David Jason OBE

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.

Presenter0:27

My Castaway this Christmas is one of this country's most popular actors. His father was a fishmonger and his mother a char lady, and he himself worked as an electrician before he thought seriously about acting.

Presenter0:39

He did his first professional work at Bromley Rep and Summer Seasons and Pantos before he was spotted for a television show called Do Not Adjust Your Set. Some success in both radio and television followed, but no great fame, until, in his early forties, the B B C offered him the part of a Cockney Wide Boy in a new comedy called Only Fools and Horses.

Presenter1:01

Delboy made him a household name. A decade later he endeared himself to even more millions as Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May. He needs no further introduction from me. He is, obviously, David Jason.

Presenter1:13

Recognition was a long time coming, David. Does it make it all the sweeter?

Presenter1:19

Yes, I suppose it does really. The giddy heights of fame one never really thought that they were to be for me. I was always going to be a jobbing actor, a working character actor. So when that sort of fame, if you like, started to come with Fools and Horses, it was a little bit of a shock. But it was a rocky path, wasn't it, to the top? Presumably not one you'd recommend.

David Jason OBE1:37

Yeah, because you might

Presenter1:40

No, I wouldn't. Because

Presenter1:43

You've got to be monk like or nunlike. It is a vocation, and to me it was a vocation. It was the only thing that I wanted to do was to be on that stage and entertain people. But it's a great story. It's a great success story, which I want to go into in detail with you.

David Jason OBE1:55

Uh

Speaker 21:55

And with you

Presenter1:56

It's Christmas. You're here. You've arrived. Tell me about Christmas days you've known. Presumably you must have spent an awful lot of them in boarding houses around the land doing panto. Oh, yeah. Oh, I suppose the saddest Christmas that I've ever experienced.

Presenter2:11

Whilst I was uh uh doing Pantomime in Newcastle was playing buttons in Cinderella.

Presenter2:17

What happened was, when you were working in a company, you get the company flu, and I got it about two days or a day and a half before Christmas Day.

Presenter2:26

Now there's no such thing as uh oh, I've got a doctor's certificate, can I have three days off, Gov, and you still pay me? There's none of that. You just got you're in the theatre, you gotta go on every night, and no matter if you're dying, you've got to go on and make make em laugh.

Presenter2:39

So anyway.

Presenter2:40

I struggled back after two shows Christmas Eve, fell into bed and I'm in a sweat and I'm absolute the cold is running, I'm feeling really ill.

Presenter2:50

So I wake up about

Presenter2:52

Eleven or twelve o'clock and I'm lying in bed in this hotel and I phoned down to the reception and I said, Um, excuse me, how are you doing Christmas dinner today?

Presenter3:01

They said, Yes, sir, yes, sir, certainly I said, Oh, good, there you are and I fell back to sleep. So about five o'clock I decided I've got to get out. No, it's Christmas Day. Come on, you know, enjoy yourself. Festive season. It's it's wonderful.

Presenter3:13

So I had a bath and everything, and I staggered downstairs and went into the restaurant.

Presenter3:19

It was like

Presenter3:20

Butlin's holiday camp midwinter.

Presenter3:23

Absolutely not a soul to be seen. So I went and sat at the table and I looked out of

Presenter3:28

Wind and rain swept Newcastle. I'm sitting this time saying, It's very odd, I thought, There's nobody here. It's Christmas Day, Christmas dinner, they said. So I I g eventually get up and I go to the

Presenter3:39

Kitchens, and I opened the door in the kitchens and I shouted, Hello, is anybody there? And all you could hear was my echo, Anybody there?

Presenter3:45

Hello, hello, hello.

Presenter3:48

This is not looking good.

Presenter3:50

Eventually some one comes out, and he says yes.

Presenter3:53

I said, I understand that you do Christmas dinner. Where is everybody? He said, No, Christmas dinner, that's right. Oh, yes, pet, we do that like, you know, twelve o'clock.

Presenter4:02

Lunch time. Lunch time. They call it dinner up there. I couldn't believe it. So my Christmas Day dinner ended up with cold turkey and salad, sitting on my urn, looking out over Newcastle, watching the rain fall. My one day off Christmas Day, and I looked at myself, went upstairs and looked in the mirror and went, Happy Christmas

Speaker 44:16

Bye.

David Jason OBE4:16

Yeah.

Presenter4:21

Oh dear. It's a bit like Christmas on a desert island, really, when you think of it. Well exactly. Beep be bloody sight more fun on a desert island.

David Jason OBE4:22

It's a bit like

David Jason OBE4:24

Uh

Presenter4:28

You get music on this one. What's your first record? My first record is of the Dark Town Poker Club by Phil Harris. And why do you want to? Well, there's a reason for that. When I was a young lad, my friend I had a very good friend and he came he has his family was a bit

David Jason OBE4:36

Why do you want to

Presenter4:43

better off than my family, and we used to go and play in the loft, and in the loft we found one of those very old wind up grammophone records, you know, with the speaker that goes

Presenter4:54

What are those?

Presenter4:55

And they had all these black long playing records. And one of the records that we used to play was the Dark Town Pocal and we used to love it because we tried to learn it. And I still remember quite a lot of it.

David Jason OBE5:06

Bill Jackson was a poor old devil who joined the Darktown Folkin Club and cursed the day told that he was John.

David Jason OBE5:13

The money used to go like it had wings If he a queen, someone had kings And each night he would contribute all that coin And he'd say I'm gonna play him died tonight Ain't won't be no Bob Dear blesses make me bite When I get it in there, my hands don't be a beast

David Jason OBE5:26

We played him tight but lost his pile and Bill got peevish after a while so we rose, looked around and made this speech.

Presenter5:32

Phil Harris in the Dark Town Poker Club, and the words are coming back thick and fast, Henry. Yeah, yeah.

David Jason OBE5:36

Dear

Presenter5:37

Long time ago then. Now, two Christmases ago, we couldn't turn on the telly without bumping into you, uh David Jason, in one guise or another. Only Fools was on Christmas Day, Darling Buds on Boxing Day, Touch of Frost had been on, I think, on about the twentieth, something like that. And of course you were Roll Dar's BFG, the voice for that in the middle as well. Did you still walk round your village in Buckinghamshire in disguise, trying not to be noticed? No, I don't not in my village, no. Because uh everybody knows me now and they don't take really much notice. It's when I go to other places I try to keep a low profile.

Presenter6:13

Bro

Presenter6:14

A it's rather embarrassing to be cornered all the time, and people can be very undiplomatic. For example, I was in a major store, I think it was probably last year, the year before, and I'll quietly doing my thing, quietly looking through a few jackets and things in this rather posh store, and uh somebody comes up to me and he says, Hey

Presenter6:37

You're him, aren't you?

Presenter6:38

I said, I'm sorry, he said, Yeah, yes you are Yeah, I recognize you anywhere Hey, hey F O F and he grabs her this is absolutely true he grabs him by in a vice like grip.

Speaker 46:40

Yeah.

Presenter6:51

And I said, Excuse me, do you ah ah, do you mu He said, No, no, you're getting away now. Here, Ethel and he drags me right across the store, shouting, Ethel, look what I've got here Look, look it he's him He's him This is the one and the whole store is turning round going

Presenter7:04

And I've never been to I couldn't get away. But it goes deeper than that with you, doesn't it? You are a very private person. I mean, you're not on that kind of light end golfing circuit with the Bruces and the Tarbys and all of that. You you shun all of that, don't you?

Presenter7:17

Yeah, I suppose I do, really. I find that

Presenter7:21

I enjoy the work. I really enjoy making people laugh. I mean, it's a great it's great fun me doing Fools and Horses. I love it. But at the end of the day, you want to turn your back on that and go home and and be a private person again. Yeah, yes, I think like like anybody else does. But I wonder if it's got more to do with the fact that you have ended up with this

David Jason OBE7:32

Yeah.

Presenter7:38

comedy tag, as it were, and obviously that's where you've had your success.

David Jason OBE7:42

Bun butt

Presenter7:43

Actually, you're you're more than that, aren't you? You you're you're an actor, and that's the bit that you've been trying to develop more of late. And perhaps that's what it is. You are not just a light entertainer.

David Jason OBE7:48

Yeah.

David Jason OBE7:49

What did he do

Presenter7:52

I have great respect for comics. I think they are the bravest and wonderfulest people in the world, especially the good ones, the talented ones.

Presenter7:59

But

Presenter8:00

I won't I've never been a stand-up comic. I've always been an actor. I've been a character actor. And acting to me is is entertainment first, entertaining people, then also trying to create people that don't actually exist. It's great. It's great fun. I suppose to put it in a nutshell, one should ask you which of the two BAFTA awards you're proudest of, because you got one for Best Light Entertainment Performance for Delboy, didn't you? But then you got

David Jason OBE8:24

But then you

Presenter8:25

The BAFTA Award for Best Actor for being Scullion, the Gate Man in Porterhouse Blue. So, which one are you prouder of?

David Jason OBE8:29

Quarter half.

Presenter8:33

She ought to be scullion.

Presenter8:35

Oh ya, Sheffy.

Presenter8:37

Very proud of that.

Presenter8:39

Let's have record number two. What's that?

Presenter8:41

Well, record number two. I'll tell you what, Miller, record number two. Simon and Garth Vunkel homeward bound.

Presenter8:46

When I was on tour on your tour as an actor, what you'd find is that come Sunday

Presenter8:52

Wherever you're going, or nearly all of the actors are touring.

Presenter8:56

Always end up at cruise station.

Presenter8:58

Because all the trains came in there, there was all these actors, all these loveies, shouting to each other across platforms, you know, say, Where you going this way? Oh, we're off to Aberdeen, Brit Oh, we're going down to Exeter, what's the business like? Very co all this would go. You couldn't get a cup of tea, because in those days British Rail just let their passengers starve.

Presenter9:20

So sometimes as you're sitting on this drafty station waiting for your train, which now is hours late because they are always doing rail works on Sundays.

Presenter9:29

You'd just be sitting there on your suitcase, and when I heard this record

Presenter9:33

It brought back such memories of me sitting on cruise station with a couple of actors desperately trying to keep warm, waiting for our train to take us to uh another station you think sometimes

Presenter9:45

I wish you had taken me home.

Presenter9:48

Homeward bound.

Presenter9:50

How did

Speaker 49:51

Shallwards homeward bound.

Speaker 49:56

Hmm. Uh

David Jason OBE9:57

Uh Were my thoughts escaping home When my music's playing home When my love lies waiting silence

Presenter10:07

Simon and Garfunkel and homeward bound. The records show, Davy, that it was your headmaster at North Side Secondary Mod who put you on the stage. Is that right? Yes, I was a very reluctant uh initiate, I must say.

Presenter10:20

You see

Presenter10:21

You don't always know what's going to be good for you, do you, when someone tells you to do something. They were doing the school play, and the boy who was playing one of the leading parts.

Presenter10:30

Caught the measles, we were about thir fourteen or something.

Presenter10:35

So the headmaster said to me, You can do this part,'cause it's a funny part,'cause I was the school idiot, you know, I was always running round making everybody laugh and being the the buffoon, generally. So I said, Oh, no, so not me, no, no, no,'cause the idea of acting was a bit sort of sissy and, you know

Speaker 210:51

For the girls.

Presenter10:51

The girls, you know, it's girlish, in it.

Presenter10:54

Really, no way was I going to do it.

Presenter10:57

And he said, Yes, you'd be ideal for the part. And I said, No, he said, Oh, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't go. He said,

Presenter11:03

Let me put it this way.

Presenter11:06

Don't make me tell you to do it.

Presenter11:10

Now, I was only fourteen in the time, and I stood there looking at him, trying to work out exactly what he meant. And I began to sort of see I think he's saying

Presenter11:21

I'm gonna do it anyway, whether I like it or not.

Presenter11:25

And I was absolutely stunned.

Presenter11:27

The story really was that

Presenter11:30

I did it, and it was a packed um school we did for three nights, I think. Funny enough, I played an actor in a monkey suit.

David Jason OBE11:34

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter11:37

Please don't say that I'm still wearing it, because you and I will not get on.

Presenter11:42

But when I started to hear

Presenter11:43

Like seventy-five people laughed, so a hundred, whatever it was, parents. Now that was much better than twenty or thirty odd kids. And I think that started it all. Record number three.

Presenter11:55

There's a great influence, I think, on many people's lives, people of my age group, which I won't tell you what that is.

Presenter12:02

But you'll probably know that it's it was tremendously powerful stuff.

Presenter12:07

Though I'm talking about the Beatles. I remember that period.

Presenter12:11

It was a very silly time. It was wonderful. So to remind me of those times, the Beatles and HELP.

Presenter12:18

Help me if you can, I'm feeling dumb.

Speaker 412:22

I like to appreciate you being round

Speaker 412:28

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Speaker 412:32

Won't you please, please help me?

Presenter12:38

Beatles and help. The stories vary as to what you were doing when you were spotted professionally, as it were, but they seem to agree that you were playing a very small part in a very small farce in Bournemouth, and that you were upstaging everybody like mad.

Presenter12:52

I don't know where you've got your information from, madam. I deny it. I deny it completely.

Presenter12:57

Um, yeah, well, basically I think that one of the stories is which is quite romantic, but it wasn't quite as romantic as it sounds. I was discovered at the end of the pier in Pournouth.

Presenter13:07

And there was this farce going on and my character didn't come on till just after the beginning of the second act. What happened was I had to come on and for some reason everybody disappeared. They're all running about

Presenter13:20

upstairs or out in the garden, and my character is a next door neighbour who just moved in, and he come in to introduce himself.

Presenter13:27

And he opens the door and says, you know, Hello, anybody there? Anybody there?

Presenter13:31

And of course, the audience thinking, oh, these are innocent. He doesn't know what the hell's going on.

Presenter13:36

And we heard the ship's bell.

Presenter13:38

And as you during rehearsals I started to sort of do a bit of business by looking at this bell and looking at it and not taking your notes and then n looking at it and then pretending to have a little ring and didn't not ringing it, you know.

Presenter13:49

And the director said to me, Look, uh, this is a farce.

Presenter13:52

Love, this is the fast, love. We're in the middle of the second act, and we cannot afford to waste time while you piddle about thinking whether you can ring the bell or not. We just haven't got time. We've got to get on the play.

Presenter14:04

So I did as I was told.

Presenter14:06

But you know, I was on there for a couple of weeks and

Presenter14:09

I was burning to do something with this bell, so one night I said, I'll stuff the director. I'll do it my way.

Presenter14:17

So

Presenter14:18

That was the night that Humphrey Barclay had come down to

Presenter14:22

see whether or not I was any good for being in his new television series. So what I then did, all I did, I did my own thing, which was I came in, I looked at the bell, went past it, looked at the bell, went to ring it, then wouldn't ring it. You really showed off, didn't you? Oh, I did.

Speaker 214:35

Really showed up.

Presenter14:38

And of course all the other actors were waiting to come on. They couldn't come on until I run the bell.

David Jason OBE14:38

Uh

Presenter14:42

But you had the audience there, didn't you? And there was a wonderful moment. They started to laugh and they started to laugh and laugh and laugh and you could hear I could hear people saying, Go on, ring it. Go on, ring They d while I rang it, the whole place erupted.

David Jason OBE14:43

But I had the audience there.

Presenter14:57

The audience just loved it because they could see what was going on in this little bloke's mind.

David Jason OBE14:57

The old

Presenter15:02

And Humphrey Barclay was suitably impressed. Well, he was suitably impressed. Swept you after fame and fortune. Well, not really.

David Jason OBE15:05

Swept

David Jason OBE15:06

Fortune

Presenter15:09

But gave me my first chance to prove that I could do something on television. And that was do not adjust your set.

David Jason OBE15:13

Do not

David Jason OBE15:14

Uh

Presenter15:14

And the other members of the cast were Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones.

Presenter15:20

And eventually they went off and left you.

David Jason OBE15:20

The window can left

Presenter15:22

Yeah, yes, rather than. No, they didn't dump me. Now, don't you dare say that. You'll have them libeling me.

David Jason OBE15:23

They dumped you.

Presenter15:28

Nevertheless they were the kind of Cambridge set, and they didn't take the lad from North Finchley with them, did they?

Presenter15:35

No, I didn't take the lad from North and Slee. But you were quite devastated by that, weren't you?

Presenter15:40

No, I didn't really know anything about it. It wasn't until actually I saw Monty Python's Flying Circus and saw how f famous it started to become. I then it was then I started to realise that, wait a minute, that is the exact format that we all that we did had in Do Not Adjust Your Set. And then I started to think

Presenter15:57

Oh, right. Oh. Would have been nice if they'd invited me to go along with them, and they didn't, and I felt a bit

David Jason OBE16:01

Go along

Presenter16:05

Disappointed that I wasn't part of that success.

Presenter16:09

That's very noble of you. No, it's very true.

Presenter16:12

But radio came to the rescue in the form of Weekending, uh, invented by David Hatch, and you became famous for your impersonations. Who were your favorites?

Presenter16:20

Nice to do.

Presenter16:21

Callahan mister Callahan when he was Prime Minister remember he was walking across Trafalgar Square.

Presenter16:29

After he lost the election?

Presenter16:32

He looked up at the pigeons and said, Go on, men, might as well everybody else has.

Presenter16:38

Well it used to be funny when I did it in weekending.

Presenter16:40

Let's have another record.

Presenter16:42

Oh, yes. Well, let's have one of my idols, Peter Sellars.

Presenter16:46

And he was never better for me than when I first uh got to know him and the rest of the team in The Goon Show.

Presenter16:53

How would

Presenter16:56

Uh

Speaker 416:56

And think carefully. How would you like to join my great international Christmas pudding exhibition? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Speaker 417:03

Oh no though.

Speaker 417:05

I doubt if you have the stamina. Lift me on your back. Charles play. Put your foot in there.

Presenter17:12

Good. Now Monioti.

Speaker 417:14

You're shy

Presenter17:14

You've got money. Yes, of course I have. Then the Ritz-Carlton grill for lunch and step on it, please, do my

David Jason OBE17:20

Yeah.

Presenter17:20

Yes, and it ought to be.

David Jason OBE17:20

Yes, and at all costs avoid Mexican.

Presenter17:21

Guildren.

Speaker 417:22

Too late.

Presenter17:25

The Goons and the International Christmas Pudding

Presenter17:28

The writer of Only Fools, John Sullivan, didn't want you to have the part of Delboy, did he? John Sullivan had only ever seen me on television doing.

Presenter17:37

things like open all hours, iron or porridge, or always some sort of hapless or unfortunate character. The total opposite was needed for Derek Trotter. He needed a powerhouse, an up front, a smart guy, a guy who lives off his wits, right up there, wheeling and dealing and alive and cooking all the time.

Presenter17:58

And John never thought that I would be able to do it.

Speaker 218:02

I had to

Presenter18:05

Yes, I did actually. But how much is was Delboy your creation? You know, the gold chains, the camel coat, the swagger? W was that written down or was that what you're saying? No, the gold chains uh the rings and the gold chains was in John's original description.

David Jason OBE18:14

No, the culture

Presenter18:20

But it was true to say that a lot of the character um I brought to Derek Shotter, I brought quite a lot, because I had been working when I was an electrician with an East End London builder.

Presenter18:36

Whose father name, his name was um Derek.

Presenter18:39

And uh he was

Presenter18:41

I couldn't get his picture out of my mind when I was reading Fools and Horses. And uh I built a lot of the

Presenter18:48

The the swagger, the manner, the chip on the shoulder, the

Presenter18:52

You know, really I'm a Mr. Someone's special type.

Presenter18:56

Which are there are a lot of them about us? It's a manner, it's a sort of presence, it's the shoulders swinging. You know, you see men do it and you think, why do they do that? It's wonderful. It's all sort of style, isn't it? You know, it gives them a bit of the, you know, come on with the women, like, you know what I mean? But did he know the real man? Did he ever find out? Yes, he did. Did he? He did.

David Jason OBE19:14

Uh

Speaker 419:14

Okay.

Presenter19:16

Hockley, Derek Hockley was his name. Unfortunately, he he he died a few years ago. But his daughter wrote to me and said that he was extremely proud to have

Presenter19:24

Been thought of as the creation or helped to create Derek Trotter. And he used to tell everybody, That's me, that is. He was very proud of it. He was a nice man. Record number five.

Presenter19:35

Well, as we've been talking about Fools and Horses, one of the most powerful episodes was when Rodney got married.

Presenter19:44

And John Sullivan chose that wonderful record, and I it always bring back that moment to me when um Rodney and Derek were parting, going their separate ways, and it was Holding Back the Years by Simply Red.

Speaker 419:57

I'll keep holding on.

David Jason OBE20:03

We in bold is known.

David Jason OBE20:08

I'll keep holding on.

David Jason OBE20:14

I'll give

Presenter20:21

Simply Read and Holding Back the Years. That was quite a a a poignant moment in Only Fools, and there were quite a few of those. I mean, it was drama as much as comedy really wasn't. Yeah, I think that was one of the lovely things that that we did with the programme, and that was daring to show one's emotions.

David Jason OBE20:26

I'm quite

David Jason OBE20:30

Yeah, I think

Presenter20:37

Daring to be serious, if you like, in a comedy show. And it did, it worked brilliantly. Is there more mileage in it yet for you, do you think?

Presenter20:45

Having a meeting, even as I speak to you. You're promising this Christmas, though. Yes, we were hoping to do a Christmas special.

Speaker 220:50

You're missing this Christmas though.

Presenter20:55

And a few problems arose during the year and didn't make it possible. So, unfortunately, I think.

Presenter21:02

I should I haven't missed very much making it as much as people might miss seeing it, so.

David Jason OBE21:04

Yeah.

Presenter21:08

A bit sad this year. Daleboy is making his return, don't you worry about that.

Presenter21:16

Because television companies now vie with each other for your services in the belief that audiences follow names. Do you have that kind of confidence in yourself these days? That whatever you do, they'll turn on

David Jason OBE21:27

They'll turn on.

Presenter21:30

Now that's a frightening prospect.

Presenter21:32

It is a little more difficult now, well a lot more difficult because there is a tremendous um responsibility. It is extremely difficult to keep the standard up of which I and perhaps an audience expectation is is up to. So one's problem is trying to look for the programme that not only you want to do, but you want to feel that it could work. Not ne necessarily be a great CS but certainly not doing anything and say, oh yeah, don't mind, give me the Bible, I'll read that, I'll make that funny, or the telephone directory, or give me

Speaker 222:07

Mm.

Presenter22:10

You know, a book of verse. Great power, though, as well. I mean, maybe some of the fun has gone out of it because you do bear this responsibility, but it's also great power. I mean, producers will now take you out and say, David, what would you like to do?

David Jason OBE22:15

Do better.

Presenter22:20

You know, you name it, we'll make it. Ah, dear, you've been reading those funny papers again, haven't you? You can't believe what you read in the papers.

David Jason OBE22:21

You made it.

David Jason OBE22:22

Got it.

Presenter22:28

That might happen in America, it doesn't really happen here.

David Jason OBE22:28

Yeah.

Presenter22:30

So you didn't say I quite fancy playing a detective and they went off and found a touch of frost?

Presenter22:36

Well

Presenter22:37

Yes, in that case that that did happen, really. But, um, that doesn't happen all the time, swung it. It's very good for the self esteem, though, isn't it? And and from everything I've read about you, it does seem that you lacked self esteem really from When you were very small till really quite late.

David Jason OBE22:53

Very small.

David Jason OBE22:54

Doom.

Presenter22:55

Yeah. I had no self esteem. I was never ever good enough. I I really was I wanted to be an actor. I certainly burned with it. But everybody around me, everybody, was much better than me. Everyone.

Presenter23:07

And now?

Presenter23:08

And now nobody's as good as me.

Presenter23:11

No, I shouldn't have said that.

Presenter23:13

I'll tell him you were laughing at the time.

Speaker 223:13

Uh

Speaker 223:15

Yeah.

Presenter23:17

Next record.

Presenter23:19

One of my favorites actually that uh

Presenter23:23

I love it'cause I saw the musicals seventy times. I quite like musicals. They're they're they've got because they've got a story and the music sort of helps to say things.

Presenter23:31

But the sheer energy and vitality that this particular show had, when it saw it on stage, it was unbelievable. And this particular number is just so full of life. America from West Side Storm.

David Jason OBE23:47

Uh

Speaker 423:47

Uh

David Jason OBE23:47

Lots of new house. Sing with more space

Speaker 423:49

It's a lot of noise slamming in our place

David Jason OBE23:53

I'll get the terrorist

Speaker 423:55

Better get rid of your accent. Life can be bright in America. If you can fight in America, if you're a wife in America.

Presenter24:01

Fighting a Medica

Presenter24:11

America, from the original soundtrack of Westside Story. You give the impression, David, of being a very balanced, level-headed chap. You don't court fame, you don't smoke, you don't much care for bad language, you like nothing better than being at home. But there's another side to all of this, isn't there? There's a part of you that dices with death from time to time. You you you've done your own stunts, you glide and you've got into trouble doing that, you scuba dive and you've had a bit of a drama in that. Is that an important side of you?

Speaker 224:31

Blah.

Presenter24:39

It's an element of pushing oneself, I think.

Presenter24:41

I'm a solo glider pilot, so I I enjoy that challenge. I also took up scuba diving a few years ago for the same reason. When you get the equipment on and you go down or you go up,

Presenter24:53

It's the breaking the bounds. You break away from your natural environment and you enter someone else's stuff as well, though, isn't it?

Speaker 224:58

Then you enter someone else's

Speaker 225:00

Mm.

Presenter25:00

It uh it is.

Presenter25:03

You're also, though, patiently a bit eccentric, if I can say. I mean, is it true you've got one of those fairground machines, if not several, those penny slot machines with a sort of crane that comes down and picks up things and then drops them again before it gets to the chute? Oh, so you had an unhealthy childhood as well, did you?

David Jason OBE25:19

Uh

Speaker 225:19

That's good indeed.

Presenter25:21

Yes, th yeah. Um a friend of mine well, he's got these old machines in his in his cellar and I wanted to buy them and uh

Presenter25:30

He said he wouldn't, but he would help me make one. So we we made one called Marvin the Mystic. These original.

Presenter25:36

Are machines that came out of fairgrounds, and you put a penny in, as you said, and things happen. And this particular one.

Presenter25:44

There's like a crane that drops down and it's supposed to grab things like five pounds and gold watches and, you know, you you remember it well. Soys. But what happened was it dropped'em.

David Jason OBE25:53

So the world is.

Presenter25:57

Now, I know the answer to that, because

Presenter26:01

It's a wonderful

Presenter26:02

Piece of engineering that makes you think that the grab is going to work like the ones that you see in in the road, like a real one that will pick up anything that is otherwise like a hydraulic thing. It isn't. It's so designed that the only thing that keeps the grab closed is gravity. So anything that is heavier than the little

Presenter26:23

Arms of the grab will drop through. It it it's the only thing that keeps the the the claws together is gravity. And is the one you're making gonna hang on to these things? Certainly not, ma'am.

David Jason OBE26:29

Ah.

David Jason OBE26:32

Certainly not.

Presenter26:34

So you're gonna put it up in the sitting room and invite your friends to put fifty P in it? Yes, yes. I should put all these goodies and uh that's the fun of it. And they go, No, I nearly had it, yes, yeah. And you know, you did, you nearly had you grab I'd put another p a pound in if I were you and have a few more go.

David Jason OBE26:37

Yeah.

Presenter26:50

So, is this how, I mean, when this programme is broadcast on Christmas Day, is that what you'll be doing? Fiddling with your machines? Quite possibly.

Presenter26:57

Yes. For me, Christmas is a time to be quiet, to to be at home and do quiet things and

Presenter27:05

I shall expect that uh I shall be there with my good lady, Mavomy, who would have a large drink in one hand and you'd have an oily rank in the other.

Presenter27:14

Thank you very much. Yes, I will. And I'll and I'll be very happy, thank you. And I shall probably carve the turkey with the oily rag.

Presenter27:22

Another piece of music.

Presenter27:24

Barcelona from company because

Presenter27:26

It just reminds me of I spent an awful lot of my time

Presenter27:32

Going across the world. I'd be at home for a few months and I'd be off again, and this sort of reminds me of those times. Lovely to sit in the sun and think of all those wonderful days.

David Jason OBE27:43

Where you going?

Speaker 227:46

Marks of

Speaker 227:50

Don't get up.

David Jason OBE27:52

Do you have to?

Speaker 427:54

Yes, I have to.

Speaker 427:59

Don't get off.

Speaker 428:01

Now you're angry.

David Jason OBE28:04

No, I'm not.

Speaker 428:04

No, I'm

Speaker 228:05

Yes, you are.

David Jason OBE28:06

No, I'm not. Put your things down.

Speaker 228:06

Nope.

Speaker 428:07

Alright.

David Jason OBE28:11

Yeah.

Presenter28:12

Dean Jones and Susan Browning singing Barcelona from Company. You'll be quite a a dab hand on a desert island then, David. Yeah. No problems. No problem. Love it. You're fairly antisocial, you're very practical.

David Jason OBE28:24

Very attractive.

Presenter28:25

You like swimming and diving. What about food? Could could you kill to eat?

Presenter28:30

Yeah, if you had to. Yeah. I'd be I mean you'd kill you'd eat fish, wouldn't you? So, all things being equal, do I sense that you'd actively like to be cast away on a desert island?

Speaker 228:40

Yes.

David Jason OBE28:40

Yeah.

Presenter28:41

Actually, I was waiting desperately for you to ask me that through the whole of this interview, so I could say yes, please. But you wouldn't know. Let me go now.

Speaker 228:47

But you wouldn't get that.

Presenter28:48

As long as it was mosquito, free.

Presenter28:52

So those are the that's the downside. The rest of it

Presenter28:55

Absolutely wonderful.

Presenter28:57

Swimming, building things, going off exploring.

Presenter29:01

Wonderful.

Presenter29:05

Oh, I'd find a pool and look into it occasionally, give myself a bit of a laugh.

Speaker 229:10

Last record.

Presenter29:12

I was on holiday recently in the Caribbean and there was this amazing electric storm at sea and have you ever seen an electric storm?

Presenter29:20

It's very, very exciting.

Presenter29:23

And uh I thought there's bound to be an electric storm on my desert island, or just off shore.

Presenter29:29

I'll just sit there with a large umbrella.

Presenter29:32

and there may be a large glass of something that I've that's drifted ashore from the shipwreck.

Presenter29:38

And play Mars, the Briner of War from the Planet Suite, at full volume while the electric storm is going on. Think of that.

Presenter30:47

Mars, the Bringer of War, from Holst's Planet Suite, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heitink. If you could only take one of those eight discs, David.

Presenter30:57

I think that I'd have to go for Beatles and uh I'll take that. I could play I could live with that every day.

Presenter31:02

And sing along with it. Lovely. Shout help every day. Yeah. And what about your book?

Presenter31:07

I'm going to take a complete book on how to build boats.

Presenter31:11

Deeply practical book, this is probably not permitted, but there we are. You've got it. It's Christmas. Thank you. Right. What about a luxury?

David Jason OBE31:14

Got it, it's

David Jason OBE31:16

Right.

Presenter31:18

I would have him.

Presenter31:20

Complete carpenter's cabinet, you know, full of all the tools.

Presenter31:25

Then I'd be as happy as a sandboy. See, I could do anything, then I could build anything, make anything, cut anything.

Presenter31:31

I could build little huts and boats, rafts, go out fishing, little all sorts of things. I'd be busy so busy all day I wouldn't even notice that I'm on a desert island. And you wouldn't escape in any of these boats'cause you don't want to.

David Jason OBE31:43

Yeah.

Presenter31:44

Well, I'd go for little forays. You never know. There might be another little desert island when some nice young female has been deserted upon, and I could go visit her as a gentleman caller. It's all wishful thinking. David, Jason, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert undiscs, and happy Christmas to you. Thank you, sir, and to you, and to everybody.

Speaker 232:10

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