to take that giant step from the pavement into the building in order to see What else you can do? Do you think she might ever live again, Sybil?

Presenter7:39

I don't know.

Presenter7:41

I do.

Presenter7:42

I I I think John's said all he wants to say about hotel management, and indeed it's it's had rather a good effect on hotel management in this country, I think. I don't think there's anything more to be said, do you?

Presenter7:52

Record number two.

Presenter7:53

A record number two, oh, this is, I suppose, almost the first record I ever heard.

Presenter7:59

Um

Presenter8:00

My mother was an actress before she married and um at some point in her career I can never quite make out when.

Presenter8:06

She worked with the French.

Presenter8:08

Actor and film star Pierre Frenny in this country, somewhere, I think somewhere in Yorkshire. And she had a record.

Presenter8:15

of him

Presenter8:16

With Yvonne Prentin.

Presenter8:18

And um she used to play it um constantly and I used to listen to it and dance to it. And then the war came and our wind up gramophone went into the store. And after the war out it came and I started playing this record again. I absolutely loved it. I loved

Presenter8:33

Yvonne Panton's voice.

Presenter8:36

And I loved the French language already. I was very keen on French at school, and and I sat glued to this record, trying to hear the dialogue at the beginning.

Presenter8:45

And it's about an actress.

Presenter8:47

And at the beginning, Piafroni says

Presenter8:50

Suddenly you're quite different. You're really a very nice person.

Presenter8:54

And she said she's a film star and she says, mustn't say that.

Presenter8:57

He says, Why not? and she says

Presenter9:00

Because people forgive you for having succeeded, but never for looking happy about it. I thought this was wonderfully sort of Shobi's cynicism.

Speaker 39:09

Je le suit passe curn pens, je le sui passe kern en di pausi di na pour confoulons ton su ta tier di

Speaker 39:25

A la pourtro do biencer, a cha que es morange vetuili.

Speaker 39:32

Voice, je dois jouer à la posè pour à posé.

Presenter9:40

Yvonne Prentin and Pierre Frenet and Jeunesu Passe se que l'En Prance. That's going to cheer you up on the island. Yes, it's lovely, isn't it? So your mother was an actress. What what did your father do?

Presenter9:50

Well, my mother gave up the act in which she married my father, because my father was ex army, but he was a salesman.

Presenter9:55

He was nothing to do with the theatre, although he loved the theatre very much, and obviously had fallen in love with an actress.

Presenter10:00

My parents

Presenter10:02

Funny child, isn't it?

Presenter10:03

They did have a a mortgage just before the war, but they sold their house at a loss when the war came, and my father joined up. And they never owned their house again. They never owned their own house. They never owned their own car. They were really

Presenter10:15

Very, very hard up. But I got every encouragement from both of them when I said I I wanted to be an actress. How old were you when you said that? Well, I was eight.

Prunella Scales10:25

How did you know?

Presenter10:27

We were evacuated at the time in a village in Devon, and um I wanted to be a dancer really, because they'd take me to the ballet when I was five, so of course I wanted to be this ballerine and there were no classes, of course, in Devon, there was no

Presenter10:38

And uh so I realized in after a bit that I was too old to be a dancer,'cause you have to start turning out, you know, when you're five or six.

Presenter10:44

So I said, Oh, all right, then I'll be an actress and my mother was furious. She said you must never do anything the second best. So you weren't particularly comfortably off, but uh I thought you went to a rather smart boarding school. I did indeed go to a quite a posh school, which um

Prunella Scales10:53

I've died.

Presenter10:56

In more prosperous times my mother had been to this school.

Presenter10:59

When the war get the Second World War came, she took a job there as an undermatron and I got a scholarship there. And so I had this.

Presenter11:07

actually smashing education, um academically and and um

Presenter11:11

made a great many dear friends whom I still know.

Presenter11:15

I think a single sex boarding school is not the best preparation for an actress, in fact, and it was very, very sheltered indeed.

Presenter11:22

But in many other ways I I'm I'm grateful to it.

Presenter11:26

But then in the holidays we eventually ended up in a rented farmhouse thirty five miles from Hyde Park Corner, with no gas and no electricity and no main water.

Presenter11:35

It was really

Presenter11:36

Quite eccentric even for those days.

Presenter11:38

I did um improvisation when I w was at the at drama school. We were required to do uh an improvisation of getting up in the morning, so I did um.

Presenter11:46

And breaking the ice in the wash basin and pouring out water out of the jug and washing and sort of dressing and everybody said, How imaginative and how inventive is actually what I did every single morning in this uh silly farmhouse, but we were immensely happy. Were you and and were you able I mean, were you taken to the theatre at all? Yes, um my father ha had a car for his job.

Speaker 212:08

Yeah.

Presenter12:12

a Hillman Minx for his for his for his travelling. And so we did have a car. So we did sometimes drive to London and see shows and um

Presenter12:19

They took us to art galleries and

Presenter12:22

But they were wonderful, actually.

Presenter12:24

Record number three.

Presenter12:26

Record number three.

Presenter12:28

is well, it is to do with school really.

Presenter12:31

I mean, this is so long ago that I took school certificate. O-levels and A-levels hadn't started yet. And I did.

Presenter12:38

music and school certificate, although I didn't play any instrument, I took it as a as a sort of written subject. And um one of the set works was Didoninius by Purcell.

Presenter12:49

And

Presenter12:50

Again seventy-eight records.

Presenter12:52

The the first attendant spirit was played by Isabel Bailey, whom I

Presenter12:57

We were taken to here.

Presenter12:59

And she had a very beautiful voice. It's a video recording, but it's the one

Presenter13:02

I studied from

Presenter13:04

for my exams and I'm very very fond of it.

Speaker 313:20

Let us see

Speaker 313:26

I hear

Speaker 313:28

Um

Presenter14:09

Isabel Bailey singing the aria Oft She Visits This Lone Mountain from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Philharmonia String Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert, and that recording was made in nineteen forty five.

Presenter14:21

So you went to your mother's old boarding school in Eastbourne, and then on a scholarship to the old Vicks School in London. That must have been a bit of a a culture shock. A severe culture shock, yes. I wish now that I'd spent at least a year, if not two.

Presenter14:36

Doing a job.

Presenter14:37

Or work in a shop or something before I move there.

Prunella Scales14:39

Yeah.

Presenter14:40

Did you not get on with the other students? I did. I very yes, and still know a number of them. Yes, I was fairly happy. I j I just couldn't cope. It was working in a coeducational atmosphere was very.

Prunella Scales14:41

Yeah.

Presenter14:52

Strange.

Presenter14:54

I think it took me a year or so to get the hockey out of my veins. And um having given me this scholarship to the school, I don't think anybody any of the staff thought I was any good. It it was it was all right. I mean, anybody leaving a girls' boarding school needs to, you know, go through a certain period of adjustment. My period of adjustment was was during my training, and I think that it meant that I

Presenter15:14

Although I remember nearly everything that I heard said, because it was a wonderful school, I wasn't able to put it into practice at the time.

Presenter15:21

Just in time I did manage to produce a performance'cause I get got a job off the end of term show. But it was in only in the nick of time. But how do you do it? How do you get inside a character? How much detail do you go into?

Presenter15:34

As much as possible is the answer to that, I think. You you say

Presenter15:37

Who am I?

Presenter15:39

What are the circumstances? The physical circumstances, the emotional circumstances?

Presenter15:45

The circumstantial circumstances, as well as the events, what do I want?

Presenter15:50

What are the obstacles to what I want, both physical and non-physical? And eventually, what do I do?

Presenter15:57

And, um

Presenter15:59

I'm not saying that whenever you do any acting, you go through this process, but it becomes a sort of automatic process.

Presenter16:07

The inspiration, well the inspiration is just something, no, you don't you don't think about that, you just you just just hope.

Presenter16:14

Record number four.

Presenter16:16

One of the staff at the big school was Janis Trasse, who taught us voice, wonderful Hungarian voice teacher, and after the school closed down, because it only ran for five years.

Presenter16:26

He went to Glanbourne.

Presenter16:28

And occasionally, he managed to get tickets for some of his ex-students to see the productions there. That's when I started going to opera.

Presenter16:36

I loved.

Presenter16:37

The

Presenter16:39

Early nineteenth century opera.

Presenter16:41

Bellini Donizette, that that that sort of period very much. And this is Jen Sutherland in Ipuritani.

Presenter16:50

It's just the most extraordinary technical achievement. It's absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 316:56

Did it take no angels?

Speaker 317:12

Frito Frito Frito Freya

Speaker 317:19

Woo!

Speaker 317:30

It is of the older drinks of sphere, you need it for the world.

Presenter17:58

Joan Sutherland singing the aria Viendi Letto incella Luna from Act Two of Belline's E Puritani, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Bonning. I I said in the introduction, Brunella, that you made your acting debut forty years ago in Bristol. What was the part?

Speaker 318:12

OK.

Prunella Scales18:12

It's the terror.

Presenter18:14

What the length of time was an aged cook in a play called The Traveller Without Luggage.

Prunella Scales18:14

What the length of time was

Presenter18:19

Um I was awfully bad. But you ended up coming to London in in a production, didn't you? Not from there, no. I wasn't exactly sacked, but my contract wasn't renewed, so I came back home with my tail between my legs.

Presenter18:31

and um eventually got a job in um the matchmaker at the hay market. Who who was the star? Ruth Gordon. And did you idolize her? Oh, yes. She used to sit for an hour with a script.

Presenter18:44

Every evening. Used to have a little rest before the show and read the script every evening.

Presenter18:50

I can't say I do that. I do have a little kip in the afternoon if I'm playing in the evening, but I I can't say I

Presenter18:55

read the whole script through, but she used to.

Speaker 218:57

And after the show.

Presenter18:59

After the show I used to walk up to Piccadilly Circus and get a nineteen bus home to Battersea.

Presenter19:06

And Eileen Hurley was the other star who used to have a hire cart go home, and I thought

Presenter19:11

All I want in life is to be able to afford to take a taxi to Pattersey.

Presenter19:15

When I can afford that I'll have arrived.

Presenter19:18

It only took thirty years. But you've been having a taxi home for some time now. I I go I go into work by public transport, but I do occasionally have a taxi home now. Have have you seriously not been out of work since then?

Prunella Scales19:27

Yeah.

Presenter19:31

In nineteen sixty-two I think I was out of work for three months, quite badly and um

Presenter19:39

Bit strapped for the rent, so I went to work for Witch Magazine, packing margarine in the basement.

Presenter19:45

Why were they packing it? Well, because you have to pack it into anonymous packs, you see, so that when you take it round to the housewives to test you test, you have to you you ma label it X, Y and Z and then they do a report on the X, Y and Z uh margarine and so they don't know.

Prunella Scales19:46

Well because you

Presenter19:59

Which Margarine it is. You've always been known in the trade as a character actress. Now, what does that actually mean? Does that mean you never get to play the romantic lead?

Prunella Scales20:06

What does that actually mean? Does that mean you never get

Presenter20:10

I suppose, yes. A character actress means a non-romantic actress. Um yes, and you don't get to play the romantic lead, as you say.

Speaker 220:18

Have have you minded that much?

Presenter20:19

Remind

Presenter20:20

Uh it isn't that I desperately earn to play Juliet and

Presenter20:24

Lady Macbeth and things, but

Presenter20:26

I do hate anybody, I mean not not me, but I hate actors being categorised.

Presenter20:32

I think it deprives the public sometimes of things that would surprise them. I mean, it's horrible if people say about an actress, Oh, of course, yes, she's she's a romantic juvenile, she she won't be any good in the comedy. And then maybe she might be wonderful.

Presenter20:45

Next record.

Presenter20:47

I'd like to take

Presenter20:48

A recording of John Gilgood.

Presenter20:51

I think he's always been

Presenter20:53

Practically my favourite actor. He was the first Hamlet I ever saw. My mother took me to see him.

Presenter20:59

to a matinee in Liverpool, which had to start at one o'clock so that they could get the children down into the shelters before the raids started.

Presenter21:06

She had more or less told me the story.

Presenter21:09

But of course we forget, don't we?

Presenter21:11

How exciting the Shakespeare stories are if you don't know the plays. In the second act Ophelia came on with her hair all down, and my mother leaned across and said, She's gone mad.

Presenter21:20

And I went because it was such an extraordinary idea, you see. Well, ever since then, of course you know that Felix's going to go mad, don't you? But I I was fascinated by uh John Gilgood. He A, he was extremely funny as Hamlet, which surprised me because I thought it was going to be a tragedy. I mean, it was also terribly moving.

Presenter21:39

And then either that year or the following year, my mother had a friend who worked in the wardrobe for tenants, which was the big London management, and um this friend

Presenter21:48

got us seats for a dress rehearsal of the importance of being earnest where John Gilbert was playing Jack Worthing.

Presenter21:54

and was again

Presenter21:56

absolutely impeccable and glorious in the Oscar Wilde, and he's always been my favorite actor ever since.

Prunella Scales22:02

are all occasions to inform against me

Prunella Scales22:07

And spur my doule revenge.

Prunella Scales22:10

What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed a beast no more?

Prunella Scales22:17

Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after,

Prunella Scales22:22

gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused.

Prunella Scales22:29

Now whether it be bestial oblivion,

Prunella Scales22:32

or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event.

Prunella Scales22:37

A thought which quartered hath but one part wisdom, and ever three parts cowards.

Prunella Scales22:42

I do not know why yet I live to say these things to do.

Prunella Scales22:47

saith I have cause and strength and will and means to do it.

Presenter22:51

John Gilgood as Hamlet. So you you take him to your island, but not uh another actor whose voice is also on record, and that of course is your husband, Timothy West. Why don't you want him?

Prunella Scales22:59

I don't want to.

Presenter23:01

Well, I I'd I'd want him, but if I

Presenter23:03

If I took a record it would make me miss him so much that I wouldn't be able to stand it.

Presenter23:08

I know this because um

Presenter23:11

Some years ago when he was on tour.

Presenter23:13

I was missing him. I thought, well, I'll play one of Tim's records and it just made me burst into floods and floods and floods of tears, and I I had to turn it off. So I know that doesn't work, so I'd better not um I'd better just remember him and not not take a record of his. Did did you first meet in the theatre?

Presenter23:26

We met.

Presenter23:28

in a terrible

Presenter23:30

television costume drama called She Died Young, subtitled by the cast None Too Soon, and um he played a coffee house buck with one line he had to say can't say I blame him, sir, damme, she's a morsel not about my character, but about about the leading lady. And I played the Bishop of Lichfield's daughter and was debauched by Boswell in a pub.

Presenter23:50

I mean, not by the actor being possible, by the character possible in the pub. And

Presenter23:54

It was quite extraordinarily silly, but anyway that's how we met. And you've been together for the past thirty years, hearing each other's lines, or or did you get the children to do that as time went on? Oh, well that we used to pay the children ten P an act and then it went up to fifty P and now we can't afford them because they're graduates and things and uh so we have to hear each other's.

Prunella Scales24:01

Yeah.

Presenter24:12

Have yours and your husband's careers risen and fallen in tandem, or have there been times when you've kept him, as it were, and he's kept you? Oh, he's certainly kept me uh when the children were young, because I I didn't accept anything that took me abroad, for instance. I I stayed at home quite a bit when the children were young.

Presenter24:30

Um and I think I kept him at the very beginning, and uh since then it's been sort of fifty fifty really. We've been extraordinarily lucky to get about the same amount of work. How often have you worked together in the same production? Not very often. We we do enjoy working together, but um we're we're rather anxious not to be

Presenter24:50

lumbered with the label husband and wife team showbiz couple, you know, because I don't know why it is, but in this country that somehow in some curious way demeans the work. It gives people the impression they're getting two for the price of one.

Presenter25:01

that, um, if it weren't for the other, one of you would not have

Presenter25:05

Being offered this coveted role. When we do work together, we enjoy it very much.

Prunella Scales25:06

Yeah.

Presenter25:08

Now another of your well-known roles is of course as Sarah, the widow in After Henry, which began here on Radio Fall and then translated into television.

Prunella Scales25:12

Began.

Prunella Scales25:14

You translate it into television.

Presenter25:15

A sitcom about widowhood, which was actually quite a brave idea in itself. That's what I liked about it. I mean, to base a comedy on.

Presenter25:22

Bereavement is really quite brave, as you say. And is Sarah, the role that you play in After Henry, is is she actually really

Presenter25:31

quite close to the real Prunella scales.

Presenter25:34

I do feel quite near her in many ways, a sort of uh

Presenter25:38

Her incompetence, her inability to cope and her sort of diffidence and lack of confidence I identify with very strongly.

Prunella Scales25:46

Uh

Speaker 325:46

Uh

Presenter25:48

I hate being alone. When Tim's away I I miss him dreadfully.

Presenter25:52

and the thought that I might one one day be permanently alone is completely intolerable.

Presenter25:59

Just hope I go first, that's all.

Presenter26:01

Next piece of music.

Presenter26:03

Again when I was at school, doing music for school certificate.

Presenter26:08

One of the set works was Schubert's Die Schaneme and

Presenter26:12

Many years later, in I think nineteen seventy four, I did a Words and Music programme with a young tenor whom I often admired on on radio.

Presenter26:20

who had just recorded Deschan Milron and gave me his recording of it on that occasion.

Presenter26:27

And I was absolutely enraptured with this interpretation.

Presenter26:31

And it's been one of my favorite records ever since. This is

Presenter26:35

Torkner Blumen from Schubert's Deschoene Mullerin sung by Ian Partridge with Jennifer Partridge at the piano.

Speaker 326:45

Yeah.

Speaker 326:46

I'd all disemir God Why soul the lagon between scroll?

Speaker 327:01

His waiting all the shams of

Speaker 327:09

As all we're wistat we melt.

Speaker 327:19

I don't know if he's the free block.

Presenter27:40

Ian Partridge singing Trochne Blumen from Schubert's Deschoene Mullerin, accompanied by his sister, Jennifer Partridge.

Presenter27:46

I haven't quite got a picture of you on this desert island, Prune. I don't know whether you you'll sort of collapse to the sound of your shoe, but in a pessimistic heap, or whether you'll be sort of enormously efficient and bustling about. Uh I think if I thought I was going to be rescued

Presenter27:59

Um I would probably cope quite well. I'm sort of

Presenter28:03

I don't know whether I'd remember how to how to start a fire, know all those swallows and Amazon things about rubbing a bit of hardwood into a bit of softwood or anything, but maybe I

Presenter28:12

I'd have saved some matches from the from the wreck.

Presenter28:14

You've not only acted, you've directed. Have you ever tried writing?

Presenter28:19

Yes, it's terribly painful. It takes forever.

Presenter28:22

And uh the result really is hardly worth the effort. Um But you said once, I read, um, and you may deny it if it's not true, that writing was the really creative talent. Yes, yes, but I didn't think I'm a really creative person, you see. But however, on this island, maybe if one had enough paper and pencils and things, maybe

Presenter28:43

I would find out how to write. I hope I would.

Presenter28:47

Record number seven.

Presenter28:48

I'd like to take um that's Ottz Bassoon concerto.

Presenter28:52

To remind me of our younger son who plays the bassoon.

Presenter28:55

quite well actually. And um it's uh Gwydin Brooke with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, which again would remind me of Tim because he's played Beecham in a a show about Beecham. That would remind me of them.

Presenter29:12

without being too upsetting, I think.

Presenter30:06

Gwythian Brook, playing part of the slow movement of Mozart's bassoon concerto in B-flat with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham.

Presenter30:14

You're never left as an actress, Prunella Scales, in any doubt as to what the public thinks of you. I wonder what you think o of them. Do you find them warm and supportive in general, your audiences?

Presenter30:26

If I'm getting it right, yes.

Presenter30:29

I if they're not, I always think it's my fault.

Presenter30:32

So you never blame them. You can feel them. Yes, that's one of John Gilgard's answers. Never say it's a bad house, yet it's your business to make it a good one.

Presenter30:41

Do you think they're more supportive of you in the theatre than in television, or vice versa? Do you feel there's a difference?

Presenter30:47

Um no, I don't think so. I I on the whole enjoy the theatre more.

Presenter30:52

Because in the theatre

Presenter30:54

A, you get the instant reaction, but also you get a chance to have another go.

Presenter30:58

I love long runs.

Presenter31:01

What would you really like still to do then? Oh, lots and lots and lots of things. Oh, yes.

Prunella Scales31:03

Everyone

Prunella Scales31:04

Yeah.

Presenter31:06

You've played Bennett and Aybourne and Brain, you've lots of Shakespeare.

Presenter31:11

Is there a role or a writer?

Presenter31:15

That you still covered.

Presenter31:16

There's lots of of um

Presenter31:18

Classic English comedies I I would love to do. I've never played Congreve professionally or Shaw on the stage or Wilde on the stage. I'd also hope as as I g even as I get older to be involved in in radical writing, you know, because that's really more exciting than anything.

Presenter31:37

Working with

Presenter31:39

New writers on new work.

Presenter31:41

Last record.

Presenter31:43

One of our great, great pleasures um living in London is in August and September when quite a lot of people are out of London on holiday.

Presenter31:52

staying in London and going to the Proms.

Presenter31:55

So on the island I'd like to have one really massive.

Presenter31:58

Symphony

Presenter32:00

And I think it might be quite a good idea to take a symphony I don't know very well.

Presenter32:03

Because, um, then I wouldn't get tired of it so quickly.

Presenter32:07

Last year, one of the things we enjoyed most at the proms was a revival of Prokofiev's opera The Fairy Angel.

Presenter32:15

We heard it again this year at Covent Garden, and I don't think that production has been recorded yet, but.

Presenter32:22

I was told that Prokofia put a lot of the music because it was never a success in his own lifetime so he put a lot of the music into his third symphony, which he regarded as his best, and so I'd like to take Prokofia's third symphony, and I could par spend many happy hours spotting the tune from the Fiery Angel, couldn't I?

Presenter33:38

Part of the second movement of Prokofiev's Symphony No. Three in C minor, played by the Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Name Yervy. So, Prunella, which of the records uh would you need more than the others?

Presenter33:51

If I could only take one I'd take the Bach, Saint John Passion.

Presenter33:55

And your book as well as Shakespeare and the Bible which are waiting?

Presenter33:59

Well, I've been thinking about this for many years, ever since I first started listening to Desert Island Discs. Could I take.

Presenter34:06

Shakespeare in German.

Presenter34:09

because it translates quite well into German.

Presenter34:12

And I think I know enough Shakespeare by heart to teach myself quite a lot of German from a copy of Shakespeare if it were in German.

Presenter34:20

I didn't speak any German at all except um a few lyrics from from uh records and things like that.

Presenter34:25

And then if I could take the Bible in Russian

Presenter34:30

You have been thinking about this. Yes. And then if I took as my book A Russian dictionary with with a grammar in the back. I know just enough of the Bible by heart to be able to learn quite a lot of Russian while I was on the island. You've got to pass the time sometim somehow, you see. And so

Presenter34:47

When they finally rescued me.

Presenter34:49

that with this terrible creature with hair down to her ankles

Presenter34:55

lying completely mad on the beach.

Presenter34:57

jabbering bits of the Bible in very bad Russian.

Presenter35:02

I think they'd leave leave me where they found me, which I don't think they'd bother to take me off at all. And what's the luxury? Could I have.

Presenter35:09

A huge tapestry kit.

Presenter35:11

Carpet

Presenter35:13

A William Morris design carpet with all the wool and needles.

Presenter35:17

Necessary to make it.

Presenter35:20

Because, um, tapestry really, it particularly if the design is printed on the canvas, is only painting by numbers with a bit of industry.

Presenter35:28

Um, attached, but it's very, very therapeutic, and I could sit and listen to my

Presenter35:33

records and do the tapestry and I think that would that might stop me going mad for quite a long time.

Presenter35:39

I do realize that you're not allowed to take anything useful.

Presenter35:43

So I promise

Presenter35:45

when I am rescued to leave the carpet behind.

Presenter35:48

Lying on the beach, this beautiful glowing William Morris thing. As a testament to your strait. Yes.

Presenter35:54

Prunella Scars, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 236:07

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