Peggy Mount

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.

Speaker 30:29

My castaway this week is an actress. With her booming voice and imposing figure, she's become one of Britain's favourite battle axes, the embodiment of the tyrannical mother-in-law. When she began in rep, she wanted to be a glamorous star, but her performances as Mrs. Hornet in Sailor Beware in the mid-fifties, followed by her role as the fierce wife in ITV's The Larkins, set her on the course for which she's famous. In a long string of plays, films, and television appearances, including highly successful stints at the National Theatre and the RSC, she's played the part of the barker reluctant to bite, from the nurse in Romeo and Juliet to the headmistress in the happiest days of your life. It's earned her the OBE and the affection of millions. You are, she says, only as good as your parts. She is Peggy Mount.

Speaker 31:17

But you've had some terrific parts, Peggy. The mass of people will of course remember you for Mar Larkin on the television. She was the archetypal battle axe, really, wasn't she?

Peggy Mount1:26

She was indeed, and uh when it all happened, I turned it down. I said, No, I'm not going to be typed, because it came after Sailor Beware and uh then I read it and of course it was so wonderfully written, I couldn't resist it.

Speaker 31:41

But why do you think it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, she was an old battle-axe, Ada Larkin. Why do you think we loved her so much?

Peggy Mount1:49

Well, all of them really have a heart of gold underneath and all they're doing it for I mean they're bullying their husbands because they don't want their daughters to go through what they've gone through. I mean it was in both of them. She was for the family. I mean uh the the husband in Sailor Beware was an absolute horror. I mean he didn't achieve anything. And so she had to do all the work and all the hard graft and my daughter's not having that happen to her.

Speaker 32:15

So do you think the audience was women, really? Women kind of will it's a kind of feminism, I supp early form of feminism, you know, putting putting the man in his place and holding the family together and all that stuff.

Peggy Mount2:24

Oh, I don't know. The men were wonderful. I mean, I had a fantastic moment. I got in a taxi and I was very busy looking at a script and he stopped the taxi at the top of Baker Street and said to me, I do know your name, don't know, Lady, who are you? And I said, Peggy Mountain. He said, I knew it. I knew it. But I didn't like to insult you by saying so.

Speaker 32:46

But the Larkins was w I presume one of the very first television sitcoms was that

Peggy Mount2:51

Yes, yes, we were with I think it was Joan and Leslie and the Larkins that were the very first. So it was live? It was to start with we were live. Oh dear, yes, we were live.

Speaker 32:58

It was just

Speaker 33:02

With an audience.

Peggy Mount3:03

With an audience uh and once in my experience we did it without an audience and you cannot do situation comedy without an audience.

Speaker 33:12

How many series did you do altogether?

Peggy Mount3:14

Oh, we did an awful lot, didn't we? We went we did the Larkins for something like seven years.

Speaker 33:20

Good heavens. And it w you would have been, I think, in your early forties when you first started doing

Speaker 43:24

Yeah.

Speaker 33:25

And yet it was the battle axe, wasn't it? You were Typecross as the battle axe. Oh yes. But from a long and distinguished line of them, really, if you think about it. I mean, going back to w who would you put in that line? Edith Evans, certainly.

Speaker 43:29

Oh yes.

Speaker 33:38

Margaret Rutherford?

Peggy Mount3:39

Oh, yes, of course I'm I'm always hand in hand with Margaret on everything. I mean everything I do. I mean I've just practically lived Madame R Carti and wherever I go it's always of course Margaret Rutherford was the first. The the parts I've played have been very varied. I've been very very fortunate in that way. They offered me a fortune to advertise things as a tough and I wouldn't do it. I was far more interested in becoming an actress of note than making a lot of money.

Speaker 34:11

Tell me about your first record.

Peggy Mount4:13

Well, I've always loved Crosby and adored Frank Sinatra. I mean, I think he's one of the greatest. And I think a piece of music that has given a great deal of joy to all of us is what a swell party this is from High Society.

Speaker 44:33

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 44:34

I have heard among this clan

Speaker 44:38

You are called a forgotten man. Is that what they say? Well did you add

Speaker 44:44

What a swell party this is

Speaker 44:48

The story I

Speaker 44:51

A girl unrequited sounds like pure soap out to an end tomorrow. What a swell party this is.

Speaker 35:00

In Crosby and Frank Sinatra and Well did you ever from High Society. Tell me then, Peggy Mount, about this slender glamour puss you believed you could be. What made you

Peggy Mount5:10

You think she could exist? I thought if I slimmed down enough and I was a good enough actress, I could play all the glamour roles. When you think of everything that Coward has written, I would love to I mean, I did play Hay Fever in rep. I was totally wrong for it and I wasn't very good. But those were the parts I would love to have played.

Speaker 35:30

Did you starve yourself? I mean, do you think you're going to be able to do that? Oh, yes.

Peggy Mount5:31

Oh yes. You know, I used to have an apple for lunch and and a pear to go to bed with, you know, hoping I would lose weight. And I would, and I would lose a stone and then I'd go back onto my normal diet and I would put it all back on again in a month.

Speaker 35:47

But had you been particularly feminine and petite as a child? Did did you know, did you have reason to believe that there was somebody slim and beautiful then?

Peggy Mount5:53

Somebody slim and

Peggy Mount5:55

No, no. I always as a little girl all I wanted to do as a little girl was to be an actress or be a dancer. And I knew if I was too fat I would never be a dancer. And I suppose it it stayed in my mind.

Speaker 36:08

And you had an older sister, didn't you? And you lived very much in her shadow, I think.

Peggy Mount6:12

Yes, very much so. I I mean, I haven't seen her for years, but um that wasn't what made me want to be slim. I just wanted to play all these wonderful, glamorous roles.

Speaker 36:24

I just wonder where you got that ambition or that sense of competition from, or was perhaps, you know, you were compared to her too much

Peggy Mount6:30

I was very much as when when I was little. What did your parents think of you? Well, my father was an invalid. He was a very, very, very sick man. And uh he died when I was eleven and I I sort of never really uh knew him as well as I would like to because he was such a sick man and I never had any contact with my mother. I mean my m my mother didn't like me particularly. I mean I had no love from her at all.

Speaker 36:59

Why not, do you think?

Peggy Mount7:00

I don't know. I I think, you know, it was m my brilliant sister who was going to go to the top of the tree and all that sort of thing.

Peggy Mount7:09

And she was a brilliant pianist.

Speaker 37:11

Hmm.

Peggy Mount7:12

But uh

Speaker 37:13

So you had a sort of inferiority complex.

Peggy Mount7:14

Oh, I had a shocking inferiority complex, always have had.

Peggy Mount7:18

in that sense. But never about my work, strangely enough.

Speaker 37:23

Hm. But what about your sister? Have you never

Peggy Mount7:25

No, I've never really kept in contact with her. I mean, I've got her little thing in my kitchen. God gives us our relations. Thank God we can choose our friends.

Speaker 37:25

No, I've never really

Speaker 37:35

But you'd had a terrible accident as a small girl, hadn't you?

Peggy Mount7:38

Yes, it w when I say a terrible accident. I I was always afraid of the dark, I don't know why. And uh one winter evening we had a fire and a kettle boiling on it. My sister went out to get some coal and I locked the door after I turned round and knocked the kettle over me and it was boiling and all the boiling water went into my water boots.

Peggy Mount8:00

And I must have rubbed my leg, and the the dye from my brown woollen stockings went in, and it was poisoned, and it was very nasty, and the doctor wanted to amputate. And there was a wonderful Scottish nurse, and she said, You're too fond of taking people's limbs off. I will

Peggy Mount8:18

save it and she came in three times a day and put hot fermentations on my leg and save my leg.

Peggy Mount8:25

But what did happen to me, you know, I went to bed with that bad leg, a little fragile my dad used to call me his little fragile child, and I got out of bed fat. It shocked all my glands, it must have done.

Speaker 38:40

And what did your m how did your mother react in all of that?

Peggy Mount8:43

Fish.

Speaker 38:43

Uh

Peggy Mount8:44

I don't really remember.

Peggy Mount8:46

I had no nothing in common with my mother at all. I wouldn't know what it was to have an arm round me and be loved from my mother.

Speaker 38:58

And how much has that affected you through the middle of the middle of the middle?

Peggy Mount9:00

I don't think it's affected me greatly. I I was very fortunate in that sense that it didn't embitter me. I think going as I did into rep

Peggy Mount9:09

With that wonderful fellowship you had in Weekly Rep, you had to have it. Because to put a play on in a week, when you think about it, it's almost impossible.

Speaker 39:17

So that became your family, really?

Peggy Mount9:19

In a fancy sort of way, yes.

Speaker 39:20

Uh

Speaker 39:21

Tell me about record number two.

Peggy Mount9:23

When I was a little girl, I used to black my face up and sing a song, and it was my curly headed Babby, and it was Paul Robeson, of course, his famous, wonderful number.

Speaker 49:37

Oh my baby, my curly-headed baby, we'll sit below the sky and sing a song to the moon.

Speaker 49:53

Oh my baby, my little donkey baby, your daddy's in the cotton field working for the

Speaker 29:54

Yeah.

Speaker 310:07

Paul Robeson and my curly headed baby. So you spent your childhood, Peggy Mount, in South End, longing to be on the stage. Did you always have the voice there?

Peggy Mount10:17

No, indeed not. All my time in rep I had the most beautiful contralto velvety voice. But doing three years in the play in the West End and going over that audience, of course you had to, you you couldn't let them go at fifteen hundred people all laughing their heads off, I had to go over the top of them and of course I finished that with a very rough voice. And it just stayed that way. It got deeper and deeper. It got rougher and rougher, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 310:46

But but obviously in South End you were enamored to dramatics'cause you Oh yes, I was the queen of the

Peggy Mount10:49

Oh yes, I was the Queen of the Amateurs.

Speaker 310:51

Were you? And and did you have a lot of encouragement? I mean

Peggy Mount10:54

Well, yes, looking back in those days, I mean, I had a wonderful childhood because everybody was so terribly kind, because my dad was so sick, and the church were wonderful to me, and I ran the amateurs. And Harry Hanson had a company down there, and one day I went to have a cup of coffee, and sitting opposite me was the director of the company. I mean, I could have fainted, I was so excited, you know, and he came over to me.

Peggy Mount11:20

Then he said to me, I understand you want to go on the stage and I said yes. He said, Well, write to Harry Hanson and they'll give you a job and he walked out. Well, and that's how I got on.

Speaker 311:28

And so he gave you a job and off you went to where did you start?

Peggy Mount11:31

Mr. Keithley in Yorkshire.

Speaker 311:33

What to the hippodrome?

Peggy Mount11:34

To the Hippodrome that was of course the oh, it's a lovely little theatre, and we did twice weekly, twice nightly there.

Peggy Mount11:42

And that is now a bus stop, sadly. It was a lovely little theatre, a beautiful little theatre. But what sort of plays did you do? Oh, of th we did all of them. I mean, we did uh Blythe Spirit and uh because I can remember playing the maid in Blythe Spirit when I was very young and and tripping and I had a tray of tea and cup and it went all over the stage because I went flat on my face. How much did you get paid?

Peggy Mount12:07

I was paid four pounds a week.

Peggy Mount12:10

And two pound ten had to go on my digs. Not full board, bed and breakfast for two pound ten, and then the other thirty shillings one, you know, had to live on.

Speaker 312:20

and two performances a day.

Peggy Mount12:21

And the first time you've been out of South End, wasn't it? The first time I'd I mean because uh when I got to Keeseley that night that the the the stage direct was supposed to meet me and it was a Sunday night and it was pouring with rain and when I got to the theatre there was nobody there at all.

Peggy Mount12:45

And I thought, what am I going to do? And somebody said, Are you in trouble, love? And I said I told him, and he said, Oh, come over here, he said, I'll introduce you to Maud Wallace she'll look after, and he took me into a pub, and I'd never been in a pub in my life. I'd signed the pledge and all that, you know.

Peggy Mount13:02

I'm good Methodist, yeah. Absolutely. And they all said to me, What you can have to drink? And all I knew was shandy.

Peggy Mount13:09

And they lined up I mean, there was shandy everywhere and somebody said, Hey, bangum, if you eat that lot, you then you'll bust your navel And I was known as the navel bastard up there at half flat.

Speaker 313:23

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Peggy Mount13:25

Having played uh Blythe Spirit several times, of course there is always it runs right the way through the play and it'll always be very close to my heart. And I think you've got Elizabeth Welsh doing it. How wonderful.

Speaker 413:38

I'll be loving you always with a love that's true.

Speaker 413:48

Always When the things you've planned Need a helping hand, I will understand Always, always

Speaker 313:58

Under

Speaker 414:06

Yeah.

Speaker 314:06

Elizabeth Welsh singing Always.

Speaker 414:06

It is

Peggy Mount14:08

Uh

Speaker 314:08

From b

Peggy Mount14:09

Blithe spirit, hammy tea.

Speaker 314:10

And to you

Peggy Mount14:10

Oh, for goodness' sake, I've played it for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years. It it's followed me. It's a lovely, wonderful, fabulous part.

Speaker 314:18

You played it, I think, about six or seven years ago in Ham at the lyric Hammersmith, didn't you?

Peggy Mount14:22

Oh, ye ye yes, yes, we did, didn't we?

Speaker 314:24

But somebody said you stole the show.

Peggy Mount14:26

Ah That's not difficult with Madame Arcast.

Speaker 314:29

One critic wrote that you wore black boots, a black berry, and a kind of personalized tent.

Peggy Mount14:34

I've never really understood why the laugh came so enormous, but I wore ankle socks. And as I came from behind the chair and they saw the ankle socks, the audience just fell about with laughter and I can't think why. But once I got the laugh, I always wore the socks, of course.

Speaker 314:51

But

Speaker 314:52

When was it though, Peggy, going back again to the early days, that that you came to terms with w with not being glamorous? How old were you when you realized you had to settle for what nature has

Peggy Mount15:00

I know I was in Leeds, in the theatre in Leeds, and I was eating my apple.

Peggy Mount15:08

And Geoffrey Wood, who was the company manager he was the director and ran the company, said to me, Why aren't you having your lunch? and I said, I want to get thin so that I can play all the glamour parts and he said to me, You've got a character face, a character body, a character walk.

Peggy Mount15:27

And you'll never be anything but a character woman, so eat

Peggy Mount15:31

And he walked away.

Peggy Mount15:34

And I cried my eyes out, I remember. But I very, very soon realized that he was absolutely right.

Peggy Mount15:41

And I gave up all ideas of ever being glamorous and I played all the character parts and I was then very successful.

Peggy Mount15:48

Tell me about your next record.

Peggy Mount15:50

One of my dear friends, Dorothy Squires, wrote

Peggy Mount15:55

and made a big success of a wonderful number, Say It With Flowers, and with dear Russ Conway playing the piano. She was promoting the record and she invited us all down to her home and she had a swimming pool and we were all to dive in the swimming pool and have photographs taken. Of course nobody realised how cold the water was. And with all the press around taking photographs, everybody dived in this water and came up. So the photographs are really quite something.

Speaker 416:24

When you wanna say don't worry, say it with card

Speaker 416:36

Oh they can speak, I know you will agree that Heaven created them for you.

Speaker 316:57

Dorothy Squires accompanied by Russ Conway and Say It With Flowers. So years of rep, Peggy, pre and post war, but it was in nineteen fifty five, wasn't it, in your late thirties.

Peggy Mount17:07

It's not a good thing.

Speaker 317:08

You're in London, running out of money, and you are offered the part of a lifetime. Emma Hornet in Sailor Beware. Tell me about it.

Peggy Mount17:16

Well, I was in one room in Bayswater and my agent said to me, you know, he'd got this play done in Worthing and he thought I could play it. And I said to him, I've got to do it. Nobody could do it better than I can. And it was cast.

Peggy Mount17:33

And, you know, I thought, oh and then he phoned me up on the Friday and he said the lady who was going to play the part had been called back on a film and they've got first call on her. Would I do it? So I got the script and I stayed up all Friday night, all Saturday night and all Sunday night and I learnt it. Because you you get out of learning weekly rep.

Peggy Mount17:55

And I went down to Worthing and it was a huge success and Jack Waller bought it.

Peggy Mount18:03

and wanted to bring it into the West End. And it was a a year. I had a whole year out of work more or less because I I daren't take another job in case we got a theatre.

Speaker 318:13

Because you knew it was your part.

Peggy Mount18:15

I knew it was by the way.

Speaker 318:15

It's it's interesting, isn't it? Because again a critic has said since that that occasionally you get this absolute coincidence of role and performer and it was your part, wasn't it?

Peggy Mount18:23

Was absolutely.

Speaker 318:25

Tell me about her, Emma Hornet. What was she like?

Peggy Mount18:27

Well, w again, she was a Cockney woman with a daughter, and the the daughter gets herself engaged to be married to a sailor.

Peggy Mount18:36

And mum has had dad and all he's interested in is his ferrets in the back garden and she had to do all the work and all the thinking and my daughter is not going to have that. And that's why she was so awfully evil to the sailor because she didn't think he was good enough for her daughter. The dialogue in that play was unbelievable. I'd love to do it again.

Speaker 319:00

But it was a huge hit. I mean it was overnight success at Strand Theatre.

Peggy Mount19:02

It felt fair to us.

Peggy Mount19:05

Absolutely unbelievable. What was also incredible, I didn't see it, I didn't know it, but they had put my name outside the theatre in lights and hadn't lit it up because Jack Waller was sure I was going to be a big success. And I came happily round the corner the next day and I looked up and there was my name in lights. And I shot into a a doorway of a glove shop, I remember, and I was looking, I thought that's my name. And it was bigger than anybody's in lights.

Speaker 319:35

Yeah.

Peggy Mount19:36

Uh

Speaker 319:37

So is that really your favorite part of all time, really, in the hornet?

Peggy Mount19:41

Well, yes, I've got to say that, haven't I? I mean, I've I've played some wonderful parts, but Emma Hornet will always be my favourite because she's she gave me everything I wanted in the world. Record number five. Another favourite of mine that I've loved all my life is Judy Garland, particularly the lovely number, You Made Me Love You.

Speaker 420:02

And I thought I'd write and tell you so You made me love you I didn't want to do it I didn't want to do it

Speaker 420:20

You made me love you And all the time you knew it I guess you always knew it You made me happy sometimes

Speaker 320:33

Judy Garland and You Made Me Love You. You made films, too, of course, Peggy, um notably Hotel Paradiso. Oh, yes, with beloved Alec Guinness, yes. Were you very much in awe of the great man?

Peggy Mount20:41

Oh yes, with

Peggy Mount20:46

I well, I I was more than in awe, and my very, very first

Peggy Mount20:52

encounter with him, it was in Paris, and I had to stick uh a hat pin up his bottom in the you know, the action. And they gave me this hat pin that was absolutely lethal. I mean it was sharp as anything. And I can't speak French and they couldn't speak English and I was trying to get it rubbed down and I never blunted and uh uh I I I'm doing the scene and of course I didn't stick it in him.

Speaker 321:15

Until

Peggy Mount21:22

And he said to me rather grandly, You know, you will have to stick that in me.

Peggy Mount21:26

And I said to him, No, if you want that up your ass, you're welcome.

Peggy Mount21:29

And he looked at me and I looked at him and we both fell about with laughter. And I discovered afterward he was more afraid of me than I was of him.

Peggy Mount21:39

But he was so wonderful to work with. I loved him dearly.

Speaker 321:42

And then there was Sid James, of course, another co-star of yours on the television, that was, wasn't he? George and the Dragon.

Peggy Mount21:44

Kill style of yours after

Peggy Mount21:47

George and the Dragon three or four years together, Sid and I, and we never had a cross word. He was so wonderful to work with. It was the very, very first day with him. Uh we were live television and he leant across and moved me and I'd stood right in front of his camera. He wasn't cross, he thought, oh dear silly woman. But he was wonderful.

Speaker 322:08

But what you certainly seemed to manage uh to do was steer this very clever line really between television and the theater, because you never quite got swallowed up by the television, did you? Despite the sitcoms, which doesn't really matter.

Peggy Mount22:18

Despite the sitcom.

Peggy Mount22:19

No, because my first love is the theatre.

Speaker 322:23

But I suppose you would have made far more money in the television than in commercials and so on.

Peggy Mount22:28

Very much so, yes. I was far more interested in the parts always and the playing of it than the money. But you've made enough in your time. Oh, yes, I'm looking. And he once said to me, Let's make our money in the television and keep the theatre alive, APEG. And that is something that we've all got to remember now, because the theatre's going through a bad time and we mustn't ask for a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds a week. You know, we've got to go and keep the theatre alive.

Peggy Mount23:06

Tell me about your next record. When I had the privilege of playing the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, I was sitting in the audience waiting to go on, and there was an Italian sitting next to me with an instrument. I don't know what it was, and he was picking out a tune.

Peggy Mount23:21

And that went that tune went right the way through the play, right the way through the film, and to my absolute amazement, one day I heard Johnny Mathis singing it, and it was one of the top of the pops.

Speaker 423:34

And with our love through tears and thorns, we will endure as we pass surely through every storm. A time for us, someday there'll be a new world, a world of shining hope for you and me.

Speaker 324:05

Johnny Mathis singing A Time for Us, the love theme from the film of Romeo and Juliet. Do you remember Peggy being booked to play the part of L Vic?

Peggy Mount24:13

Well, yes, indeed. Uh I had been offered every tough old lady that there there ever was and I turned it all down and the phone rang and the voice said, My name is Michael Benthall and I thought I ought to know that name, I ought to know that and he said I am run the old Vic and we are doing Romeo and Juliet. Would you and I said yes please and he said oh my that was quick and I said but you're an answer to prayer

Peggy Mount24:42

He said I've been called a lot of things in my time, but never an answer to prayer.

Speaker 324:47

Yeah.

Peggy Mount24:47

You've never

Speaker 324:47

The married Peggy.

Peggy Mount24:49

No. I've had one or two wonderful experiences and

Peggy Mount24:54

I don't know, sometimes I think uh

Speaker 324:57

Perhaps all all those men thought you were the battle axe you were, or it could be.

Peggy Mount24:59

It could be that had never occurred to me, of course.

Peggy Mount25:04

Never occurred to me.

Speaker 325:04

But maybe also d is it perhaps that you come from that generation of women who feel that they had to make a choice between marriage and a career to be able to do it.

Peggy Mount25:12

I do. I mean, I think myself I mean, I mustn't keep on about it, but I do think my mother's m the loveless

Peggy Mount25:21

of my mother probably did have a lot to do with it. I mean, I say it didn't hadn't affected me. It hasn't altered my life. I've had the most wonderful life and I'm terribly grateful for it. But uh certainly when I was a child and I had no love at all from my mother, I think maybe that did affect me.

Speaker 325:40

Hmm.

Peggy Mount25:40

But I I don't regret it. I'm not the slightest bit sour or bitter about it at all.

Speaker 325:46

Yeah.

Peggy Mount25:46

Said

Speaker 325:46

And it

Peggy Mount25:46

No, I'm not I've had the most wonderful life, and I had the most wonderful childhood.

Speaker 325:46

No, I'm not I've had

Speaker 325:51

And and what about the other thing that you talked about in your early life, the the wait? Have you waged gone on waging a lifelong battle against it? Or did you give up?

Peggy Mount25:59

Now I'm I don't even think about it. But then I wouldn't at my age, would I?

Speaker 326:04

And anyway, on a desert island you can be and do exactly what you like.

Peggy Mount26:09

Two.

Speaker 326:09

Yeah, I mean, are you looking forward to it? Do you how will you pass the time when you get there?

Peggy Mount26:12

I'm one of those people I can be solitary. I I'm quite happy by myself, you know and and now, of course, if I if I get lonely I can pick up the phone and I've got hundreds of friends, but that wouldn't happen on a desert island. But I I could cope.

Peggy Mount26:28

Right, record number seven.

Peggy Mount26:30

This is a very special record for me because it was uh the music was by Cyril Ornadel and my dear friend Norman Neuer wrote the lyrics and while they were creating this I was making them cups of tea and cups of coffee and so I was there when this lovely record was conceived and of course it was a huge success for Matt Munro, Portrait of my Love.

Speaker 426:56

That would take I know

Speaker 427:02

A Michael Angelo

Speaker 427:07

And he would need

Speaker 427:11

The glow of dawn

Speaker 427:14

That paints the sky above To try and paint a portrait of my love

Speaker 327:27

Matt Munro and Portrait of my Love. You're still in work, Peggy, very much so, but you don't see as well as you did.

Peggy Mount27:34

No, unfortunately I've got a detached retina and that's, you know, what happens. Something happens to you when you get old and that's what's happened to me. But I can see on the stage. As long as I know where everything is, I'm perfectly all right. And but how do you learn your lines then? On tape.

Peggy Mount27:51

That's not easy.

Peggy Mount27:53

I've got a very, very dear friend who puts everything on tape for me and I learn on tape. It's ever so much easier when you can see when you're learning and you've you dry and you can just look at it. But in your

Speaker 328:06

Well in your mind's eye on the page, as it were, is a sort of photographic thing.

Peggy Mount28:10

It's not a lot of people uh have always learnt on tape, but I suppose what you first learn, uh you know, it it it's much easier for you.

Speaker 328:20

Hmm.

Peggy Mount28:20

So is it quite worrying walking on stage and not, you know, not No, no, no. Once I know what I'm saying, once I once I've learnt the words properly, I've got no problem. Because I can see. I mean, I'm not blind. I'm what they call half-sighted. And people are so kind. You've only got to appeal to somebody and say, I'm half-sighted, will you help me? And everybody will help you.

Speaker 328:30

Did that?

Peggy Mount28:43

I mean there's far more kindness in this world than we're giving it credit for.

Speaker 328:48

You're just eighty. Um well what are what are you currently doing? Are you bound to play in Uncle Vanya or?

Peggy Mount28:54

Yes, I'm I'm doing Ankovanya down at Chichester.

Speaker 328:58

Your nanny.

Peggy Mount28:59

I'm playing nanny, yes, I've learnt it.

Peggy Mount29:02

Again, a wonderful part. Oh, it is. It's lovely. It well, there's not a bad part in it, actually.

Peggy Mount29:08

It's a very, very well written play, of course, Uncle Vanya.

Speaker 329:11

And do you still enjoy it, then? Does it still give you the baths you were describing?

Peggy Mount29:14

describing earlier, you know. Oh, you never lose it. Even when you play something like pantomime, I I usually play Fairy Godmother. And when you go out and those children r respond to you, I mean, there's there's nothing like it in the world.

Speaker 329:29

You you said before now that you you planned to die on the stage. Very dramatic exit. Is that really what

Peggy Mount29:35

You'd like to have oh no, I mean that to r you you say these things. I mean, I I don't want ever to retire because I love working so much. And if they want me, as long as they want me

Peggy Mount29:49

I will be only too pleased to play.

Peggy Mount29:53

Tell me about your last record. Well, uh m m my one classical record actually, good gracious. I was at home one night and Norman, my lovely friend Norman, phoned me up and said, I've got to go to Paris, Peg, and I've got two tickets for the ballet. Would you like them? So I went and got them. What I didn't realize was it was the first night of Romeo and Juliet with Nuriev and Margot Fontaine and it was one of the most wonderful evenings of my life. Everybody of course was there.

Peggy Mount30:27

But I'd just done Romeo and Juliet and I could hear the dialogue. It was so marvellous. I mean, they were absolutely superb.

Peggy Mount30:35

And it was the Brokofieff, and that will always be close to my heart.

Speaker 331:35

Part of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, played by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by Algis Juraitis. So if you could only take one of those records, Peggy, which one would it be?

Peggy Mount31:44

I there's no doubt in my mind I'd have to have portrait of my love because then I would have Norman and Cyril with me making wonderful music all the time.

Speaker 331:54

And what about a book?

Peggy Mount31:57

I thought, dear beloved Noel Cards Diaries, everything I've ever done of Cards has been wonderful, and it'll be lovely to have him with me on the island. And what about your luxury? Lots and lots of tea. I can do anything as long as I've got a cup of tea.

Speaker 332:12

Peggy Mount, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 232:23

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