Kevin Whately

Speaker 30:00

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.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is an actor. A shy, rather solitary boy from a remote part of Northumbria. The theatre was said to be in the family genes. But, lacking encouragement to head for the professional stage, he trained as an accountant. A year before qualifying, he quit, enrolled at drama school instead, and paid for himself by busking at Oxford Circus. It was a bold but inspired decision. After a long apprenticeship in Rep, ten years ago he began to make his name in television. First as Neville, the carpenter who missed his missus in our Fidesen Pet, three years later as the dependable Sergeant Lewis to John Thor's Morse, and in the nineties as the dynamic Doctor Jack Carrouche in Peak Practice, three of the most successful series in recent television history. Acting is a refuge from reality, he says, and it's also a therapy for being shy. He is Kevin Waitley. So you hide, do you, Kevin, behind the characters you inhabit?

Kevin Whately1:24

I think I do. I I do it less now than I used to. When I was younger I didn't have any time for my own character at all and the acting was a sort of release for me.

Presenter1:32

So does that mean as a as a shy person, which you say you are, you you you enjoy playing more dynamic roles,'cause you sort of try being somebody you're not really?

Kevin Whately1:41

Definitely, yeah, yeah. I'm not lacking in energy. I d I do put a lot of energy into my work, but I'm a fairly laid back, easy person and and I like playing more dynamic characters.

Presenter1:51

But on the other hand, presumably you play a role better if there are points of contact between you and the kind of guy you're playing.

Kevin Whately1:57

Yeah, I don't think, particularly on screen, that you can play a character unless you find the points of contact and and pull the character towards you rather than the other way. It's uh if an actor seemed to be working too hard, it doesn't quite work. I don't think the audiences relax if they can see you're working too hard at it.

Presenter2:11

So what were your points of contact in Trip Trap when you played a Wife Beater?

Kevin Whately2:15

Ah, uh you've got me in one there. Um

Kevin Whately2:18

I'm not sure. I decided I I that I didn't understand any of the physical side of actually brutalizing somebody physically, but

Kevin Whately2:26

The more I thought about the character I thought well I can be quite

Kevin Whately2:28

rough in an argument, verbally quite violent, and uh I just took that and and amplified it as much as I could.

Presenter2:35

But but of the two characters we really know you for, and and they're of course Sergeant Lewis with the short back and sides, very solid and conventional, and and the rather more exciting Doctor Karouche, which are you, then? Which is more like you?

Kevin Whately2:49

I've got a horrible suspicion I uh probably Lewis, but uh

Presenter2:53

Why did you say horrible suspicion?

Kevin Whately2:53

Did you say home?

Kevin Whately2:55

Well, he's he's a bit plodding and uh there are large elements o of of both.

Presenter3:00

But which one do you prefer playing, I suppose, is great test?

Kevin Whately3:03

Karouche, I guess, yeah, because he gets on and does things, which I do. Uh

Presenter3:07

Got a bit more about him.

Kevin Whately3:08

Yeah, I would say so.

Presenter3:09

Tell me about your first record.

Kevin Whately3:11

This is Ralph MacTell, it's called An Irish Blessing and I've loved MacTell's stuff for years. I think he's he's our best singer-songwriter. For twenty-five years I've listened to his stuff and it I I find his songs always have something relevant to say and this is about uh letting your children make their own mistakes. My daughter at the moment's um singing Ralph McTell songs in her chamber choir, so she was very keen for a Ralph MacTell track as well, and I owe him a fortune in royalties for one reason or another.

Speaker 33:39

Down its week.

Kevin Whately3:42

Who has to learn?

Kevin Whately3:44

To let you make your way alone.

Kevin Whately3:49

Try on

Kevin Whately3:51

Uh

Speaker 33:51

Direct each turn.

Speaker 33:54

Your triumphs and mistakes you wrong.

Speaker 34:00

Your path will differ

Kevin Whately4:02

B

Speaker 34:02

He told my

Kevin Whately4:04

Tricks of my chain, no you must

Presenter4:07

Ralph MacTell and an Irish blessing. So you you owe him, you say, because you used his stuff in your repertoire as a busker, presumably.

Kevin Whately4:09

McDowell.

Kevin Whately4:10

Irish blessing.

Kevin Whately4:17

I did, without his permission, uh several of his songs, yeah.

Presenter4:20

But were you a successful busker?

Kevin Whately4:22

Yeah, um financially. Um

Kevin Whately4:26

I I'm not sure that London Transport thought I was. They arrested me more than once. But it it uh it was a necessity. Paid my way through drama school.

Presenter4:33

Wh why arrested you though? Where were you? What what was illegal?

Kevin Whately4:36

I used to sing in the Oxford Street Underground station, Oxford Circus, usually during rush hour on a Friday morning and uh it it was illegal. It's a but there's a bylaw that says you can't sing there.

Presenter4:48

How much would you have made on a Friday morning?

Kevin Whately4:50

Well, we're talking about the early seventies.

Presenter4:54

No.

Kevin Whately4:54

ten or fifteen pounds in an hour, maybe.

Presenter4:57

Not bad, so

Kevin Whately4:58

It was great.

Presenter4:58

Did you seriously consider making a living out of singing?

Kevin Whately5:01

I think at the time.

Kevin Whately5:03

You know, there was nothing else. I didn't want to go to university and and I wasn't sure where I was going.

Presenter5:08

'Cause you've got the usual pack of sort of G C S E's and A levels, haven't you?

Kevin Whately5:11

Yeah, that that that was fine. I was I was quite bright, but I kn I knew I didn't want to go to university, I didn't want to carry on learning.

Presenter5:18

But eventually you went to see a careers officer'cause you thought you better get real.

Kevin Whately5:22

That's right. I went to s see the careers advisory guy in Newcastle and he said, What do you want to do? and I said, I'd like to be an actor and he he said, Oh no, there's no future in that, no, no, no.

Kevin Whately5:32

I don't think he knew anything about it, to be fair to him, or or how how to get me started in it. And he said, What else do you want to do? and foolishly I said I'd I'd like to be a big business tycoon, not really knowing what it entailed.

Kevin Whately5:43

And uh

Kevin Whately5:45

He said, All right, um, accountancy is the thing for you and within more three days I was um organized, put articles with Pricewaterhouse in Newcastle and

Kevin Whately5:55

That was it for now.

Presenter5:55

I mean big firm.

Kevin Whately5:56

Let me just.

Kevin Whately5:58

Big firm and and huge accounts. I mean, it it was fascinating. I've never regretted doing it. We used to do stock takes at ICI and and uh British Shipbuilders there, Swan Hunters and Little Woodyards and Scottish and Newcastle breweries. So I saw a huge area of working life.

Presenter6:14

And you did that for a couple of years, at least.

Kevin Whately6:16

It's three and a half.

Presenter6:17

Three and a half years. So it was a huge decision when one day you decided

Kevin Whately6:17

Yeah.

Presenter6:21

This is not for me. I'm still gonna be an actor.

Kevin Whately6:24

It didn't feel like a big decision at all, but wasn't it a catalyst? What about the catalog? Yeah, I'd I joined in the meantime I joined the the People's Theatre in Yukosa, which is a big co-op uh theatre with about a thousand members, would do about six plays a year there, or maybe more, one every six weeks.

Presenter6:26

But was there a catalyst?

Kevin Whately6:39

And I d I realized I was living for the evenings and and that uh the work in the day didn't mean anything to me at all.

Presenter6:46

Has there been a time since, or was there, you know, in the years that followed immediately after that, that you thought, I should never have done this. I could now be earning a good, solid, if not lucrative, living as an accountant?

Kevin Whately6:57

Not for a second. There's nothing else I've ever wanted to do really, really silly.

Presenter7:02

Record number two.

Kevin Whately7:03

Record number two is um Smetna's the uh the Moldau. I love Prague as a city. I think it's it's beautiful and uh it it's just a a stunning piece of music. It was around when I was a kid. I think it my mum had an an E P of of the Moldau bit of Mavlast and I used to play it at home.

Presenter8:20

Part of Smetna's Mavlast played by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jercy Byleflavec.

Presenter8:26

Just to go back a bit earlier, Kevin, uh I said that the theatre was in the family genes. It goes back to your grandmother, doesn't it?

Kevin Whately8:33

She sang at concert parties and things, I I think, but uh I I never knew her, but what we did have of hers was a a big tin of stage makeup grease paint.

Kevin Whately8:43

which fascinated us as as little kids. My sister had a fantastic facility, my older sister Alison, for writing plays. She'd invent a ceremony for any occasion and march us round the garden or up through the village and we were always clagged with this grease paint.

Kevin Whately8:59

And dressed in bits of old curtain and uh

Presenter9:02

So it was a little village, was it? I mean, I said remote part of Northumbria.

Kevin Whately9:05

Yeah, it's just above the Roman wall. It's a place called Humshoff and it's on the North Tyne River.

Presenter9:09

And your father was interested in the theatre as well.

Kevin Whately9:12

He was. He was in the the Royal Navy and I never saw any of his productions, but he used to direct at at one point he was an instructor commander at Greenwich and and he used to put plays on there. I never actually worked with him or or had any

Presenter9:24

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Whately9:25

Theatrical discussions with him really, but I remember he he died when I was seventeen.

Presenter9:30

Did he?

Presenter9:31

What but very suddenly.

Kevin Whately9:33

Fairly suddenly he had a heart attack, but he'd had he'd had two before. It was his third one.

Presenter9:37

And he'd been away in the Navy anyway, so you perhaps didn't know know him very well.

Kevin Whately9:40

I think I was just getting to know him well, at the time he died he d he came out of the navy when I was eleven. But by then I was away at school and uh so n no, I d I I didn't have a lot of time with him unfortunately.

Presenter9:52

Hm. So did it come as a great blow when you died?

Kevin Whately9:55

Huge blow, obviously huge.

Kevin Whately9:58

Yeah, I th I thought the world of him. He's a a lovely man and uh

Kevin Whately10:03

Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever got over it.

Presenter10:06

So there were four of you. You were the second youngest, weren't you, of the of the brothers and sisters. Why does one get

Presenter10:13

when reading interviews about you the impression that you were actually rather a lonely little boy.

Kevin Whately10:18

I don't remember being lonely. I was I was a lone er because it was very rural. I I I've always loved the outdoors and we had dogs of various sorts. That was always my favorite pastime, just yomping off with a dog somewhere down by the river.

Presenter10:31

And why so shy if you, you know, spent your life performing?

Kevin Whately10:35

I don't know why I was shy. I don't know why are people shy?

Presenter10:39

But why do you want to perform if you're shy, is really the question, isn't it?

Kevin Whately10:39

The red.

Kevin Whately10:43

I suppose nobody likes being shy, not being able to cope in social situations.

Presenter10:47

But that's where the therapy comes in. It it it's helped you with your shyness. And you you were saying earlier, you're not as shy these days as you were.

Kevin Whately10:52

I'm not nearly as shy as a Wallace man.

Presenter10:53

Yeah, you've learned to live up to your reputation.

Presenter10:56

Next record.

Kevin Whately10:59

This was at a record that my dad gave me.

Kevin Whately11:02

I guess when I was about ten or eleven, by Owen Brannigan, who was a a wonderful opera singer, but he recorded a lot of North Country folk songs.

Kevin Whately11:11

And I loved the Northern variety songs, George Armstrong's stuff. I I found them very funny and people used to laugh. I learned them and and sang them as well. And that that's one of the the early things that got me hooked on performing. This is um Cushie Butterfield.

Speaker 111:25

I'm a broken hearted keel man, what's our healing low? With the young lass from Gateshead, in the cal her meadow. Oh, her name's Cushy Butterfield, and she sells yellow clay. In a cousin's a muckman, and the cal him Tom Gray. She's a big lass and a bunny lass, and she likes her beer. And the cal her cushy butterfield, and I wish you were sneak.

Presenter11:54

Owen Brannigan and Cushy Butterfield. You'd have been in your mid twenties then, Kevin Waitley, by the time you got your equity card and the long slog in Rep began. What sort of things did you do? What were the high spots? The low spots?

Kevin Whately12:06

It never felt like a slog and I don't remember any low spots at all, but uh I was very lucky it um

Kevin Whately12:12

A lady called Joan Knight came down from Perth while I was at drama school and directed a show there and took me up.

Kevin Whately12:18

to Perth and I guess the first year I did about thirteen or fourteen shows, plays, and she used to mother me through and and say, What would you like to play in the next one? and I'll I'll tell you what I think you should play and you tell me what you'd like to play and we'll we'll come to some

Kevin Whately12:32

agreement and uh it it was great. I was the resident Englishman in a Scots company, so I got to play princes and all sorts and

Presenter12:41

And you did Pan too as well, did you?

Kevin Whately12:42

Panto, yeah, Panto every year, and at least one Shakespeare every year. Marvellous experience. Fantastic start.

Presenter12:47

Right. And then you went you went into left wing theatre.

Kevin Whately12:51

I did, yeah. I did um five or six years round the Reps, Stoke, the theatre in the Round there, and and at the time there was a a very thriving left wing theatre, seven eighty four, and and a group called Pirate Jenny that I used to work for a lot of feminist group, and uh we did one night fit ups all round the country. It was like being in an old Shakespearean touring group, I loved it.

Presenter13:14

But then suddenly in nineteen eighty three, when you'd have been, what, about thirty two, wouldn't you? Um, along came Alphides A and Pet about a group of of Geordie builders who go to work in Germany and you were asked to be Neville the Carpenter, the drippy chippy, as somebody called him.

Kevin Whately13:27

I sound

Presenter13:28

Did you know right away that that was a part for you?

Kevin Whately13:31

All the Geordie Mafia knew about the scripts, Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenay's scripts, and we all wanted to be in them and we all wanted to play Oz.

Presenter13:39

'Cause they'd written the likely lads, if they'd like to.

Kevin Whately13:39

They'd written The Lightly Lads, if you've never seen it. They'd written The Lightly Lads, yeah, and Porridge and and are the supreme comedy writers.

Presenter13:42

Sienne.

Kevin Whately13:46

And these scripts y you knew as soon as you read them that they were something special. I realized, although I'd like to have played Oz, that I just wasn't an Oz character. That was Jimmy Nails. That was Jimmy Nails character and uh

Presenter13:55

That was Jimmy Nab.

Kevin Whately13:58

Neville was obviously the part to go for, so

Presenter14:00

But did you also recognize that this was perhaps a defining moment in your career, or was it just another job?

Kevin Whately14:08

We had no idea because we were all pretty inexperienced and ill disciplined and for us it was just like a party or the first series and it it it came as a bit of surprise when it it did take off as big as it did.

Presenter14:19

Mm,'cause it were audiences of of eighteen million in the end.

Kevin Whately14:22

Yeah, extraordinary. It it uh actually topped Coronation Street for a week or two at at one point. It was it was huge success. It was like being in a rock band. It was a very strange reception. We we all felt like we were a lump of people, the lads, and uh

Presenter14:35

Dead.

Kevin Whately14:35

Uh

Kevin Whately14:36

Yeah, weird experience.

Presenter14:38

Record number four.

Kevin Whately14:40

This is Joan Arma Trading who again I think is a wonderful singer-songwriter and this is a a record that we were listening to a lot, Madeleine and I, when our first child was born, Kitty, and it means a lot to us for that reason.

Speaker 314:51

We all make mistakes

Speaker 314:57

And I'm no exception.

Speaker 315:03

Sometimes I think I've told it all so lately But there's no one there'll hear the words I say

Speaker 315:16

Sometimes it oh some so crazy.

Presenter15:21

Joan Armour Trading and Everybody Gotta Know. So then along came Morse. It was 1986, ten years ago.

Presenter15:29

So the idea of a two hour format must have been very new.

Kevin Whately15:32

It was and I I don't think anybody was too sure how it would work out.

Presenter15:36

It makes it much more of a sort of television event and occasion, doesn't it?

Kevin Whately15:39

Yeah, and it it it was f fab for us because it meant you could develop the characters over two hours and and the writers had a had a ball. I mean, obviously two hours is much more difficult to write than a half hour or one hour thing.

Presenter15:50

But it makes it much less predictable for the viewer really, because otherwise it sl slots into a kind of formula, doesn't it?

Kevin Whately15:54

Yeah.

Kevin Whately15:56

Yeah. I mean in in retrospect it seems an obvious thing to do for those who've done it, but uh

Kevin Whately16:02

At the time it as you say it was, was quite a big risk and and Central took it.

Presenter16:06

What does it mean for the actor, though? I mean obviously it's a much longer shoot.

Kevin Whately16:10

It's twenty-five days.

Kevin Whately16:13

For more switches, generous nowadays peak practice was was eleven days for an hour.

Kevin Whately16:19

It meant that we could gradually evolve the characters.

Presenter16:22

But nevertheless, long hours of sitting around waiting for the next shot to be set up.

Kevin Whately16:27

We once worked out we'd we'd do about fourteen minutes of actual acting during a a filming day and the other nine hours or whatever are just sitting around waiting while the technicians set up.

Presenter16:38

So what did you do, you and John Thor, during all that waiting time?

Kevin Whately16:42

We just sit and and uh grumble to each other and uh uh John talks about music a lot and uh he's a fond of stories and stuff and and uh the the time passes very likely, it's great.

Presenter16:55

Now your Sergeant Lewis was was, of course, quite different from the one originally conceived by his creator, Colin Dexter, who who had him, I think, as a middle aged Welsh grandfather. Couldn't have been more different, really. W was that anything to do with you? Or?

Kevin Whately17:04

Yeah.

Kevin Whately17:10

Possibly very slightly. Kenny McBain thought that that wouldn't quite work, Morse and and a a grandfather figure. And uh with Anthony Mangela they developed the Lewis character as much younger and and uh Kenny McBain had me in mind for Lewis.

Presenter17:25

But you you mentioned earlier on that he was perhaps, Lewis, not not the most interesting of characters. I mean, how how did you

Presenter17:32

How did you deal with that? Because you you couldn't make him assertive, but you were always there and obviously shooting lots of cutaways and so on.

Kevin Whately17:40

Yeah.

Presenter17:41

Where you you You've got to show something in your face, and yet it's a it's a nothing as well.

Kevin Whately17:45

I just found I was always in the back of Morse's shots with nothing to say uh early on and um Peter Hammond, one of the early directors, said to me one day, so said, Think of Steve McQueen, when when you cut away to Steve McQueen he's not saying, he's always doing something. He said, so do something for me when I can cut to you, I've I've got something there. So he he got me thinking about that really and I started pulling faces in the background and that.

Presenter18:10

Are you pretending to be Steve McQueen? Now we know the secret, Sergeant Lewis. Um you've done twenty nine of them, these Morses. Um two hours apiece. They've sold in fifty countries. Great hit in the States.

Kevin Whately18:11

No, I'm not sure.

Presenter18:23

You've just done another one, which is uh what is the form then, that you'll go back from time to time and do an odd one?

Speaker 318:24

Uh

Kevin Whately18:30

Yeah, we we won't ever do chunks, lumps of of the films again, but Colin is still writing the books and and we do enjoy doing them and obviously they sell very well around the world, so um from from time to time when we're both available, if one of the books would make a good film, we we'd do it.

Presenter18:46

So there's one more coming up to look forward to. But nevertheless, you did it fairly intensively for six or seven years, this this scene you've just described in the trailer with John Thor. Um you obviously got on well with him, but it was presumably time you did something on your own. It's a long time to play second fiddle to somebody, isn't it?

Kevin Whately19:04

It's never bother me. It never it doesn't it never feels like second fiddle. I'm always slightly mistrustful of star vehicles. It's something I've tried to avoid.

Presenter19:13

You haven't avoided it very successfully, because peak practice was about to come next.

Kevin Whately19:17

Yeah, but it wasn't I don't I I don't think it was a again a style be although it was written for me. There were four or five good big leads in it and it worked for that reason I think.

Presenter19:25

We'll talk about that in a minute, but let's have record number five.

Kevin Whately19:28

I've always loved um Elien Pipe music. It makes my hair stand on end and and this particular one, Midnight Walker, for some reason which I I've never known why always makes me think of my dad.

Presenter20:09

Davy Spillan and Midnight Walker. And then in nineteen ninety three, Kevin Waitley, along came Jack Carrouche and Pete Practice, quite a star vehicle for you. How nervous were you that it might flop? Because of course John Thor, a popular though he is, had just missed the mark with a year in Provence, hadn't he?

Kevin Whately20:27

Yeah, it's it's very nerve wracking to be put in in that situation. You are more aware that the actors do take the flack if it if it flops and equally the plaudits if it succeeds.

Presenter20:37

So, do you remember the night that Peak Practice went out, the first one, and you sort of.

Kevin Whately20:42

Do I crouched at home behind the sofa and waited to hear what the overnights were and and uh

Presenter20:48

That's the viewing figures.

Kevin Whately20:49

Yeah, and was very relieved when they were good, so.

Presenter20:52

Hmm.

Presenter20:53

Why do you think it was such a success? I mean, again, audiences in their millions, fourteen million, I think, fifteen million for peak practice. What was the trick, in your view?

Kevin Whately21:03

for me it's almost always the writing that it starts with and and

Kevin Whately21:07

Lucy Gallon's writing was great. She's got a real talent for inventing characters that interest people. And the situation is bound to appeal again. You've got beautiful scenery, doctors meeting people in extremists, so that a a good opportunity for drama.

Presenter21:22

But when they decided that they wanted to run it twice a week, you you balked. Now, surely it was a very good idea. I mean, there was a point at which the BBC wanted to do that with casualty. You've got a ready made audience, good characters, endless plot because you've got these medical problems, as you say. Why did you object to it so much? Why did you refuse?

Kevin Whately21:39

It's difficult to know. You obviously T V executives know more what the audience wants than than we do, but I thought where the Bill had done, I'd gone into twice weekly that they they're set in London, they've got seven million potential uh protagonists to take from we were in a tiny village and I I just thought they might exhaust the stories pretty fast.

Presenter21:57

Hm. So you said goodbye to Jack Karouche. Were you sad to do so?

Kevin Whately22:02

Yeah, after three years I'd had enough of him and uh so he jetted off to Africa or wherever he went.

Presenter22:07

And that was when you turned to wife beating. That was Lucy Gannon writing as well again.

Kevin Whately22:10

This was Lucy again, yeah. Uh sh she came to me, I think, in the last week that we were shooting.

Kevin Whately22:15

on peak practice and produce this script from a handbag and say look have a have a read of that when you've got a minute.

Speaker 122:20

Hello.

Kevin Whately22:22

and I read the first ten pages almost immediately as soon as she'd gone out of the caravan.

Kevin Whately22:28

It just made my hair stand on end. I felt sick and I thought, oh my Lord, what am I going to say to Lucy? This is t too violent for me. And.

Presenter22:36

'Cause you you we should explain, you were a primary school headmaster who who

Kevin Whately22:40

Who took out all his frustration on her and um.

Presenter22:40

Beat up his ones, Mandy.

Kevin Whately22:44

I went away and thought about it and read it again a fortnight later and realised what a good piece it was.

Presenter22:49

But how did you do it?'Cause it did actually look as if you were hitting her.

Kevin Whately22:54

Yeah, uh I mean, I I I wasn't. Obviously, um Stellagon and I had both done a lot of stage fighting. I used to direct stage fights uh twenty odd years ago and and it's it's all camera tricks. But obviously the intention's got to look right, as if you you hate this person for whatever reason and and mean to do them damage.

Kevin Whately23:12

Uh which isn't very pleasant to do, but

Kevin Whately23:16

It's a job.

Presenter23:17

But it it was a it was a difficult job and it was the first time I think

Presenter23:21

We'd seen you, you know, on on the small screen.

Presenter23:24

Playing a nasty guy. Was it a deliberate move of yours to stop being mister Nice Guy?

Kevin Whately23:27

What was the topic?

Kevin Whately23:28

No, not not a bit. It was just that it was a a great part, a good acting part and a a a very special script. Uh I I never even considered that. The press said that.

Kevin Whately23:38

Quite a lot that it was a change of direction, but it didn't feel like because he's a nasty character doesn't make any difference to the way you approach him as an actor.

Presenter23:45

Next record.

Kevin Whately23:47

This is uh Silip Keita. I could quite happily take eight of his records to the island. Uh it's it's Tikaray. He's got a fantastic band of of Africans from all over the continent.

Kevin Whately23:59

Uh and I went to see a concert in Harari when I was filming out there and just had the best night of my life, bopping to this so this and take this and dance around the island.

Kevin Whately24:21

I'll eat a girl for me.

Kevin Whately24:23

At the get off when yay What's on you? Take it off on lamb

Speaker 324:27

Becagero for B mana digit bago pastewa. Tengoro tegero befo.

Presenter24:38

Sulith Keita and Tekare.

Presenter24:41

Then earlier this year, Kevin, you were on stage in in the West End, Twelve Angry Men, story of the trial of a black teenager accused of murdering his father, set in nineteen fifties New York when to be black was to be automatically guilty. You were the liberal-minded juror who took on the other eleven, the Henry Fonder role, directed by Harold Pinter. I mean, this was presumably rather different from Pete Practice.

Kevin Whately25:04

It grabbed me immediately reading it because you read it and you want to play all the parts as an actor. All twelve characters are fascinating. There are twelve stories going on there of people agonizing about whether or not they can believe completely that this this lad did it. I think it's a fabulous play. It was written by Reggie Rose when he was twenty five or something, just after the McCarthy era. And uh it's very much of its time, but it it it had a lot to say about today as well.

Presenter25:28

But a completely different experience, the theatre. I mean, it's it's now or never, there's no hanging around. Um do you prefer that? Do you prefer that immediacy?

Kevin Whately25:37

Twelve Angry Men it's is particularly good because see all twelve characters come on the stage and are locked in the room and the play happens over two hours and no time cuts or anything. It's much easier as an acting exercise and much more concentrated.

Kevin Whately25:50

More fulfilling.

Presenter25:50

More fulfilling.

Presenter25:52

Is it?

Kevin Whately25:52

Yeah.

Presenter25:54

And are you in a sense?

Presenter25:56

Exhausted by small screen fame, perhaps.

Kevin Whately26:00

Yeah, I'm not sure about exhausted. It's not very pleasant. If you're private like me, it's it's very difficult to come to terms with with everybody knowing you or thinking they know you and and uh

Kevin Whately26:12

Obviously you're part of their everyday life, so it's very difficult, but it's a side of it that I don't enjoy very much.

Presenter26:18

And so in an ideal world, professionally I mean, you are h hot property because of the millions that you can pull in in in television audiences. Would you still turn down any any future offer if you had a a better theatrical offer?

Kevin Whately26:34

If I wanted to play the the theatre part badly enough, I w that's what I would do.

Presenter26:38

It comes down to money, I suppose. You get more money for the television, don't you?

Kevin Whately26:42

You get a lot more money for television obviously because it it can be sold abroad and you can reach in this country

Kevin Whately26:48

ten or fifteen million people in one hit, where I probably only played to fifty thousand people altogether in six months in in uh Twelve Angry Men.

Kevin Whately26:56

Money doesn't come into it a great lot. N not any more anyway.

Presenter26:59

You you can choose a bit more these days. But you prefer theatre?

Kevin Whately27:04

Probably, yeah.

Kevin Whately27:06

As an acting exercise, definitely.

Presenter27:08

Record number seven.

Kevin Whately27:10

This is another great singer-songwriter, Alan Hull, who unfortunately died last year, who who I knew on the folk circuit in the sixties around Newcastle and he formed Linda Sfarn and this is called Run for Home. I sang this with them that they they had their twenty fifth anniversary concert last summer.

Kevin Whately27:26

Which makes me feel very old and uh

Kevin Whately27:29

We sang this onstage with her.

Kevin Whately27:31

Uh

Speaker 127:31

Uh

Kevin Whately27:31

Run for home, run as fast

Kevin Whately27:35

Yes, I can.

Kevin Whately27:37

Maria,

Speaker 127:39

Oh Runnin' Man

Kevin Whately27:40

Uh

Speaker 127:40

Uh

Speaker 127:41

Running home.

Kevin Whately27:47

For home, run as fast

Kevin Whately27:50

Yes, I can!

Presenter27:59

Linda's Farn and Run for Home. How many children have you got, Kevin?

Kevin Whately28:03

Two: Kitty's thirteen and Kieran's uh eleven.

Presenter28:06

And your wife, Madeline, is is an actress. In fact, she's appeared in Morse and in Peak Practice, hasn't she?

Kevin Whately28:10

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter28:11

Is she your best critic?

Kevin Whately28:13

Easily, yeah. I mean, she she's the the person whose opinion I I trust most about my acting.

Presenter28:19

Does she tell you which paths to take and which to turn down?

Kevin Whately28:21

On occasion, yeah, it was certainly her idea to to go for a naval in in um Aufida's Enpet.

Presenter28:27

Who was it? The one that began it all?

Kevin Whately28:29

Yeah.

Presenter28:30

But family apart, I suspect a desert island would be right up your street, wouldn't it?

Kevin Whately28:35

It would really, yeah, I have to say. I am very self sufficient and I I've always been very happy with my own company, so I don't think loneliness would be a problem, I don't think survival would be.

Kevin Whately28:46

Uh it depends how long it would be for.

Presenter28:47

And boredom wouldn't be a problem.

Kevin Whately28:49

I'm one of those terrible people that has to be doing something every minute of the day and and uh I'd find something to do, whether it was building a boat or trying to cook ground nuts or whatever it was.

Presenter28:58

So you quite fancy the idea. I mean you would find peace of mind, would you?

Kevin Whately29:02

Well, peace of mind, but I I'd I'd also like the challenge and the adventure. I it's something as you get more and more established, you get used to a quite a cushy, soft life, and I would enjoy the challenge from that point of view as well. I like being out in the wilds. It's it um and and being close to nature, it's something that really appeals to me.

Speaker 329:18

Last record.

Kevin Whately29:20

This is Sebalius' first symphony. I hadn't listened to him oh, I'd obviously heard Sebalius, but I remembered John Thorne Kenny McBain talking about him in it when we were having supper somewhere in in Oxford very early on in Morse and and raving about him, saying oh he'd have been writing film scores if he was alive today and and I went and listened to him more closely and he's become my favourite composer.

Presenter30:41

Part of Sibelius Symphony No. One in E minor, played by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jukapeka Saraste.

Presenter30:49

If you could only take one of those eight records, Kevin. Which one is it?

Kevin Whately30:53

It would be the sibelius if I'm stuck in a traffic tram or anywhere and and I'm not feeling very happy, it it lifts me straight away, so that appeared.

Presenter31:00

What about a book, as well as B the Bible and Shakespeare?

Kevin Whately31:03

I wonder if I'd be allowed the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, which is vast and would take me about four years to get through. Is that a bit of a cheat?

Presenter31:11

It's a bit of a cheat, but if you you can have it if you'll name a favourite author, a favourite writer of

Presenter31:16

Compared to another.

Kevin Whately31:18

All right, well, my my actual favourite writer is Salman Rushdie and and the alternative if I wasn't allowed the the the anthology would be the Moa's Last Sigh, which has been sitting by my bed for a year waiting for me to get round to reading it. I'm looking forward to it enormously.

Presenter31:31

And what about a luxury?

Kevin Whately31:33

I'm terribly torn between a large supply of my mother's marmalade. I suppose I wouldn't have any toast on a desert island, so I think I'd better take some Northumbrian pipes probably and wrestle with those without annoying the neighbours. I'd I've always wanted to learn to play the pipes and this could be the opportunity.

Presenter31:49

Kevin Whaitley, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Kevin Whately31:53

I enjoyed it.

Speaker 332:01

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