Lynda La Plante

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

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

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a writer. She comes from Liverpool and began her professional life as an actress, playing in Rep for six years and in Brian Rix's Whitehall Farces. But acting bored her, and she crossed the line to the writer's chair. Since when she's never looked back.

Presenter0:45

Prolific and highly successful too, she's the author of popular and admired television series such as Widows, Civvies, and Prime Suspect. She's also written five novels, and, even though the work keeps coming, admits to a fear of not being able to do it again. She is Linda Laplante.

Presenter1:05

I don't know about not being able to come up with another story, Linda. I mean, I gather your office and your study and all the places you work are are littered with unfinished manuscripts, unpublished, unproduced bits and pieces. You must have a mass of it.

Presenter1:17

Yes, do you remember Markham and Wise and he used to say, Oh, I'll just go right a play in five minutes.

Presenter1:22

I don't know how she'd do it in five minutes, but I think the fear.

Presenter1:25

is um that I will be caught out.

Presenter1:29

That um somebody's going to say, Oh wait, wait a minute.

Presenter1:33

This isn't as good as everybody says.

Presenter1:35

And that is the fear that generates this energy in me.

Presenter1:39

But haven't you proved it to yourself by now? I mean, you really have had a string of hits. Perhaps it's because it's all happened in such a short period of time. I mean, you've only been writing for twelve years.

Presenter1:48

No, I I think there's that wonderful thing. I remember somebody telling me about John Gilgard, who uh

Presenter1:54

had these incredible reviews in uh about a play, and they went into his dressing room and he said, Oh, I'm so depressed, I've got a very bad review And they said, But said, John, you've got wonderful reviews.

Presenter2:06

And he's in who the Jewish Chronicle hated me.

Presenter2:09

And there is some element in me with it.

Presenter2:12

I am like a a kind of tigress about criticism, I like to succeed.

Presenter2:18

Was there a specific moment when you ceased to be an actress and became a writer? I mean, can you remember something happening or how did it come about? Well, I've always written since I was and I've been a storyteller since I was probably four to five years of age. Some people call it a liar.

Presenter2:35

But I remember the very moment when uh acting stopped.

Presenter2:40

And that was when I'd written my first series Widows.

Presenter2:44

And I went in to see Verity Lambert, and there I'd written these four mega-rolls.

Presenter2:49

Obviously somewhere in my psyche I said one of the roles, I will play myself.

Presenter2:56

Because I'd even called her Linda.

Presenter2:58

And Verity looked at me and she said, Well, which one of the women are you going to play?

Presenter3:03

And there was that extraordinary moment

Presenter3:05

When I knew

Presenter3:07

I wasn't right for any of them.

Presenter3:09

And I said

Presenter3:11

I don't think I can play any one of them, and the relief on her face was extraordinary.

Presenter3:17

And I said, I don't believe I've done this. I've written myself out of a leading role. But I never ever.

Presenter3:23

I never acted again. But you were, what, thirty six when that happened. Why had you never written before then? Not written a piece and presented it to a film producer like Virginia Lumber.

Speaker 13:28

Back.

Presenter3:36

Well, I hadn't written television. I'd written stage. And.

Presenter3:41

That is where it's quite odd because my My World was staged.

Presenter3:46

I very rarely did T V, but I did an awful lot of stage productions.

Presenter3:52

More of that in a moment. But first, a record for your desert island. Now, what's the first one and why?

Presenter3:57

Well, I've chosen Eric Clapton's Give Me Straight.

Presenter4:00

Uh it has two.

Presenter4:02

Very big meanings for me. I think

Presenter4:05

When I first had it, it was.

Presenter4:07

quite a while ago.

Presenter4:10

But I've always loved it, and somehow Eric Clapton, when he lost his little boy.

Presenter4:16

He had a son that he'd always said that he would love to have a child.

Presenter4:21

I've always wanted a son.

Presenter4:23

And to me

Presenter4:24

That he's come through that.

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And his.

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Still performing, and he's done.

Presenter4:30

Extraordinary things to make an awful lot of people understand grief.

Presenter4:35

And come through it.

Presenter4:37

And so give me strength.

Presenter4:39

It is like my song for all those people that

Presenter4:42

You can come through it.

Lynda La Plante4:43

Hello

Lynda La Plante4:46

Give me strength.

Lynda La Plante4:49

Carry on.

Lynda La Plante4:57

Hello

Lynda La Plante5:00

Give me strength.

Lynda La Plante5:04

Uh

Presenter5:04

Yeah.

Presenter5:06

Eric Clapton and Give Me Strength. Your reputation, Linda Laplant, is for strong stories, often dealing with criminality and always including strong, feisty women. How much do you invent those people, like Dolly Rawlins in Widows or or D C I Jane Tennyson in Prime Suspect, or have you actually met them in real life? Dolly Rawlins, where's her?

Presenter5:28

A woman on the next store when I when I was broke.

Presenter5:31

I used to run this market store.

Presenter5:34

um, down in Lissom Grove. It was just junk, really.

Presenter5:38

And uh second hand clothes, mostly my own.

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But I was so broke that um

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Every Saturday I'd go off with my little store.

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And uh

Presenter5:49

I slowly began to

Presenter5:51

uh get to know everyone in the market, and there was one woman, Audrey,

Presenter5:56

Who used to?

Presenter5:58

Ranafruit and Vestal

Presenter5:59

But she was so abrasive, she was so incredibly rude to everybody.

Lynda La Plante6:05

Hmm.

Presenter6:05

And yet still no matter how nasty she was,

Presenter6:09

There was something inside this woman that you knew.

Presenter6:13

Like, I I I'd had maybe a few conversations with her and her boyfriend left me.

Presenter6:18

And of all the people to go to, I said, Oh, I'll do something. I'm so unhappy, and this guy left me. And she said, Come on, darling, come on, come here, come give her a cup of tea. Right, close the store, bang. And she sat with me in this dreadful tea hat. She said, I can't go on, go on. Call him a bastard, go on, call him a bastard, call him a bastard, call him. Shouldn't have left you, shouldn't have left you. No, no, he shouldn't have left you.

Presenter6:39

And this was you're at this extraordinary relationship form. But what but what about people I mean, in Prime Suspect, for example, you've got you've got prostitutes and pornography and a serial kid. I mean, what about those kinds of people?

Speaker 16:44

The woo

Speaker 16:47

But you've

Speaker 16:50

Yeah.

Presenter6:53

Well, the prostitute was because Audrey when I first started writing Widow.

Presenter6:58

She said to me, she said, Listen, if you're going to write about people like me, she said, come and find them, talk to them. She said.

Presenter7:05

You don't know him?

Presenter7:06

So she took me to her well.

Presenter7:09

And as an actress I'd played a prostitute and had that

Presenter7:13

Extraordinary egotistical, obviously I know how to play a prostitute, you know, just put on a tacky skirt, high-heeled shoes, and go, Hello, love.

Presenter7:21

And I actually went to meet the prostitutes.

Presenter7:24

And Audrey gave me the first signals.

Presenter7:28

And she said, Never ever disrespect anyone that you meet. So if you're meeting a talk.

Presenter7:34

If she's losing business'cause you're there, pay her.

Presenter7:38

And so that's how I began to form relationships with a lot of the prostitutes that said, No, you got it wrong. It isn't like that. It's like this. And you go into prisons or have done too, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. What what sort of people would you meet there? What sort of people would you talk to?

Presenter7:53

In prison I found it excruciatingly difficult to hold on.

Presenter7:59

to um the control.

Presenter8:02

Of the smile, I call it. Okay, yeah, yeah. Because sometimes.

Presenter8:07

I have been.

Presenter8:09

Totally, utterly devastated.

Presenter8:12

Not by brutality, not by violence.

Presenter8:16

But by the confusion of the criminal mind.

Presenter8:23

Pretty sinister characters in your time, and heard some pretty strong stuff. Have you?

Presenter8:30

Have you ever felt

Presenter8:32

so disgusted that you've wanted to turn away, or have you?

Presenter8:35

Wonder if you felt that perhaps you shouldn't be recycling it for television entertainment?

Presenter8:40

Um

Presenter8:41

No, I've never felt that I shouldn't recycle. I'm a very, very simple person and without a great education.

Presenter8:49

Therefore, what takes me?

Presenter8:51

and sometimes moves me.

Presenter8:54

I feel that I can place onto the page and open up into a film.

Presenter8:58

They can also move and open other people's minds.

Presenter9:03

Record number two.

Presenter9:05

Kathleen Ferrier's What is Life?

Presenter9:08

My granny used to play this. My granny was a great Liverpoolian lady. And.

Presenter9:14

Later on, when I was researching for widows.

Presenter9:18

I met.

Presenter9:20

A woman whose husband was imprisoned for life, eighteen years jail sentence.

Presenter9:25

And um when I went into her council flat, she was playing.

Presenter9:30

the same piece of music. And what fascinated me was when I went into the T V studios.

Presenter9:36

And I said, Oh, by the way

Presenter9:38

The criminal's wife is playing this piece of music.

Presenter9:43

The reaction was, Oh, no, I don't really think a woman from that sort of

Presenter9:47

Background would be playing this music. Who thinks here? As a rang on the second my granny used to play that music.

Presenter9:52

And she was playing it when I went into the flat. Yes, but I mean it's rather classical, isn't it, for a sort of East End criminal's wife.

Presenter9:59

And eventually I said, play it, because this is what she listened to.

Presenter10:04

And that was the moment when I realized.

Presenter10:08

I think more than I'd ever realized before, this appalling class system we have here.

Presenter10:14

And so

Presenter10:16

I stuck by it and Kathleen Ferrier sang for me in Widdes.

Lynda La Plante10:26

What is left to God?

Lynda La Plante10:33

Fears Mars.

Lynda La Plante10:36

I swear nothing for his mind.

Lynda La Plante10:47

It's my

Lynda La Plante11:01

You're a dear friend.

Lynda La Plante11:04

I hear you.

Presenter11:20

Kathleen Ferrier singing What Is Life from Glux Ofeo ed Uridice

Presenter11:24

You're obviously, Linda, a lot more worldly wise than you were when you were a teenager at Rada drama school, when apparently Iain McShane had to take you on one side, Lovejoy as we know him today, and tell you the facts of life, is that right? Yes. Him him and John Hurt, actually, the pair of them were

Presenter11:41

They described it well, I'm sure.

Presenter11:44

I mean, it's hard to believe, but I mean, I was terribly, terribly young to be at Rodder. I shouldn't have been there. I was fifteen.

Presenter11:52

and I had no knowledge of the facts of life at all. And I always remember at one party

Presenter11:58

Hurtling out of where they'd thrown the coats to and I say, Who won't believe what's going on in there?

Presenter12:04

I said there's two blokes, and they're kissing each other.

Presenter12:07

And they said, So what?

Presenter12:09

I don't know, it's true, it's true, they are, they are, really, honestly. As I come out, they said, just just shut the door. I said, But they are the two, the two men.

Presenter12:18

So McShane comes over and goes, Oh, for God's sake, what are you doing?

Presenter12:22

And I asked him, Well, nobody believed me He said, Oh, of course they believe you, you stupid foot.

Presenter12:27

He said

Presenter12:29

That's what some people do. I said what?

Presenter12:31

He's aware, you know, you have uh men that go with men.

Presenter12:35

De don't I said

Presenter12:38

He said you ought to have women that go with women.

Presenter12:41

What?

Presenter12:42

But the realization of just how incredibly naïve I was was.

Presenter12:48

Uh, kind of a shocking. They used to call me the Virgin Couch. So anything that went on, they'd say Virgin Couch home and they'd kick me out. And you didn't get on very well either professionally, did you? You always got the the duff parts. Oh, dreadful, dreadful parts. They used to have a bulletin board where they would put up

Presenter13:05

Your parts for the year.

Presenter13:08

And this was terribly, terribly important.

Presenter13:10

From these parts you could get an agent.

Presenter13:14

And so the day these parts went up

Presenter13:17

was like the thunder of, you know, feet as they elbowed each other.

Presenter13:22

And I looked at this board and my heart it was just the worst moment, I think, of my youth.

Presenter13:29

Old Croker aged sixty-eight.

Presenter13:33

The Sister Teresa, seventy eight first act, aged eighty four in the second act.

Presenter13:40

And then there was another ancient aunt, Edith, seventy-four in brackets, deaf mute.

Presenter13:46

And these were my final

Presenter13:49

parts that I was going to get an agent and it was like

Presenter13:53

It was just dreadful. I mean, it broke my heart. I did ask the principal if I could audition for his parts his daughters was playing, but I was thrown out of his office.

Presenter14:04

But the wonderful thing was, in many years well, not many years, about four years later, I was at Liverpool Repertory Company.

Presenter14:11

and I was with the lovely now Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Presenter14:15

And the play was called Godini.

Presenter14:18

And I was playing as described in

Presenter14:21

The play

Presenter14:22

The most beautiful, stunning heiress in Venice.

Presenter14:27

And there I was, plains, and there was a tap on my door.

Presenter14:31

And the doorman said, Excuse me, Miss Linda said there's somebody from Rada, it's ye your principal or so.

Presenter14:38

Hazard do send him in.

Presenter14:41

And he came in.

Presenter14:43

And this is a man who destroyed my life.

Presenter14:47

Elizabeth, oh, my darling, you are absolutely beautiful.

Presenter14:50

And I won't tell you what I said, but I'd waited a long time to say it.

Presenter14:55

You tell him to go away.

Presenter14:57

Record number three.

Presenter15:00

Okay, this is Bob Dylan entangled up in blue, because uh around about this time after the repertory acting.

Presenter15:09

was really my period of uh

Presenter15:11

The major hippie. I got tangled up in an awful lot of things that I shouldn't have got tangled up in.

Presenter15:18

But uh I've chosen this.

Presenter15:20

Because it is the tangled up moment of my life, but I also had a great time.

Speaker 315:26

Helped her out of a jam I guess, but it used a little too much force We drove that car as far as we could, abandoned it out west

Speaker 315:36

Swell up on the docks at night for the green it was best And she turned around to look at me as I was walking away

Speaker 315:46

I heard it say over my shoulder, We'll beat again someday on the avenue.

Speaker 315:53

Tangle lovely blue

Presenter15:56

Bob Dylan and Tangled Up in Blue. Did you want to act? There was no family history of it. You hadn't done any at school. There was no television at home. Where did it come from?

Speaker 116:02

Uh

Speaker 316:02

So

Speaker 116:02

Oh.

Presenter16:06

I wanted to be a ballet dancer. The fact that I was always one step behind everybody else didn't really become clear until I was seen on the stage when everybody went left, I went right.

Presenter16:16

And um they decided that um my ballet career might not be the greatest choice.

Presenter16:23

Obviously by this time they'd sussed out academically. I wasn't much good.

Presenter16:28

And so I I started to do elocution.

Presenter16:31

And uh I mean, I didn't know you ever acted with anybody else, for example. I thought you just acted with yourself.

Presenter16:37

So you were a show-off, oh, yeah. Dreadful show-off. But I was.

Lynda La Plante16:37

So you're a show-off, are you?

Speaker 116:38

Yeah.

Presenter16:41

I think now, in retrospect, I think a lot of it was due.

Presenter16:46

Two, severe word blindness and problems. I had a terrible problem reading. Dyslexia. Yeah.

Presenter16:52

And things like I Remember Miss Ash.

Presenter16:54

Miss Ashe said, Would you stand up and read, Linda? And I picked up this book and I was reading.

Presenter17:00

And she was so good'cause she waited till the class was over, and then she said, Linda, what is the book that you're reading?

Presenter17:09

And uh I said those little women.

Presenter17:12

She said no it isn't.

Presenter17:14

So my memory was that good that I could actually stand up.

Presenter17:17

And read turn pages. But I I wasn't even reading from the right book. So you you fibbed and fudged about. Oh, no, about everything.

Speaker 117:23

Oh, nothing.

Presenter17:26

Uh but

Presenter17:27

You just thought you were thick, did you? Well, I I didn't think. I mean, my father told me it numerous times.

Presenter17:34

Coming out of the Eleven Plus was the classic one, and he said, So how did you do? I said it was the easiest exam I've ever had in my life.

Presenter17:42

I said, I've sailed through. He said, oh, that's very good. Is it what kind of things did they ask you? I said, stupid questions. I said, do you know they asked me?

Presenter17:50

What's heaviest a pound o' coal or a pound of feathers?

Presenter17:53

He said, Well, what did you say? Well, pound of coal, of course. So he said, All right. He knew he knew that.

Presenter18:01

This daughter's going to be a problem. And what about your parents? I mean, if they went all through that with you, what do they think of you today? I mean, do they understand where?

Presenter18:10

where this writing talent has all come from.

Presenter18:12

No, not at all, not at all.

Presenter18:15

They look at me as if I have two heads sometimes. I know, I suppose, they're proud.

Presenter18:20

But they really don't understand it.

Presenter18:22

particularly my mother. She does look at me sometimes.

Presenter18:26

With a bemused look, I don't know where you get it from, you know.

Presenter18:30

I mean, these filthy scenes you write about.

Presenter18:34

I'm glad some of my friends aren't here to read about them. And she just mutters to herself, or seller tapes up certain areas. Well, so your dad can't read them.

Presenter18:43

I'm not having him read them.

Presenter18:45

And my brother, who of course is Count to Very County,

Presenter18:49

He just looks at me with a a bemused look in his face.

Presenter18:54

It's because it's ve because I I became a clown.

Presenter18:58

And always was the clown.

Presenter19:00

which is an amazing front.

Presenter19:03

to be able

Presenter19:05

To hide behind. But now you're the big success, and they can't quite make the leap, is that what you're saying?

Presenter19:10

No, I'm still the clown. So they kind of wait in some ways for a straight person to come out, really.

Presenter19:19

Let's have some more music.

Presenter19:21

Oh, they cannot push a bell.

Presenter19:24

Well, as I said, you know, I really fancied myself as a ballerina.

Presenter19:27

And this is a piece of music.

Presenter19:30

that I used to love to dance to.

Presenter19:33

albeit probably out of time and out of rhythm.

Presenter19:37

But I don't even mind that it was used for a wool commercial.

Presenter19:41

I still find this delightful.

Presenter19:44

Summer piece of music.

Presenter20:44

The canon from Pachelbel's Canon and Jigue in D major, played by the English concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock.

Presenter20:51

You spent six years working um with Brian Riggs in the Whitehall Farces. It was a good booking for an inexperienced actress. How did you get the part? I went up for a Cynthia part. There in all the Whitehall Farces they used to have a Cynthia.

Presenter21:04

Um who the lead, handsome man always fell in love with Cynthia.

Presenter21:08

And uh the Whitehall Theatre we went into the stage door and there was somebody waiting and they said, Excuse me, Mr Ricks, we'll see you in a minute. And he was always very pleasant and he said, Hello and what part are you reading for, Cynthia?

Presenter21:22

So it was Oh, Auntie, hello, lovely to see you. Right, tea?

Presenter21:26

And then I got a thank you very much, so I didn't actually get through the scene. And so I get off the side of the stage and it's complete darkness, and I've never been very good in the dark.

Presenter21:36

And so I don't know where I'm going. So I see this door.

Presenter21:39

And I go down under the stage, and now I'm completely lost. It's inky black. I'm right beneath the stage, and I can hear all these Cynthias still being auditioned. Hello, hello, Auntie, hello, and it's Brian Mick saying thank you very much. Sometimes they were doing very well. They got a lot longer than I got on the stage.

Presenter21:59

And I just I I got to a complete freak down there'cause I thought I could be down here forever.

Presenter22:05

Oh, God And slowly my radar voice is being lost with the panic. Oh god, I don't know where I am. Oh, I don't know what I say. Uh I better go back. Find your way back. So I'm on my hands and knees crawling back with my handbag.

Speaker 122:12

So

Presenter22:20

And I crawled back the way I came from and I burst onto the stage and said, I'm terribly sorry.

Presenter22:25

But I can't find my way out of here I've been under the stage.

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And he looked at me and he said, What part of you come to read?

Presenter22:33

And I said, I've just read for Cynthia.

Presenter22:36

But I've been under the stage.

Presenter22:38

And he said, Would you like to read for The Maid? He said, There's a wonderful part of a maid.

Presenter22:43

And I read the part of the maid, of course, who was like, That ooh, I'm sorry I've now forgotten the tea, I've not served the tea. And so I got the part.

Presenter22:50

But before that in rep and then after that in television series such as The Minder and The Sweeney and Gentle Touch and so on, you played prostitutes. You played prostitute a lot, haven't you? Yes, unbelievable amount. Why do you think you were so often cast in such parts? Because I've got red hair, look a bit like a tart.

Presenter23:08

Exactly.

Presenter23:09

Every single T V I ever went up for I played a prostitute. You you also had a stand-up routine at one point in you in which you cast yourself, I think, as a man, but a man in a dirty ra I mean a flash up. Yes, yes, a disgusting little old man. I love that. Lot of disgusting parts you played. Yes, yes, repellent little person. Well, is it is it no coincidence then that some of your most successful dramas have been connected with

Speaker 123:11

Then

Speaker 123:12

You

Speaker 123:21

Yeah.

Presenter23:33

Sexual crimes? No, I was never an a perverted little sexual man. I was I was a lovely little drunk.

Presenter23:41

This was a period of total innocence for me.

Presenter23:44

But the sexual crimes themselves do occur and recur. I mean, Prime Suspect and in your latest book, Cold Shoulder. Is it I mean, is it something that particularly fascinates you or is it simply that it's a good seller?

Presenter23:58

I wanted to show.

Presenter24:00

That this woman that I was putting on the screen.

Presenter24:05

was not disgusted.

Presenter24:07

By what she had to handle.

Presenter24:10

And so I chose to depict something.

Presenter24:14

It was particularly horrific.

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To show

Presenter24:18

The way she dealt with it. So it was not me necessarily thinking, Ooh, I'm going to get into ooh sex crimes and such.

Presenter24:27

I chose it because I wanted to put her

Presenter24:31

in a light that had not been seen before.

Presenter24:35

Record number five.

Presenter24:37

Well, it's my lovely Luciano Poverotti singing lesson dorma, sometimes when I'm working and writing, and this has been going on for years.

Presenter24:47

I can't crack a scene and I go over and over and over it, and I know it's got to come through.

Presenter24:53

And whenever I can't get through, I put this on and I think if

Presenter24:57

Big man can get that note. I'll get the scene. And it always works.

Lynda La Plante25:26

That's free.

Presenter26:00

Luciano Peverotti singing Nesundona from Puccini's Turundotte with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Presenter26:08

You also write, Linda Laplante, about areas which might be considered mail preserves, the boxing ring and the pub and the police station and so on. And it was a couple of years ago that you wrote about the army in Civis, about um the emotional and practical problems faced by a group of paras released after, what, twenty years' service. How did you come across that story?

Presenter26:28

I met a group of paratroopers because they were working for a builder. He just came to me and he said, Listen, there's some mates of mine and they can't get a job.

Presenter26:36

He said they're lovely guys.

Presenter26:38

Is there any way you could get them maybe some work on security firm or something?

Presenter26:44

And I tried and I failed because

Presenter26:47

Every time I mentioned to the people that I knew ran security firms,

Presenter26:51

that they were paratroopers, they just said a flat No.

Presenter26:55

Yes, they would take an ex-prisoner. Yes, they'd take an ex-police officer, but they didn't want to know paratrooper.

Speaker 127:01

Uh

Presenter27:02

They just said they were trouble.

Presenter27:03

That was that. So you championed their cause, as it were, through civis. But it it did bring you a lot of trouble and a lot of nasty letters and but the the the

Presenter27:12

The problem was was that

Presenter27:15

I overestimated.

Presenter27:18

The boys that I I'd help.

Presenter27:21

And when the B B C first accepted that series, it had an up ending.

Presenter27:26

They were all successful.

Presenter27:28

We had engineered a firm for them.

Presenter27:31

And they were on their own and they were surviving and they were back into civvies.

Presenter27:35

When the B B C eventually made their mind up to do the series.

Presenter27:39

Three and a half years later there was a different ending. Every single one was in prison.

Presenter27:44

It made me deeply angry the betrayal these men had done to me.

Presenter27:49

And so I wrote Civvies.

Presenter27:51

There's an angry

Presenter27:53

Plea.

Presenter27:54

that the government

Presenter27:56

must do something about post traumatic stress. It does exist. And now we've actually got one upfront payment of somebody that was in the Gulf War of one hundred fifty thousand pounds because of post traumatic stress.

Presenter28:10

Record number six.

Presenter28:12

Okay.

Presenter28:13

Dar Straits, Brothers in Arms, which is to the boys that I work with in Civvies.

Presenter28:19

And for my dear friend Mark Knopfler, who wrote it.

Presenter28:23

And the nice thing is that Mark and I are working together on a musical.

Lynda La Plante28:27

There's so many different words.

Lynda La Plante28:34

So many different songs.

Lynda La Plante28:40

And we have to

Lynda La Plante28:46

But we live in different worlds.

Presenter28:57

Dire Straits and Brothers in Arms. You're already very popular in America, Linda. You've got a mini series out about the Mafia. You were writing a screenplay for MGM and you're writing a screenplay of Prime Suspect for Universal. I read somewhere that Barbara Streisen rang you up after a script and she was. Yeah, she was she wanted Prime Suspect. Does she want to play it or produce it? No, she wanted to produce it and play it.

Speaker 129:18

It opened.

Lynda La Plante29:18

Uh

Presenter29:20

And on the day that she called me, I thought it was a joke.

Presenter29:23

In fact, I didn't know who the hell it was on the other end of the line, and I could hear this.

Presenter29:29

And she kept going, anyway. Listen, I want to talk about plants aspects. I said, Are you on a bike?

Presenter29:35

And I thought it was Barbara Thorne, who's an actress friend of mine who was in the Bill, who often calls me out and goes, Hi, how you doing, kid?

Presenter29:42

And so I had this extraordinarily double edged conversation. Well, you knew it was a Barbara. But it was Barbara. And she kept asking me over and over about Prime Suspect and why does he kill

Presenter29:54

And and and why does he plead innocent at the end? And I said, Well, because I mean, he's a psychopath, he's not going to plead guilty because he thinks he's innocent, doesn't he? I thought stupid woman.

Presenter30:04

And then

Presenter30:05

She says, Well, I see, okay. So uh uh I got it. See, when I directed Prince of Tides and starred in it, I thought, ooh.

Presenter30:14

Oh, I was about to say, oh, oh, and I did this extraordinary, creepy quote I've got all your album.

Presenter30:23

You didn't say it. I did, I said it. What was the point?

Speaker 130:23

I did.

Presenter30:27

She was on a pedal bike.

Presenter30:28

An exercise bike. Yes, she was doing her morning calls on a bike. I see. Yes, totally expected in LA.

Speaker 130:29

Yeah.

Presenter30:35

But she's on the next table to me at the Ben Air Hotel, I thought.

Presenter30:39

Oh, it's Bob Streisen.

Presenter30:41

And in my mind I thought, Okay, hello, Barbara, little plant you call me I thought, hello.

Presenter30:46

Hi, Barbara.

Presenter30:48

And then when I had sort of plucked up the courage to go no, she gone

Presenter30:52

And then I looked on the other and there's Don Johnson on the other table. And it was extraordinary because Don Johnson had called me because of cold shoulder. Here, you become like a tenuum. Hilly You call me up.

Presenter31:06

Total stuttering idiot. But is it enjoyable, or do you find yourself just just bewildered by that kind of success?

Presenter31:13

All right, the the success is knockout. I mean, I love it.

Presenter31:16

Let's have another record. Okay, the next one is Ruby Tuesday by Melanie. People are oh, God.

Presenter31:24

What a dreadful choice.

Presenter31:26

And as a fact I am a very happy little person.

Presenter31:29

And I'd never ever been hurt in my life until

Presenter31:33

This guy I was with

Presenter31:36

Informed me that he was moving out.

Presenter31:38

And I was so shattered by this, and so stunned that anybody could leave me,

Presenter31:43

And this was the record.

Presenter31:45

that I used to play over and over.

Lynda La Plante31:48

While the sun is bright oying The darkest night no one knows

Lynda La Plante32:03

Come less and then she goes.

Presenter32:17

Melanie and Ruby Tuesday. Do you think you're a difficult person to live with, Linda?

Presenter32:22

Though I really am may as well say absolutely not.

Presenter32:26

I've never been one to have a very close, close friendship with.

Presenter32:31

Either male or female. My husband is my friend.

Presenter32:36

Most of the time he isn't, but um

Presenter32:38

A lot of the time he is my mate. But I'm trying to imagine you on on a desert island. I mean, you're obviously happy with your own company. You're obviously therefore quite self-sufficient. You're quite practical.

Speaker 132:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter32:50

You're you're fundamentally optimistic, you're a happy little soul, you say.

Speaker 132:53

Yeah.

Lynda La Plante32:54

Uh

Presenter32:54

You got confidence. You got guts. Sing a lot.

Presenter32:59

So by the sound of it, sitting alone on a desert island, I mean there's nothing you're going to miss very much, is there?

Presenter33:05

Never mind, my dog.

Presenter33:07

Few things.

Presenter33:10

Of course I'd miss everything.

Presenter33:12

Everything.

Presenter33:13

Because

Presenter33:14

He would.

Presenter33:15

You can only say you don't miss anything.

Presenter33:19

If it's just round the corner. But I would miss everything. So you're not quite as self-sufficient as you make out.

Speaker 133:20

So I would

Presenter33:24

Totally not at all. A terrible liar.

Presenter33:28

Last record.

Presenter33:29

Well, I had a problem here. It was Bedevravis Bonjali.

Presenter33:33

U Two's Wild Horses, The Doors, Loves all of them have strong meanings for me, but I'm going for Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses'cause if I die I want to die on a Bed of Roses.

Lynda La Plante33:46

Believe on the b

Lynda La Plante33:53

Be justice closest, your mother ghost is lay you down.

Presenter34:11

Bon Jove and Bed of Roses, if you could only take one of those eight records, Linda.

Presenter34:16

I suppose I'd have to go with Peverotti because, I mean, if he's gonna do that to get me into a script.

Presenter34:22

He might give me the strength to plunge in and swim to.

Presenter34:26

This extraordinary glittering yacht I can see on the horizon.

Presenter34:30

What about your book? I've had problems with my book, but there is one that um has never ceased to frighten me and to also.

Presenter34:39

give me tremendous enjoyment, and that is Balsac's fairy story.

Presenter34:44

and in the copy of the book that I have which is very, very old.

Presenter34:48

They are the most extraordinary pictures, so

Presenter34:51

That is the book I would take.

Presenter34:53

And what about a luxury?

Presenter34:55

Will it be a mouth organ?

Presenter34:56

But I decided a mouth organ was terribly simple, very quick to grab if you're sinking somewhere.

Presenter35:02

Be in my pocket anyway. Also, the other thing

Presenter35:05

is if somebody was to come ashore and they hear a happy little mouth organ.

Presenter35:09

They're not going to think there's anybody dangerous there.

Presenter35:13

It's a welcoming sound, I'll thought.

Presenter35:16

Indela Plant, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 135:27

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