Bill Kenwright

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.

Speaker 10:09

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

Mike Costaway this week is a theatre producer. Born and bred in Liverpool, he went to the same school as Paul McCartney and George Harrison, sang with a group which made some highly forgettable records, and eventually became an actor in Coronation Street. His producing career took off when he found shows that put popular television stars in front of provincial audiences. Gradually, he moved into the West End and a series of distinguished successes, including Blood Brothers, Dancing at Lunasa, Stepping Out, and Mother Courage. His instinct is populist, but his taste is wide-ranging. Hardworking and admired by his colleagues, including Sir Peter Hall, he remains dismissive of his achievements. You never get over your own insecurities, he says. I genuinely feel I've done nothing. He is Bill Kenright. That's very difficult to believe of a man who's produced 500 West End shows. You know, you're a millionaire many times over.

Speaker 31:19

Yeah.

Speaker 11:19

Yeah.

Speaker 31:19

Yeah.

Speaker 11:19

Producer

Bill Kenwright1:23

I've produced 500 shows soon, not 500 West End shows. I've produced

Presenter1:27

But you don't really feel inspiring.

Bill Kenwright1:28

Honest to God, I do. I think most people are. Are you not insecure sitting back there? I'm totally insecure. I think that's it.

Presenter1:34

But you have so much to be secure about.

Bill Kenwright1:36

Yeah, but that's not nothing to do with it, is it? As my psychiatrist told me very often during the years I went to see him.

Presenter1:41

But is it because you haven't really done what you wanted to do originally, which is

Bill Kenwright1:45

Not at all. Not at all. No, it really isn't that, because I'm going to do what I want to do.

Presenter1:50

Which is what?

Bill Kenwright1:50

I score the winning goal in the Meffe Cup final breaking my neck as the ball comes over from the left wing.

Presenter1:55

If only in your dream

Bill Kenwright1:56

Now I'm going to do it when I grow up.

Presenter1:57

When I grow up.

Bill Kenwright2:03

Film star. Film star, not an actor. Everyone in Liverpool wants the ultimate, and I wanted to be a film star. I wanted to be Errol Flynn. I wanted to be a Stuart Granger. I wanted to win the war. My mum used to tell me stories of how Bill Kenright was Buffalo Bill and I wanted to be Buffalo Bill, shooting all the Indians as they came in my dreams.

Presenter2:22

And did she take you to the pictures? Oh, yes. And we called it then.

Bill Kenwright2:24

Oh yes. My mum and my gran and my auntie Bet pictures on a Friday night was it for me. And that was the world. That was the world I loved. Even now, even now, one of my greatest, greatest joys is going to the pictures.

Presenter2:39

So how was it when I mean you didn't become the film star, but you did become the producer, you did produce a film, stepping out your first film or something?

Bill Kenwright2:46

My first film was not stepping out. It was it was a film called Day After the Fair with Hannah Gordon and Anna Massey, and it was a a Thomas Hardy short story, and I filmed it about ten or twelve years ago.

Presenter2:57

And did your mum and your auntie Bet come to see it?

Bill Kenwright3:00

They came to see it, yeah. We we we had a premiere at the Curzon Mayfair, they came to see it, and uh then the first big film, as you said, was Stepping Out with Liza Minelli.

Presenter3:08

And you imported Mum and Auntie Bette again.

Bill Kenwright3:10

Again, didn't tell them what I was doing. That was a wonderful day. I sat them down, and as I sat them down, I gave them two postcards with movie stars, and on the back I'd written, When I was four years old, you took me to a world I've never forgotten. Tonight's for you. And the mo the screen came up, said executive producer Bill Kenright, and the three of us cried. We we cry a lot in our family, I've got to tell you. My gran used to say, What did she say? Your eyes are too near your bladder. And we do cry an awful lot.

Presenter3:35

Uh

Presenter3:38

Tell me about your first record.

Bill Kenwright3:40

Well, I'm addicted to pop music. I'm a fifty two year old man who all of his life has loved pop music, and uh trying to find the very best of pop music was not an easy quest for me. But there's one singer who will always be my favorite voice. Uh he's a

Bill Kenwright3:57

a folk jazz blues singer from the mid sixties. He never ever achieved the commercial fame he deserved. He died from a heroin overdose in the early eighties and uh he's my favorite, favourite, favorite voice. His name is Tim Hardin and it sang onto a dream.

Speaker 34:14

How can we hang on to the dream?

Speaker 34:18

How can it really be the way it seems?

Presenter4:35

Tim Hardin and How Can We Hang On to a Dream. So you're an old romantic. Film star manke.

Bill Kenwright4:40

I am total romantic, yeah.

Presenter4:43

Uh and a gambler. That's a that's a there's a strong element of that in your character, isn't it?

Bill Kenwright4:47

The gambler. Oh yeah, there's a huge element. I w I was an actual gambler for many, many years.

Presenter4:48

Yeah.

Presenter4:50

Uh

Presenter4:52

How actual?

Bill Kenwright4:53

Gambling every night, blackjack.

Bill Kenwright4:55

At the same club.

Presenter4:57

Dangerously?

Bill Kenwright4:58

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Bill Kenwright5:00

Dangerously, not dangerously where I would lose my house and my home, but s stupidly.

Presenter5:05

Very hooked.

Presenter5:06

Couldn't start.

Bill Kenwright5:06

Couldn't it's it's uh again, gambling is an addiction. It's also a substitute. You know, I'd go I'd go to the gambling club and see the same people night after night after night. And uh in nineteen seventy eight I got married and I stopped I stopped gambling. So it was a substitute for something.

Presenter5:21

So you've transferred that buzz into the theatre. You gamble with the theater.

Bill Kenwright5:24

Yeah, probably, probably. I mean, I I would like to think it's more than that, but uh certainly I've transferred to the other one.

Presenter5:30

But how does it work? I mean, take Medea, the Greek tragedy starring Diana Rig that you you put on a a few years ago, ninety four, I think. I mean, you bought that, as I understand it, Sight Unseen. It was on at the Almeda. You didn't even bother to go and see it. You said yes, I'll back it.

Bill Kenwright5:43

No, what happened was I we had a party for Anna Carteret in my office uh for her birthday and Diana came and she took me into one side of the room and she said and she'd done it she wasn't doing it then, she'd done it previously and she said, You didn't come and see it and I said no and she said it was very good and you should produce it.

Bill Kenwright6:00

And I said, Well, I will if you want me to and she said you should.

Presenter6:02

So you're following your gut, really, are you doing?

Bill Kenwright6:04

Yeah, and it it wasn't an easy ride, Medea. Um we opened the Liverpool Playhouse.

Bill Kenwright6:10

Which I was running at the time. And Medea isn't the easiest thing to produce.

Presenter6:13

But I'm quite appreciative.

Bill Kenwright6:15

And the curtain went up on the first night with the three wailing women dressed in black, and I'm sure the entire audience thought, What in the name of God has Bill Kenwright brought us now? Th th th there was certainly an air of tension in the audience. Then Diana comes on and she was phenomenal in it. And when she says the line about she's gonna murder her children, you could feel a hush go right across the auditorium. And Jonathan Kent, the brilliant director, was standing at the back. And I sidled out of my uh side seat and went to the back and I said, We've got a hit and he said, What do you mean? I said, Listen to the silence. Just listen and just wallop it.

Presenter6:49

But I mean, to go to the other end of the spectrum of the kinds of things you produce, take Blood Brothers, for example. When you got to Broadway with it, because obviously it was a hit here, we all know that. You you got to Broadway, it practically flopped, didn't it?

Bill Kenwright6:54

But when you

Bill Kenwright7:00

Well, yes, absolutely. We did a week of previews, and the buzz in New York was phenomenal.

Presenter7:00

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright7:07

Not would we win a Tony, but how many we would win. We had a first night that you just crave for where the entire audience went wild for seven minutes.

Presenter7:15

But then the butchers did fear.

Bill Kenwright7:16

Well then I walked over to my advertising agency, which you do in New York, and you sit in this beautiful office with loads of fruit and goodies and that and you you have a bank of seven or eight televisions and they switch them on and you get the reviews. And the first review was Clive Barnes and it was Blood Brothers is Bloody Awful. The second one was Dennis Cunningham. Willie Russell wrote the book, the music, the lyrics, it gives me the willies. And they got worse and worse. And I've got a party going on just down the road with all my family, my friends thinking we've got the biggest hit. ever on Broadway, and I have to walk down there and tell them, Hey guys, listen, I have to tell you.

Bill Kenwright7:53

The reviews are terrible. I don't drink and I drank that night.

Presenter7:57

But in the end you turned it around, and you turned it around by ringing up David Cassidy, who was somebody you'd admired years in years gone by.

Bill Kenwright8:03

In years gone by.

Presenter8:07

But will you rank?

Bill Kenwright8:08

Who I'd always admire.

Presenter8:09

Yeah, but you did marry him twenty years ago.

Bill Kenwright8:10

I'd married twenty years earlier, and uh part of me wanted to say, David, how are you looking these days? Because he hadn't had a good time. His career was not in good shape.

Bill Kenwright8:22

And I rang him up, I flew him to New York and I said, Would you play the narrator? because I didn't want to play one of the boys because he's forty-five. And I remember I was watching Everton somewhere and it was the drive back from wherever we were to to London was three hours and I talked to David for three hours. And at the end of it he said, Bill, I cannot play the narrator for you, but what I can do is play Mickey the boy the lead.

Bill Kenwright8:48

And I said, David, if you can do it, you do it And then I got Flu Pachula over, who I was a huge fan of, and within two weeks we were sold out.

Presenter8:58

Tell me about your second record.

Bill Kenwright8:59

A fascinating, very important time of my life was obviously the early 60s in Liverpool. As you said, I went to school with Paul and George. I remember them very, very well. And.

Presenter9:07

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright9:10

Apto.

Bill Kenwright9:11

a song from that period and

Bill Kenwright9:13

I haven't chosen The Beatles because that was just a bit too obvious for me. I've chosen probably my favorite record of that time, a Jackie Deshannon song, recorded by a wonderful group of searchers, Needles and Pins.

Speaker 39:27

I saw the place, what's please I learned

Speaker 39:31

But I knew I had to run away.

Speaker 39:36

Down on my east day, that big doorway Stewart

Speaker 39:48

Because I'm on my pride

Speaker 39:52

Teams are

Presenter9:56

The searches and needles and pins, which takes us back to Liverpool, Bill Kenwright, where your dad was a brickie and your mum worked for Littlewood Pools.

Bill Kenwright10:01

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright10:04

was a brick, he became a very successful uh builder.

Presenter10:07

So you can drive around and see what he built.

Bill Kenwright10:09

That's wonderful. We do when we go to the match on a Saturday, says, I built that, I built that, and I'm very proud, you know.

Presenter10:14

So it was a very close family.

Bill Kenwright10:15

Yeah, very, very close.

Presenter10:17

Very musical family.

Bill Kenwright10:18

On my mum's side, Auntie Mary, Uncle George used to play the piano, rather like Les Dawson, but by God did they play the piano. And we'd all be there on a Saturday, that we we'd meet on a Saturday at midday, and all the men, and there was a lot of us, would go to the match, one week Everton, one week Liverpool, because you didn't travel in those days. And then we'd come back at five o'clock, listen to sports report. My gran had made risols, like the feeding of the five thousand. She would have a little bit of lunch and meet, and we'd all have risoles for hours. And then we'd sit round the piano, we'd all sing our songs.

Presenter10:48

What did you sing?

Bill Kenwright10:49

What did I sing? My big song was uh Laurie London, The Whole World in His Hands. He's Got You and Me, Brother. My Gran was Lily of Laguna'cause she was Lily. My uh mum and auntie that were you'll never know. My cousin Tom was Georgia. Uncle Cyril was A Bob or Ebob. And we'd sing the same songs and honestly tell the same joke.

Presenter11:08

And you still do.

Bill Kenwright11:09

We'd say, hey, Tom, tell us the Billy Daniels joke, and he'd tell us the Billy Daniels. But wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

Presenter11:16

And then at school, presumably all the kids were in a band, it's what you did, isn't it? Well, it's chaps anyway.

Bill Kenwright11:19

My school was the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, where we like to think it all happened. Um we we had a a searcher there, a pacemaker there, two of the Beatles there. John was next door at the College of Art. The cavern was a five minute walk away, and we used to uh

Bill Kenwright11:37

Sagoff School. Do you have Sagoff School in the in in the South? We used to nip out of the gym and we'd get to the cavern about ten to twelve for a lunchtime session, which on went on to about five past two, and you'd see two big groups there and

Speaker 111:40

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright11:49

B

Bill Kenwright11:50

The nth was to play at the caffeine.

Presenter11:52

What were the influences, though? What sort of music were you

Bill Kenwright11:56

It's rhythm and blues. Um the the the b the

Bill Kenwright11:59

The whole Liverpool scene that happened in from sixty-one to sixty four um

Bill Kenwright12:05

It wasn't just a coincidence that it happened in Liverpool. It was it was very definitely because Liverpool is a port, as you know, and we in Liverpool do feel we are from a totally different world than anyone else. And I remember when I was a kid, I used to object to the fact that London and America got the movies long before Liverpool did, long before. And by the time it came to my local cinema, it had been on for about nine months. And then we used to get the records long after, you know, we'd have the Craig Douglas version long, long, long, long after the Johnny Burnett version or the Dion and the Belmonts version. But what happened in Liverpool was the the merchant seamen would bring in the black music, the rhythm and blues, Arthur Alexander, Solomon Burke, Richie Barrett, and we would go down either to meet the merchant seamen or to they had little stalls in Liverpool near the docks, and we would buy these black rhythm and blues records and we would learn them. And it was our music and it it was happening nowhere else.

Presenter12:58

Court

Presenter13:03

Record number three.

Bill Kenwright13:05

Uh

Bill Kenwright13:06

Th th the the show really that um turned me on to theatre in a massive, massive way, I think it was nineteen fifty nine. I was on my way to a football game and it was um cancelled because of the weather. And I was on top of the bus and I saw Empire Theatre Liverpool West Side Story.

Bill Kenwright13:24

I went in, sat down at the end of a row all on my own, and I watched West Side Story. I remember sitting there.

Bill Kenwright13:31

In the interval, and I didn't move,'cause I thought if I move, the spell will be broken. This is the greatest experience I've ever had in a theatre.

Speaker 313:42

Some minutes seem like ours, the hours go so slowly, and still the sky is bright. Oh moon, grow bright, and make this endless day endless night.

Presenter14:07

TONIGHT PERFOND BY THE COMPANY OF JEROME ROBINS from the nineteen fifty seven New York production of West Side Story. A few years on then, Bill, nineteen sixty four, you set out for Manchester University, but something peculiar happened on the way from the station.

Bill Kenwright14:20

Yeah, it was. I I I the the train came into Manchester from Liverpool and I looked to the right hand side and there was a huge big um sign saying Granada T V and uh I had ten minutes to kill.

Bill Kenwright14:32

And I turned right instead of left. The University was left and I turned right and I walked down Deansgate to Key Street and I stood outside the window and I saw casting room five oh two.

Bill Kenwright14:43

My eyesight was good in those days and uh

Bill Kenwright14:46

I thought I cast could be an actor. And I walked through the main doors and the Commissioner said, Young man, I said, I've got an appointment. And I went up to room 502 and I'll never forget that it said Jill Callow on the door. And I knocked on the door, and Jill Callow was sitting behind the desk. And she said, Yes. And I said, I'm an actor from Liverpool. Have you got any jobs? And she said, Pardon? I said, I'm an actor. Have you got any jobs? She said, Well, our casting director has flew today in London, and they've sent me a script. True story. And they'd sent her a script.

Presenter15:17

It's a very romantic

Bill Kenwright15:18

I know, but it's a true story, I promise you. And and and she gave me the script and it was called Big Fleas Have Little Fleas and it was uh from a series called The Villains, and there was an eighteen year old boy in it. And she said, Listen, it starts on Tuesday at sixty five guineas, all right.

Speaker 315:33

Hmm.

Bill Kenwright15:33

And I'd never heard of sixty five guineas.

Bill Kenwright15:36

And I thought and and and university went bye bye and I went downstairs and there were some phones just by the reception. And I phoned my mum and I said, It's easy. It's just like on the movies. You walk in a door, they give you a script and I thought that's how you did it.

Presenter15:49

And then not long after that you got the offer to be on Coronation Street, which which uh a lot of people will remember you, Gordon Clegg.

Bill Kenwright15:52

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright15:55

Yeah.

Presenter15:55

Not least because you jilted Lucille Hewitt.

Bill Kenwright15:59

They'd have to be pretty old to remember I jilted last year. Well, we are, we are. I actually then became, you know, Gordon I'm still Gordon Club, but became Gordon Turpin.

Presenter16:01

Well, we are, we are.

Bill Kenwright16:08

Because Hilda Ogden found my birth city of

Presenter16:10

You change mothers.

Bill Kenwright16:11

And found out that Betty Turpin was actually my mother.

Presenter16:15

But you were only in it for twelve months, weren't you?

Bill Kenwright16:17

Yeah, I was in it for twelve months and then I got out because I didn't want to stay longer.

Presenter16:21

But then you did Billy Liar, which you also produced.

Bill Kenwright16:22

Which you

Bill Kenwright16:24

That was the start. That was the start of the producing. I actually had a three-week holiday.

Presenter16:26

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright16:29

And I was going to do Billy Liar at Oldham Rep, and they double booked and they phoned me up and they said, We're awfully sorry, but would you do I think it was the happiest days of our lives I said, No, no, no, I want to do Billy Liar, that's what I've got the holiday for and they couldn't do it, so to cut a long story short, and it was a long story, I'd put it on myself at the Buxton Playhouse.

Presenter16:48

And people like Pat Phoenix, Elsie Tanner backed you in the end.

Bill Kenwright16:50

Yeah, they put up a a few Bob, yeah. And Julie Goodyear was Rita. She was an ex-er in Coronation Street, and she was my Rita. Rita's the one, the blousy one in Billy Liar, who says, Get back to that cow in iron lung And that was that was when she was first

Presenter16:52

Yeah.

Presenter17:03

She was a young Angenus.

Bill Kenwright17:04

She was a young I was a young Angelin and we had a wonderful time in Boxton.

Presenter17:09

And Pat Phoenix, you put on in something late on The Miracle Worker, wasn't it?

Bill Kenwright17:12

Collection

Presenter17:13

Is it true that you had to put up notices in the theatre telling people to keep quiet?

Bill Kenwright17:18

Well, i if I've done anything in my lifetime as a theater producer, I I do think at the start what I did help to do was to bring people away from their television sets to series.

Presenter17:30

Absolutely.

Bill Kenwright17:31

Well absolutely, but but that but that was that was a plan, it wasn't just something I decided to do, because there was no real touring theater in this country then. You know, you'd have your huge summer seasons, your huge pantomimes that went on for five months, but very, very few plays that were just put on for the provinces. And we put on the first one was Pat Phoenix and the Miracle Work.

Bill Kenwright17:53

And literally she'd walk onstage and misses Jones would nudge misses Smith and say, There's Elsie. You know, last night she was with Len and uh and they'd say it at the top of their voices,'cause they thought they were at home. And we had to do it.

Presenter18:07

Record number four.

Bill Kenwright18:08

Oh.

Bill Kenwright18:09

Well this is the this is the most important record in all of them, I have to say. This is uh the theme from Zedkos, which is also the theme from uh Goodison Park at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. When if you want to see Bill Kenright at his happiest, at his most content, um you'll see him as Everton kickoff.

Presenter18:59

Johnny Keating and the Zed Men with Everton's Call to Arms, otherwise known as The Theme from Zed Cars. So Everton Goodison Park, most lasting love affair of your life, really.

Bill Kenwright19:08

Yeah, it's the it's it's the it's the one love affair I've been totally faithful.

Presenter19:13

How often do you miss a match?

Bill Kenwright19:15

Very, very seldom. Very I mean, I I didn't miss one for about thirty years, but sometimes now. I've come back from Australia, I've come back from New York.

Presenter19:23

Their fate is your fate. You take it very personally, don't you?

Bill Kenwright19:26

I take it hugely personally. I'm I'm a director now and have been for the past ten years and I think any director who doesn't take it personally and seriously shouldn't be a director.

Presenter19:35

You came close to owning the club a few years ago. It slipped from your grasp. You got incredibly bruised.

Bill Kenwright19:38

So

Bill Kenwright19:40

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright19:42

Two.

Presenter19:42

Did you misplay your hand? What went wrong?

Bill Kenwright19:46

No, I made a decision that my my supposed adversary, which he never was, I mean the press built it up to be much bigger than it was, who is now the chairman, I made a conscious decision with a week to go that what mattered most was not whether Bill Kenright owned Everton, because you can never own Everton Football Club. Peter Johnson doesn't own Everton Football Club, the fans own Everton, my grand, my grand that they own Everton, but to be the major shareholder in Everton wasn't important. What was important was the supporters and the team.

Presenter20:17

Of course it was important to you. I mean you died a death when you failed, didn't you?

Bill Kenwright20:19

No, no, but you fail.

Bill Kenwright20:21

No at that no, I didn't. At that particular time we were heading for relegation, for the first real time in my lifetime of supporting them. And with five days to go, I said to Peter Johnson, If you love it,

Bill Kenwright20:37

If you look after it the way I would, then I am going to bow out.

Presenter20:40

Do you still hope it'll be yours one day?

Bill Kenwright20:44

Uh

Bill Kenwright20:45

I think maybe

Bill Kenwright20:47

the time has passed. I think maybe football has become such a huge, huge game industry now that it needs maybe someone younger, maybe someone with a lot more money than I than I've got.

Bill Kenwright21:03

I don't know.

Presenter21:04

Record number five.

Bill Kenwright21:05

This is the show that

Bill Kenwright21:08

really, I suppose, put me on the road to whatever success uh I've achieved.

Bill Kenwright21:15

I wake up every morning literally and say thank you God for Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and for Joseph and the Amazing Technical Dream Coat. This is the final song of my version of Joseph, which is Any Dream Will Do, sung by Richard Swear and with the inimitable Peter Lawrence playing Jacob.

Presenter22:03

Richard Sweron as Joseph and Peter Lawrence as Jacob and Any Dream Will Do for my Castaway Bill Kenwright's current stage production of Joseph and the amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. How does it work in your office then, Bill? You know, somebody comes in and says, let's do a production of A Long Day's Journey in tonight. What do you do? What

Bill Kenwright22:21

Really? It doesn't really work like that. It it it normally works in bed at home that I think aye aye. Why don't we do Long Day's Journey in Tonight? And and then it often works with the star in mind or the director in mind. And then the long process starts of getting the package. Packaging is everything in theatre today, you know. We're very much into event theatre, like you've just mentioned, Long Day's Journey in Tonight. The reason for Long Day's Journey in Tonight is Jessica Lang wants to do it. And we spent a wonderful six months together two years ago doing streetcar named Desire, and Peter Hall and Jessica and myself decided the next one would be Long Day's Journey.

Presenter22:21

But how

Presenter23:02

So you make sure they're all there. You've got to. What you don't do then is.

Bill Kenwright23:04

You've got to. You have to.

Presenter23:08

Sit and hit the phone and raise the money, bring up all these angels, as we know they're called, because that's not where you get it.

Bill Kenwright23:10

Bing up

Bill Kenwright23:11

Equal.

Bill Kenwright23:13

I don't know how to do it. No, no, I r I really don't know how to do it.

Bill Kenwright23:17

I also wouldn't I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. As we said before, I am a gambler and I think the only way I can do as much as I do and as many shows as I do is with my own money. I box and cox all the time. I I I mix and match. I rob Peter to pay Paul and you can't really do that.

Presenter23:35

So you keep the cash flow going because you've got productions on in the provinces all the time. So you've got enough going on.

Bill Kenwright23:37

Tokyo.

Bill Kenwright23:40

So you've got enough going on. So you've always got enough.

Presenter23:43

Yeah.

Presenter23:45

But there were stories that if Streetcar, for example, had failed, there were stories that you were going to go under, is that right?

Bill Kenwright23:51

That's not right. No, no. But street no, that's not right. But there have been no. But there is there is a bit of truth in what you're saying. If street car had failed, I had gone through

Presenter23:53

But there have been printed.

Bill Kenwright24:02

A crisis period of confidence, nothing to do with money, because I'd put on four or five flops. I literally was losing my confidence. And bringing Jessica Lang over uh to do streetcar was vitally important to me, not only because it was a wonderful production, but because and she knows this, she sort of gave me my confidence back. The good thing about

Bill Kenwright24:28

The Wee bit.

Bill Kenwright24:29

lack of confidence that comes is I do learn

Bill Kenwright24:33

As much as one can from my mistakes.

Bill Kenwright24:36

Brett, my chief exec, said to me last week, Listen, Mate, he's from New Zealand he said, Listen, mate, and he was serious.

Bill Kenwright24:42

I've thought about this.

Bill Kenwright24:43

You know how we could be more successful? And I said, What, Brett?

Bill Kenwright24:47

Just do the hits, don't do the flops. And he meant it. He was serious, and I said, I had never thought of that before. So maybe maybe I will I will not take as many chances in the future, I think.

Presenter24:59

Record number six.

Bill Kenwright25:01

Ah, my favourite hundred and eighteen minutes of entertainment ever is the movie Shane, which I first saw, gosh, when I was about ten. Uh which when I first came to London, do you remember in those days used to have those classic cinemas dotted in Waterloo Station and in Croydon station? Wherever Shane was on, I used to follow. I used to go. I must have seen it seventy times in the cinemas, never realizing that one day I'd have a little video that I could put on in my own home and watch my favourite film. And this is the theme from Shane.

Presenter26:04

The theme tune from the film Shane, The Call of the Far Away Hills, written by Victor Young and played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Gerhardt, a 1953 Western starring Alan Ladd who saves a valley of homesteaders from some baddies and rides off into the sunset. This is this is how you see yourself.

Bill Kenwright26:24

No, it's not part of psychiatrists wanting to do it.

Presenter26:26

You bought Alan Ladd's costume at Southern.

Bill Kenwright26:28

I did, I did, I queued for hours and hours and hours.

Presenter26:31

And you're too big to get it.

Bill Kenwright26:32

As he hit the gavel, he said, Mr. Kenrid, it won't fit you, but I've got it in a big glass case in my study at home and I'm never quite sure whether I'm Brandon DeWille, the little boy in it, or I'm Shane, who's the guy who does ride in, save everyone in the valley, and ride out again with a bullet in him. You mustn't forget that.

Presenter26:52

O to Z

Bill Kenwright26:52

He has a bullet he's bleeding.

Presenter26:54

Oh

Bill Kenwright26:54

As he writes out and goes on.

Presenter26:55

Is he going away to die?

Bill Kenwright26:57

I think not. I think I think he's going to return.

Presenter26:59

But he's going away with the love and the gratitude and the admiration and the devotion of all these poor people. I mean

Bill Kenwright27:02

Yeah.

Presenter27:07

It's what you crave, is it?

Bill Kenwright27:09

Yeah.

Presenter27:09

This is the analysis.

Bill Kenwright27:10

I actually think so. I mean, it's pathetic, but I think that's true. Have you seen it?

Presenter27:15

No, I haven't.

Bill Kenwright27:16

So go home and watch it.

Presenter27:16

Go home and watch.

Bill Kenwright27:19

Just just watch it and you'll understand. And wonderful, wonderful moment when Van Hefflin and Jean Arthur are standing there and they think Shane.

Bill Kenwright27:28

is a roughneck who's come to rough them up, just like the rest of the striker gang. And the strikers arrive and they see Shane and they ride out. And Van Heflin turns to him and he says, Thank you, stranger and he says, Call me Shane. I go. I just go. Wow That's it. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be Alan Ladd, five foot two.

Presenter27:48

Record number seven.

Bill Kenwright27:50

Anthony Newley, one of my inspirations. Anthony Newley was an actor in 1959, was asked to play the lead in a movie called Idol on Parade and said don't use someone else's voices. This was about a pops pop star who went into the army, the Terry Dean days, and in his own way became one of my favourite singers, basically because he was an actor who sang rather than an actor who tried to be a singer. He was always an actor. He's been a huge, huge inspiration to me all my life.

Speaker 328:21

Because you love me.

Speaker 328:24

We found the perfect love

Speaker 328:29

Yes, a love that's yours and mine.

Speaker 328:34

I love you and you love me.

Speaker 328:39

I love you and you love me.

Speaker 328:44

Love each other, dear.

Speaker 328:48

Forever

Presenter28:52

Antony Newley and Why Surround yourself with things you like and what you enjoy. Another great Kenwright maxim, you'd be stripped of them all on a desert island. How would you manage?

Bill Kenwright29:02

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright29:04

I'd be very good in the solitary state, because I'm rather good at thinking and being alone and uh

Bill Kenwright29:11

I would be hopeless in the practical world.

Bill Kenwright29:14

I'm terrible, terrible, terrible at

Presenter29:16

Very good in the solitude. What about all those insecurities? They'd run riot.

Bill Kenwright29:20

Yeah, I know, but I've got time to think about them. No, I know.

Presenter29:26

So it It's all a front, really.

Bill Kenwright29:27

No, it's not all a front, they just don't take over.

Presenter29:30

So you'd sit there on the sand. As you look back across it all, you know, and you being you probably dwell on your failures and your flops a bit as well.

Bill Kenwright29:38

Blocks are

Speaker 129:38

Uh

Bill Kenwright29:39

Okay.

Presenter29:39

What would be the the one memory do you think that you would use to kind of give yourself a kick?

Presenter29:46

Get up again and go again say come on, Kenroy

Bill Kenwright29:50

Do you know extraordinarily it would be Everton three, Wimbledon two on that last day of the season when I'd uh it would. It w when when that w that was that was the moment you know, she's yawning. It actually would. That would be the moment when I thought that is what has touched me more than anything else and uh two nil down and we won three two.

Presenter30:09

What about Jenny Seagrove?

Bill Kenwright30:11

I love Jenny Seagrove, and and she would understand exactly why I'm saying that. You ask me for the moment that's the moment I remember. It's sad, isn't it? But that is the moment I remember.

Speaker 130:19

Uh

Speaker 330:19

It's sad.

Bill Kenwright30:23

Um

Bill Kenwright30:24

This particular musical was I think the one that um established me as a good producer um and it's one that I even now I go and see it often, I'm the co-director of it and it never fails to move me or to thrill me, as it did on the very, very first time I saw it and uh thank you God for Willie Russell and Blood Brothers.

Speaker 330:55

Say it's just the show.

Speaker 330:59

On the radio that we can turn over and start.

Speaker 331:10

That we can set over, it's only okay.

Presenter31:17

Kiki D is misses Johnston with the company of Blood Brothers performing the finale Tell Me It's Not True from Bill Kenright's nineteen eighty eight production. If you could only take one of those eight records, Bill.

Bill Kenwright31:30

You know what it's going to be, so you don't have to. It's not the evidence.

Presenter31:32

It's not the evidence.

Presenter31:33

Yeah.

Bill Kenwright31:34

It's that costume.

Presenter31:35

Well, I see.

Presenter31:38

What about your book? You've got the Bible, you've got Shakespeare.

Bill Kenwright31:42

Did think long and hard about this.

Bill Kenwright31:45

It's the history of evidence.

Bill Kenwright31:50

Sons and Lovers is my favourite novel ever.

Bill Kenwright31:53

And then I looked at Leslie Halliwellell's Film Guide because that shows me all the films I've loved over the years. And then I read Everton The Complete History.

Bill Kenwright32:03

And she backs off from the table once again, and no, I tell you why I love it.

Speaker 332:06

Uh

Bill Kenwright32:09

because it's my diary. I can tell you what I was doing my twelfth birthday, september the fourth, nineteen fifty seven. We were three one down. Against Manchester United, we do three three. It's got all of the records, all of the facts, all of the dates, and I can look I can pinpoint the day when

Bill Kenwright32:27

My grand died, I can pinpoint everything, and that's the reason. So

Presenter32:32

What about your luxury?

Bill Kenwright32:33

No, what about your luck?

Bill Kenwright32:36

My luxury would be all my life I've wanted to play the guitar well, really, really well, so it would be a guitar.

Presenter32:43

Bill Kenwright, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your desert island discs.

Bill Kenwright32:46

Thank you.

Speaker 132:54

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