Zoe Wanamaker

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is an actress. She was born in New York, the daughter of a distinguished actor and director who moved to England when she was small to escape McCarthyism.

Presenter0:38

She's hardly been out of work since she first went on the stage. She's played major parts with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and in recent years has come to enjoy a popular following on television, particularly in the series Love Hurts. Tessa, the character she plays, epitomises many of her roles, the long suffering woman who despite life's disappointments remains tough, clever and witty. At the moment she's enjoying an enormous success in the West End hit Dead Funny. She is Zoe Wannamaker. Zoe, you do seem to have cornered the market in that certain kind of woman. Although they're very different characters, the one thing they have in common is that

Presenter1:15

Life is tough for them.

Presenter1:17

I mean, do you think that playing that kind of role comes naturally to you?

Zoe Wanamaker1:21

I don't see them as tough. I see them

Zoe Wanamaker1:23

Each character that I've done is a part of me, and therefore part of my time.

Presenter1:28

Hmm.

Zoe Wanamaker1:29

I think much more.

Presenter1:30

But they are never I mean, however much they are put upon these characters and we generalize obviously but

Zoe Wanamaker1:34

Mm.

Presenter1:35

They're they never are whinging, they're never kind of victims. You seem to bring to them this kind of wit and feistiness. I mean, that that strikes me as being part of you as well, isn't it?

Zoe Wanamaker1:45

I can't say that. I can't answer that one.

Presenter1:49

I mean, I think, for example, a lot of people saw you as as as the wife of the original prime suspect, you know, the the prostitute who was married to this terrible murderer, but she protected

Zoe Wanamaker1:57

How

Speaker 11:57

Okay.

Presenter2:00

Her man for as long as she decently could. I mean, that was a very meaty part, wasn't it? But again, you didn't let her be a victim in a funny kind of way.

Zoe Wanamaker2:04

But again

Zoe Wanamaker2:07

No, she refused to be a victim. I mean

Zoe Wanamaker2:10

It's really women, in fact, that I'm interested in as far as.

Zoe Wanamaker2:15

the characters that I play are con are concerned.

Zoe Wanamaker2:19

I think the times that we are living in women are no longer.

Zoe Wanamaker2:23

Victims and are now being allowed not to be, and are strong, intelligent, and extraordinary people.

Presenter2:30

But it's it's it's like the woman you're currently playing, who's and we'll talk about the play later, but She's trapped in a kind of loveless, childless, and sexless marriage. But again, she's a very strong person.

Presenter2:43

But they're all less than perfect human beings. I mean, they're real people. Is that what it is?

Zoe Wanamaker2:48

Yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker2:49

Yes, exactly.

Presenter2:50

So that people can look at all these roles you play and think, yeah, I've met her or I know her or I know her. Or I am her.

Zoe Wanamaker3:01

And thinking that character was when he asked me to do it was.

Zoe Wanamaker3:06

I thought nobody remembers Amelia and Innacella.

Presenter3:08

In a cellar.

Zoe Wanamaker3:10

And in fact, the more research and development you go through it,

Zoe Wanamaker3:15

You realize that there are many women who've lived in loveless marriages, or their marriages have become loveless.

Presenter3:21

And do you think I suppose this is the big question do you think that you've come more into your own with those parts in recent years in that

Presenter3:30

Before perhaps you were never ideal ingenue material, you know, but y y these feistier parts, as I call them, are are are much more up your street.

Zoe Wanamaker3:40

I f feel that every character that I have played I've found that quality within them. I don't know why. I mean if whether it be Viola, whether it be Hermia, in The Provoked Wife I played a character called Belinda, I mean who is I mean I've found those elements and maybe it is as you say part of me, I don't know.

Presenter3:56

Okay, let's talk about music. Is it an important part of your life or is it simply there?

Zoe Wanamaker4:00

It's a very important part of my life. It's essential.

Presenter4:03

Alright, we will hear your eight essential pieces. What's the first one?

Zoe Wanamaker4:07

The first one is the Rolling Stones. I have to have rock and roll and this sympathy for the devil is real rock and roll.

Zoe Wanamaker4:23

Middam Soul Viola

Zoe Wanamaker4:26

Watch the same

Zoe Wanamaker4:28

See what you play

Zoe Wanamaker4:34

Used to meet you Hope together

Presenter4:38

The Rolling Stones and Sympathy for the Devil. Now, obviously, as an actress, what you look like influences the the parts you get offered.

Presenter4:47

But reading about you, it it seems to me that you've always worried about your looks. Is that fair? Yes, it's good.

Zoe Wanamaker4:54

It comes up a lot now. I think'cause I once gave an interview a about it when I was quite young and revealed that fact. I think we're all worried about, as you say, being actors because we are the product. The product is us.

Presenter5:07

the product you're selling.

Zoe Wanamaker5:08

Exactly. And I'm quite a realist and I

Zoe Wanamaker5:12

I felt insecure about it. Um no longer, of course, because that's me.

Presenter5:16

But people do remark on your facial features more than they do on many people's, I think. I mean, lots of column inches are spent on describing your mouth or your troussea nose or

Zoe Wanamaker5:24

But if I s

Presenter5:29

Or how your f feelings flicker across your face. You know, I it there is a fascination with your face which you must have.

Presenter5:37

wondered about sometimes and thought, now why do they keep talking about that?

Zoe Wanamaker5:41

I'm not so concerned about that anymore. The work is the most the thing. And if I start looking at myself while I'm working, uh it's I still can't watch myself on television.

Zoe Wanamaker5:50

I still can't and watching Love Hurts, I have to go out of the room sometimes or put my hands in front of my face.

Presenter5:56

Why?

Zoe Wanamaker5:57

Well, nobody likes to see themselves. You always have a fantasy that you're something else, that you're actually you I thought, oh, maybe I looked prettier in that shot and

Zoe Wanamaker6:06

Oh man, I the reality hits you that you're not what you felt you were. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't you can't change it.

Presenter6:11

Doesn't he

Presenter6:12

Hmm.

Zoe Wanamaker6:13

Well, you can change bits of S if you want to, but you try

Presenter6:15

But you're trying to change I mean you work out bodily now. We moved off your face.

Zoe Wanamaker6:18

Yeah.

Presenter6:19

You work out, do you?

Zoe Wanamaker6:20

Blue list

Zoe Wanamaker6:21

Yes, I do. I mean, I've I've always had that. I think that's from my father. He was always made sure that he was in shape or he was always

Zoe Wanamaker6:28

He felt that an actor was that um your body is your instrument and it has to be kept in tune. An actor should be an acrobat, a juggler, it should be able to dance and sing and and so therefore you have to be fit for that. And I've always felt that too.

Presenter6:42

But three times a week down the gym, isn't it very boring?

Zoe Wanamaker6:45

It is very boring. But I do I you know, I dance to rock and roll, so I'm happy.

Presenter6:50

And I mean, obviously again, it matters what you look like bodily, not least in this latest play,'cause you have to appear in Dead Funny in in this this very revealing basque, this kind of scarlet and black corselet, which gives you good reason for being toned up. But it's called fear.

Speaker 16:56

Pierre.

Presenter7:08

But but of course your male lead has to take all of his clothes off. Would you have done that if if you'd been asked?

Zoe Wanamaker7:15

I think if it's important for the player and the if the players or the

Zoe Wanamaker7:19

whatever it is, is good enough, then of course yes, I would

Zoe Wanamaker7:22

Consider doing it. Of course I would.

Presenter7:24

Record number two.

Zoe Wanamaker7:26

This

Zoe Wanamaker7:27

Verdi's Requiem. It reminds me of

Zoe Wanamaker7:32

Doing a play called After Aida with the Welsh National Opera, a small section of it, which takes a sort of workshop situation around the country, around Wales. And it was the first time I'd ever been on the stage with four singers. And it was the most wonderful experience in many ways because I was with Ian Charlson, who's now dead, who was a dear, dear friend. And it was just such a wonderful whole experience to work on something with these four voices coming in in such a way that it gave you.

Zoe Wanamaker8:06

goosebumps uh listening to it.

Zoe Wanamaker8:36

Yeah.

Speaker 28:36

Because

Zoe Wanamaker8:36

See you.

Presenter9:03

Part of Verdi's Requiem, sung by Leontine Price, Jussie Bjorling, Rosalind Elias, and Giorgio Tozzi, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Fritz Reiner. You're actually an American by birth, then, Zoe, but brought up in London. I mean, whereabouts in London, where was home?

Presenter9:19

Homeless

Zoe Wanamaker9:20

Basically, initially North London when we first came.

Zoe Wanamaker9:24

Here my parents rented a a flat in Saint John's Wood, where most Americans settled, it seemed, after the war. And then we lived in rented places in Hampstead and eventually then Highgate and then

Zoe Wanamaker9:39

Then the globe.

Zoe Wanamaker9:41

Started in dad moved to Southwark.

Presenter9:41

Yeah.

Presenter9:44

That was his his project, the Globe Theatre.

Zoe Wanamaker9:46

Mm-hmm.

Presenter9:46

Yes. But where was school?

Zoe Wanamaker9:48

School was Hampstead, was King Alfred's School, which was a coeducational progressive school.

Zoe Wanamaker9:54

And then I was packed off to a Quaker boarding school called Sidcott, which was because I wasn't working hard enough, but that didn't do any good. And then then I went to Hornsey College of Art, which was in Hornsey, so

Zoe Wanamaker10:07

M my childhood was ma basically spent in North London.

Presenter10:11

But what about home? I mean, your father, Sam, was obviously a a man of very strong views, views which had forced him, as I said at the beginning, to to flee McCarthyism. Were you made politically aware as a child? Were you aware that he was a man of strong opinions?

Zoe Wanamaker10:25

Very, very aware. He was a man of great passion. He was also politically very astute and wanted to know what was going on in the world all the time.

Presenter10:34

And was he a good father?

Presenter10:38

Or were you simply in awe of him?

Zoe Wanamaker10:40

Oh, always. I mean, he was quite frightening if he lost his temper. That was quite something to be avoided.

Zoe Wanamaker10:46

I think because of he was always working on projects or always busy, his time for us was fairly limited, as a lot of actors have this.

Zoe Wanamaker10:57

He had to go where the work was and there was a time after m McCarthy period, about twelve years later, he started going back to the States and working because work was not coming

Zoe Wanamaker11:08

Through here, so he would

Presenter11:08

Here

Zoe Wanamaker11:10

go to America, so there would be long periods when we didn't see him.

Presenter11:13

But your your mother was an actress, too, Charlotte Holland. It's interesting that neither he nor she wanted you to go into the profession that they apparently thought it was soul destroying, and particularly for a woman. Why did they think that?

Zoe Wanamaker11:25

Because it is.

Zoe Wanamaker11:27

Is it still?

Presenter11:27

Is it still?

Zoe Wanamaker11:31

It is a struggle, also because rejection is something that you have to deal with.

Zoe Wanamaker11:36

A lot and

Zoe Wanamaker11:38

I think they just won't want it to protect me from that.

Presenter11:40

They didn't think you were capable of bearing it, perhaps.

Zoe Wanamaker11:43

Probably.

Zoe Wanamaker11:44

And

Zoe Wanamaker11:45

Before I started doing it.

Zoe Wanamaker11:48

I think they were concerned that I may not be good enough.

Zoe Wanamaker11:51

Which is fine. That's totally understandable.

Presenter11:55

Let's have the next piece of music.

Zoe Wanamaker11:57

It's Miles Davis.

Zoe Wanamaker11:59

It was difficult to choose from this album, particularly which one, when I've landed on Freddy Freeloader, because it's a great title.

Presenter13:08

Miles Davis and Freddie Freeloader. So your parents, Zoe Wanamaker, were against your going into the theatre. When did you know that it was frankly inevitable?

Zoe Wanamaker13:19

I think I was very sure when

Zoe Wanamaker13:20

Dad was asked to go to Stratford to play a yaga with Paul Robeson.

Zoe Wanamaker13:26

It fitted into the summer holidays and we went up all the family went up and stayed in Stratford in a house.

Zoe Wanamaker13:32

It was in the middle of the country, it was the summer, it was an idyllic hot summer.

Zoe Wanamaker13:37

and I went tiddler fishing on the Avon and rescued fox cubs. It was um a wonderful year at Stratford. It had people like Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney in the cast Ian Holm.

Zoe Wanamaker13:52

And the smell of grease paint and size when you walked into the theatre just hits you between the eyes. And it was um the most romantic time I can ever remember. Don't use grease paint anymore. They don't use it anymore. They don't use size anymore that I know about. So the smells are slightly different. But it was that that really

Speaker 114:02

Meeter.

Zoe Wanamaker14:09

I galvanized me.

Presenter14:11

Hmm.

Zoe Wanamaker14:11

Into feeling. It's that sort of romantic idea of what acting's about.

Presenter14:16

When you were about ten then, but I mean you did nevertheless when you left school try to do other things, but you were trying to please your parents and and not become an actress or a

Zoe Wanamaker14:23

Yes, I wanted to paint and so I

Zoe Wanamaker14:27

Gave myself a plan that that's what I was going to do. I ended it after one year. In fact, it was supposed to be a three-year plan, but it ended up after.

Zoe Wanamaker14:34

Going to Hornsey College of Art.

Zoe Wanamaker14:36

And I thought, well, I've done it now. I can draw now. So now I'm going to become an actress.

Presenter14:41

So your parents finally gave in.

Zoe Wanamaker14:42

Boom.

Presenter14:44

But frankly the name Wannamaker must have made it a bit easier, didn't it?

Zoe Wanamaker14:49

I don't know. I think it made it more difficult for me in the sense that I felt I had something to live up to. And I remember.

Zoe Wanamaker14:56

When I was at drama school I asked Dad I didn't ask Dad I said I'm thinking of changing my name and he said why?

Zoe Wanamaker15:03

Are you ashamed of me?

Zoe Wanamaker15:04

Well, there's no answer to that. You can't

Zoe Wanamaker15:07

And he said, also quite rightly, he said, well, they're going to find out anyway.

Presenter15:11

Do you remember the first professional role that you played and your father came to see you?

Zoe Wanamaker15:17

No, I don't remember the first professional role. I was at drama school in the third year. We did The Cherry Orchard.

Zoe Wanamaker15:24

And he came to see.

Zoe Wanamaker15:26

a showing of that. I remember I was terrified and I was terrified for many years afterwards when my parents came to see me and anything.

Presenter15:34

Record number four.

Zoe Wanamaker15:36

Ah, it's the adagio from Schubert's Quintet in C major.

Zoe Wanamaker15:41

It reminds me of Dad. It reminds me.

Zoe Wanamaker15:46

His love of music.

Zoe Wanamaker15:48

And when he was dying, this was something that I played a lot.

Zoe Wanamaker15:52

For myself.

Zoe Wanamaker15:53

And it has something about him in it.

Presenter16:40

The adagio from Schubert's string quintet in C major, played by the Albenberg Quartet and Heinrich Schiff.

Presenter16:47

You've rarely been out of work, Zoe, since you left the Central School in nineteen seventy, but for years apparently you had this kind of

Presenter16:54

Horrible demons sitting on your shoulder, constantly pointing out your inadequacies. What sort of things did they say?

Zoe Wanamaker17:01

It is a criticism that keeps coming, like a little person sitting on on your shoulder saying, No, that's wrong, or don't do this, or don't do that. And it got in the way when I was working.

Zoe Wanamaker17:11

so that my concentration would be tripped.

Zoe Wanamaker17:14

By this voice in the back of my head. No, that's wrong, that's not right, that's not

Presenter17:20

So that you will ring it for the first time.

Zoe Wanamaker17:20

So that you were saying it's very it's it can't describe it because it is something very particular to me.

Presenter17:26

But these voices were taunting you into believing that what you were doing was absolutely no good and that

Zoe Wanamaker17:31

Yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker17:32

Yes, I mean voices it sounds like kind of Joan of Arc, but it's not, you know.

Presenter17:35

Yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker17:37

Yeah.

Presenter17:37

Uh What

Zoe Wanamaker17:38

It was a sort of chatter that was going on on stage.

Presenter17:39

So, did it make you feel kind of once removed? It tu took away your concentration, presumably, because you're listening to the voices and not concentrating on.

Zoe Wanamaker17:44

Presumably, because you

Zoe Wanamaker17:47

Well, you think you're concentrating, but the voices are also saying

Zoe Wanamaker17:50

You were not concentrating, you were saying

Presenter17:50

You're not concentrating.

Presenter17:52

Yeah, yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker17:52

It's a circular thing, yeah.

Presenter17:55

Yes, it will.

Presenter17:56

So how long did the demons stay with you or order?

Zoe Wanamaker17:58

Well, they come back. They come back occasionally and have a good chat.

Zoe Wanamaker18:03

Uh

Presenter18:03

But but how you obviously you've learned to get rid of them for the most part.

Zoe Wanamaker18:03

But

Zoe Wanamaker18:06

Yeah.

Presenter18:07

You are now relaxed. I mean, is that what you achieved?

Zoe Wanamaker18:09

Yes, I think it is a

Zoe Wanamaker18:11

Critical voice inside one's head that can take over too much.

Presenter18:15

But do you still feel frightened when you take on a new part? Do you still.

Zoe Wanamaker18:21

Yes, I enjoy well, frightened. I'm I'm apprehensive about about doing something because it is completely new territory every time you start a new production.

Zoe Wanamaker18:31

It's as if you've never done it before. As if you've never acted before, it's as if you've never thought before.

Zoe Wanamaker18:36

and you come as a clean sheet of paper.

Presenter18:39

Because you are I mean, listening to you talk about your childhood and so on, you're obviously quite a and perhaps it's what your parents were trying to protect you from you're you're quite a self effacing, quite a shy person. You're not somebody who wishes to be centre stage in life, are you?

Presenter18:54

So why do you want to be sent to stage as an actress? So it's interesting. It's a contradiction, isn't it?

Zoe Wanamaker18:59

Mm.

Zoe Wanamaker19:00

But I think we are contradictions.

Presenter19:02

What actors?

Zoe Wanamaker19:03

People.

Presenter19:04

Hmm. More music.

Presenter19:07

Number five.

Zoe Wanamaker19:07

As Glen Gould.

Zoe Wanamaker19:09

I just love.

Zoe Wanamaker19:11

This genius. I mean he was a genius. He was an eccentric and I loved eccentrics. And he sings with it, which is um and this is somebody embodying the music as well as his talent.

Presenter20:19

Glen Gould playing and singing the beginning of Bach's Partita number one in B flat major. Um you've been able to pick and choose your parts for some time now, Zoe, but what was your reaction when Love Hurts came along a few years ago? Did you recognize this as the big television break, the one that would make you a household name?

Zoe Wanamaker20:36

No.

Zoe Wanamaker20:37

I didn't. I thought it would be really

Zoe Wanamaker20:40

Great fun to work with Adam Faith, whose records I used to dance to in the biology lab. And I thought what a wonderful idea. What a wonderful mixture of people. And

Zoe Wanamaker20:53

Also I've thought that

Zoe Wanamaker20:55

It was a

Zoe Wanamaker20:56

great role for a woman. It was about women who have careers and lives and also to try and balance that. I thought it was a very intelligent

Zoe Wanamaker21:06

And interesting project.

Presenter21:08

Was it three series? Uh is that the lot? That's it, is it?

Zoe Wanamaker21:09

So

Zoe Wanamaker21:11

Oh.

Presenter21:12

Absolutely. You cut the hair off now.

Zoe Wanamaker21:13

Yeah, I've got the hair off, I can't go back.

Presenter21:17

So you you've got used to being recognized in in

Presenter21:20

Safe ways and so on. But have you got used to the other things that come with the territory of being a

Presenter21:26

A a television star, a household name, which is the public interest in your private life. That's difficult, isn't it?

Zoe Wanamaker21:31

Yes, it is difficult.

Zoe Wanamaker21:33

I don't enjoy that at all, no.

Presenter21:35

I mean, you you're not married and you don't have children.

Presenter21:40

You may not answer the questions, but they will always be asked. People will say, you know, are you like Tessa? Do you want to get married? Or are you like Ellie and Dead Funny? You know, would you like a baby?

Zoe Wanamaker21:47

Yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker21:49

Yeah

Zoe Wanamaker21:50

Mm-mm-mm.

Presenter21:51

In all of those questions, inevitably all of the time.

Zoe Wanamaker21:54

Yes.

Presenter21:54

What to do, Duck?

Zoe Wanamaker21:57

As much as I can, um, because I don't think it's important, although the questions always come back.

Zoe Wanamaker22:04

There is that fascination. I don't know why that people's private lives should be similar to the ones that they lead.

Zoe Wanamaker22:10

when they're acting or when they're performing in front of an audience.

Zoe Wanamaker22:13

Uh I'm I could no more be like Tessa than fly to the moon.

Zoe Wanamaker22:18

But of course because I'm playing it therefore I mean it goes on

Zoe Wanamaker22:21

Um no, I don't enjoy that at all. It's nobody's

Zoe Wanamaker22:25

Business really.

Presenter22:28

Record number six.

Zoe Wanamaker22:30

This is a kind of Adam Faith and

Zoe Wanamaker22:32

So we want to make a get together because it's Tom Waits and Bette Middler who are

Zoe Wanamaker22:36

Truly eccentric people and it's a rather wry, funny little song.

Speaker 122:42

Tell me if you've heard this one But I feel as though we've met before

Speaker 122:52

Perhaps I am mistaken But it's just that I remind you of Someone you used to care about

Speaker 123:04

Oh, but that was long. Uh

Presenter23:06

Uh

Speaker 123:06

Okay.

Presenter23:08

Tom Waits and Bet Middler and I never talk to strangers.

Presenter23:12

Your father was, as you've described, a huge influence on your life, someone to live up to. But he died last December, and it wasn't by your own account an easy death.

Zoe Wanamaker23:23

No, no.

Zoe Wanamaker23:25

Well, he was so strong, uh physically and mentally. That was the horror of it, really. Uh he'd lived with this pain for many years, for we discovered it must have been about five years and then finally felt that the quality of his life

Zoe Wanamaker23:44

was had diminished so much that he was not pain-free for longer than two hours in any day.

Zoe Wanamaker23:52

Um

Presenter23:53

It was cancer.

Zoe Wanamaker23:54

It was cancer, yes.

Zoe Wanamaker23:56

And the reason why it was uh not nice was because he was so strong and he wouldn't die.

Zoe Wanamaker24:03

And that was the

Zoe Wanamaker24:05

The worst part also was that he had so much to live for.

Zoe Wanamaker24:09

And it was

Zoe Wanamaker24:11

That

Zoe Wanamaker24:12

energy of his which wouldn't go.

Zoe Wanamaker24:17

The last week of his life was pretty horrific.

Presenter24:20

But wasn't it possible to to control it with drugs? I mean, we hear now that that

Presenter24:25

This is perfectly possible or obviously people go into hospices for exactly that reason.

Zoe Wanamaker24:29

He wanted to die at home.

Zoe Wanamaker24:31

The doctors and nurses couldn't find the right

Zoe Wanamaker24:35

Level of drugs to make him pain-free.

Zoe Wanamaker24:41

Totally because

Zoe Wanamaker24:43

It was difficult to describe really because if you have too much morphine in you, apparently it just packs up like a bus cue and doesn't actually go into the bloodstream. And so the concoction that they were playing around with just they kept trying to do different things and it still wasn't having any effect. The doctor once gave him a shot and said he will sleep now for twelve hours. Well three hours later he was awake again.

Presenter25:07

Hmm.

Zoe Wanamaker25:08

And that went on for that week.

Presenter25:10

But did it make you think hard about euthanasia? I mean, did you was there a point when you if you don't mind my asking this when you really wished the doctors would put an end?

Zoe Wanamaker25:19

Definitely, and I think that's what he wanted.

Zoe Wanamaker25:22

And he was very.

Zoe Wanamaker25:24

pragmatic about it, wanted it.

Presenter25:26

You talked to me about that.

Zoe Wanamaker25:27

We talked to him, yes, a lot. Um and he was very

Zoe Wanamaker25:31

sane about it. I mean, it has made me strongly convinced that a man of his intelligence and strength

Zoe Wanamaker25:38

and his wish should be denied him.

Zoe Wanamaker25:42

It has made me very strongly believe in euthanasia.

Presenter25:46

I mean, I ask you these things, not obviously out of any morbid history or wishing to realise, but.

Zoe Wanamaker25:50

No, no, no.

Presenter25:51

It just is very interesting to hear of somebody who has been at that point when they felt euthanasia was the only

Presenter25:58

right thing to do because you still, don't you, you still have to choose that moment and decide right were had you been able to do it, right, now is the moment when the fatal dose will be administered. Do you really think you would have been capable of doing that?

Zoe Wanamaker26:12

Definitely.

Zoe Wanamaker26:14

He wanted it.

Zoe Wanamaker26:15

He wanted it, he talked about it.

Zoe Wanamaker26:19

When

Zoe Wanamaker26:19

Somebody of that strength wants it, you want it for them.

Zoe Wanamaker26:24

And as he said

Zoe Wanamaker26:25

My quality of life is n is nil.

Zoe Wanamaker26:28

I don't want to go on like this. I can't go on like this. I don't want to.

Zoe Wanamaker26:32

Where should I?

Zoe Wanamaker26:34

The pain was must have been incredible.

Presenter26:39

But in the end the the project he cared about so deeply, the building of the Globe Theatre near its original site in Southwark that's going ahead that's nearing completion, isn't it?

Zoe Wanamaker26:50

Yes. It was an incredible struggle and I think I suppose it's it just goes with his life really. He struggled when he was young, um, and it went on that way all through his life, and so he I suppose he had to struggle to die in a way.

Presenter27:07

Number seven.

Zoe Wanamaker27:10

This is Marla's ninth.

Zoe Wanamaker27:13

I first heard this piece of music.

Zoe Wanamaker27:15

In Manchester at a concert.

Zoe Wanamaker27:18

And I read the programme notes about it and it was written when Mahler knew he was dying.

Zoe Wanamaker27:25

And it has in it.

Zoe Wanamaker27:28

Such anger, such love, such

Zoe Wanamaker27:33

Hope.

Zoe Wanamaker27:35

Incredible passion.

Zoe Wanamaker27:38

When Dad died.

Zoe Wanamaker27:40

I went home and

Zoe Wanamaker27:43

Put this on.

Presenter28:44

Part of the final movement of Mahler's Symphony No. nine, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karian. So how will Zoe want to make a make out on a desert island? I mean, is she the stuff that successful castaways are made of?

Zoe Wanamaker28:58

Well, if it's one that looks like Antigua or the Seychelles or something, then I would

Zoe Wanamaker29:03

make up very well.

Zoe Wanamaker29:05

Um if it's not, I don't like bugs and I don't like snakes and I don't like creepy crawlers.

Presenter29:11

But you all write on your own.

Zoe Wanamaker29:13

Yes, I don't mind being on my own.

Zoe Wanamaker29:16

I

Zoe Wanamaker29:17

We'll miss the sound of of chatter and human voice, very much so.

Zoe Wanamaker29:22

I don't like the dark too much.

Zoe Wanamaker29:25

I think I'll be all right.

Presenter29:26

But away from the critics and away from an audience, will you use the opportunity to

Presenter29:32

indulge in a part you've always wanted to play that perhaps could never be yours for any kind of reason.

Zoe Wanamaker29:38

No.

Presenter29:40

Don't covet anything.

Zoe Wanamaker29:41

No, I think it's wrong to.

Presenter29:44

What do you do? Just take it as it comes.

Zoe Wanamaker29:46

Ooh.

Presenter29:46

You don't you're not a planner.

Zoe Wanamaker29:48

No.

Zoe Wanamaker29:49

No.

Presenter29:50

All you're trying to plan is a holiday and that doesn't happen.

Zoe Wanamaker29:52

Yes, that never happens.

Presenter29:54

And what about that early advice from your parents, you know, that that the acting profession is a soul destroying business? I mean, were you right to ignore it, do you think?

Zoe Wanamaker30:03

It can be, yes, it can be very soul destroying.

Presenter30:06

But your soul isn't destroyed, is it?

Zoe Wanamaker30:08

Yeah.

Presenter30:08

I can tell.

Zoe Wanamaker30:09

Yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker30:10

Yeah.

Presenter30:10

Let's have the last piece of music.

Zoe Wanamaker30:14

This is Ella.

Zoe Wanamaker30:16

Just because there's another genius and

Zoe Wanamaker30:19

It's a wonderful song.

Presenter30:21

And you want genius on your own.

Zoe Wanamaker30:23

Yeah.

Presenter30:23

Uh

Zoe Wanamaker30:23

Oh, all the time.

Presenter30:24

There's no love

Speaker 230:26

Sung finer, but how strange the change from major to minor

Zoe Wanamaker30:36

Uh

Speaker 230:36

Every time

Zoe Wanamaker30:37

Time we say

Speaker 230:40

Uh

Zoe Wanamaker30:40

Yeah.

Presenter30:40

Uh Goodbye.

Presenter30:46

Ella Fitzgerald and every time we say goodbye. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, I think.

Zoe Wanamaker30:51

would have to be the Requiem.

Presenter30:54

The Vaddi.

Zoe Wanamaker30:55

Because it is so full, jam-packed of stuff.

Presenter30:58

So if the best value is the longest.

Zoe Wanamaker31:00

Exactly.

Presenter31:00

Exactly. What about your book?

Zoe Wanamaker31:03

I think it would be

Zoe Wanamaker31:05

The Greek myths.

Zoe Wanamaker31:07

Robert Graves's

Zoe Wanamaker31:08

books because especially on a desert island it's something that I keep forgetting who is who.

Zoe Wanamaker31:14

about the Greek myths, they're also so full of life.

Zoe Wanamaker31:19

and Lessons to be learnt from life.

Presenter31:23

And your luxury.

Zoe Wanamaker31:24

Well, that's difficult because the latria it's a hard one because I would like um a radio so I could listen to the World Service and hear music and plays and discussions and the Goon Show.

Zoe Wanamaker31:36

and then a piano because I would love to learn to play, and then a constant pipe going to the champagne region in France, so I would have champagne on tap, so it's a bit difficult to choose.

Presenter31:48

You have to choose one. I would have thought you'd have chosen your

Presenter31:51

Tobacco pout on your little rolling up machine.

Zoe Wanamaker31:54

Ah, yes.

Presenter31:55

which is in fairly active use, yeah.

Zoe Wanamaker31:57

It is.

Zoe Wanamaker31:58

I think

Zoe Wanamaker31:59

Possibly.

Zoe Wanamaker32:01

My father would hate that, though.

Zoe Wanamaker32:03

But I would take that as a luxury.

Zoe Wanamaker32:05

I suppose. Do you think I should?

Presenter32:07

Uh Looks to me as if you should, yeah, but I mean

Zoe Wanamaker32:09

Take my constant supply of Sampson tobacco and Ritzler licorice papers and a rolling machine.

Presenter32:16

So we want to make it very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 232:28

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