Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett0:00

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.

Kenny Everett0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Costaway this week is an entertainer. Born in Liverpool and brought up in a strict Catholic family, he first came to fame in the sixties as an anarchic disc jockey on pirate radio. Sacked for making offensive jokes, he moved to the BBC, where his humour resulted in the same fate. His personality, however, proved irrepressible. He went on to establish a huge following on Capitol Radio and on television, where he had his own show during the eighties.

Presenter0:55

His unorthodox style mirrors his life. He's taken drugs, attempted suicide, and after the break up of his twelve year old marriage he came out as a homosexual.

Presenter1:05

Earlier this year, he revealed he'd been diagnosed as having the AIDS virus. He faces the possibility of death philosophically. My sense of humour, he says, will probably be the last thing to go. He is Kenny Everett. In fact, Kenny, you've known you were HIV positive for some years, haven't you? Yes, about four years. So why did you suddenly decide to go public on it? Hello, by the way.

Presenter1:28

Uh well, I didn't decide to. I came back from a little holiday in Italy.

Presenter1:32

And uh there was a bunch of press people waiting with microphones and cameras. And it turns out that I'd been spotted going into hospital by a press cameraman. And he just took lots of photographs of me walking in the rain with an umbrella and no beard. I'd take my beard off. I was walking into the hospital looking a little annoyed about the rain.

Presenter1:53

So they took this picture from behind a tree.

Presenter1:56

Of me looking a little annoyed. And the next day, there in the front page of the people, a huge colour photograph of me looking annoyed. And the line was: The photograph that shows how ill he really is. And I wasn't looking ill at all. As you can see, I look lovely. I mean, you feel perfectly. Oh, I feel fabulous, yes. I haven't gone on to get the full thing yet, but.

Kenny Everett2:14

Hellfire.

Presenter2:18

You know, I feel great.

Kenny Everett2:18

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:21

About once every six months, and they say, Your blood is bouncing, dear.

Kenny Everett2:24

Yeah.

Presenter2:25

But the thing is about that, I mean, in the end, you held a kind of impromptu press conference in the street, yes.

Kenny Everett2:29

In the street, yes.

Presenter2:30

Uh you ended up making a lot of jokes about it and making even the hardened old journalists laugh about it. I mean, that was quite quite a feat.

Presenter2:39

Well, I can't see there's any point in depressing anyone, can you? I mean, m my v my views on the next life is it's probably going to be fab the next one. I I've got this theory that we are in an endless loop of lives and it just never ends. But I mean is there a darker side? Do you worry every time you go to the next one? Well every time every now and then I sort of think about the absolute end of everything.

Kenny Everett2:43

But

Kenny Everett2:56

Well every time every night

Presenter3:03

And that gets me for about a second, and then I say stop it.

Presenter3:08

You know, and think about something jolly.

Presenter3:10

Because there's no point in ponderizing on

Presenter3:13

I mean I could get run over by a truck to morrow. So could you, Sue.

Kenny Everett3:16

Uh

Presenter3:17

What's the point of thinking about it? Well, it's just that perhaps it presses upon you a bit more. If you suddenly get a cold and you can't shake it off or something, you might think, is this the beginning of of full-blown AIDS?

Presenter3:28

Well, I think if I got a cold and it wouldn't go away, I think I would think, dear God, just please make it fast. I think it's the the lingering that uh goes with this is the is the awful bit. And what about music in all of this? Does it is it a comfort you spent again a lifetime in pop? Do you sort of lean back into music sometimes when you're feeling it's a tonic so you know. I love music. I in fact when I discovered classical music it was just like a whole fresh new life for me. Classical music? Oh yes, I discovered classical music when I was about seven.

Kenny Everett3:47

Oh yeah, so

Kenny Everett3:58

Now

Presenter4:02

There was a a junk shop next to the school called Rosie's and uh she used to have God knows where she got them from she had new 78s. Big 12 inch classical 78s and they were only threepence. So I used to get one every day on my way home from school and uh I had a kiddie gram, you know those plastic things that you play nursery rhymes on. So I wrenched the horn off so I could throw away the kiddie record because I'd heard Mary's got a little lamb, it's boring, isn't it? So I put these big records on and used to turn it around with my finger at approximately 78 and put the needle and the horn on the edge and just work my way inward. It was all wrong, there was tons of wow and horror, but at least it was music in my bedroom. So you got classics as well as pop in your desert island overnight bag, have you? Well, Rosie didn't have any pop. She only had classics, so that was my introduction to music. And the first one I picked up was a nice simple English piece by a man called George Butterworth. And it was a big 78 called The Banks of Green Willow. And that was my introduction to classical music. Sweet thing.

Presenter6:05

George Butterworth's The Banks of Green Willow, played by the Academy of St. Martin in the fields, conducted by Neville Mariner. So how, Kenny Everett, did a a weedy wimp from Liverpool appointed by the family.

Kenny Everett6:14

Oh, here's fine.

Presenter6:17

A pogo stick with hair? I didn't think that up. That's definitely odd. How did you get into radio in in the sixties? I mean, did you just write off and ask for your own program?

Kenny Everett6:18

Could I just

Presenter6:26

Um, well, I've always been a huge fan of radio. I used to listen to what was called the Home Service in those days. I used to listen to right up until the end, because that's when the announcer used to get intimate. When he thought the Director General wasn't listening, because he was tucked up in bed, he'd sort of ad lib and say, Well, I can see the the gas lamps flickering in Portland Place. It's time to wrap up for the night. And he'd have a little chat with the listener. And I always used to stay up for that because it's it sounded quite cosy. So I always wanted to be a uh a DJ. Because you were quite a kind of mechanical wizard. You were putting together tapes and things in your bedroom, weren't you? Yes, I had a paper round. And with the proceeds, I bought two tape machines. I used to make silly programmes for my friends. And you wired up the house with large speakers and pretended to be the radio to your mum? Yes, I banned her from listening to the BBC. She had to listen to my channel.

Presenter7:18

I only had an audience of two.

Presenter7:23

So so you made up a programme. You were called you you weren't Kenny Everett then, of course, were you? No, I was christened Maurice Cole, which is a very odd thing to call a child. Is it? Especially in Liverpool, isn't it? Morris Cole. Maurice Cole. My grandfather was Maurice, you see.

Kenny Everett7:33

Morris got my

Presenter7:36

But they decided to be posh in my case and c the French MAURICE has a little poshness.

Kenny Everett7:41

Hmm.

Presenter7:43

Maurice Chevalier.

Kenny Everett7:43

Maurice.

Presenter7:50

So she she called me Melise. I thought it was a hideous name. So you put together this show called the Morris Cole Quarter of an Hour Show. Which lasted about twelve minutes. And sent it to the BBC.

Kenny Everett7:55

So you put together

Kenny Everett7:59

We should

Presenter8:02

Yes,'cause wh uh a a friend of mine said, Why why are you sending us this show, this silly, lovely but silly show, when you could be making money out of it? Why don't you send it to the Beeb? So I made a tape up and sent it to a programme called Midweek.

Presenter8:17

And they sent me a telegram back saying

Presenter8:19

Darling

Kenny Everett8:19

Ali

Presenter8:20

Come immediately. It's wonderful. But it didn't work. You didn't get the job.

Presenter8:24

I did the interview and I said uh

Presenter8:27

Wow, you've got carpets that go right to the edge. I want to work here. And they said, well, we haven't got any jobs at the moment because.

Presenter8:34

There's Pete Murray and David Jacobs, and that's all we need, really. But you ended up in Pirate Radio instead, not the BBC. That's right. Well, I sent the same tape to the Pirates'cause the producer at the BBC said, Well, we haven't got any room, actually. Why don't you try one of these pirate Johnnies that have just sailed in? I found out where they were and sent them the same tape, and they said.

Kenny Everett8:40

That's right.

Presenter8:55

We're desperate for DJ's come on board immediately, so the next day there I was in Frinton railway station with my bag.

Presenter9:03

Full of hankies and wife runts and toothpaste, off on board this tub. And you ended up there bobbing about, watching the lights of Frinton, feeling very ill. Very, very ill, yes. We had about three months to get our sea legs. I remember the lights of Frinton going from side to side and me leaning over the edge thinking, I'd give my legs to be in Frinton. But we couldn't get to Frinton because there was a three-month-long storm, so I had to get used to it. But what makes it a very good story is that, you know, you were funny, you were original, you were liver-puddling, it was the sixties, you're in pirate radio. I mean, you were the right man in the right place at the right time, weren't you? Yes, it was a bit of luck. There was Carnaby Street, the Beatles, there was being liver puddlian helped, of course. Pirate Radio. It all seemed to come together. It was a mini Renaissance et, Sue.

Kenny Everett9:12

That

Kenny Everett9:30

But the

Kenny Everett9:40

Yes

Presenter9:51

Record number two, Ken.

Presenter9:53

Well, there I was bouncing around in the North Sea, and we got a little tug that used to come out and deliver records and water

Presenter10:03

food and things. One day out came Brian Epstein's personal assistant with a freshly minted copy of Strawberry Fields Forever, Stroke Penny Lane, and I was on the air at the time, and because Brian Epstein liked the Pirates so much

Presenter10:20

He just gave it to me to play and I was the first person in the world to play this glorious record.

Speaker 310:27

Let me take you down, cause I'm going sad.

Presenter10:31

Strawberry field.

Presenter10:38

Nothing

Speaker 310:38

Israel

Speaker 310:42

Nothing to get hung about.

Presenter10:46

Strawberry Fields Forever

Presenter10:50

Living is easy with eyes closed.

Presenter10:56

The Beetles and the Strawberry Fields Forever.

Presenter10:59

Let's go back to you as a kid on Merseyside. Reading about it, it doesn't sound too happy. You were fairly solitary and your parents were pretty uncommunicative. Well, I was all I always thought that Liverpool was a bit grey. Even when I first came out, I mean, of my mum.

Presenter11:16

I thought, oh eck, this isn't very nice.'Cause it's kind of industrial and you lived in a pretty grotty part, didn't you?

Kenny Everett11:20

You lived in a pretty

Presenter11:22

Yes, we had a garden about the size of your nose. It was just the smallest piece of grass you've ever seen. And people want to thump you. Uh, they did in the forties. They just you know, you walk into a bar and you look at somebody for more than a split second and you say, What bloody hell are you looking at? And before you know it, your own face is all over the floor. They're kind of aggressive. I think it comes from

Speaker 211:42

Mm-hmm.

Presenter11:44

doing dock work and things. Your dad was a tugboat driver. Oh yeah, he was he was quite romantic actually. He was a tugboat captain. You were shy and uh and spindly and

Kenny Everett11:47

Typeboat track.

Presenter11:55

Worried a lot of the time.

Kenny Everett11:56

Mm, totally new.

Presenter11:57

Worried about being bullied.

Presenter12:00

And how how if there was a God, why did he make me so thin and spindly?

Presenter12:06

Yes, well I was brought up a Catholic in the true you know, if you if you do something slightly naughty, you go to purgatory for an awful long time and it's really awful. It's really bad. But if you commit one of these list of sins uh and you don't get the confession in time, you'll go to hell forever and hell is unimaginable agony forever. Fancy telling that to a kid.

Presenter12:30

It's outrageous.

Kenny Everett12:30

It's outrageous.

Presenter12:32

Don't make me terrified, of course.

Presenter12:34

It it also made me behave for a while until I figured out that the uh the Catholic Church was a business and a very clever one. I wish I'd thought of it.

Presenter12:42

Has it stayed with you, that sort of feeling?

Presenter12:45

What, terror? Huh? No, no, I'm absolutely happy now.

Presenter12:49

Completely happy. So, what made life worth living at this time? I mean, what were the treats?'Cause it all sounds a bit dreamy. Music, I think.

Kenny Everett12:55

Do you

Presenter12:57

Up in my bedroom with my kiddie Graham. And the radio. And the rules. Oh, and the wireless. Don't call it radios. It's nouveau stuff. It's wireless.

Kenny Everett12:59

And the region

Speaker 213:02

And the risk is.

Presenter13:08

I used to love listening to the announcers, they were so friendly, and they didn't say

Presenter13:12

You know, what a bloody hell are you looking at? They used to say Hallo.

Presenter13:17

What a lovely record this is. They used to actually talk like like nice people, so I thought that was very appealing.

Presenter13:23

Next record.

Kenny Everett13:24

Yeah.

Presenter13:25

I think one of the great thrills of life is being in bed.

Presenter13:29

Generally. But in the old days it was even more of a thrill because the surroundings were not quite as fabulous as they are now. So I used to look forward to going to bed madly, unlike most kids. I used to go to bed with my little Phillips transistor radio, which had just appeared then, transistors. And it was a little Phillips red plastic thing with a little grating on the front. And I used to take it to bed with me and listen to Radio Luxembourg. At the end of the broadcasts, after David Jacobs had finished playing De Doo Ron Ron or whatever, they used to have this glorious piece of music to finish off the day's broadcasting. And it was an English guy called Steve Conway with a very simple, beautiful tune called At the End of the Day with a choir and everything. It was just it was like it was like ovalteen for your ears. It was such a lovely tune to end the day.

Speaker 214:29

Try to be great.

Speaker 214:33

All I know about pretty sure

Speaker 214:38

That's my prayer at the end of the journey.

Speaker 214:46

Uh

Presenter14:46

Steve Conway, at the end of the day.

Presenter14:49

So you escaped from Liverpool into pirate radio, as we've heard, and and then you developed a talent for getting sacked. Um you rubbished the sponsors, first of all, on commercial radio, the advertisers, didn't you? Yes, I used to have a six till nine show in the evenings.

Presenter15:04

And they used to interrupt it every night with this taped thing from America.

Presenter15:09

From a man called Garner Ted Armstrong. And he used to have a show called The World Tomorrow. And it was half an hour on tape, sent to radio stations all around the world, where you get the programme, and he pays you, like, fifty pounds a night to broadcast it. And it's an evangelical thing, and he tells you what horrors are in store on this planet if you don't buy his magazine. So I used to think this was a huge interruption in my show. A I didn't agree with what he said, because I'm quite an optimist, really. He was fire and brimstone all over the place. So I used to disagree with what he said and think.

Presenter15:45

Why me? Why has it been plonked in the middle of my show? Everybody's going to turn off'cause they don't want to hear depressing things. So when w at the end of the show I used to s say sort of little snide little comments about him and um one day he came to England on a little Tourette and I didn't know he was there and I said one of my funny little things at the end of his show and he rang radio lane and said get that shit off my show

Presenter16:09

I thought I'll know. And it was like a question of whether the radio station thought it was worth getting rid of me and keeping the fifty pounds a night or vice versa, and they chose the fifty pounds a night. That was my first introduction to commercial thinking.

Kenny Everett16:22

That was m

Presenter16:25

Then you went to the BBC to get away from all of that, but then you got sacked twice over the years from there, once for insulting the Minister of Transport's wife. It wasn't really an insult, it was just people were so touchy in those days, you know. I mean, nowadays you can get away with anything, because the BBC's softened up and people have become more outrageous. Well, you told quite a dirty joke about Mrs. Thatcher when you got sacked the second time, which you needn't repeat now. Yeah, no, I won't repeat it because I've forgotten it. But that was handed to me on a piece of paper at about one minute before the end of the show by my producer. He said, Oh, here's a funny way to add the show.

Kenny Everett16:33

But it wasn't really.

Kenny Everett16:36

Shit.

Presenter16:57

And he gave it to me and I thought, well, there's only thirty seconds to go, I'll just read it'cause, you know, he's a B B C producer. I'll just read it. So you didn't know what you were saying? No, and I just read this thing, I went to the last line, which was a hugely heinous insult to Margaret Thatcher and uh thought, Oh, well

Kenny Everett17:02

So you didn't know what you were saying?

Presenter17:11

But did the adrenaline pump when you knew you were going to say or do something that was a bit rescue? Oh, yes, yes. I mean when you when you're going to say something slightly naughty, you half of your brain is saying, Don't do it and the other half saying, Oh, but I'll get noticed and then I might get a few job offers, you know,'cause I'm bound to get fired. In fact, the first time I got fired from the BBC, the man rang me up, the general director of s programmes or something, and he said

Presenter17:38

Kinny, it's time for the parting of the whiz And I said, Oh, all right, Cheerio Um because I'd just got a contract from London Weekend Television that very day saying, Why don't you come and do a huge series of television programmes for us?

Presenter17:51

So you see one thing leads to another. Amazing, isn't it?

Presenter17:56

Let's have your next record. Number four, two. Number four. Well, uh on commercial radio I started doing a silly space serial because I've always, since the days of Eagle Annual and Dandare Pilot of the Future, I've always been a huge space fan. So I used to make this silly serial in my Cotswold home studio. The night before I went on the air, which is Friday night, I used to think up a lot of silly space gags, stitch them together into a script and then go to bed. Next morning at seven o'clock I would get up, go into the studio with a cup of coffee, do all the voices, put music on, edit it together and put it onto a tape.

Presenter18:37

Jump in the car at about 10 o'clock and drive, hell for leather, to London to the radio station and then stick it in the hole in the machine and say, hello, folks, it's 12 o'clock, and press the button. And I'd just done it, so it was nice and fresh, and I'd actually sit there and laugh at it because I'dn't heard the jokes before, because I'd only just done them. It was all fresh and laugh-like. Captain, what? What's that scar on your shoulder? Oh, that! Oh, I got that months ago in a car accident. Really? Hmm. I wrapped my car around a tree and was trapped in it for ages. Oh, golly. What happened? Well, thank heavens, two cars happened along and saw my plight. Who was in the cars? Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Ball. Fortunately, I was pulled out by the Smiths. What?

Speaker 319:20

What will happen next?

Speaker 319:22

Tune in tomorrow at the same time and find out in Crammon of the Starcore.

Presenter19:29

Kenny Everett and the Adventures of Captain Cremen

Presenter19:32

So by the early seventies, Kenny Everett, you were very famous. People thought you were zany, mischievous, unclean. Wacky is usually the one

Kenny Everett19:38

Wacky is usually the one

Presenter19:41

Outrageous. What they never suspected was that you were suicidal.

Presenter19:46

Only for a short time. I mean, there are depressing moments in life where you think, Oh, God, it's just too much. I really felt silly about that. What were the circumstances that had made you do it, then? I fell in love with somebody that wasn't in love with me. You know that one,

Presenter20:01

But was this by this stage a man that you'd fallen in love in? Yes, it was. It was your homosexuality and coming out.

Kenny Everett20:04

Yes, it was. It was your homicidal

Presenter20:07

Yes, yes. It was it was uh it was quite upsetting really because I didn't know how to approach people, having a sort of solitary life up to then.

Presenter20:17

So, I mean, the last thing you do when you fancy somebody is go up to them and say, I really love you. Shall we go off together?'Cause, you know, you tend to get a bunch of fives or a definite no and I got the definite no. But also, uh, presumably it was upsetting because it it it had come at the end of

Presenter20:36

Twelve years or more, during which time you've been married, perhaps trying to pretend to yourself that you weren't homosexual. I keep saying homosexual because you don't like the word gay, do you?

Presenter20:44

Well, gay to me means happy and jolly. I still think of the old-fashioned connotation of that word.

Kenny Everett20:46

Yeah.

Kenny Everett20:49

Yeah.

Presenter20:49

But you'd been trying to suppress your homosexual tendencies. Well, not suppress it. Um I thought maybe if I married this jolly lady

Presenter20:59

who are with whom I was great friends. I thought maybe one day I'd wake up and look at her and and it would snap and I'd think, Oh, I get it

Presenter21:07

you know, the shape and the lumps and the softness and everything, and I suddenly it would all fall into place. But I realized l a lot later that uh you're you are what you're born. If you're born gay, then you're gay forever. But when you were first coming to terms with all of that, what were you feeling? Were you feeling shame or? Fear? Well, yes,'cause I'd been brought up to think that it was a huge sin. I thought I'm going to go to hell forever.

Kenny Everett21:26

What

Presenter21:32

What about your parents? What did they think? Perhaps you were frightened of what they would think, were you? Oh, absolutely, yes. They were very they didn't know how to handle gayness,'cause gayness in those days was something very odd.

Presenter21:44

And uh you just sort of if your son was gay, you just

Presenter21:48

Didn't talk about it. But how how did they react at the time, and how have they reacted since? Well, apparently at a party, a friend of mine told my father, Oh, that's Everett's new boyfriend and he said, Oh, well, if that's what he wants to be, that's all right. Wish he'd said that twenty years earlier. Wish I'd asked him, actually.

Kenny Everett22:04

Which

Presenter22:08

Plus he was a tugboat captain. I mean, you can't waltz up to your father and say, Dad, I know you're a great chunk, but I you know.

Presenter22:15

I want to be in showbiz and do silly things and I'm by the way I'm gay. I think he might have killed me.

Presenter22:22

Next piece of music.

Presenter22:24

Well, Sue, I'd have to take a a pop record with me, in amongst all this classic heart-rending stuff, because uh I've been playing pop records now since I first joined radio, which is twenty-five years ago. And I think the most consummate pop record I've ever heard, and the a record that started me into my career as a dancer, was Abba's Honey Honey.

Speaker 222:46

Yeah.

Presenter22:46

Uh

Speaker 222:46

Honey, touch me, baby, ah, honey, honey. Honey, honey, on me, baby, ah, honey, honey. You look like a movie star, like a movie. But I know you screw your heart, I look just too young. I need to say the least, you're a double beat.

Presenter23:14

Abba and Honey Honey.

Presenter23:16

You hit television in the eighties, the Kenny Everett video show, and again you created a zany, fantastic world. It became hugely popular. And then one day in the late eighties you called the whole thing off. You turned away. It lacked dignity, you said. What did you mean by that?

Presenter23:33

I probably meant it's too uncomfortable.

Presenter23:36

Because uh the last sketch I I did for the BBC was the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life. There I was doing a sketch with Cleo, my busty friend on television. We used to do sketches together. We were wearing harnesses and you know they go to parts, the unmentionable parts, they hoist you up into the air, dressed as Quasimodo. I was Quasimodo, she was Esmeralda. I was dressed in sackcloth, which is extremely uncomfortable. I had an eye blanked out and a glass eye somewhere here on my cheek, a horrible uncomfortable woolly wig and tons of makeup. And she also was dressed similarly uncomfortably. And with the harness around your parts, hoisted up into the lights, doing the oh, the bells, the bells sketch, we were hoisted up into these four million kilowatt lights, and our camera went wrong. And they decided that it would be less expensive to leave us up there while they fixed the camera. So there we were, slowly rotating in the amongst these frying lights, dressed from head to foot in sackcloth. And when we both sort of came twirling round to each other, I said to Cleo, That's it. I've done now. I've done every possible computational funny sketch. It's too uncomfortable. And when I came to sign the next contract, Quasimodo came through from my subconscious and said, Don't do it.

Presenter24:54

Radio's much more comfortable, isn't it, Sue? I mean you don't have to wear half as much makeup.

Kenny Everett24:54

Rep

Kenny Everett24:56

See what I mean?

Presenter24:58

It's also quite a solitary pursuit, which is what you've always said you are, really quite a a solitary person. I think I've spent so much time talking to myself in Liverpool that uh I've probably developed a line of patter. And I never disagree with myself. So And I'm always there when I need me.

Presenter25:19

So why should a man who's basically, as we say, solitary and shy and all those things, end up starring in a West End musical a couple of years ago? And and you can answer that and tell me about your sixth record at the same time. Okay.

Presenter25:32

Well, hmm I got rung up by Mike Batt, who is a musical genius. And he said, I've got this wonderful West End thing I'm going to put on five and a half million pounds, a thirty-two-piece orchestra on stage. Would you come and sing and dance and juggle and do funny lines? And I said, No, absolutely not. I'd really rather stay at home, because the bother and the nerves would be humongous. And then he kept ringing and ringing and saying, Oh, well, you'd only have a few lines. You know, you just have to come on. Huge applause, wallop, line off. So I said, Oh, all right then. So the name went into the ads and everything, and he started giving me more and more lines, more and more steps. The whole play, two and a half hours, I was on stage for the whole two and a half hours, twirling and dancing, having to remember where I stand, having to remember lines. It was a nightmare. But I thought to myself a couple of weeks before we actually went on.

Presenter26:28

This is the most important thing you've ever done. You know, if you if you forget your lines or you land in the wrong place and fall over a dancer or bump into something.

Presenter26:37

The orchestra will have to stop.

Presenter26:39

We'll have to start again. It'll be a nightmare. You've got to get it right. You've just got to concentrate. And I did. I told myself to behave and I got it right. I remembered all the lines. I twirled in the right places. The opening night was such a success. It really was. It was huge. I brought my mum and dad over from Australia where they live. First class jumbo. There went my profits from Hunting of the Snark. And all my friends were there. It was a huge success. I really enjoyed the opening night. And that's the only thing I did it for. That I could say that I'd done a West End musical spectacular.

Kenny Everett27:16

Oh, let the memory die.

Kenny Everett27:21

Children of the sky, heroes of the sea.

Kenny Everett27:29

And as your life passes by

Kenny Everett27:33

Remember how it feels to be Children of the Sky.

Presenter27:45

The title track from Mike Batt's The Hunting of the Snark.

Presenter27:48

You live on your own. You're impeccably tidy. You even hoover the plastic grass on the balcony, it says in the customer. I found myself polishing the hoover.

Kenny Everett27:53

Not a

Presenter28:00

It's got to stop.

Presenter28:02

So the desert island would be a doddle. You'd sort of clean it up and make it all cosy, would you?

Presenter28:06

Ah, well, I wouldn't arrange the sand. I mean I'd probably dredge it every now and then to clear away the old insects. But I don't like sand actually. I I I'd I'd like the island carpeted if you could manage that. Right to the edge. Yes.

Presenter28:23

And now you're in your philosophical phase, as you said, perhaps the whole business of being quite alone on a desert island would be a a cinch, really.

Presenter28:31

Oh yes, yes. I had huge practice at it, yeah. I love it. I love being on my own. Some people I talk to say in the end they couldn't bear being on their own, on the desert island as it were. That that that they would eventually resort to suicide. Um, well, quite.

Kenny Everett28:44

Uh

Presenter28:49

But do you think you would in the end, or or perhaps do you know from experience that you simply wouldn't?

Presenter28:54

I think I could probably do a huge while of being on my own, but then when I've heard all my jokes and my lines, I think I might resort to making a raft.

Presenter29:05

And your your sense of humour would stay with you to the end, would it? It's I mean life is funny, it's odd, it's a h it's a it's a rather amusing joke, really. I mean there are m

Presenter29:19

parts of life that you think are absolutely not funny, like war and being poor and hungry, that's not funny at all. But you c you can't spend all your time thinking, Oh, God, it must be awful to be hungry You just got to get on with it and make it as much fun for yourself and other people as possible.

Presenter29:36

Record number seven.

Presenter29:38

Well, Beatles are quite a huge part of my life, because uh in nineteen sixty six I was uh requested by the pirate radio station I worked for to would I please go to America for the first time.

Presenter29:50

for about three weeks following the Beatles around,

Presenter29:54

recording comments and little interviews with them from town to town. We did thirty-one towns in thirty-two days, loads of concerts, it was a huge thrill and we became good friends'cause we were all we're f all from Liverpool so we knew what was what and uh had the same silly accent. So the Beatles would have to be on my desert island with me.

Presenter30:15

And we've already done Strawberry Fields forever, so I think my next favourite would have to be Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, because uh I was invited to hear it by George Harrison in his house one day when they'd just made it, and he sat me down in front of the speakers and said, What do you think of this, Ken? Put the needle on the acetate, and I just was blown into the wall by this gorgeous music.

Presenter30:38

He said, Do you think we ought to release it, Ken? I said, Yes, I think you ought to, George.

Presenter30:57

Present.

Speaker 231:01

Hope you will enjoy the show. Sergeant Brett was lonely.

Presenter31:13

Beatles and Sergeant Pipper's Lonely Hearts Club band. What would you change, Kenny, if you could have your life all over again? Oh, nothing really. I think it's been all right, really. I mean, sure, no regret a rene. I mean, I think it's all right. Even the gay bit, I think that that would that's been very interesting, too.

Presenter31:30

Uh despite the the paranoia attached to it, like I think I'm going to be bashed up in the street any moment, or used to think that. But uh an interesting thing my straight black masseur told me one day, uh because we've been great chums and he comes and gives I love being masseur, it's like exercise without moving, it's so great. And uh when I came out in the press, or when the press dragged me out and I was front page for just being gay.

Presenter31:56

He said, Now you know what it's like being black,'cause I told him I'd been bothered in the street by workmen taking their trousers off on the scaffolding.

Presenter32:05

Uh he said, Now you know what it's like to be black, you just get picked on. If people have got spare hatred, they just, you know, f oh, what's unusual about him? Oh, he's got a funny nose. Let's beat him up. Oh, he's gay. Oh, he's Jewish. Oh, he's black.

Presenter32:17

It's the same thing. It's just a receptacle for people's spare hatred. But I've enjoyed it. I like gay people. I think they're fun.

Presenter32:24

Last record.

Presenter32:25

Well, I've chosen Puccini's Symphonic Prelude because it's just the most beautiful record I've ever heard. Um if I ever do die, um I think as I'm hoiked aloft in a a array of God's lovely sunbeam, I think I'd like this to be on the gramophone as I go.

Presenter33:43

Part of Puccini's symphonic prelude played by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, conducted by Riccardo Schaille. It's a beautiful piece of music, but I thought you had every intention of dying laughing.

Presenter33:56

Hmm.

Presenter33:57

Well, I think I'd like to die serene.

Presenter34:00

I haven't been very serene in this life. It's been a sort of a turmoilish sort of life going on in front of cameras and being silly and potty. I think I'd like to try a bit of serenity.

Presenter34:11

And if you could only take one of those eight records with you. It would have to be the Puccini, I think, because ju it's just beautiful. It's it's a beauty, it's just liquid loveliness. The others are memories, good jolly memories, but the Puccini is just it's God.

Kenny Everett34:20

The other

Presenter34:26

It's God with knobs on.

Presenter34:29

And your book.

Presenter34:30

Well, I I'm going to be on this desert islander for a while, I guess. Yes, so I need uh intellectual stimulation, I think, because I've heard all my lines.

Presenter34:40

So I think I'll go for Eagle Annual.

Kenny Everett34:43

And your luxury.

Presenter34:43

Yeah.

Kenny Everett34:43

Uh

Presenter34:44

It'll have to be a bathroom suite, because I don't want to be dirty on my desert island and I feel very uncomfortable if I'm if I don't wash for at least a day. So I'll have to have a hot shower, limitless hot water, and a lifetime supply of badidas, su. It shall be done. Thank you all.

Presenter35:01

Kenny Everett, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, it's been huge fun.

Kenny Everett35:13

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