Harry Enfield

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:33

My Castaway this week is a comedian. Brought up in a middle class family, he went to a Catholic public school, but managed to unearth enough rebellious spirit to become a week end punk. At university he and his friends took a show to the Edinburgh fringe, and as a result, moved into the London cabaret circuit and appearances on radio and television.

Presenter0:52

It was his talent which ultimately prevented him from getting what he would call a proper job. His characters, Stavros, Tim Nice But Dim, Kevin the Teenager, and perhaps most famously Loads of Money have made an indelible mark on British entertainment and made their creator, at thirty five, one of its leading stars. He is Harry Enfield.

Presenter1:14

One of its leading stars and one who appeals to people across the board, Harry. I mean, you have entered the realms of family entertainment, haven't you?

Harry Enfield1:22

I suppose I have, although I'm a bit ruder than I should be really for family entertainment.

Presenter1:26

When are you rude?

Harry Enfield1:27

Well, I'm always on at nine thirty and I think I shouldn't have to be on at nine thirty. And my father always points it out to me. Well, we watched it, but we had to turn the sound down.

Presenter1:37

I suppose if you think about it, Frank Doberman of the of the s the oi no character, he was pretty nasty about Camilla Parker Bowles in this last series, wasn't he? And pretty rough stuff for you, really.

Harry Enfield1:49

Yes, he was foul and actually I think I thought of the joke in the first place. The thing about him is he he only works with certain names and Parker Bowles happened to be one of those names that you always talk about her as Camilla Parker Bowles. No one calls her Parker Bowles but he does. He says, you know, if Parker Bowles come into my house.

Presenter2:10

It was pretty rough on Anthea Turner as well, actually, wasn't it?

Harry Enfield2:10

It was pretty rough on and

Harry Enfield2:13

Raffon Anthea, he's a nasty man, yeah.

Presenter2:16

Are there any of your characters you really don't like?

Harry Enfield2:19

I don't particularly like him. I mean I feel sorry for all my characters, because I know why they are like they are.

Presenter2:27

You don't like Tory Boy, do you?

Harry Enfield2:29

Well, I I feel quite sorry for Toryboy.

Harry Enfield2:32

Because at thirteen he should be interested in girls and things like that, but he's only interested in

Harry Enfield2:40

Tory politics, bless him. In politics. And he's actually, he's very like me. I was I mean I was a sort of socialist at that age.

Speaker 12:41

In politics.

Harry Enfield2:49

But the same, I was obsessed by politics and I wasn't particularly interested in anything else.

Presenter2:53

And did you ball the family at the breakfast table?

Harry Enfield2:55

Oh yes. I used to have rows with my father. He would say, What about this? and I'd say, Under a socialist government this won't happen and he'd get so enraged he used to have to go into the garden halfway through lunch and pick sprouts or whatever. And did you have horrible sprout

Presenter3:10

And did you have horrible spots like Tory Boy as well?

Harry Enfield3:13

I didn't have spots, no, I've always had a very lovely face.

Presenter3:17

But aren't you more like Kevin the teenager, who who's sort of endlessly horrible to his parents, and his parents are endlessly really very nice to him?

Harry Enfield3:25

Yes, I was. I've been sent lots of letters about Kevin from parents saying thank you very much. This has been very therapeutic. We thought we were the only people in the country who had a teenager like this. It's true.

Harry Enfield3:37

Just you know, it only occurred to me about two years ago.

Harry Enfield3:40

I was thinking about my poor father coming to pick me up from parties at one o'clock. He'd have to wait outside. He would not be allowed to come and ring the door bell,'cause I didn't want my friends to see this sad man.

Harry Enfield3:52

I bitterly resented him even existing.

Harry Enfield3:56

You know, but I wouldn't have been able to go to the party or come home without

Presenter3:59

And did you metamorphose overnight into this incredibly communicative and helpful son?

Presenter4:06

the day or the night after, the morning after you lost your virginity.

Harry Enfield4:10

Uh no, I don't think I did. I I think that was an exaggeration. That was in the last programme. This is what I mean about a family show. You see, we have Virginity Losing and things like that in it.

Presenter4:20

Tell me about your first record.

Harry Enfield4:21

Ooh, well my first record is By the Beatles.

Harry Enfield4:26

It's the first record I was ever given, which my Aunt Faye gave me, an E P when I was about four.

Harry Enfield4:32

And it was rebellious'cause my parents

Harry Enfield4:34

Don't like pop music.

Speaker 34:37

You say you will love me if I have to go

Speaker 34:44

You'll be thinking of me Somehow I will know

Speaker 34:50

Someday when I'm lonely Wishing you weren't so far away Then I will remember

Presenter5:00

Things we say today

Presenter5:05

The Beatles and Things We Said Today from A Hard Day's Night.

Presenter5:08

Tell me about your family background then, Harry. Very neat and tidy, home counties Conservatives, were they?

Harry Enfield5:15

Oh, well, they were neat and tidy, or mum was. Certainly, she was

Harry Enfield5:20

She keeps a neat and tidy house.

Harry Enfield5:22

Um not conservative.

Presenter5:25

What did your dad do for a living?

Harry Enfield5:26

What did you dan?

Harry Enfield5:27

He was a local government officer, he worked for the Education Department in West Sussex, and we lived in a conservative area.

Harry Enfield5:35

But my pa's always been a rebel.

Harry Enfield5:38

I mean, his mother was very Labour, very firmly Labour.

Harry Enfield5:42

In fact, I don't think she stood for Parliament, but she certainly was part of the Wisborough Green Labour Party, her own the local

Presenter5:48

Was she the one who knew Virginia Woolf or

Harry Enfield5:50

Oh yes, yes. Virginia and Leonard will publish a book by my grandmother. But

Harry Enfield5:56

They didn't like them and I don't know why they didn't like them but they didn't

Presenter5:59

With the Wolves didn't like the Enfields.

Harry Enfield6:01

Yes, or Virginia loathed my my parents. I don't know why, but there was

Presenter6:02

Yeah.

Harry Enfield6:06

I was looking for a book to give my father for Christmas one year, and I saw a copy of part of Virginia Woolfe's Diaries, and I looked up in the glossary in the back, Enfield, and found it, and thought, Oh, good

Harry Enfield6:18

Let's see if there's a reference I can't say, and I looked it up.

Harry Enfield6:22

And it was something like

Harry Enfield6:24

I phoned up Lytton's straight sheep, but he wasn't there. He'd gone to tea with the Enfields. I'd rather be dead in a field than go to tea with the Enfields.

Harry Enfield6:33

So I didn't give it to my dad.

Harry Enfield6:35

But I don't think

Presenter6:36

But he's heard about it since.

Harry Enfield6:38

Yes. Anyway, I don't know what she had against him, the lousy c

Presenter6:41

Tell me about Billingshurst, which is where you the family lived when you were little. You got a Saturday job in in Barker's, the electrical shop in the High Street.

Harry Enfield6:50

Oh, I did. I g well, I did when I was sort of yes, sixteen, seventeen. I always had Saturday jobs.

Presenter6:56

And this is where you learned to act because you told lies on the phone, I read.

Harry Enfield7:00

Oh, I've told lies all the time. I it was only Saturdays.

Harry Enfield7:06

And these irate old women would come in all the time.

Harry Enfield7:09

on the Saturday and say, Where's my iron? You said it would be ready by today and I'd go out the back and there would be their iron there that hadn't been mended and it was just left in the back. And I'd have to whisper to someone and

Harry Enfield7:23

To go away and I said, I'm terribly sorry, it needs a new Gubbins and the Gubbins doesn't come in until next Wednesday and send them away again.

Presenter7:31

So you learned about posh old ladies and then you you had a milk round or you were a milkman or something and learned about the aspirational middle classes, is that right?

Harry Enfield7:39

Oh, yes.

Harry Enfield7:41

Um and my round was started with council houses and then went to the sort of new detached, semi detached detached houses, then out into the country.

Harry Enfield7:51

And it was interesting the reaction you got in the council houses everyone was lovely to you.

Harry Enfield7:57

And then they were a bit more standoffish in the new semi-detached houses.

Harry Enfield8:03

But they'd still leave notes out saying, Please, in the big exclusive estates people would leave orders for you, these horrid new Milk Georgian places, just say Milkman, two pints extra.

Harry Enfield8:17

And I just used to write please at the bottom and not leave the milk.

Presenter8:21

But you didn't realize during all this time that you were doing incredibly valuable research. I mean, didn't y but somehow you stored it away, obviously.

Speaker 18:27

Uh

Harry Enfield8:27

Somehow you

Harry Enfield8:28

I did store it. I mean, I suppose one stores everything over life, doesn't one?

Presenter8:34

Echo number two.

Harry Enfield8:35

Ooh, well, record number two is The Overture to Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. And I thought, well, if I can't have the whole opera, if I've got this, then I can hum the rest to myself for the rest of the day.

Presenter9:48

Part of the overture to Verdi's Nabucco, played by the Vienna Opera Orchestra conducted by Lamberto Gardelli. You did a series, Harry Enfield, for Channel Four about opera. Do you genuinely like it, or were you just trying to do it?

Harry Enfield10:00

Oh yes, I do. I love it. But I don't know much about it, so that's why I did a series. It was a sort of beginner's guide.

Presenter10:07

There is part of you, isn't there, that that's a kind of mission to explain, as it were. You quite like all of that.

Harry Enfield10:13

I'm a bit of a schoolmaster, yeah.

Presenter10:15

But would you like to develop that? I mean, would you like to explain the effects of the minimum wage to the nation?

Harry Enfield10:19

And what

Harry Enfield10:23

Where people's pensions go, or things like that. You know, I mean, I'd like to understand, and I wish.

Harry Enfield10:30

Other people could understand. I'd like to understand why people can't talk to each other in Northern Ireland or.

Harry Enfield10:35

you know, lots of things like that, yeah. So I'm much more interested i in all that than comedy.

Presenter10:39

So are are you saying that you'd like to do it with a with a comic bent, as it were, or whether you'd you'd like to be a factual presenter?

Harry Enfield10:46

I'd love to be a factual presenter, you know, but unfortunately I fell into comedy first.

Presenter10:50

So you're trapped, are you?

Harry Enfield10:52

I I feel a bit trapped at the moment, yeah, but I'm sure I'll get out of it.

Presenter10:55

'Cause you read politics at university.

Harry Enfield10:57

Did, yes.

Presenter10:59

So you feel strongly politically.

Harry Enfield11:02

Um, I went to university aged

Harry Enfield11:08

Thinking I'd almost sorted out how to run the world.

Harry Enfield11:11

There were just one or two fine points I needed to clear up.

Harry Enfield11:15

And I came out three years later thinking there are millions of fine points millions of points. I'm in a hopeless mess about the whole thing, which was good.

Harry Enfield11:26

And that more I learn and the more I read, the more of a mess I feel in.

Harry Enfield11:33

which is why I find it interesting.

Presenter11:34

And an inch

Presenter11:35

But you didn't hitch your waggon at this last election to any particular political party, did you?

Harry Enfield11:35

Uh

Harry Enfield11:40

No, I'm a member of a political party, but I didn't go round the country. Yes, but I didn't.

Presenter11:43

Go around the country.

Harry Enfield11:47

go round the country with them or anything.

Presenter11:49

You resisted you were asked, weren't you?

Harry Enfield11:51

Well, I was approached by the Tony Blair's office.

Harry Enfield11:55

But I said to them that the newspapers had pictures of my bare-bottom.

Harry Enfield12:01

Which they took on my honeymoon.

Presenter12:02

You thought it was better for him if you stayed away.

Harry Enfield12:05

Yes, it turns out it was. It was. Look, it was a landslide.

Presenter12:05

Well

Presenter12:10

Vecho number three.

Harry Enfield12:12

Oh, record number three is White Man in the Hammersmith Palais by The Clash when I was sixteen.

Harry Enfield12:18

At fifteen I went from Worth the Lovely Public School to the Grammar School, Colliers in Horsham, and met Ted and Dave.

Harry Enfield12:26

Always

Harry Enfield12:27

people who are still my friends now.

Harry Enfield12:31

And we became punks, and it was just fantastic, and I developed it.

Harry Enfield12:36

Mock Mockney accent.

Harry Enfield12:38

And we went up to London, like, all right Paul, all right, Nick, we could meet these groups and they couldn't play very well, but you could meet them and it didn't matter.

Harry Enfield12:47

Uh

Speaker 312:47

It night to say.

Speaker 312:51

Man, what's up the bus you make?

Speaker 312:58

And

Speaker 312:59

I love you guys for hard.

Speaker 313:01

Now right with the sun

Speaker 313:04

Really?

Speaker 313:06

Yeah.

Speaker 313:08

Yeah, you can't pop raise

Speaker 313:10

Goodbye, it's fine sound

Presenter13:15

The Clash and White Man in the Hammersmith Palais. What did your parents think though at the time when you were going up to to London with your mock me accent?

Harry Enfield13:23

Oh, they just thought I was ghastly.

Harry Enfield13:26

Do you know, I'd come home and I had sort of black spiky hair. I didn't wear my sort of punkiest clothes around the house. I used to hide them because I couldn't bear the look on mum's face.

Harry Enfield13:36

I think they treated me rather like

Harry Enfield13:39

They're best friends.

Harry Enfield13:41

horrible dog that had to come and stay with them for two weeks and, you know, wasn't house trained.

Harry Enfield13:47

You know, Dad worked terribly hard.

Harry Enfield13:50

And mum worked very hard.

Harry Enfield13:52

To make sure that we're all lawyers and doctors and, you know, nice West Sussex people and none of us have turned out that way.

Presenter14:00

So you

Harry Enfield14:00

And I was the worst for any.

Presenter14:02

You've wasted a good education, have you?

Harry Enfield14:04

Hopeless, yeah.

Presenter14:05

Yeah.

Harry Enfield14:05

Yeah.

Harry Enfield14:08

One'em over in the end, yes, but that's because I'm writing for the Sunday Telegraph.

Presenter14:13

Is it true that you got a grant from the Manpower Services Commission to set up as a cabaret performer?

Harry Enfield14:19

Well, yes, I did. This was when I left university with my friend Brian Ellesley, and we started doing a cabaret act.

Harry Enfield14:27

And

Harry Enfield14:28

We were on the dole for about six months, I suppose. But then if we did a cabaret axe, we'd get sort of twenty pounds, and we'd have to declare ten pounds of it.

Harry Enfield14:39

And it all got rather complicated. And the Manpower Services, quite rightly, I mean, it was a good idea really. They said, Well, we'll give you forty pounds to be a new business and then whatever money you keep and we'll just tax the whole thing. So that's all it was really. It was a way of manipulating the doll figures.

Presenter14:55

But that was after you'd you'd failed, I think, as a as a writer for weekending on Radio Four, hadn't you?

Harry Enfield15:01

Oh, hopeless. We came down from Edinburgh in nineteen eighty two and we tried to write for it.

Harry Enfield15:08

and didn't get anything on.

Harry Enfield15:10

And

Harry Enfield15:11

It was quite good for because about three years later

Harry Enfield15:15

I heard from John Lloyd, who produced Weekending many years before, that he hadn't been able to get anything on it.

Harry Enfield15:22

When he tried to write for it, nor had Douglas Adams, who did Hitchhiker's Go to the Galaxy.

Presenter15:26

So you're in good company?

Harry Enfield15:27

We were in quite good company, yeah.

Presenter15:29

Record number four.

Harry Enfield15:31

Oh, record number four is BlackBerry Way by the move.

Harry Enfield15:35

Something that reminds me of my childhood.

Harry Enfield15:38

and having a dog.

Harry Enfield15:41

It was just after Lucy, my littlest sister, was born, so I think I was quite happy. There she was.

Speaker 315:47

Goodbye Blackberry Way!

Speaker 315:51

I can't see you, I don't need you. Goodbye, Blackberry Way. Should you want me back another day?

Speaker 316:05

Uh

Presenter16:14

The Move and Blackberry Way. At what point in all of this, Harry, did you meet your friend and collaborator, Paul Whitehouse, who for anyone who doesn't know is is the other chap in the dinner jacket who takes about the top and the bottom of your programme and does a wonderful impersonation of Michael Kane and a Peruvian Geordie footballer as well.

Harry Enfield16:32

He does Julio Giulio.

Presenter16:33

Yeah, it's great.

Harry Enfield16:34

Um will I

Harry Enfield16:35

First met Paul in nineteen eighty, I think.

Harry Enfield16:40

I knew of him. I knew his girlfriend of the time, Mary, terribly well.

Harry Enfield16:46

And I needed somewhere to stay. I was being a Meltman in Finsbury Park in my university holidays, and I needed somewhere to stay, and they lived in Hackney, and I went and knocked on the door and said, Can I stay? and he said, Yeah, come in and was lovely and looked after me for about eight weeks.

Harry Enfield17:03

And then when I when I started doing television

Harry Enfield17:07

He was being a plasterer at the time. He'd worked for Hackney Council before that.

Harry Enfield17:12

And I said, Will you write? Will he write for me? And he said, Nah, nah. And then in 1907, he finally did. He said,

Presenter17:17

But did he know he could write?

Harry Enfield17:18

No, he didn't.

Presenter17:19

Did you you didn't know he could write, but you could tell from the way he was funnier.

Presenter17:25

Is it true he created Stavros or Lots of Money?

Harry Enfield17:26

True he creates

Harry Enfield17:28

Oh yeah, I mean both, really.

Harry Enfield17:30

See, I don't know if Paul would agree with this, but I remember exactly how it started.

Harry Enfield17:37

I remember being on Highbury and Islington station waiting

Harry Enfield17:41

Not for a train.

Harry Enfield17:44

And there was a bit of copper pipe on the other side with rubber on it that we just saw over the thing, and I just said to Paul, You see that pipe over there, you could melt that down.

Harry Enfield17:55

There's money in that or something. You take the rubber off Bosch and Paul went off on a huge thing of that's right in your furnace bonk in there Dosh copper there's money in copper and by the time the train came which was about five minutes later he'd melted down the whole station then he was melting down the train and then on the train he was melting down the factories we passed on the way and it was all um you could melt that down there's money in that

Harry Enfield18:20

And literally for the next three months he carried on melting everything down.

Presenter18:24

And making loads of money.

Harry Enfield18:24

And saying there's money in that, loads of money in that.

Harry Enfield18:27

And I wrote I wrote the show I did with loads of money in it in nineteen eighty seven with Paul.

Presenter18:36

So now you're you're a teen.

Harry Enfield18:37

T

Presenter18:38

You've done quite a few shows together, but there are often, you know, big gaps between them. Why does it take so long?

Harry Enfield18:44

Partly'cause I had a sort of r rough time in my personal life between the third show and the fourth show.

Harry Enfield18:52

So I wasn't really in the mood for comedy. And then

Harry Enfield18:55

Partly

Harry Enfield18:57

Because it it just takes a long time to come up with things that I think are different and I don't like carrying on doing exactly the same thing.

Presenter19:06

And am I right in thinking that you don't enjoy doing them very much?

Harry Enfield19:10

I find it very hard work.

Harry Enfield19:14

But I do get terribly wound up and I'm a real gloom when I'm doing it.

Harry Enfield19:19

And Paul comes in and says, How's Grumpy today? And, you know, Paul's the life and soul of the party when we're making it.

Harry Enfield19:26

And I'm the grumpy one.

Presenter19:27

And is there no

Harry Enfield19:28

And Kathy's the lovey who won't shut up to make anecdotes.

Presenter19:31

Is there never any joy in it for you though? Do you know or not until it's over and you think, Thank God for that.

Harry Enfield19:35

Thank God for that. Yeah, it's the the the thing I like best is uh editing.

Harry Enfield19:40

'Cause I can wear my own clothes. I don't have to wear makeup. And you know, a couple of years ago I was putting on old ladies' clothes.

Harry Enfield19:48

Oh, this makeup. I thought, what am I doing? You know, I'm thirty four.

Presenter19:49

Doing

Presenter19:52

What should a thirty-four-year-old be doing?

Harry Enfield19:53

Yeah, he should be in the Welsh office or something, shouldn't he?

Presenter19:55

Shouldn't they?

Presenter19:57

Record number five.

Harry Enfield19:59

Ah, this is the Soldier's Chorus for Miltrovatore.

Harry Enfield20:03

Also by Verdi.

Harry Enfield20:05

I chose this.

Harry Enfield20:07

Because I used it as the inspiration to my first series that'll remind me of working and thinking, Thank goodness I don't have to go on television anymore. Now I'm on a desert island.

Presenter21:10

Part of the Soldiers' Chorus from Act Three of Verdi's Il Trovatore, with the new Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. You've been much applauded, Harry, in the trade, for killing off uh characters. Loads of money is a very good example. When they're in their prime, do you decide they've run their course or do you just like to be a ahead of the game?

Harry Enfield21:29

Yes, I I mean loads of money. I got lots of praise, especially from The Guardian and things, saying, Oh, he's killed in just at the right time, you know, the recession's coming and all this. He's so brave.

Harry Enfield21:39

And he realized that people were taking him too seriously. You know, and people were taking it seriously, this character and they were being like loads of money. And I killed him because he was two dimensional. And we'd done ten three minute sketches. That was all.

Presenter21:52

There was no more no more left in him.

Harry Enfield21:54

No, he was too two-dimensional.

Presenter21:56

Am I right in saying that this last series was the first time you featured gays in in your show? Because there were the camp jockeys and

Harry Enfield22:04

I think so, yes.

Harry Enfield22:06

I like to have a little bit of everything, really.

Presenter22:09

But I suppose the most poignant sketch of all last time was was was the family.

Presenter22:14

The sort of disgusted Tunbridge Wells family, I suppose it was, in which the the butt of the joke is the middle-aged father who can't cope with the idea of his son being gay, and the son brings his his gay lover home for Sunday lunch. There's a great sadness in that sketch as well.

Harry Enfield22:29

There was. It really appealed to me. That actually the idea came from Richard Preddy and Gary Howe.

Harry Enfield22:35

who said we've got this desperately trying to be modern dad and I thought, This is my father, this is just brilliant and I just did it exactly like my father. Don't understand the modern world. You've got a son, you love him very much. He comes round with his

Harry Enfield22:50

Home with his lover.

Harry Enfield22:52

Who happens to be a man?

Harry Enfield22:55

And you you know, you've been brought up in a different genera generation where uh pufters are Nancy boys and and you've got to pretend that this is normal because

Harry Enfield23:05

It is sort of normal in the modern world and you're just not very good at it. And everybody was very sympathetic and you felt sorry for all of them, so you didn't feel it was gay bashing, which it wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be affectionate, but looking at people who couldn't quite cope.

Speaker 323:15

Uh

Presenter23:15

She

Presenter23:21

Record number six.

Harry Enfield23:23

This is a beautiful French song which was introduced to me by my dear friend Kate Saint John who does the music for my shows and it reminds me of many happy times I've had over the years.

Harry Enfield23:34

With Kate and all my friends.

Speaker 123:42

What is

Speaker 323:47

The bold is good.

Speaker 123:51

Go lab

Speaker 323:56

Umi katuro

Presenter23:58

Uh

Speaker 324:01

Boullet bétier saint won s boulet.

Presenter24:05

Parle moi d'amour by Lucien Boyer, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty. Um you got married, Harry, to Lucy. You married her in February and you're pregnant.

Harry Enfield24:15

I'm not pregnant, but Lucy is.

Presenter24:16

But Lucy is together, you're pretty.

Harry Enfield24:18

Oh, I see.

Presenter24:19

And you had a ritzy wedding, and you took this sun photographer on honeymoon with you, which was a bit rash.

Harry Enfield24:23

Bit rash. Yeah.

Presenter24:24

Um fame. Does does it worry you? I again I sense you don't like it very much.

Harry Enfield24:30

Pull it.

Harry Enfield24:31

It hasn't bothered me that much.

Harry Enfield24:34

Being famous. But in London, you see, most people just say hello, Harry, and I go hello, and it's like, you know, that used to happen to me in Billingshurst.

Presenter24:43

That's familiar and friendly.

Harry Enfield24:44

Familiar and friendly. But there must be the.

Presenter24:47

But there must be those moments when, you know, you're enjoying your privacy or the countryside or whatever and somebody yells out one of your catchphrases. I didn't want to do it like that.

Harry Enfield24:53

But yeah, yeah.

Harry Enfield24:55

Oh, that happens all the time. You don't want to do it like that.

Presenter24:57

Huh?

Harry Enfield24:58

And I have to go.

Harry Enfield25:01

You know.

Harry Enfield25:02

The worse are the Kevins, though, they're youths.

Speaker 325:05

Hmm.

Harry Enfield25:06

who follow you at twenty, twenty five yards.

Harry Enfield25:09

And then shout your name, Ohien Field!

Harry Enfield25:13

And then you turn round.

Harry Enfield25:15

And they're all looking at the pavement because they're too scared to actually look at you. And they'll follow you for miles.

Presenter25:21

And now you're going to make a film.

Presenter25:23

I read you're going to make one called this The Devil and the Seven Deadly Sins, in which you play all eight characters.

Presenter25:28

Di how much input do you get then into that? Because presumably if you're going to represent gluttony or sloth or greed or whatever, you it it's got to come from you, hasn't it?

Harry Enfield25:38

Oh yes, it has. I'm working very closely with Will Osborne, who's writing it.

Harry Enfield25:43

And I've never had a writer who's written everything. You know, I've never.

Harry Enfield25:47

done anything that I haven't co-written. And I just can't do it. I can read other people's words and I can't see how to do it at all. I really have to work closely with them to get the character and then get them to write the words.

Presenter25:57

But you keep coming back to this. There's obviously a a a real

Presenter26:01

Desire, if not need, in you, to become more serious in some way, is there?

Harry Enfield26:07

Well, I think so. I'm thirty five and I keep

Presenter26:10

I keep saying that.

Harry Enfield26:11

Yeah, I don't I I don't want to still be doing this when I'm fifty.

Presenter26:15

Well Dick Emery did. I mean,

Harry Enfield26:17

I know, but I don't want to be Dick Emery. I don't want to be a grey-haired chirpy comedian. What do you want to be doing?

Presenter26:22

What do you want to be?

Harry Enfield26:24

I wouldn't mind being in production or directing or something. But I'd sooner be behind the camera. I especially don't want children to grow up.

Harry Enfield26:32

My children with this little one we've got on the way

Harry Enfield26:36

To go out with a famous Dad. I don't think it helps.

Presenter26:39

It was too late now, though, isn't it?

Harry Enfield26:42

Hmm?

Presenter26:42

It's too late now. Or they'll point at you in the street and say, Didn't you used to be?

Harry Enfield26:43

Or they'll point at you in the street and say

Harry Enfield26:47

Yes. Weren't you once Harry Enfield? What happened to you?

Harry Enfield26:52

I got a kiss from Beryl Bainbridge the other day.

Harry Enfield26:55

She came up and she said, It's, and I love Belle Bainbridge. I really admire her as an author.

Harry Enfield27:00

She came up, gave me a huge kiss and said, That's not for you, it's for your father. Now imagine the twitch of rage and jealousy that gave

Presenter27:07

Why? I don't understand that at all.

Harry Enfield27:09

And that's so frightful that this woman don you know, my father was an ordinary person. He was a local government officer and now.

Harry Enfield27:16

Here he is, doing things on watch dog.

Presenter27:18

Eugenics.

Harry Enfield27:19

Mild madly jealous, yes. Madly just

Harry Enfield27:23

and I commiserate with Dominick Lawson.

Harry Enfield27:27

The editor of the Sunday Telegraph, because his father used to be an ordinary Chancellor of the Exchequer. And now he writes Diet books and appears on daytime tele and he hates it too. It's embarrassing.

Harry Enfield27:38

having your parents acting in this way.

Presenter27:41

Record number seven.

Harry Enfield27:42

Number seven is BORN for a Purpose by Doctor Alemantade.

Harry Enfield27:48

which I first heard

Harry Enfield27:50

When I was about sixteen and I went up to stay with Dave Cummings, who now writes for me.

Harry Enfield27:55

Who is a friend from school?

Harry Enfield27:57

In Norwich at university, and there was a very frightening chap there called Switch.

Harry Enfield28:03

He was so cool he didn't speak to me all weekend, I was enormously impressed.

Harry Enfield28:08

I remember him putting on this record in the evening and everyone sitting around rocking gently to it.

Speaker 328:36

I have no reason on board it.

Presenter28:44

Born for a Purpose by Doctor Alimantado.

Presenter28:47

So tell me about Harry Enfield on a desert island. I mean, are you going to go into one of these awful glooms of yours?

Harry Enfield28:53

I think so. Yes, I think I'll go into Big Gloom. I like having people around. I like being on my own for a bit, but not for too long.

Presenter29:00

Hmm.

Harry Enfield29:01

And the idea of never getting off this thing.

Harry Enfield29:04

would drive me mad, I think.

Presenter29:06

Well, you could sit there and work out, you know, the the implications of the single currency and minimum wage and all that.

Harry Enfield29:10

Yeah.

Harry Enfield29:12

I could but it wouldn't do much good'cause I couldn't tell anyone else, could I?

Harry Enfield29:16

The important thing is you can say, Oh, I've worked it out, and then they can say, No, you haven't you haven't thought of this, and you go, Ooh, I'll go away again.

Presenter29:22

But would it be an occasion for serious, serious thought, do you think? I mean, would would the serious side of Harry Enfield then emerge?

Harry Enfield29:29

I think the depressed side of Harry Enfield would emerge. I think I'd I wouldn't like it. I don't like the heat.

Presenter29:35

Well, you can go to a cold one. You can go to a deserted island.

Harry Enfield29:38

Go to a

Presenter29:38

Go to a Hebridean island. Do you want to go to a hot one or a cold one, really?

Harry Enfield29:41

But we'll

Harry Enfield29:43

Sort of mid temperature one please. 164 Fahrenheit.

Presenter29:48

You're obviously just like your dad, aren't you? That's what you are. Harry Enfield is his father.

Harry Enfield29:51

That's what you are.

Harry Enfield29:55

And they

Presenter29:55

Hmm?

Harry Enfield29:55

Hmm? Post that shape we're in.

Presenter29:57

Good.

Harry Enfield29:58

Thank you so much.

Presenter29:59

Last record.

Harry Enfield30:00

The last record is Nulla in Mundo Paxincera by Vivaldi, which

Harry Enfield30:07

We had at our wedding.

Harry Enfield30:09

And it reminds me of my lovely wife and my lovely wedding.

Harry Enfield30:13

and signing signing things and looking at each other.

Presenter31:17

Part of Vivaldi's cantata, Nulla in Mundo Pax Cinchera, sung by Emma Kirkby with the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Simon Preston. So which one of those eight, Harry, if you could only take one of them, which one would it be?

Harry Enfield31:32

I sort of feel I ought to have the last one, but then maybe I'd miss Lucy so much.

Presenter31:36

Then he make you cry.

Harry Enfield31:37

That I top myself even quicker. So maybe I'll go for Nabucco because that's uplifting, really uplifting.

Presenter31:43

Okay.

Harry Enfield31:44

And I think I'll need a bit of uplifting.

Presenter31:46

What about your book?

Harry Enfield31:48

Well, I chose before I came, I thought about it, and I thought I want the collected writings of Karl Marx, and I'd really like to study it properly, but I'd get terribly bored.

Harry Enfield32:00

So maybe I'll take Bleak House, because I love Bleak House.

Harry Enfield32:05

I'll take that instead.

Presenter32:06

Tight. And what about this luxury?

Harry Enfield32:10

I'd like

Harry Enfield32:11

I think I'd like a a beer and fag machine.

Harry Enfield32:15

And then I can at least on this desert island Am I allowed paper and pens as well?

Presenter32:20

No, no, no, no. No. Beer and fags only. Or. Either or.

Harry Enfield32:21

No.

Harry Enfield32:25

Beer and fag and paper and pen machine? No. One machine.

Presenter32:27

No beer and fag machine is stretching it far enough, really.

Harry Enfield32:32

I'd hate to have a beer and fag machine and no coins to go in it.

Presenter32:36

No, well if it works, it works you don't need coins. Beer and fag machine, is it?

Harry Enfield32:36

Yeah.

Harry Enfield32:41

Uh

Presenter32:42

Ah.

Harry Enfield32:42

No, it's paper and pen, then.

Harry Enfield32:44

Very fag machine, go on.

Presenter32:45

Bundy.

Harry Enfield32:47

I've got nothing to write.

Presenter32:48

Ah, Harry Enfield, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island disc.

Harry Enfield32:52

Thank you.

Speaker 133:02

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