Hugh Lloyd

Speaker 10:01

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.

Presenter0:28

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is an actor, entertainer, and comedian. He's the Hugh in the television series Hugh and I.

Presenter0:37

If you lied.

Presenter0:38

Now with what degree of horror would you feel the prospect of isolation on a desert island? I'd be absolutely horrified and petrified because I love people and to be cast away from them, unless I could take a certain selected few with me. No. I can't, no.

Speaker 10:52

No.

Presenter0:54

What would you be happiest to have left behind?

Presenter0:57

Thing

Presenter0:58

You see, because though I love people and have sympathy for people and understand people, things I haven't and they know about me. As soon as I pick up a thing, it says to itself, We've got a right one here and it generally has. It falls to pieces. How musical are you?

Speaker 11:10

On it then

Presenter1:14

I have quite a wide background for music because my mother was a music teacher in Chester and used to run a choir.

Presenter1:22

And my wife is a very accomplished pianist and musician.

Presenter1:26

And they have all the technical background to tell me what is good and what is bad, but I have the wide taste of what I like.

Speaker 11:32

Yeah.

Presenter1:33

Do you pair the grammar phone one? Yes, we've got it out.

Presenter1:37

So that's thirty L P s. We don't want any more really because uh we couldn't keep paying our thirteen. You know, there's not enough time in the week.

Presenter1:44

What's the first one you chose?

Presenter1:46

Well, the first record that we bought was Errol Garber.

Presenter1:51

They can teach me tonight.

Presenter2:21

Errol Ghana playing Teach Me the Night

Presenter2:24

What next?

Presenter2:25

Well, there's another association with jazz again. We have some friends who are well known in the jazz world, a Betty Smith who says sex with her and her husband who's a very good arranger. And we spend a lot of time with them and we the evening generally consists of having two or three drinks.

Presenter2:41

And then we go back to one of our houses and we start playing the piano and it's the jazz that starts off.

Presenter2:48

And then we go into the classical music, which we all like.

Presenter2:51

But we always end up with hymns because apparently, so musicians tell me, there's nothing like those basic harmonies that you get in hymns. And my very favourite hymn is He Who Would Valentine Be.

Presenter3:04

Who but themselves confound his strength the more is No thus shall say his mind, though he will giant fight, he will make good his right to be a

Presenter3:31

On the rusty man will sound.

Presenter3:39

We know we are.

Presenter3:51

I'll fear on what men say, I'll labour, die, and they will be yours.

Presenter4:06

He who would valiant be by the Templars of Tith.

Presenter4:10

Hugh, you mentioned your mother being a music teacher in Chester. Is that where you were born? Yes indeed, yes. Right on the borders of Wales. Yes, my parents were born in Chester too, but all their parents were born in North Wales.

Presenter4:22

Ever since I was a kid we used to go and have holidays in Wales. But my great love on holiday was not the sand, or the beach, or the paddling pool.

Presenter4:31

It was the concert party and I used to stand by the stage door. My mother used to say, come and enjoy yourself in the sunshine. I used to say, oh, I want to see that funny man come out.

Presenter4:40

When did you first appear in front of an audience? Oh, when I was about eight or nine, that was a sort of strictly invited audience. Captive audiences. Yes, uncles and aunts and everything who had to suffer this.

Speaker 14:47

Captive

Presenter4:51

As a youngster, did you have serious ambitions to go into the theatre? Always. As soon as I lost the engine drive of the stage, which is very early, because I don't like engines.

Presenter5:00

I wanted to be a best comedian so I left an auntie took me past one of these wayside pulpit things that said

Presenter5:06

So and so and it said a date 85 BC and I said I want to be a B C and she said what does that mean and I said best comedian you know when you left school?

Presenter5:17

When I left school, my father thought quite rightly that the theatre was a very precarious affair.

Presenter5:23

and thought I should have some secondary profession. So I became a journalist for two years. On what? On the Chester Chronicle. Well that meant flower shows and inquests. I had a slightly wider experience because the Sydney reporters were called away to war.

Presenter5:38

And uh I had rather more to do than the average Cub reporter has to do now. Were there any particular scoops you brought off with the Chester Chronicle? Yes, writing up my own shows, uh because I used to do a lot of amateur entertainment.

Speaker 15:47

Uh it has I use the tool

Presenter5:51

Yeah, and I used to write up the chance because I was the only one who would.

Speaker 15:51

Yeah, I don't

Presenter5:54

Now what sort of act were you doing in those days? Oh, it was dreadful. I can't bear to think of it, but those troops had to suffer. I used to do Impressions of Molish, Evalier. That still makes terrible. Mr Churchill, the Western brothers, you know.

Presenter6:10

And when you will have the paper?

Presenter6:11

When I left the paper, I volunteered for all the armed forces in turn, but fortunately for them.

Presenter6:18

I was turned down because I used to have hay fever very badly and I went on to Ensor for three years. Mm-hmm. Well there you are, a professional. Yeah. So let's break off at this point for your third record. What next? Well we've been talking quite a bit about Chester and I'm very fond of Chester Football Club and I'd like some football match music so what better than Blaze Away?

Speaker 16:28

Yeah.

Presenter7:05

Blaze away some football match music by the combined bands of Fairies, Photons and Morris Motors.

Presenter7:12

Tell you you are with Emsa.

Presenter7:14

Every night something different. Where does this end you?

Presenter7:17

Mostly we toured in this country, but we did also go to the Faroe Islands and to Iceland.

Presenter7:23

And I recall that the first day back in Scotland was a lot colder than the last day in Iceland. Perhaps that's because drinking was cheaper in Iceland. How long did you stay with Emma? About three and a half years. But after that I have done a lot of troop entertainment since then, travelling to Malta and Cyprus and North Africa and Singapore and Malaya.

Presenter7:45

Yeah.

Speaker 17:45

Yeah.

Presenter7:46

Getting back to the end of the war, when you put away your uniform, what did you do? Well, I started the round of summer shows and pantomimes that was to go on for some time.

Presenter7:57

A period of optimism and nothing very much else. It was just existing from one to the other. When did you first meet I, Terry Scott? About ten years ago, we were on a variety bill in Weymouth. We always remember that the newspaper critics said that one of us was droll and the other was lugubrious. We can't quite remember which one was which. Mm-hmm. How did you evolve that rather sad deadpan approach, which isn't at all the real you?

Presenter8:22

Well, I think it started from my newspaper days when I used to go to the local theatre.

Presenter8:27

And see all the comedians laughing at their own jokes. And I always used to think, Well, I'm not going to laugh at my jokes. Neither does anybody else actually, but still that was my own idea about it. This had a funny sequel, isn't it? I worked at the windmill for about three seasons and I used to do this miserable expression.

Presenter8:44

at the audience there who faced me with precisely the same miserable expression that I had looking at them.

Speaker 18:49

And it's a little bit.

Presenter8:51

And the result was an impact. I frequently laugh before ladies.

Presenter8:58

When did you do your first television?

Presenter9:00

Also, about 10 years ago, the centre showed from the Nottingham Centre, which was for troops, and then I did.

Presenter9:07

bits and pieces in Great Scottish Maynard, which Terry did for Door Maynard, and then I started the One Lines and other television shows. What you look back on is a big break, you well I think just after that I started to do One Lines and the Hancock shows.

Presenter9:22

And then I had a chance to work with Tony on one of these War Office things out in Malta and did about four weeks with him and got to know him better and work with him a lot more. And then I started to get bigger parts with Hancock, who I think is marvellous, and I learnt so much from him. And everybody watched Hancock, so that was the big break to start with, you know. And that led to bigger things in television and eventually to you and I.

Speaker 19:44

Yeah.

Presenter9:46

Which we'll talk about in more detail in just a minute, but let's have record number four in the meantime. Well, as we've been talking about Hancock, I'll have to take some of him to the desert islands. So can we have some of the blood donor?

Hugh Lloyd9:58

Nothing like a room full of gay posters to cheer up.

Hugh Lloyd10:02

Have you been immunized?

Hugh Lloyd10:05

Keep deaf off the roads.

Hugh Lloyd10:08

Lock up your medicine chest, eh, Pleasant.

Hugh Lloyd10:11

Certainly makes a change in record covers.

Hugh Lloyd10:13

Ah dear. Ah, there's my favourite. Drink a pint of milk a day.

Hugh Lloyd10:23

Drink a pint of milk a day.

Hugh Lloyd10:27

Drink a pint of milk a day.

Hugh Lloyd10:29

Hmm.

Hugh Lloyd10:31

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases

Hugh Lloyd10:35

Coughs and sneezes, spread diseases. Trap the germs in your handkerchief. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Are you alright? I'm sorry, hello.

Hugh Lloyd10:47

Ness, I didn't see you come back, I

Hugh Lloyd10:50

Felt rather lonely sitting there by myself. Funny what you do when you're on your own, isn't it?

Presenter10:58

Tony Hancock has a blood donor.

Presenter11:00

How many series have you and I, you and Terry done now? We've done four, actually. I think there have been about 47 programmes in all. Who's written them? John Chapman.

Presenter11:10

Was Hue and I an immediate success? No. Uh we often think this is our great fortune. It's gradually grown on people.

Speaker 111:12

No.

Presenter11:17

I think each time we've come back, we've averaged an extra million people. But nobody ever raved about it to start with because I think.

Presenter11:25

If people rave about a show to start with, it means that it probably has a much shorter life than the four years we've had.

Presenter11:32

Have the characters changed very much since the beginning? I think that Terry and I grow closer together, working together all the time, you know, quite naturally. We find our scenes together, we're very much in tune. You don't work together all the time away from television? No, we think it's a very good thing to preserve our own identities. We started off as separate people. While people want to have Hugh and I, we're delighted to do it.

Presenter11:56

At the same time, we like to keep our own careers going. Are there any more coming up? Yes, we've got thirteen repeats in the summer. Thank you very much, BBC. That's that's my favourite form of income. And thirteen brand new ones next winter. Yeah. Now you've been in the straight theatre recently. Yeah, yeah.

Presenter12:14

If I I've suddenly got mad about acting, you know.

Presenter12:17

I like being part of the play rather than doing my own act. Well, if you see my own act, you'll know why.

Presenter12:23

But I like to be part of it and I like things that have got a little more depth in them than just making people laugh. I like to make them cry as well. What have you been doing?

Presenter12:32

Well, I did Rattle the Simple Man a short time ago, which I like very much indeed. And I'm now doing a play called Big Bad Mouse, which is great fun. I play the title roller, of course. I'm the mouse. What's for the future?

Presenter12:44

Well, Terry and I are going to go to Margate for the summer and then we're going to do some more human eyes and then after that we may do a film.

Presenter12:53

Have you any particular ambition, you? Any big ambition?

Presenter12:57

That's a difficult question because I'm a very contented type of person. I've grown a more ambitious lately. There's one thing that I want to do very much, and that is to live by the sea, which is why the desert island, I suppose, is a possibility.

Presenter13:12

Although I would like to live in Torquay, ideally, but you can't for business reasons live that far away. But I like that restlessness of the sea. It does something to me, you know.

Presenter13:24

Let's have record number five. Well, we've been talking about Marggett and also the start of the Hugh and I series. About four years ago is when the Hugh and I series started. My wife was working in Margot and I used to commute from there.

Presenter13:38

And we used to go into a club in the evenings, and we used to hear a record play by.

Presenter13:43

A blended singer called Jack Jones called Lollipops and Roses. We play that a lot and I'd like to hear it again.

Presenter13:52

Make it her birthday.

Presenter13:56

Each day of the week

Presenter14:01

Huh, nice thing.

Presenter14:05

Sugar and spice things Roses and lollipops And lollipops and roses

Presenter14:19

Jack Jones.

Presenter14:21

What's next to you?

Presenter14:23

Well, I'd like to have the Lord's Prayer because I believe in it and I say in it and I think I will need it if I'm to be on that desert island for a long time. So can we have the Lord's Prayer sung by the Mormon choir?

Hugh Lloyd14:40

Unheal yourself into temptation.

Presenter14:47

But deliver us from Him.

Presenter15:33

Albert Hamer Lott's setting of the Lord's Prayer, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Here, what are your hobbies?

Presenter15:40

Well, I like reading, I like drinking, and I like writing.

Presenter15:44

Although I don't like half now.

Presenter15:47

Are you a practical man at all? Who does all the practical jobs about the house? My wife, she's marvellous at painting, anything like that. I can do three things about the house. I can shop. I'm very good at shopping because I love chatting to all the shopkeepers. It takes me hours to do, but I love doing it. That'll be useless on the desert island, of course. Then I can do the washing up, which would also be useless on the desert island. And the third thing I can do that might be of use is that I enjoy getting up early in the morning. I like the start of every day, you know, this fresh virginal feeling. Could you live off the land?

Presenter16:19

Uh yes, I think it's as oranges and that sort of thing. I don't think I could kill anything, you see that's the trouble.

Presenter16:25

Um

Presenter16:26

Possibly I could do some fishing because I don't mind killing fish so much. I've never got to know a fish, you know, enough to like it.

Presenter16:34

Would you try to escape?

Presenter16:36

Try to, not try to, because I would know that if I tried to build a raft or a boat, it would be doomed to failure the moment that I started. I would want to, and I would expect to. I would think that there's a fail over the horizon every day. I would think every night, tomorrow it'll happen. You're an optimist? I'm a great optimist. Well, this is half the battle on a desert island.

Presenter16:57

Let's have record seven now. Well, one of our favorite records is Gypsy, and everything that Ethel Merman does in it is marvellous. But I think the number that typifies the feeling of gypsy with that old honky tonk music

Presenter17:12

It's sung by Sandra Church and entitled Let Me Entertain You.

Speaker 217:23

Let me

Speaker 217:25

Entertain you.

Speaker 217:29

Let me make you smile.

Speaker 217:35

Let me do a few tricks, some old and then some new tricks. I'm

Presenter17:43

Sandra Church in a song she sang in the New York production of Gypsy.

Presenter17:49

Now we've got to your last one. What's that going to be?

Presenter17:52

Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Julia.

Presenter17:54

Conducted by Sir John Barberon.

Presenter17:57

Uh we went a year ago on my birthday to see the Shakespeare Memorial concert with the Halley Orchestra and Sir John, and we enjoyed the concert immensely, practically everything in it. You share a birthday with Shakespeare, do you? Well, he is the day after, but most famous authors are born around that time.

Presenter18:13

And uh

Presenter18:15

We enjoyed the concert very much indeed. I like all this heavy orchestral music and my wife really chose this record. She said that's the one that you like best and it is. Can we have Romeo and Juliet please?

Presenter19:28

The closing passage of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, conducted by Sidon Barbirolli.

Presenter19:34

There are eight records you if you would only have one, which would it be?

Presenter19:38

A difficult question, but I think the last one.

Presenter19:41

Because it covers a wide gamut of emotion, you know, rather than any other of the records, probably only.

Presenter19:49

I have one emotion.

Presenter19:51

And one luxury to take with you to the island.

Presenter19:55

Pencil and paper. At last I would be able to do some writing. I would have to do it because there'd be nobody else there. What do you want to write in particular?

Presenter20:05

I think about people because I would have to create the people that aren't there. A book? A play? Yeah, a book.

Presenter20:13

And one book to take with you, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Presenter20:16

Any sort of anthology of Charles Dickens, once again, this man, you know, covered the whole gamut of every emotion, everything about human beings Dickens has written about. Yes. So the next generation of troops, instead of getting impressions of Maurice Chevalier, will get Sam Weller and Little Nell and Little McCorby.

Presenter20:34

Well, that's another reason for not having other war isn't there.

Presenter20:39

Well, thank you, Huel Lloyd, for letting us hear your choice of desert island disk.

Presenter20:44

Bye-bye.