Glenda Jackson MP

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.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a politician. She was born and brought up on Merseyside, the eldest daughter of a bricklayer. She left school at 16 to work as a shop girl in boots, but two years later won a grant to take her to Rada and went on in her late twenties to join the Royal Shakespeare Company under Peter Brook. Her career took off, and in films such as Women in Love and A Touch of Class, for both of which she won Oscars, and the BBC television series Elizabeth R., she became an international star. But politics always ran deep within her, and in 1990 she was adopted as the Labour candidate for Hampstead and Highgate, becoming its MP two years later and joining the new Labour government as a transport minister earlier this year. Her dramatic change of career is thus complete, for, as she says herself, you can't be a part-time MP, and you certainly can't be a part-time actor. She is Glenda Jackson.

Presenter1:23

Have you then, Glenda, performed for the last time on the stage? Will you never do it again?

Glenda Jackson MP1:28

Um it's hard for me to be able to say categorically never again, because obviously I would like to be returned to my seat at the next General Election. But if I'm not and I will still have to earn a living, then the only other thing I know is acting.

Presenter1:43

But from everything you say y you are happy, very happy, to go on being a politician. You don't want to go back to the theatre or or film for the love of it at all. You've no hankering.

Glenda Jackson MP1:52

No, uh

Glenda Jackson MP1:54

I say that obviously from the perspective of having had several decades where I was extremely fortunate both in the work that I was offered and the people with whom I was working.

Presenter2:05

Was there never any joy in it? Did you never feel any real pleasure or sense of satisfaction or achievement? I can't believe you didn't.

Glenda Jackson MP2:12

Well, you you may f have those feelings and indeed you do. I mean certainly this is true within the live theatre where it is at its best an absolutely unique experience for all concerned. I mean that is the audience as much as the actors. But those experiences are rare. What is always frightening and

Glenda Jackson MP2:35

Really gives you a sense of your own lack of importance in a way, is that there's nothing you can do to guarantee that that will happen. Obviously, there are levels, there is a level of performance, there is a level of experience that can be guaranteed, but what transforms that, what makes it the kind of night that you remember, is not within your individual or even group gift. The perfect story that illustrates what I mean was one which was told about Olivier. And it was when he was playing Othello. And it had been in the repertoire for some time. It was past its first performance, for which, of course, he received absolutely ecstatic notices. But this particular night, his performance was such that nobody wanted to leave the wings. I mean, everybody was just clustered around every time he was on the stage watching what he was doing. And it was an extraordinary night.

Glenda Jackson MP3:26

And the performance ended and he went into his dressing room and proceeded to break it up. I mean there was th this sound of furniture being smashed, so they sent the younger stage manager along to see what was wrong, and this poor child tapped on the door and said, You know, Sir Lawrence, we're we're wondering what what is the problem, because it was absolutely wonderful. And he said, I know it was, but I don't know why.

Presenter3:48

Tell me about your first record.

Glenda Jackson MP3:50

Well, this is Tina Turner, and it's I think it's the very first record I ever heard of hers. I'd never heard of her before, and I can't, I must be honest, remember when I first heard it but I can distinctly remember just standing stock still to listen to it.

Speaker 24:11

A church house greenhouse

Speaker 24:13

A schoolhouse wildhouse.

Speaker 24:17

On highway number 19.

Speaker 24:20

The people keep the city clean.

Speaker 24:23

That's all it nut bush!

Speaker 24:26

Oh, that's good.

Speaker 24:29

On a night for a second

Presenter4:33

I can Tina Turner and Nutbush City Limits. She's a great pro.

Glenda Jackson MP4:37

Oh, she's fantastic. I mean, she is a consumate professional, because I was speaking to someone who was saying, you know, that her shows are the same. But she has that ability which all great professional artists have, of making it seem as though she's making it up as she goes along. But then, I mean, I remember Fred Astaire saying, you know, if it doesn't look easy, we haven't worked hard enough. And that's what it's all about.

Presenter4:37

Uh

Presenter4:58

History has it that you were um terrified in nineteen ninety two when you made your maiden speech. Now presumably in the House of Commons presumably you you'd written it, you'd rehearsed it, you'd walked up and down the kitchen, said, Why so frightened?

Glenda Jackson MP5:11

Well, I hadn't rehearsed it in as much. I mean, it was certainly written, but I didn't really know until that day that I was going to be called. And I have really thought about this and wondered why I did find it the most frightening experience of my life. And I can't really come up with a logical reason. It was possibly because, as I rose to my feet, it suddenly hit me that I was representing thousands of people in my constituency. I was their representative within the centre of what is our political system, the House of Commons. And of course, within my constituency, there has always been a sizable number of residents who are creative artists in their own right. And all I could think of

Glenda Jackson MP5:57

When I was standing up to make it was that Keats lived in my constituency.

Presenter6:00

But was there also a a a a sense uh of your feeling that you know at last you'd arrived at what you really wanted to do? Because even at the height of your your acting career when you were winning Oscars and things,

Glenda Jackson MP6:11

Thank you.

Presenter6:12

You were saying, then, you might just give it all up and become a social worker or

Glenda Jackson MP6:16

Yeah.

Presenter6:16

Yeah.

Glenda Jackson MP6:16

I used to get scads of letters from social workers saying Stay where you are, stay where you are.

Presenter6:21

Sure, but on what I'm really asking is that it was obviously a long term ambition. I'm not quite sure when the social work ambition became politics, but at at some was there a point at which you felt I am now doing something much more worthwhile than I was doing before? I don't think it was as clear

Glenda Jackson MP6:41

That I had been inordinately blessed in a way, that I had been extremely lucky in my life, and that there was perhaps more that I could put back. But when I say that,

Glenda Jackson MP6:53

I think what happens in theatres, certainly in live theatres, is is enormously important. I mean, I it it's not mere entertainment theatre at its best. There is something that happens between

Glenda Jackson MP7:06

kind of circle at at its best, where you have a group of strangers sitting in the dark and in a sense a group of strangers standing in the light. And when it really works, there's an energy that goes from the one to the other, which is constantly reinforcing both. And so I always regarded theatre at its best, in a strange way, as being a kind of allegory for an ideal society.

Speaker 17:11

Yeah.

Speaker 27:11

Mm.

Presenter7:27

So you're saying the two careers have quite a lot in common?

Glenda Jackson MP7:30

I think so. I mean, the best theatre people always used to say to me, Oh, you've come you know, you've just exchanged one form of theatre for another, and I have a sort of flippant r response, if that is the case, you know, the House of Commons is under rehearsed, badly lit, and the acoustic is terrible. But

Glenda Jackson MP7:45

There is a link, it seems to me, because the best theatre

Glenda Jackson MP7:49

Is about trying to find and tell the truth. It's not about covering up, it's not about playing games, it's not about hiding, it's not about pretending you're something you're not. It's trying to find what it is to be a human being and why we behave towards each other in the ways that we do. And I think that the best politics is trying to find the truth as well.

Presenter8:09

Uh

Glenda Jackson MP8:09

Yeah.

Presenter8:09

Yeah.

Glenda Jackson MP8:09

So there is that kind of link.

Presenter8:10

You had, it seems to me, a handicap in making the transition from the one career to the other, because while other candidates posed with their wives and families and tried to look like the picture of twentieth century decency, you know, everybody knew what you looked like without your clothes on. And I mean, they mentioned it as much, didn't they? I mean, it's a childish point, really, but it happened and it can't have made I mean it's a bit very schoolboy, but it can't have made some testing situations particularly easier. It's never been raised.

Speaker 18:25

And they may

Glenda Jackson MP8:38

actually in the House. I mean, no no one within the House has ever raised it with me. I think there were a couple of uh political commentators who raised it. But it causes me no embarrassment so to do. I mean I am not ashamed of it. But certainly that aspect of

Presenter8:39

I mean

Glenda Jackson MP8:52

uh of people trying to say I had an unfair advantage because uh people knew who I was. I have to say, uh instant recognition is not as um universal as some people would like you to believe.

Presenter9:04

Next record.

Glenda Jackson MP9:06

Well

Glenda Jackson MP9:07

This is this is Stravinsky. I longed to be a ballet dancer. I love the ballet still, although I hardly ever see it. And it was via that medium that the great glory which is Stravinsky was opened up to me.

Speaker 210:06

Can't see it.

Presenter10:19

The opening of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms with the Festival Singers of Toronto and the CBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stravinsky. Let's talk about baths and bathrooms, because they've obviously played an important part in your life.

Glenda Jackson MP10:29

All right.

Presenter10:31

Haven't they? I mean, i in the beginning on Mersey side, I think,'cause you didn't have one.

Glenda Jackson MP10:34

No, I they were always for me and I think will always remain the kind of epitome of luxury because I was raised in a house that had two rooms up and two rooms down and a lavatory at the end of the garden and uh there was no bathroom in the house at all. But every Sunday we would go round the corner, we being myself and my sisters to my Auntie Esther and she would put on the good old boiler that she used to wash uh the clothes in, fill it up with water, and fill the bath which stood in her back kitchen. And it was a in the kitchen. In the back kitchen, yes. Not a tin bath. I mean it was the sort of bath that you would have in a proper bathroom, you know, with taps one end but it wasn't plumbed in. And during the week it was covered with hardboard and and did duty as a work surface and things of that nature. And then on a Sunday that would be taken off and the bath would be filled and loads of bubbles and we would have our bath in that and then go into the front room where she would give us the most wonderful tea with fresh cream cakes and things like that.

Presenter11:06

In the kit?

Presenter11:34

When did you finally get your own velocity?

Glenda Jackson MP11:36

I finally had my very own plugged-in bathroom when I was, I think.

Glenda Jackson MP11:43

26 years old when my then husband and I bought our first flat.

Presenter11:50

When you left school at sixteen you were apparently fat and spotty, I quote you uh and you got a job in in boots in West Kirby and life was

Glenda Jackson MP11:52

Yeah.

Glenda Jackson MP11:54

My god.

Glenda Jackson MP11:55

Okay, but

Speaker 211:56

Uh

Speaker 211:59

Uh

Glenda Jackson MP11:59

Mm-hmm.

Presenter12:00

presumably predictable and uninspiring, isn't it?

Glenda Jackson MP12:04

Oh, well, it was wonderful to begin with because I was actually earning money, and I can remember with the sense of pride with which I handed over my first wage packet to my mother. But I think I'd been there about a year, eighteen months or so, and although this is something I say now, I would not have been able to put it into such lucid terms at the time. I did feel that there had to be more to life than I was experiencing. But a friend of mine was a member of an amateur dramatic company in Hoileg, and she said to me, Come along, it's fun. And so I went along, and I did find it fun.

Presenter12:37

Record number three.

Glenda Jackson MP12:38

Well here we come.

Glenda Jackson MP12:39

To Elvis Presley. And I can remember when I was at drama school.

Glenda Jackson MP12:45

Being inordinately contemptuous of the kind of hysteria that was around Elvis Presley at that time and what I regarded as not music at all, speaking from that lofty pinnacle of absolute ignorance, which is always the safest spot. And a group of us at Drama School decided that we would go and see the film Jailhouse Rock. And I went along to this cinema in Bayswater, I can remember it. And he managed to do what certain great actors manage to do, regardless of language, of understanding what they're saying, of understanding what is that in a way is doing, is to touch something so central about what it means to be alive, what living it really is. It was just extraordinary.

Speaker 213:34

You ain't not too bad a dog

Speaker 213:37

I'll be more time.

Speaker 213:39

You ain't nothing but a halland dog Cracking all the time.

Speaker 213:45

Well you didn't have a

Presenter14:03

Elvis Presley and Hound Dog. So you got to Rada Glender in 1954. You would have been 18.

Speaker 214:08

Oh yeah.

Speaker 214:10

Presumably.

Presenter14:11

Presumably life just opened up, you know, in terms of people you met and the places you went and the music and the theatre and the ballet. You know, do you remember it as a time of a

Presenter14:21

Been a great opening up, great happiness, or were you miserable at being out of context?

Glenda Jackson MP14:25

Oh, no, I was certainly not miserable. I was very fortunate. I uh had very good digs out in Kew Gardens, and it was wonderful to be in London and to be able to go to the theatre and to be with a group of like-minded people. But I

Glenda Jackson MP14:43

In later years, I discovered that actually my time there I had been.

Glenda Jackson MP14:48

almost I mean it must have been a totally blinkered pro progress for me because what was actually going on within my colleagues, my fellow students as far as their personal lives were concerned, I did not have a clue about. And there I was working away. There were huge human dramas going on all around me of which I was totally unaware.

Presenter15:07

But that's just the way you are, isn't it? Because you got married, didn't you? Yes, to Roy Hodges, who was then a stage director. And he he said since that.

Glenda Jackson MP15:10

Yes, I do want to roll.

Glenda Jackson MP15:12

Yeah.

Presenter15:15

that you entered marriage with your whole heart and soul, that you would come home every night, whatever time it was, and and cook something to eat,'cause that's what you thought you ought to do.

Glenda Jackson MP15:20

Mm.

Glenda Jackson MP15:23

Well, that was the way I was raised.

Presenter15:26

Mm. And you're are you happy doing all of that? Are you cooking and cleaning and

Presenter15:31

Being domestic.

Presenter15:34

Well

Glenda Jackson MP15:35

I find it impossible to live in a mess. I'm not saying that if you open the drawers they're not untidy, but I do like a tidy environment. And so I don't have a great deal of difficulty with that aspect of it. And there is something wonderful about the immediate production of energy expended when you w wash a kitchen floor. I quite like that.

Presenter15:57

Great sense of achievement.

Glenda Jackson MP15:59

Okay.

Presenter15:59

Could you have settled for that, do you think? I mean, there was a time when you, you know, i your husband had more work than you had. You had none. I think you were following him round the country.

Glenda Jackson MP16:04

You had

Glenda Jackson MP16:06

Country that was a terrible time. But that ended.

Glenda Jackson MP16:11

and I did get work again and the situation changed. And at the time it was an a appalling uh process to go through and and had but like everything, I'm I'm grateful it happened really.

Presenter16:25

'Cause it made you appreciate it when the break finally came, which was really Peter Brooke and then the Shakespeare Cup.

Glenda Jackson MP16:27

Okay.

Glenda Jackson MP16:29

Oh, yeah.

Presenter16:30

Um it was ultimately with him that the Marisade, wasn't it? You played Charlotte Corday.

Glenda Jackson MP16:35

Yeah.

Presenter16:37

Why why did that change everything for you, do you feel? What what was so

Presenter16:43

original about that role and that play.

Glenda Jackson MP16:47

Well, I don't think it was necessarily the role in the play. I think one has to start from the fact that Peter Brooke is probably the world's greatest director in the theatre. And he wished to get away from the kind of theatre that was almost exclusively based on texts and how well or badly texts were delivered.

Presenter17:02

Mm.

Speaker 217:02

Uh

Presenter17:02

Uh

Glenda Jackson MP17:05

So using every part of us. So it was those three months were an extraordinary experience. It was like coming across an oasis in the desert. I mean suddenly here was someone who was actually making demands upon actors on the basis that they actually were professionals and weren't children who had to be chivied or coaxed or persuaded into giving performances.

Presenter17:24

And they had brains and created themselves.

Glenda Jackson MP17:25

And approaching how you could break through all those kinds of barriers that are there, both

Glenda Jackson MP17:36

for you as an individual and as a performer and also in an audience's acceptance or rejection of what is happening was just fantastic. And working with that group of people and with him was amazing.

Presenter17:46

Next record.

Glenda Jackson MP17:48

Where are we up to? Oh, now it's called The Chairman Dances, and it's from the opera Nixon in China. My initial interest in it was because of its title, obviously. I mean, what was How Was Someone Going to Put Tricky Dickie into an Opera?

Glenda Jackson MP18:03

I knew John Adams' work before I heard or saw this opera, and I admire him very much. When you realize that the chairman is chairman.

Glenda Jackson MP18:13

Mao Titung, it's charming, I think.

Presenter18:45

Part of the Chairman Dances from Nixon in China by John Adams, with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ido DeWart.

Presenter18:52

Oliver Reid, opposite whom you played in Ken Russell's Women in Love, said you were like a Ford truck with a highly tuned V eight engine. I think he meant it to be a compliment, really, don't you?

Glenda Jackson MP19:03

Sure it did.

Presenter19:05

Uh

Glenda Jackson MP19:05

I think as as sort of having some kind of connection on a uh personal level, Oliver and I are probably like chalk and cheese, but Oliver is a consummate professional. The actual business of acting, you don't have to like or dislike or in a in a sense have any kind of relationship in that personal way because the relation no, because the relationship is on a

Speaker 119:26

The rel

Glenda Jackson MP19:29

A very different level. In in many instances, the kind of

Glenda Jackson MP19:36

Current that goes between actors, um, which produces, you know, sort of performance.

Glenda Jackson MP19:42

Is much more intense, and it has to be because you don't have the time to go through the kind of social exchanges whereby meeting new people or developing friendships takes time. You can't do that with acting. You have to be able to make a connection, and it is on.

Glenda Jackson MP20:00

A quite deep level, I think.

Presenter20:02

How easy was it to establish that current with Richard Chamberlain, who played Tchaikovsky in the Music Lovers?

Glenda Jackson MP20:06

Oh, very easily. Uh I mean, he was open, he worked extremely hard, he th had no pretensions, he he was

Glenda Jackson MP20:15

Terrific, really.

Presenter20:17

There were some very shocking scenes in in that film. I think few people will forget the scene in which the demented Nina Tchaikovsky sits sits astride the grille with the lunatics beneath.

Glenda Jackson MP20:22

Image

Speaker 220:25

Do the tick

Presenter20:27

You did I mean, A, you cornered the market in sexually neurotic females, I think, at that time. But B, I mean, you were surely.

Speaker 220:33

The B

Speaker 120:33

Yeah.

Presenter20:35

the first serious actress to to take her clothes off on screen, to to to take on those sorts of parts in that kind of vivid way, weren't you?

Glenda Jackson MP20:45

I I I don't know. I must be honest. I don't know. I mean, I s I think I was certainly the first one to take all her clothes off in a serious theatrical event, which had certainly happened with Brooke. Um I don't know. I mean it may have been a very good idea.

Presenter20:56

You weren't aware, then, that you were kind of

Presenter20:59

You know, creating something new here. You just did it because you felt that this was.

Glenda Jackson MP21:03

I mean it was central to what the f the the the film and certainly the the theatrical piece was about. Um

Glenda Jackson MP21:12

There was undoubtedly a need to be able to break through that kind of absurd situation that prevailed, which of course had come essentially from Hollywood and the Hayes Office. You know, where if two people on a bed, they both had to have their a foot on the floor. But it's like everything, I think. If if if it's overused and exclusively in one area, then it's it's power and it's um

Glenda Jackson MP21:37

It's truth, really, goes.

Presenter21:41

Next piece of music.

Glenda Jackson MP21:43

Well

Glenda Jackson MP21:44

This is Shostakovich. I first heard the name of Shostakovich when I was doing a play in a season at the old Lyric Hammersmith. I again had never heard of him in my life before. This music was played during not the music we're going to hear now, I think it was his fifth symphony that was being played at that time. And it was such a revelation that I immediately rushed out and tried to find out more about him.

Presenter23:11

Part of the opening of Shostakovich's Symphony No. seven, the Leningrad Symphony, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by his son, Maxime Shostakovich.

Presenter23:19

You were, Glenda Jackson, a formidable Elizabeth R. with the head shaved back you had all your hair taken back to create that high dignity.

Glenda Jackson MP23:26

Well, not all of it. I think they took about three or four inches off you.

Presenter23:28

It took about three or four in

Presenter23:30

and all that heavy white, deeply unflattering make up. But uh

Presenter23:34

Pretty convincing.

Glenda Jackson MP23:35

Well, I mean it must have been infinitely worse in in fact because they used lead, they used arsenic, I don't think dentists were around much. And I remember someone saying that towards the end of her reign it could take a court lady anything up to eight hours to be prepared for some function actually at her court. My lady took somewhat longer to prepare me, certainly for the later episodes.

Presenter23:56

I used to take it what I was about to say.

Presenter24:00

That's a

Presenter24:05

That was nineteen seventy one, and in the same year you were and it was a great success, obviously, it won award saying it won one Emmys, didn't it? Too actually

Speaker 224:11

Two actually.

Presenter24:12

The same year you were you were cavorting as Cleopatra, I think, with Morecombe and Wise. They were they a tonic in the midst of all of this heavy drama?

Glenda Jackson MP24:21

Well, I've always said, and I mean it, they were the apotheosis of my career working for them. Their combined experience, if you got all the richest people in the world and said, okay, recreate the circumstances which produced these two people, it would not be possible to do. They'd worked in circuses, they'd done clubs, they did Sunday nights. I mean, they're

Glenda Jackson MP24:43

Their experience of being ent of entertaining, of working with the public in that sense was something that you could never ever buy. It was great.

Presenter24:54

And it was as a result of of that first appearance, wasn't it, that you were offered a touch of class? Because suddenly people realized you could do comedy.

Glenda Jackson MP25:00

Absolutely, and they sent me a a telegram uh when I actually got the Oscar for that, and it said uh stick with us, kid, and we'll get you a third.

Presenter25:09

What what did you do? Have you still got the?

Glenda Jackson MP25:11

No, I I mean they they all went up to my mother and it is for me a wonderful allegory for award. She she polished the Oscars and after a couple of years the fine glitter on the top wears away and it's base metal underneath. I like that.

Presenter25:26

Record number six.

Glenda Jackson MP25:27

Well, this is Benjamin Britton's War Requiem.

Glenda Jackson MP25:31

The images that come out of the First World War, the absolute slaughter for nothing, terrible images of there's a photograph of a long, long line of soldiers in a crocodile, each with their hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them, and they are blind. They've been blinded by gas. And what is inherent in this war requiem, where he links it so closely to poems about that First World War, and yet still at the end manages to find some kind of redemption, is for me wonderful.

Presenter27:00

Part of the Libre amei from Benjamin Britton's War Requiem, with the boys of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Presenter27:09

Now, Glenda Jackson, you're in government, Minister of Transport for London. What would you say is the single most important thing, personally, that you've achieved so far?

Glenda Jackson MP27:21

It's certainly the biggest.

Glenda Jackson MP27:23

The shift that I've noticed is the way people now accept that we cannot go on the way we are as far as transport is concerned, and we certainly can't go on the way we are as far as London transport is concerned, and that there have to be alternatives to the way we move ourselves and our goods around this greater. So what do you consider that? And I think that the emphasis that we are placing upon, for example, local authorities beginning to really prioritise pedestrians, cyclists, public transport, beginning to shift away from the perception that roads are the exclusive preserve of just one form of transport, and how one can assist and help that process.

Presenter27:44

So what are you going to do about it?

Presenter28:12

But when you lie in bed dreaming of what you might be able to achieve in this position of power which you've worked your way towards and achieved, w what's your dream? What do you really feel you'd like to be able to say at the end of your life, I did that?

Glenda Jackson MP28:29

I'm not so sure that I'm big on that. I did that idea. I mean, I'm very clear that I'm conscious of we did that in a sense of we being a Labour Party, a Labour government. That I'm very clear about. But the idea of individual power is not something A that I have or B that I necessarily desire in that way. But if you're a child.

Presenter28:54

Individual achievement though is different from individual power. I mean I take your point about

Presenter28:58

Not necessarily want to promote.

Glenda Jackson MP28:59

But individual achievement for me can be, for example, within my own constituency ensuring that somebody got a rebate on a gas bill which they shouldn't have paid.

Presenter29:10

And that's like cleaning the kitchen floor, is it?

Glenda Jackson MP29:12

I mean that's the actual direct.

Presenter29:12

I mean, you just feel, hey, I did that, and that's good.

Glenda Jackson MP29:16

I mean, that's good. You see that result. I mean, that is at the side of results that you don't obtain. But it makes you feel good.

Presenter29:22

But it makes you feel good in that moment.

Glenda Jackson MP29:26

It's hard to say that it makes one feel good. I mean, obviously, it doesn't make you feel bad, but.

Glenda Jackson MP29:33

I mean, there are so many people, there are so many incidents, there are so many cases, that you don't have the time.

Glenda Jackson MP29:41

to sit on that plateau and think

Glenda Jackson MP29:45

I mean, sometimes you do, but it's not often because it's just

Glenda Jackson MP29:48

Uh

Presenter29:48

Play it.

Glenda Jackson MP29:48

Uh

Presenter29:48

They're not big on self-congratulation, I can tell.

Glenda Jackson MP29:49

I did not

Presenter29:52

Record number seven.

Glenda Jackson MP29:52

Uh

Glenda Jackson MP29:54

Well, here we come to Stevie Wonder. I I genuinely believe him to be a genius. Uh when you realize that he he not only writes the music, but also the words to his songs, and and the actual output is so phenomenal. Um it was extremely difficult to choose one record of his, but I've gone back to uh

Glenda Jackson MP30:19

a tried and trusted favourite, and its superstition.

Speaker 230:29

You don't wanna save me

Speaker 230:34

Saddest song.

Speaker 230:39

You believe in things you don't understand in your proper

Speaker 230:48

She wants this

Presenter30:48

Done that way.

Presenter30:51

Yeah.

Presenter30:53

Stevie Wonder and Superstition. Well, now, Glenda, going to a Desert Island is really, I suppose, the antithesis of of both careers. You know, it is private, it's unpressured. All you have to concern yourself i uh with is keeping your body and soul together, which is ki it's kind of right up your street, really, isn't it?

Glenda Jackson MP31:07

Which is clear.

Glenda Jackson MP31:10

Oh, I don't think I'm that antisocial or sociable, but um well, I mean, obviously I've got the records and that's a that's a big help and there will be things for me to read. I am a very keen gardener, and so I would attempt a Japanese sand garden, I think. I am a a great admirer, although I know absolutely nothing about it really, or how in a sense they are created. But I quite like the idea of attempting to make one.

Presenter31:37

Last record.

Glenda Jackson MP31:38

Well, here we come to Michael Tippett, and there is a way of taking almost in a sense a classical tradition, a classical experience, and infusing it with such a passion and of a a

Glenda Jackson MP31:57

a sense of being alive now, that something else is created, and I think that is something which I find personally runs so strongly through all of Tippett's work.

Presenter33:09

The opening of Michael Tippett's concerto for double string orchestra with a Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Sir Michael Tippett. If you could only take one of those eight records, Glenda, which one would you choose?

Glenda Jackson MP33:20

I think it would have to be the war requiem.

Presenter33:22

What about um a book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Glenda Jackson MP33:26

Well, to go back to the point that I made earlier about my desire to create a Japanese sand garden and my total ignorance of how one goes about this, perhaps I could be given the best kind of of book on on the history of, and perhaps I could pick up some tips from that.

Presenter33:42

And what about your luxury?

Glenda Jackson MP33:44

Yeah.

Glenda Jackson MP33:46

It's going to be a bath. I mean, I don't think it would be anything other than a bath, really, given what I've my experience and its symbolic value for me. Now, I know it's not going to be plugged in, and it's not going to have running hot and cold water, but I'm sure I'd be able to sort something out there. But if, along with the bath, there could be sort of lots of things that go in it, and perhaps the odd fluffy towel to dry oneself, that would be wonderful.

Presenter34:12

Linda Jackson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Glenda Jackson MP34:16

Thank you.

Speaker 134:16

Yeah.

Speaker 134:23

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