Hugh Laurie

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

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is an actor. Still only thirty-six, he's one of a highly successful group of performers who came via Cambridge and the Footlights to the London stage and television. He's probably best known for his partnership with Stephen Fry, playing the idiotic Bertie Wooster opposite Fry's Jeeves for ITV, and starring with him in their comedy series for the BBC. But his versatility and originality extend well beyond that. He's rowed for Cambridge in the boat race, can play almost any musical instrument he wants, and has just written his first novel. None of this seems to make him happy. If a thing's worth doing, he once said, it's worth getting absolutely miserable about. He is Hugh Laurie. You're obviously by the sound of it Hugh one of life's worriers.

Hugh Laurie1:11

I sub yeah.

Presenter1:13

This is a gross understatement.

Hugh Laurie1:14

I suppose I am missed. I find happiness. I get uncomfortable with happiness. I think if things are going too well, I start to worry, you know.

Presenter1:20

So you worry about every part of the

Hugh Laurie1:21

Absolutely everything right.

Presenter1:23

Everything writing, anything.

Hugh Laurie1:24

I could worry about the colour scheme of this room. I could absolutely everything.

Presenter1:28

Why do we imagine then, why do we perceive you as being kind of relaxed, witty, urban and Stephen Fry too, actually, of course, who turns out to be a great warrior.

Hugh Laurie1:38

Yes, I don't know. You know, of course I get lots of pleasure from performing.

Hugh Laurie1:42

I'm trying to think when I got lots of pleasure in reforming, but there must have been times.

Presenter1:46

But what do you worry about? You're worrying about not not being up to scratching.

Hugh Laurie1:46

But what do you worry about?

Hugh Laurie1:49

Yes, absolutely.

Presenter1:51

All the time.

Hugh Laurie1:51

All the time. Is that someone just saying fraud, you know, calling out from the crowd? Oi, where do you think you're going?

Presenter1:52

And is that something

Presenter1:58

Has it got worse with success? You know, I mean, the the the greater your reputation, the the higher you've got a

Hugh Laurie2:03

A cotton.

Presenter2:04

Strive to

Hugh Laurie2:05

Well, it got worse in one very swift step. When I d decided to do it for a living, I used to get a great amount of pleasure out of performing at school and university.

Hugh Laurie2:15

you know, as an amateur.

Hugh Laurie2:17

I used to have a lot of confidence, and I used to think, I know I can do this. I can stand on a stage with.

Hugh Laurie2:22

Virtually nothing and no idea what I'm going to say or do and I and it will be all right. I can make it work.

Hugh Laurie2:28

and as soon as I started doing it for a living,

Hugh Laurie2:30

It all changed, I don't know why, and one of the strange things that happened

Hugh Laurie2:35

was that I I had always hitherto I had always thought of audiences as being female in character. And when I started to do it professionally, for some reason they became male.

Hugh Laurie2:45

And they became competitive. They became an adversary that had to be conquered. And I imagined rows of men with their arms folded saying, Go on then. Go on then.

Hugh Laurie2:54

And I used I I actually have to confess, I used to get very aggressive uh um about audiences and and Stephen and I would we'd both come off stage going, Those like

Hugh Laurie3:03

You know, we would absolutely seethe with rage and if we felt we hadn't

Hugh Laurie3:08

Triumph.

Presenter3:08

So is there nothing at all in your professional life that gives you pleasure?

Hugh Laurie3:13

Finishing things. I love to finish things. Almost any amount of pain is.

Hugh Laurie3:18

is worth the pleasure of coming off stage or uh finishing writing something that that's caused you a lot of grief. It's the banging the head against the brick wall. It's uh it's so nice when you stop.

Presenter3:28

So it's a beautiful moment until the judgments roll in.

Hugh Laurie3:31

That's right.

Presenter3:31

No judgments on a desert island. Presumably you'll be happy to escape to one.

Hugh Laurie3:35

Very happy, indeed. My wife is rather worried about how happy I would be, and I think I have an extremely

Hugh Laurie3:42

Intense fantasy life, I'm afraid. It's in fact, it's too intense in in some ways. It's almost debilitating. It it actually stops me from doing things because, um.

Hugh Laurie3:50

I'm able to fantasize so accurately about what it would be like to win Wimbledon or or be the Prime Minister or clime Everest that I actually never bother to try and do any of these things.

Presenter3:59

So you can sit on your island, you did.

Hugh Laurie4:00

Yeah.

Presenter4:01

T tell me about the first record.

Hugh Laurie4:03

The first record is is Muddy Waters.

Hugh Laurie4:06

I have to confess I could quite happily have chosen eight Muddy Water's records. He is the the musician who I have listened to most of in my life and has meant the most to me. It's very difficult to choose one. I've gone for a track called I Want to Be Loved.

Speaker 44:19

Your voice is like a angel

Speaker 44:23

The touch of your hand, woman, drives me insane. But baby, I want to be loved.

Speaker 44:32

Pay the pound every long thing you do by Evan Sherish Your Hope

Speaker 44:40

Your kiss is so sweet, honey the KDB

Speaker 44:45

But maybe I want to be loved.

Presenter4:49

Muddy Waters and I Want to Beloved. I said that you're probably best known for your Bertie Wooster portrayal, although I dare say some people would argue that your roles in Black Adder rather put you on the map. But tell me about Jeeves and Worcester Hugh. Was there ever any doubt which Fry and Laurie would play which? Jeeves Aldista.

Hugh Laurie5:07

Not in our minds, no. It seemed pretty obvious, really, that Stephen has a wiser countenance, I think. He has a a sort of darker, more authoritative look.

Presenter5:17

But he could play an upper class twick.

Presenter5:20

Could Could You play'em?

Hugh Laurie5:20

Uh

Presenter5:21

A solemn sage, I suppose.

Hugh Laurie5:23

Oh heck, you're saying he could play both and I could only play one.

Presenter5:24

Can only play one. How much is it?

Hugh Laurie5:27

But it comes back.

Presenter5:29

But but I I suppose, yes, it was obvious. He's got the dark brown voice.

Hugh Laurie5:32

The dark brown vice, exactly. And he's a he's a he's an inch and a bit taller and generally more imposing.

Presenter5:33

And easy.

Presenter5:36

Yeah.

Presenter5:37

And he's older than you and he's richer than you and

Hugh Laurie5:39

Yeah.

Presenter5:41

All those things.

Hugh Laurie5:41

All those things.

Presenter5:42

Pop.

Presenter5:43

Had you always been a Woodhouse fan?

Hugh Laurie5:45

I came to Jeeves and Wooster pretty late, in fact, but had always absolutely adored Woodhouse, and therefore we were extremely nervous about taking on something as loved as Woodhouse. I mean, he has such a fanatical following.

Presenter6:00

And also because Dennis Price and Ian Carmichael were very much set in the nation's mind as being Jews and the people.

Hugh Laurie6:02

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie6:04

Absolutely. Although that was twenty years before, but even so, it had still.

Hugh Laurie6:11

It had still remained in people's minds as definitive.

Presenter6:14

And apparently it didn't go down well in America, which is strange.

Hugh Laurie6:17

It went tremendously well with critics, but the Americans didn't really go for it. I think it was too it's too verbal, really. I mean, one has to remember that we are divided by a common language. And to the average American audience, I think

Hugh Laurie6:30

Get in the car That's a line that's a line they can understand get in the car or I'll blow your brains out or whatever it may be. But Sir, I shall endeavour to effect a burglarious entry.

Hugh Laurie6:40

It may as well be Swahili to them. I don't I think think they actually do not hear it. They can't actually understand it.

Presenter6:46

But they managed with upstairs, downstairs. That was hugely popular, wasn't it?

Hugh Laurie6:49

Yes, that's sort of yes. There there are people going my darling and kissing each other and th that's um I suppose more melodramatic in a way. I'm no expert on up on upstairs, downstairs.

Presenter6:55

That's a

Hugh Laurie7:01

Yes, all right. Okay, so they loved upstairs. Why didn't they like us then? I thought I got away with that. Because you weren't any good. That's right.

Presenter7:04

And they like us then.

Presenter7:06

Because you weren't any good, you see? It's terribly good. Four series, are there going to be any more?

Hugh Laurie7:11

No, there aren't, un unfortunately.

Hugh Laurie7:14

A variety of reasons. I started to go bald. That was pretty galling in the fourth series. Yeah, well, I'm quite tall, you see, I get away with it most of the time, but somebody had to swoop in before takes and and sort of dust my pate, which is um we felt was sort of uh inappropriate for Bertie somehow. And also we we had gone through the stories so quickly, having dispensed with the the narrative voiceover and having reduced the novels really to plots, a lot of which, it has to be said, repeat themselves, we had ripped through them so quickly that there wasn't a lot left actually. We had we had filleted the the auvre.

Speaker 27:18

Uh

Presenter7:18

Let's see.

Speaker 27:21

Personally.

Hugh Laurie7:45

That's rather a pleasing phrase. We'd filleted the Euvre um pretty quickly.

Presenter7:49

Record number two.

Hugh Laurie7:51

This is the opening of now I don't even know how to say this, it it doesn't it doesn't come up very often now that I have to say it bruch bruch brutch I've never known. It's a violin concerto in G minor. It's partly to show that I'm cultured although I'm not actually cultured, I'm a raw Philistine uh but this is one of the few pieces of classical music that I could countenance on a desert island. Uh it's just uh an absurdly romantic piece and uh I love it.

Presenter9:15

Part of Brooks Violin Concerto Number One, played by Pinker Suckerman with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. Do you play the violin, Hugh?

Hugh Laurie9:24

Oddly enough, I don't.

Presenter9:25

I thought you played all instruments.

Hugh Laurie9:25

Cool.

Hugh Laurie9:26

No, I don't know where you've got that from. That's absolute

Presenter9:29

How many instruments do you play?

Hugh Laurie9:30

I I trifle at a number, the piano and the guitar and um I oh do you know just a few things and did you play in this?

Presenter9:36

Did you play in the school orchestra?

Hugh Laurie9:39

I did yes, I played the percussion in in the school orchestra, and from that experience I grew to hate violinists a great deal, actually, I'm afraid. Violinists en masse.

Hugh Laurie9:49

I used to think of them because I stood at the back with my cymbals and my triangle, and they were the sort of gauleiters down the front who used to snigger at the conductor's jokes and and I used to g I grew to hate them, I really do, and I sort of

Presenter10:01

They were superior

Hugh Laurie10:02

They were very superior, yes. Violin a as a solo instrument I I adore, but en masse I I think of these ranks of people in white short sleeved shirts. I don't know what that means.

Presenter10:13

I don't know what that means. Was this at the Dragon School in Oxford or was it at Eton?

Hugh Laurie10:16

This was the reason, yeah.

Presenter10:18

Your father was a G P in Oxford. And you had a brother have a brother and two sisters.

Hugh Laurie10:22

Yeah.

Presenter10:23

Where did you come in the pecking order of it all? I mean, you were the youngest. I was the youngest.

Hugh Laurie10:26

I was the youngest, yes. Well, I suppose it's the fate of many families siblings anyway to think that they are the least favourite. My sister sisters and brother would firmly argue that I I was the blue eyed boy who who could do no wrong, and that I irritated them greatly for that reason.

Presenter10:43

Were you much younger than them?

Hugh Laurie10:44

I was quite a bit younger, yes. My brother's the next oldest, and he's six years older than me.

Hugh Laurie10:48

But of course I didn't see it that way at the time. I don't suppose anybody does, really.

Presenter10:52

So describe yourself to me as as a boy of ten. What were you like?

Hugh Laurie10:56

Unpleasant, I suspect. Idle, feckless? Quite happy. Uh happy because I do, as I said, I have this this very vivid sort of fantasy life. I was a great and still am a great fantasist.

Hugh Laurie11:09

And I spent spent a large amount of time on my own.

Presenter11:13

Did you then have the ability to make people laugh?

Hugh Laurie11:16

I can remember my my family I always thought were were very fi I can remember laughing more than I can remember making people laugh. My father and mother and sisters and brother I all of them I I th always thought of as being tremendously funny. I can remember meals were very enjoyable because we we did used to laugh a lot and I suppose

Hugh Laurie11:34

that by sort of ten I started to give as good as I got, as it were.

Presenter11:38

What did you expect to do with your life? What what what ideas did you have of becoming what?

Hugh Laurie11:43

I considered medicine briefly. I I n never worked hard enough to uh pass the exams to become a doctor, but I had a period of of seriously considering the Hong Kong police. In the mid seventies there was a big recruitment drive. This could be completely wrong, but this is how I remember it. There were brochures in fact I sent off for the brochures of young men in Land Rovers with um creases down the front of their shorts and shiny peak caps.

Hugh Laurie12:06

And it seemed to me a terribly sort of glamorous and exciting life.

Presenter12:09

You l you like the clocky uniform.

Hugh Laurie12:11

Yeah, exactly.

Presenter12:12

I like the idea of showing your knees. Somebody told me that you were a special constable. That can't be true.

Hugh Laurie12:17

No, that's absolutely not true, and I don't know how that rumor gained ground. I once made a citizen's arrest. That may have qualified me for that time.

Presenter12:24

So you're a good law-abiding chap, and apparently a a bit of a square at Eton, is that right?

Hugh Laurie12:30

Um I suppose so. I think I became square, yes. I mean, I was quite bad at fifteen, sixteen, nearly thrown out and I had uh ghastly traumatic meetings with my parents. They came and had to take me away and give me a talking to at a service station on the M four.

Hugh Laurie12:45

which I can never drive past now without thinking of.

Hugh Laurie12:48

With shame and embarrassment. But then by the end of it, I suppose I'd become square, I became a sort of house captain and that sort of um

Hugh Laurie12:56

Yes, I became establishment.

Hugh Laurie12:59

I'm so sorry.

Presenter13:00

Tell me about record number three.

Hugh Laurie13:01

It's Tumbling Dice by the Rowling Stones. This is a record when I was about ten I tried to make a petrol bomb.

Hugh Laurie13:07

And uh I burnt myself rather badly, which was a just punishment for being so idiotic. And uh

Hugh Laurie13:13

While I was convalescing, instead my father actually never got particularly cross about the petrol bomb, which he had every right to, but he went into Woolworth's and uh he said, Have you got a pop record?

Speaker 413:24

Hmm.

Hugh Laurie13:24

He bought me they gave him tumbling dice by the Rolling Stones, and I'm I probably played it a thousand times while I was getting better. To this day I've imagined this picture of him braving the hit parade to ask for this record, and I thought I was just so touched by it as a gesture, and it it means a great deal to me for that reason.

Speaker 413:50

Let you go now for me that you

Speaker 413:53

Hello.

Speaker 414:02

Oh man.

Speaker 414:04

How many the time could

Presenter14:11

The Rolling Stones and Tumbling Dice. Quick bit of boat race here, I think, Hugh. What what year, what number, what was the result?

Hugh Laurie14:19

The year was 1980. I was number four in this particular encounter, and the result was a loss by Cambridge by a distance of five feet, which is something.

Hugh Laurie14:28

which I will take to my grave.

Presenter14:29

So do you still you still dream about the flame?

Hugh Laurie14:31

Do I do actually?

Presenter14:32

You fantasize about winning.

Hugh Laurie14:32

You fanters are

Hugh Laurie14:34

I do.

Hugh Laurie14:36

In fact I sh I shouldn't really say this because I wouldn't want still to this day I wouldn't want to give any any pleasure or satisfaction to the opposing crew for that reason. But but yes, it is true. It's it's a it was a very bitter defeat.

Presenter14:47

So there you were, um, reading anthropology at Cambridge, a a member of Footlights. At what point did you meet Stephen Fry and how?

Hugh Laurie14:54

That was my last year. I bec I was president of Footlights. The responsibility was mine to assemble a a review for the end of the year. I was absolutely determined that it should be very grown up in that sort of very pompous sort of twenty year old way. Some of the previous reviews had been very sprightly young undergraduates sort of nipping about the stage and that had rather nauseated me, so I I wanted to do something um rather sick in fact. And um I chose Stephen, not for the sickness reason, but because he he appeared then he he appears slightly younger now, but he appeared then to be about sixty.

Hugh Laurie15:26

He very nearly wore sort of uh stiff collars, and he's dressed younger and younger as he's got older. He'll he'll be in short trousers in about ten years' time.

Presenter15:34

While you go bald.

Hugh Laurie15:35

Yes, quite.

Presenter15:36

So it was his gravitas that was important.

Hugh Laurie15:37

Yes, exactly.

Presenter15:38

Yes. What attracted you to him in the first place? Did you know?

Presenter15:42

immediately that you'd found a professional cellmate.

Hugh Laurie15:46

Not a professional cellmate, um, because I I hadn't really considered it as a profession, but

Hugh Laurie15:52

We got on very well, very quickly, and we s when we started to write together we made each other laugh a lot. It seemed to come very easily. We would just churn out great piles of stuff.

Presenter16:02

You wrote the seller tapes to give you most of it, didn't you? Well, the hell show.

Hugh Laurie16:04

Most of it, didn't you? Well, a lot of people. Yes, a lot fair bit of it, yes.

Presenter16:08

And it won the Perrier Award at the fringe.

Hugh Laurie16:11

Did

Presenter16:12

And then it got onto the telly. What was it about? Because I don't remember it at all.

Hugh Laurie16:15

Well, it was a loose assemblage of sketches and comic moments of uh varying degrees of success.

Hugh Laurie16:23

We were extremely lucky because not the nine o'clock news was a great success and

Hugh Laurie16:27

Very quickly, other television companies were, you know, were desperately scrabbling to get their own version of it. So, um

Hugh Laurie16:34

Suddenly young people doing sketch comedy became a very sought after.

Hugh Laurie16:38

Product is such an awful word, but anyway, that's probably h how television executives would describe it. And we we were sort of caught up in that scrabbling.

Presenter16:47

Record number four.

Hugh Laurie16:49

Record number four is Frank Sinatra with with Count Bazi because um well Sinatra I love anyway, Count Basi's orchestra is about as about as good a collection of musicians as ever got together, and this is Love is the Tender Trap. Just about the first house I lived in when I came to London, there were about four or five of us living in this house.

Hugh Laurie17:07

It was about the only tape we had, and we used to wash up to it I can remember that wash up and dry to it, obviously, and put away to it.

Speaker 417:17

You're hand in hand beneath the trees And soon there's music in the breeze

Speaker 417:26

You're acting kinda smart until your heart just goes whap.

Speaker 417:35

Those trees that breathe their part of the tender trap

Presenter17:44

Frank Sonata with Count Basie and Love is the Tender Trap.

Presenter17:48

Was it a major decision, Hugh Laurie?

Presenter17:50

To say you were going to become an entertainer. I mean, I don't know what you were going to do with your degree in anthropology or and been the threat of the Hong Kong police, but

Hugh Laurie17:58

No, there there was very little d in fact there was no decision really. In the final year at university we did the show, which was um pretty successful, and uh a man with a Bentley and a long cigar I mean he's a real cliche really turned up from London and said, Do you want to do this for a living? I didn't have

Hugh Laurie18:15

a great stack of options at the time and I thought, well, you know, it's it's worth giving it a go.

Presenter18:20

But you found yourself part of this group of very talented people, um uh you know, Emma Thompson and Stephen obviously and Tony Slattery and then later on as time went up Rowan Atkinson and Robbie Coltrane.

Presenter18:32

I'm sure it's difficult to look at yourselves objectively, but it's interesting that people come in in waves, in groups like that, like like Cleese and Dudley More Peter Cook.

Presenter18:39

came before you. D is there a kind of creative chemistry that that gets going with such groups?

Hugh Laurie18:45

Yes, I suppose there must be a s sort of safety in numbers thing, but apart from anything else, that people gain a sort of confidence from being around others, you know, sh sharing a load. Although some of those some of the people you mentioned, I mean, Rowan Eckerton I think of as a completely unique performer who sort of doesn't need anyone else really. He's so utterly sort of self contained in a way.

Presenter19:04

It's just that there seemed to be a kind of suddenly a whole swathe of you, sort of like.

Hugh Laurie19:09

Here

Presenter19:09

I suppose as we eventually saw in the film Peter's Friends, you know, or

Speaker 419:13

Yes.

Presenter19:13

All of you all together, all incredibly talented, all individuals, and you know. Why do you why do you come in s in in gangs, I think, is the question.

Hugh Laurie19:21

I suppose there's a a harvest of the comedy tree. And of course a lot of it is to do with what the Del Monte people, as it were, and continuing this harvest theme.

Hugh Laurie19:31

What they're looking for at any given time, if they suddenly decide, yes, what we want is a sort of comedy, kind of 28 to 30-year-olds, get me six of them.

Hugh Laurie19:41

You know, then you're then you're in luck. And of course, you know, five years later it may be uh we need the ballerinas. Ballerinas are in this year. It's all luck really, isn't it?

Presenter19:49

Thinking about talking about Peter's Friends, though, when you made that film, it didn't go down well for some reason. You all made it together with Kenneth Brannagh, and I don't know, it seemed to get up people's noses. Why was that? Because actually it was quite warm, touching. Well, I liked it.

Hugh Laurie20:03

Well good. Um well I I think I can see why it got up people's noses. It appeared to represent um

Hugh Laurie20:10

Clique and and people are not surprisingly suspicious of clique's hostile to cliques even.

Presenter20:16

But it represented what you were, what we're talking about. I mean

Hugh Laurie20:18

Well

Hugh Laurie20:20

Pretty inaccurately.

Presenter20:22

But there have been many successes since then, and indeed before Peter's Friends and and not least at a little bit of Fryan Laurian and Black Adder for the BBC and so on, Roles in the West End Theatre and so on. And you've just been making a remake of A Hundred and One Dalmatians with Glen Close. So I mean, you know, it's big time, really.

Presenter20:40

Are you sure that acting isn't a good thing? Are you in the right profession, Hugh Laurie?

Hugh Laurie20:45

Um

Hugh Laurie20:46

I well I don't know. I just don't know. Um

Hugh Laurie20:51

I feel like it's never been tested. I don't know I don't really know how much I love it in a way. Perhaps I I need to have my love for it tested more, so that I will actually discover why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Presenter21:01

You don't think you're much cop at it, is that what you

Hugh Laurie21:05

Well no, not really, to be honest. Not really. I mean I I suppose I can do it better than some people, but then a lot worse than others. I think what what I can do is do a large number of things sort of reasonably well. I can play the piano better than Stephen, but I can't play it as well as Jules Holland. But then I can probably act better than Jules Holland, but I can't act as well as Kenneth Branagh. But then I can maybe write a, you know

Hugh Laurie21:27

Who knows? And so it goes on. I can do a lot of things sort of.

Hugh Laurie21:30

Reasonably well.

Presenter21:31

So what's the solution? Should you b be stretched or

Hugh Laurie21:34

I think probably

Presenter21:35

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie21:36

What are you s?

Presenter21:36

Well, you should either be stretched more or you should give it up.

Hugh Laurie21:39

Yes, all right. Okay.

Hugh Laurie21:41

That's a pretty blunt choice. But yes, I think of giving it up but but then everyone everyone thinks of giving whatever they do, they think of giving it up and running away to the Seychelles or something.

Presenter21:50

Tell me about record number five.

Hugh Laurie21:52

Record number five is Ian Dury with a song called Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, which I happen to believe is the second best pop song ever written.

Presenter22:01

I'm supposed to say what's the first time.

Hugh Laurie22:02

You are supposed to say that. The the answer is I don't know what the first the what what the best pops on is. I just don't dare say that this is the best'cause you get people arguing with you and saying, Are you out of your mind? Whereas no one's gonna argue if you say it's the second best.

Presenter22:12

Why is this so good?

Hugh Laurie22:13

I just think it's witty and uh sexy and clever and I think Endura is an absolute genius.

Hugh Laurie22:19

Uh

Speaker 422:19

Eskimo

Speaker 422:21

A laptop power.

Speaker 422:24

Loose their body.

Speaker 422:26

To and fro.

Speaker 422:29

Hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me. That's this good si, fantastic, hit me, hit me, hit me.

Speaker 422:38

Hit me with your rhythm stick It's nice to be a lunatic Hit me, hit me, hit me

Presenter22:48

Ian Dury and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick. What was the first you knew, Hugh, about Stephen's disappearance from the West End, or or from London, from the world, eh?

Hugh Laurie22:58

Our mutual agent informed me that uh

Hugh Laurie23:01

There was a problem.

Hugh Laurie23:03

Very soon after that I

Hugh Laurie23:06

Opened an envelope from Stephen. He'd written a number of letters to people saying ex sort of explaining as best as he could why he'd done what he'd done.

Hugh Laurie23:14

And uh

Hugh Laurie23:15

There we had it.

Presenter23:16

But did did you ever think, like a lot of us thought, actually, that that he'd committed suicide?

Hugh Laurie23:22

Um no, I didn't. I didn't. But then again, you know, you get superstitious about these things, and you I I suddenly I thought I must not go about the place grandly asserting that I know Stephen and he would not do such a thing, because one gets superstitious, you think I will be taught a lesson.

Hugh Laurie23:39

And also, because Stephen, I think, rather revels in doing the unpredictable thing, and in the frame of mind he was then in, that might have been enough to say, right, well, I'll show him.

Presenter23:47

Hmm.

Hugh Laurie23:47

Doesn't know me at all.

Hugh Laurie23:48

Plop off he goes off a bridge.

Presenter23:48

Plus it off

Presenter23:50

So, how did you feel when finally he did turn up? I mean, how did you react? Did you feel sort of.

Presenter23:55

Relieved or angry or what?

Hugh Laurie23:57

Just about just about the gamut, actually. Um if gamuts I think are still things you run and I ran it. Relief and joy and anger and worry and can't think of any more, but there must be more, I'm sure.

Presenter24:08

But why do you think he did it? Did he do it for all the reasons we've been discussing, really, this kind of pressure and fear of faith?

Hugh Laurie24:14

You'd have to get him here in this chair to answer that. I mean, I I can't speak for him. I to be honest with you, I don't even don't really know even if he knows.

Presenter24:22

But did you

Presenter24:25

No, quite. But but uh because of all the things you said about yourself, I wonder if you instinctively understood that that fear of failure, which is what we've been talking about.

Hugh Laurie24:34

Most actors, if not all actors, can understand it, have sort of glimpsed that uh that kind of monster of fear and complete panic.

Presenter24:43

Do you see less of him these days?

Hugh Laurie24:45

No, not really. I suppose it's true that we've uh since that we have done less work together. We haven't written together since then. And the writing together, that that was what threw us together for sort of ten hours a day. And we haven't done that. We I mean we're very good friends as well and we have always been close and I hope we'll always be close.

Presenter25:01

I hope we'll always have to do it.

Hugh Laurie25:03

Indeed. Indeed. Jolly good one, too.

Hugh Laurie25:06

Um but it's actually when we make each other laugh, that is when we are about as close as you can get, really.

Presenter25:12

But but do you feel now that that maybe the Fry and Laurie era is kind of over? Do you feel more on your own, really?

Hugh Laurie25:20

It's a lovely idea that there ever was such a thing as the franorier. I can't believe. But anyway, um

Hugh Laurie25:26

We're knocking on a bit now. We're now approaching the age where we could be junior cabinet ministers or all those sort of positions that you would want to or policemen, all those positions that you would want to mock in a sketch show. We are now sort of.

Hugh Laurie25:42

getting to that kind of time of our life where we could

Hugh Laurie25:45

It changes the whole the whole thing.

Presenter25:47

So you have to do something else. You might have to do something.

Hugh Laurie25:50

I have to do some work and

Presenter25:51

Yes. And you might have to be tested, and you might have to do something sort of more on your own, having really always been a team player. You're more on your own now. Does that worry you? Does that give you problems?

Hugh Laurie26:02

Uh

Presenter26:04

Uh

Hugh Laurie26:04

Um One.

Presenter26:06

More than the usual problems.

Hugh Laurie26:06

Well, yeah I'm trying to look at it as a healthy thing, as a growing thing.

Hugh Laurie26:14

Ah yeah.

Speaker 226:14

Yeah

Hugh Laurie26:15

I think yes, it is it's a bit scary. You know, I I I couldn't possibly deny that I've uh hidden behind Stephen a bit uh over the last ten oh, more than that, years.

Hugh Laurie26:27

and that to uh come out from his shadow and by god it's a long one.

Hugh Laurie26:31

is a is a slightly scary thing, but then I I think it's it's a good thing, you know, one should be scared and one should stand alone and get shouted at and uh

Hugh Laurie26:38

Called a fraud. It's thoroughly healthy, I'm sure.

Presenter26:42

Just deeply demoralizing. Record number six.

Hugh Laurie26:45

This is a an important piece of music, a very short piece of music, but um basically it's impossible to be despondent to this music. This is uh the theme from The Seahawk which was a wonderful Errol Flynn uh swashbuckling film by and the theme is by Eric Korngold and uh Dunalf cheer you up.

Presenter28:03

Eric Korngold's theme music to the film The Seahawk. You've now written a novel, Hugh, called The Gunseller, um a very funny novel, um, which apparently you sent to your publisher under a pseudonym. Why did you do that?

Hugh Laurie28:15

I think because I just wanted to get a sort of fair reaction that had nothing to do with

Hugh Laurie28:21

My name is such as it is. Um so I said it, I can't remember the name, I said it in Gary Lineker or something, something plain like that, that wouldn't make any difference.

Presenter28:28

You're obviously a a fan of thrillers,'cause it's a thriller, and you obviously know a lot about motor bikes and guns,'cause there's a lot of those in it. Co a lot of comic irony, and um and it's occasionally very silly. Um has it done anything for your self confidence, having written it?

Hugh Laurie28:43

Well, first of all, it was tremendous fun. I mean, I whether it was a a good thing or bad thing for me to do, and and uh let others be the judge of that um it was tremendous fun. I mean, I did just lose myself in this fantasy sort of heroic world of being being the warrior hero.

Speaker 228:55

Hero

Hugh Laurie28:58

I do love thrillers. You know, some people have said that it it that I'm m maybe there's a hint of parody in it, that I'm I'm doing a to sort of that I'm mocking the genre of thrillers, and that's not really the case actually. Or at least if it is, I'm mocking something I love. I just get such pleasure from it, that sort of escapism.

Presenter29:14

Thank God you get pleasure from something, I think, because you obviously agonize it.

Presenter29:21

How does your family put up with you? Wife and three children. Well, how old are the children?

Hugh Laurie29:25

They are seven, five and two and a half, and the half is very significant, of course.

Presenter29:28

Of course.

Presenter29:30

How do they put up with it? I mean, are you are you?

Presenter29:32

Nice at home? I mean, do you make them laugh, or are you morose and gloomy?

Hugh Laurie29:36

I can still make the five year old laugh, the seven year old's rather bored by me now, and goes, Oh, Danny, you're only saying that just to make me laugh, and which is absolutely crushing. But that's how I I am you know, that's how I imagine audiences looking at me. You're only saying that to make me laugh.

Hugh Laurie29:50

It's pretty galling actually. So I think I've lost him. He's grown out of me now.

Presenter29:53

And do you make your wife laugh or does she have to put up with all the kind of agonizing?

Hugh Laurie29:56

Agony. I mean, we we do laugh a lot.

Hugh Laurie30:01

Jolly good chums. Oh, what a stupid thing to say. But you know what I mean. We we do yes, we do make each other laugh a lot.

Presenter30:07

Echo number seven.

Hugh Laurie30:08

Well, talking of my wife, this is Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. Um I'd I'd love to be able to say that we heard this song while um strolling through Venice, uh or but it that is that isn't the case. It's simply my wife has brown eyes and uh she is a girl, and that'll have to do as a reason.

Speaker 430:25

Hey, where did we go?

Speaker 430:29

Days when the rains came

Speaker 430:32

Down in the hollow.

Speaker 430:35

Playing a new game

Speaker 430:38

Laughing and running

Speaker 430:42

Skippin' and jumpin'.

Speaker 430:45

In the misky morning fog with

Speaker 430:48

Ah, I hide still found better than you.

Speaker 430:53

Right, girl.

Presenter30:56

Van Morrison and Brown Eyed Girl. This is where you get to fantasise out loud. Tell me about Hugh Laurie on a Desert Island.

Presenter31:03

Quick.

Hugh Laurie31:04

confident, actually, of my ability physically to s surv to survive, to sort of do the um

Hugh Laurie31:09

The binding of coconut fronds. I don't know if coconuts have fronds, but that would must be one of the first things I would try and discover. And as I say, I just have this such a

Hugh Laurie31:19

Such a wonderfully intense fantasy life that um I would be able to visit many far off continents inside my own head, actually, without any problem. In fact, I think I'm really rather looking forward to it in some ways.

Presenter31:31

And family apart, what will you miss most of of of the life that you have at the present?

Hugh Laurie31:37

I suppose, um

Hugh Laurie31:39

Company of one's friends and uh motorcycles I will miss a great deal. That would be a bitter blow.

Hugh Laurie31:46

Uh if I was there for long enough I might try and make one. And and the I suppose musical instruments actually, rather than the records, the would be a you know, a piano would be a wonderful thing to have and

Hugh Laurie31:55

To have the wherewithal. But then, of course, one can manufacture these things one way or another. Conch shells. I don't know where this island is.

Hugh Laurie32:03

I assume it's outside the M twenty five somewhere that I see if conch shells are lying round on the beach.

Hugh Laurie32:07

If there is a beach, maybe a car park.

Presenter32:11

Last record.

Hugh Laurie32:11

This is uh Doctor John with a very, very sad record called uh Me minus U equals Loneliness.

Presenter32:18

And why do you want that?

Hugh Laurie32:20

Because I I do enjoy sadness. I rather en I like a bit of a wallow. I'm very happy when I'm sad.

Speaker 432:28

Do we

Speaker 432:29

He was lonely.

Hugh Laurie32:32

Uh

Speaker 432:32

So won't come and do what you

Hugh Laurie32:42

Spanish

Speaker 432:43

What do we eagle on the name?

Hugh Laurie32:47

Uh

Presenter32:57

Doctor John and me minus you equals loneliness. N not good for morale, you think, on Central War

Hugh Laurie33:03

Well, maybe not. Maybe not. But then I think if you if you had the if you listened to the Eric Korngold straight afterwards, that would cheer you right back up.

Presenter33:10

And if you could only take one of them.

Hugh Laurie33:13

I would have to take um Brown Eyed Girl.

Hugh Laurie33:16

I think um and failing that I'd have to take the record, called the brown-eyed girl.

Presenter33:21

And your book?

Hugh Laurie33:22

My bo I think I would like to learn Italian. Uh the trouble is that of course all Italian teach yourself Italian books boast about how quickly you can do it, but on a desert island you'd want to um you know, learn Italian incredibly slowly if there is such a volume. I don't think any fiction would really um

Hugh Laurie33:37

Bear that sort of repetition, but I'd love to learn Italian.

Presenter33:39

And your luxury.

Hugh Laurie33:41

Ideally it would be the Savoy Hotel, but I have a feeling that that would be difficult. You wouldn't allow that.

Presenter33:46

Difficult.

Presenter33:47

Hmm.

Hugh Laurie33:47

Um I think my luxury would have to be a photo album.

Hugh Laurie33:52

Uh obviously with photographs in it, because an album on its own would be sort of dull.

Hugh Laurie33:57

Containing

Hugh Laurie33:59

Photographs of my family, my brown-eyed girl. Just a sort of collection of everyone I've known and loved, really. I don't know, I have no idea how long that would be. Maybe a big one.

Presenter34:10

Hugh Laurie, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Hugh Laurie34:13

Thank you.

Presenter34:14

Uh

Speaker 234:22

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