Al Read

Al Read0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:32

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? Our castaway this week is Al Reed.

Presenter0:37

Al, how well do you think you could stand up to prolonged cleanliness?

Presenter0:41

Well, I think I could um stand up to it all right if I had something to do.

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You're one of the few who could people the island with your characters. Oh, yes, yes, I could do that, couldn't I? That's an amusing thought. Car park attendant and they're all, yeah.

Presenter0:56

What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter1:00

Well, I think uh traffic jams.

Presenter1:03

You can almost see the driver, kind of, fuming as he presses that horn. Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Presenter1:08

Come on, get out of the way. How are we going to be here? Here all day. I mean, it must be nice to get out of that lot, I should think.

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Yes. Does music play an important part in your life?

Presenter1:19

Oh, yes, it does. I think it plays an important part in everybody's life. Do you play records a lot at home? No, I d I don't play records a lot. I like to have music on, especially when I'm, you know, writing scripts, trying to find something funny to say. I think that helps a lot.

Presenter1:34

What's the first of the eight records you have there for the island?

Presenter1:38

Well, I'd like to hear Frank Highfield.

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What I'd like to hear is the Walting Matilda. I think this is marvelous. This is the way to start a day off.

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What's the Dallas Wagman camp by a Bellamong under the shade of

Speaker 21:59

He sang as he watched and he waited till his penny boiled You come a waltz sing Matilda with me Sing Waltz sing Matilda Waltz sing Matilda

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I'll sing Mate

Speaker 22:11

Your man was singular with me and he loved and he sang

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Rangai View

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What's your second choice, Al?

Presenter2:20

Well, having heard Frank Eyfield, I think I'd better get to work.

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Build myself a house or something. And I think I could do this better if I had.

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The right sort of

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effect behind, nice sort of music, you see. And I think Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet might give me the right sort of inspiration.

Presenter3:38

An excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

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Elle, where were you born?

Presenter3:46

I was born in Salford, which is in Lancashire, as everybody knows. That's thirty nine years ago. You're the same age as Jack Benny. Yes, but everybody knows he's kidding, of course.

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What was it your first ambition to be as a schoolboy?

Presenter4:00

Well, I hadn't any choice. We were in the uh meat packing business, uh sausage making and canned meats. And my father had decided uh about that. I was going into that business. You were the third generation? Third generation, that's right, yes.

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How old were you when you started?

Presenter4:16

I started work at fifteen. My father took one look at me and he said, That boy's too big to be going to school.

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We better start him off. And he did. And he put me on a road on a van. We had vans and with a driver, and off I went.

Presenter4:31

You used sometimes to entertain at parties. That's how the whole thing really started, wasn't it?

Presenter4:37

Well, I found that to get to know all the customers, mostly grocers and people like that.

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would be a good idea

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to uh find out where they had their annual ball.

Presenter4:51

An offer to do some things, he and that's really how it started. I went up and told them a couple of little things and perhaps did an impression or something like that. They thought it was very good. I was only sixteen maybe, and that's how it really started. Did you think seriously of becoming a professional yourself? You did, in fact, I believe, early on, play one week in a music hall.

Presenter5:12

Oh, yes. Well, that was just because the news came through that Frank Randolph, wonderful.

Presenter5:18

The comediac couldn't appear at the Grand Theatre Bolton, and somebody said, Well, what about this lad?

Presenter5:24

He'd do very well. Oh, and I said I'll have a go. And I went to the Grand Theatre in Bolton and and played a week, yes. Ah yes. But you didn't feel that you wanted to stay with it as a variety. I wouldn't say it was a great success. That's probably one of the reasons.

Al Read5:35

I would

Presenter5:39

And my father had said, Well, you make your mind up. Either that or this, and please yourself. It took me about a minute, that's all. So you were back in the family business. I was back in the social business, yes. And this was the pattern until when? 1950, wasn't it? 1950, yes. And what happened then?

Al Read5:46

I was fair.

Presenter5:53

I was in an hotel in Manchester, again, you know, entertaining some customers and to keep them amused I was recounting the perfectly true experience of when my wife had called in a decorator to give us an estimate for one room where her mother was going to sleep, you see.

Presenter6:11

And he stood in the hall, saying

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I believe you want the house decorated through. I said, No, no. It's just a little room. My wife mother's coming a week on.

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All the time he's looking round, he said uh

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Is this your own house, have you bought it? I said, Yes, it's pity. Built on sand hole sinking.

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He said your wall's belly. Said pardon? He said, Belly in that wall. That's out about six inches, is that? If you take a peep over my shoulder, you see where it's bellying. He says, Your wall'll have to come down.

Presenter6:39

He said, There's your garage next to it. I can't tell you the rest. It was one of those things.

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Barker Andrews, he was a PPC producer. PBC producer. Yes. Wonderful man, yes.

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He came over and he said, Well, he said, I've never heard anything so funny. I said, Well, it's true.

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He said but always said we must have that on the radio. He said would you come and do it on Variety Fanfare?

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So I said, Well, I don't know about that. I promise you he said it would be marvelous. So I did it. Well, there you are, your first broadcast. Let's break off here for another record. What next?

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Well, I would want to be reminded, of course.

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One place, England.

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And I can't think

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that anything would do this better.

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Then Florence Olivier's speak.

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And Henry V.

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I I think that's wonderful.

Speaker 27:55

Let's fall!

Speaker 47:56

Yeah.

Speaker 27:57

Unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the ball up with our English dead.

Presenter8:04

The Laurence Olivier.

Presenter8:05

Now you made your first broadcast in Variety Fanfir, Al. This made quite a sensation.

Presenter8:10

Oh, yes, yes I did.

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There were no gags in your material, ever. It was all observation. Well, I mean

Presenter8:17

I have experienced the things that I put forward, and people seem to say, Oh, yes, we've had that too. Yes. Now, this first broadcast led to a whole lot of others. A couple of years later,

Presenter8:28

After all this broadcasting experience, you refused the offer of a regular weekly series on sound radio, and you refused an invitation to play the Palladium. Now this was a a quite unheard of thing for a comedian. Well, yes. Radio, I didn't want him to get tired of the voice.

Presenter8:44

And the palladium

Presenter8:47

Well, I don't think I was ready for that.

Presenter8:50

Well, this is obviously a very wise decision. You made your first West End appearance actually at the Adelphi, I think it was, 1954. Yes, Jack Hilton asked me to play the Adelphi, which I did, and we ran for 12 months there. Enjoyed it. And then went back again. The show was called Who Never Guess, You'll Be Lucky.

Speaker 49:02

Uh

Al Read9:02

Yeah.

Presenter9:06

Mm-hmm.

Presenter9:08

And the second chair?

Presenter9:09

The Shackin show is called Such Is Life. That's where uh Shirley Bassey um started, you know, right. She came on the show. And that uh that ran for twelve months, too, yes. Now did you ever play the Palladium?

Presenter9:20

Uh only command performance.

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Don't laugh.

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Until recently, you've always written all your end material.

Presenter9:28

Yes, that's right, yes. I've had uh my great friend, of course, uh Ronnie Taylor, to help me and talk the things over and of course we we still work together.

Al Read9:29

Yeah.

Presenter9:37

A television you didn't touch at all until recently. No, always a risk, you see, when people imagine radio characters.

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They have their own

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picture of what they would look like, what they'd like them to look like.

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And therefore I didn't feel that I ought to cheat'em by appearing. Surely it'd be a bit bit of a shock, you see, and I left it Rightly so, I hope. I think so. But they got over the shock all right when you did go on television. Yes, yes, they've asked me to go back again.

Presenter10:04

What are your plans at the moment?

Presenter10:06

Well, I'm going to South Africa next to do the radio shows there.

Presenter10:11

And after that we go to Scarborough for the summer show. I'd like to do a summer show, okay, every year. And then radio again in the autumn. Radio in September. 13 shows on the radio, yeah.

Presenter10:24

Well you've obviously got plenty on your plate. Let's have record number four.

Presenter10:27

Oh well, yes, to relax.

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Uh Mantavani

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Traumate.

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Mantavani in his orchestra.

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Now, apart from the entertaining side of your life, you're still a businessman.

Presenter11:09

Yes, that's right. Yes, I retain my business interests. Yes. How do you like to spend your time when you're not working? What are your hobbies?

Presenter11:16

Well, I I like horses. You know some racehorses, I know. Yes, that's right. And I've bred some. I bred five. Are they doing any good? Yes, of course. Good. And when you're working in a summer show, for example, I believe you like to take a couple of horses so that you can get some rice. Yes, I do. I always take a couple with me and

Al Read11:30

Yeah.

Speaker 411:30

Yes, I

Presenter11:33

Ask one of the cast if they like to ride, and off we go, and I like it. What are your other hobbies?

Speaker 411:36

What do you think?

Al Read11:37

Uh

Presenter11:38

Well, golf I like, of course, and snooker. Wherever we are in the theater, wherever we arrive, we go to the golf club and we play our golf and, you know, go back and play snooker at night. Have you any one big ambition now?

Presenter11:49

No.

Presenter11:50

No, not at all. You're happy with things as they are? Yes, certainly. Right, let's have.

Presenter11:55

Record number five.

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I think I'd like to

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Uh

Presenter12:01

Let's see a film again.

Presenter12:03

I can't do that, which I can't. I'd like to hear the music from the soundtrack.

Presenter12:10

Of that wonderful film Spartacus. It's got a particular interest for me because.

Presenter12:16

The man who wrote it, Alex North, done such wonderful work and he's a friend of mine and I would like to hear them.

Presenter12:52

From the soundtrack of Spartacus, What Next?

Presenter12:56

I think we should have some comedy, right?

Presenter12:59

I'd like to hear Peter Eustenov doing what?

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One I I like very much

Presenter13:07

is uh where he's at the uh the Grand Prix of Gibraltar. Oh, yes. I like the way he does the governor's speech, because he does all the voices, we know that. I think I think he's absolutely wonderful.

Al Read13:16

We know that.

Presenter13:20

Now the

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The race should start any moment, and here is the

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The Governor of Gibraltar is rising slowly

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to the podium. He's being helped by several Boy Scouts.

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He's a very venerable gentleman that we all admire and cherish, Lord Weeps of Sebring.

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And maybe as this is a a great British character,

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Raymond Thaxter, would you say a few words about his background while he's negotiating those last two steps, please?

Presenter13:50

Yes, certainly. Well, Lord Weeps is a

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He's a really fine old sportsman. He's been in politics since 1883 and a very wonderful career he's had. Minister of Pensions in 1896.

Presenter14:03

He won the decathlon for Great Britain in the first Olympic Game.

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Peter used the knock

Presenter14:10

Well, Al, you say you can look after yourself in the jungle of show business. How good would you be at looking after yourself on a desert island?

Presenter14:17

Well, I think I'd be all right.

Presenter14:19

I'd have to be, wouldn't I? Yes. I mean, have you got any skills that would be useful? Well, in business, of course, we've had to do with cattle and farmers. I think I'm not too bad at farming. Yeah.

Presenter14:30

Um build a shelter, alright?

Presenter14:32

Yes, I could build a shelter.

Presenter14:34

Yes, could you build some kind of a craft, a raft or something of that sort? Well, I expect I could if I had to escape. Would you try to escape?

Presenter14:43

Well, I suppose I would have to because there would be no chance of anybody finding me. I'd love to have everybody over and...

Presenter14:51

Well entertain them, but

Presenter14:54

Otherwise, no, I think I'd have to build that raft and escape because without people, I think we're all sucked, aren't we? We must have people and certainly myself.

Presenter15:04

Would you try to build a primitive golf course?

Presenter15:08

Well, I've played on a few primitive golf courses, I

Presenter15:13

I'd think I might try to build up a golf course, yeah, keep myself amused. Golf is a funny game. I mean, listen to these two chaps. Now, they've played a wonderful game. Good day Alpha, I thought I played awfully well, actually. I mean...

Presenter15:25

When I think of my score, which is 3, 4, 3, 4, sorry, 3.

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Two birdies, sorry, one birdie, one eagle, out in 35, back in 32. This is quite a fair score, less handicap, of course. Now we know we're listening to the experts, don't we?

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But what about these two Lancashire lands who just come in the clubhouse now?

Presenter15:47

They're playing golf for the first time. Now, just listen to their conversation. What sort of a game have they played?

Presenter15:52

You never won that last all. You never won that last all.

Presenter15:56

Now you lashed out and missed, that's one, isn't it?

Presenter16:00

Then you had another swipe where you scutted it up past that lady's tea box for two.

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Then you dribbled it back on the fairway and belted a good one over that field where that young couple had to get up, right?

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Then we got you back on the fairway for eleven.

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Then you knocked it in that sand.

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Well, you lost your temper and it took you another eight to get it out. That's 19.

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Then you had that long one over those three fairways when that gentleman said you had to run back with it because that was his ball.

Presenter16:33

Yeah.

Presenter16:34

Yes, you've obviously played on some primitive golf courses, have you? Yes, well I love golf.

Al Read16:37

Yeah.

Presenter16:38

Let's have your next record.

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I think we all have to be serious.

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That time

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Thanks sadly we all have our own thoughts.

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Would you play

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The Lord's Prayer.

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The moment

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Tabernacle Choir.

Speaker 417:49

It was his name.

Presenter17:55

Albert Hay Malotte's setting of the Lord's Prayer by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Presenter18:02

Well, now we've come to your last one. What's that going to be?

Presenter18:06

I've made my mind up here. It's going to be Glenn Miller.

Presenter18:10

Serenade in blue. Yes. Why do you choose this?

Presenter18:13

Well, I think he was absolutely wonderful. We all know this, the war years, and it was a tragedy, and we all know it.

Presenter18:22

He was the first man to, I think, bring the two people together, you know, really, in entertainment. The United States and this country. I think so, yeah.

Speaker 218:27

You have

Al Read18:27

Uh

Presenter18:30

Yes. This is what I would like to hear because I think this

Presenter18:34

would seem to fit every mood and every thought.

Presenter19:06

Glenn Miller and his orchestra serenade in blue. There are your eight records, Al. If you could only have one, which would it be?

Presenter19:12

Well, I haven't made one, so it's not looking for that.

Presenter19:15

Frank Eyefield. Right, let's finish up nice and light again.

Speaker 419:17

Right then.

Al Read19:17

Yeah.

Presenter19:19

Yeah, and one luxury to take with you.

Presenter19:23

Luxury?

Presenter19:24

I take a photograph of my wife and kids.

Presenter19:27

Why not have a whole album?