Howard Brenton

Speaker 20:00

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 20:09

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

Presenter0:32

My Castaway this week is a playwright. His father was a policeman who became a Methodist minister, but he went straight into the theatre after leaving Cambridge. His work is epic and controversial. One of his early plays, Brass Neck, was a collaboration with David Hare about corruption in local politics. In Magnificence, he criticised Tory high politics. The Romans in Britain caused Mary Whitehouse to prosecute for procuring the caste to commit immoral acts. And another play of his, A Short, Sharp Shock, had the Minister for the Arts Norman St. John Stevis apologising to the House of Commons because a state-subsidised theatre had put it on.

Presenter1:08

The author of all of this, nevertheless, believes that theatre should be fun. I'm a playwright and a showman, he says, and I think in images that are never quite rational. He is Howard Brenton. So theatre is primarily an entertainment, is it, Howard, not a soap box?

Howard Brenton1:24

Oh, yes, it's an entertainment. I think it's a kind of exorcism.

Howard Brenton1:29

We're trying to get rid of demons. And the Greeks believed it was part of public health.

Presenter1:34

But you said, um, in the early days when you were just making your reputation, you said I would very much like to change the world with my plays. Um how disappointed are you that you haven't done that? Or perhaps you think you have?

Howard Brenton1:47

Hugely disappointed. I think you should have to do it. He said that.

Presenter1:49

He said we smile.

Howard Brenton1:51

I think you should have massive ambitions as as as a playwright or in any walk of life. Um I don't see the point of doing it if if you don't.

Presenter2:00

But

Presenter2:01

Are you saying, nevertheless, admitting that you haven't?

Presenter2:04

Change the world.

Howard Brenton2:04

Oh yes, quite obviously, yes. I think the world's gone backwards since I wrote uh began writing. In fact, I think my generation has not succeeded in a number of its projects. I expected Britain to be a better country now. Um, when I started writing thirty years ago.

Presenter2:21

So despite the smile, there is great disappointment, is there?

Howard Brenton2:24

Yes.

Presenter2:25

Failure.

Howard Brenton2:25

Um yes, but determination perhaps in your old age you may enter a later period.

Howard Brenton2:31

In which you may actually write something which does have some.

Howard Brenton2:36

Good effect.

Presenter2:37

And indeed you're writing something about Tony Blair as we speak, aren't you?

Howard Brenton2:41

I've just finished with Tariq Ali, a satire on the government, with which we

Howard Brenton2:47

Hope to have some good fun in a few months' time in the West End.

Presenter2:50

And it's called The Resistible Rise of Antonio B.

Howard Brenton2:53

Well, at the moment it's called Ugly Rumours, which was yes, the Prime Minister's rock band.

Presenter2:56

Which was his surprise.

Howard Brenton3:01

But titles change.

Presenter3:02

But in all of this, it's interesting, watching you in that early television performance I was saying, where you said I'd very much like to change the world.

Presenter3:11

There was a kind of genial missionary zeal about it all, and one can still hear it a bit now. And is it any coincidence that your father was a a Methodist minister? I mean, is there something of the preacher in you, do you think?

Howard Brenton3:22

Oh, you can't get rid of it. You can't get rid of Methodism like you can't get rid of Catholicism. Nor really do I want to, because there's something kindly and clear and good hearted about Methodism. You're taught to speak from the heart.

Howard Brenton3:38

And although this this may be a disgusting habit, it it never leaves you.

Presenter3:44

But you didn't end up in the pulpit. You ended up on the stage, or behind it, anyway, as we shall.

Presenter3:48

Here, um, tell me about your first record.

Howard Brenton3:51

Um Glenn Gould playing a a Bach fugue. I've always loved Bach. Very first record I had was of a Brandenburg concerto. And this is Fire and Ice.

Presenter5:02

Glen Gould playing part of Bach's fugue in C minor from his well tempered clavier. And you were just observing that that's the only one of your eight records without the human voice on it. Not even Glen Gould's, I think.

Howard Brenton5:12

Glengold was famous for singing while he played, and the The Sony Engineers have a life project to remove this from the recordings, I think.

Presenter5:20

But you've chosen them musically, not because of any memory in your life.

Howard Brenton5:24

I I love playing music and it was a wonderful torment to have to choose these records.

Presenter5:31

And you're a bit of an anorak about it all, I understand.

Howard Brenton5:34

Yes, I was in a big London record shop and I suddenly realized we were all blokes poring over these records. A bit like train spotters saying, Have you got the Carrion? and Carrion is called the Nazi amongst my fraternity, and they say, You have to whisper, Do you go Nazi on Bruckner?

Presenter5:53

Ha ha ha.

Presenter5:55

Let's talk about the Romans in Britain, because it was, you know, the most controversial moment of your career, if you like. 1980, 81, something like that.

Howard Brenton6:03

Eighty.

Presenter6:03

At the National, um a play which was at first about Julius Caesar et al. and then became about British troops in Northern Ireland and so on, it was profoundly shocking. It was meant to be. What was the scene that upset Mary Whitehouse so much?

Howard Brenton6:17

The scene was was uh a male rape scene between Roman soldiers.

Howard Brenton6:22

And young native British Celts.

Howard Brenton6:25

And what was really shocking about the scene was that the

Howard Brenton6:30

Soldiers, the Roman soldiers tell jokes, and the audience enjoy the squatty jokes at first. And then you realise what you've been sucked into. Um the Romans simply don't see them, they just they're hardly objects. The young men are between them and a swim in a river on a rather bad day during a rather minor exercise of war. I had the the My Lai massacre in mind in Vietnam.

Presenter6:56

So it was just another day, just somebody else to kill while you got on with getting to where it was you wanted to get.

Howard Brenton7:01

Yes, I try to to dramatise how casual cruelty is.

Presenter7:06

Hmm.

Howard Brenton7:06

And how the people who who do it don't realize their own obscenity.

Presenter7:13

But of course it was Michael Bogdanoff, the director, who was prosecuted directly, wasn't it? Uh by Ma Mary Whitehouse for curing.

Howard Brenton7:19

Well, this is a horrible thing. I'd have stood up and defended it in court. How'd you actually witness it in court?

Presenter7:24

Had you actually written it in the script?

Howard Brenton7:26

Yes, oh yes, you can buy the script, it's still published and you you can see what the the the controversial scene is. But the nasty thing about it was that Michael was hit. They couldn't get at me because of the they trawled through the laws of Old England to try and get us, and the only way they could get at us was to prosecute the director, as if he was a pimp, for a law which was to do with pimping.

Presenter7:48

But what happened in the end to that prosecution? I can't remember what

Howard Brenton7:51

It collapsed in fast.

Howard Brenton7:54

The prosecution lawyer went to the judge and said, I do not think I can continue.

Howard Brenton7:59

And if a prosecutor says that to a judge, they have to find a way of stopping the trial.

Presenter8:04

But the irony

Presenter8:06

was, is, surely, that that you meant this to be a play you know, comment, as as I said, on the British in Northern Ireland, but in the end it it it was sex, not politics, that got the watchdogs out of their kennels, wasn't it?

Howard Brenton8:20

The theatre can get out of hand. People can misunderstand. Things can just run away from you.

Presenter8:26

You don't mind that. You don't mind that as long as your theatre makes waves. It doesn't matter if they're the wrong waves. Is that what you're saying?

Howard Brenton8:30

Goodbye.

Howard Brenton8:34

I want everyone bathing on the beach. But uh but if uh if the the drownings start happening, they're out of your control.

Presenter8:35

I think

Presenter8:43

But how much do you plan to do?

Howard Brenton8:43

Do you plan to do it?

Presenter8:47

Yes, of course. But uh obviously, as I say, you want strong reactions, but how much do you plan for do you think we will have naked people on stage? We will simulate acts of buggery because this will get us a lot of publicity.

Presenter9:00

Cynically, one could say that's what you do.

Howard Brenton9:03

No, you say this is what happens. I mean, there's a rule with playwriting. You you try and see it being done on the stage, and then you imagine what it would be like in real life, and you try and focus the two together.

Howard Brenton9:14

It's an oddly strong visual.

Howard Brenton9:17

Drive you have to do it.

Presenter9:18

You exaggerate the reality in images. This is what you mean by rational images, isn't it?

Howard Brenton9:23

Yes.

Presenter9:23

Yeah.

Howard Brenton9:23

And and and then you you you you try and stage it truthfully.

Howard Brenton9:29

Using stagecraft. And stagecraft is often an exaggerated thing. But your aim is to be true to what would happen.

Howard Brenton9:38

And I suspect these incidents happened somewhere up in the woods around Tring on fifty four BC.

Presenter9:46

Record number two.

Howard Brenton9:48

This is Monteverdi. This is the uh coronation of Poppea. Monteverdi's songs are very passionate and theatrical, and this is a wonderful example of Poppea trying to seduce Nero of all people.

Speaker 310:10

Signor de nom parti.

Speaker 310:19

Sostienkeweste bratchati chirakongi noil kong.

Speaker 310:29

Oh, Belita.

Speaker 310:36

He'll call me.

Speaker 310:50

Nunhartir nonhartier singor de nonparte.

Speaker 311:00

Pina spoon da

Presenter11:05

Sylvia McNair as Poppea and Donna Hanchard as Nerone, singing their duet Signor de Non Partire from Act One of Montevedi's L'In Coronazione di Poppea, with the English Baroque soloists conducted by John Elliott Gardner.

Presenter11:18

So straight out of Cambridge Hardbrinton and into the theatre, but as an assistant stage manager, nineteen sixty five, Worthing rep, Chelmsford rep.

Howard Brenton11:27

That's right.

Presenter11:28

What what kinds of of plays Alan Aikbourne has now, I suppose.

Howard Brenton11:31

No, they weren't. Um Alan Akebourne is like Aeschylus compared to the plays we were doing. Uh we they they were thrillers and comedies. The thrillers usually with the murderer revealed in the last line.

Presenter11:44

Yeah.

Howard Brenton11:44

Before the curtain.

Howard Brenton11:47

And I used to do walk-on paths.

Presenter11:49

What kind of walk-on pass did you have?

Howard Brenton11:51

I remember once having to put on a fisherman's sou'wester.

Howard Brenton11:56

and walk on to the stage with a large papa mache salmon, and say the line, The old grey lady is dead at which the curtain fell and the audience applauded, and I never understood why.

Howard Brenton12:10

Because as an ASM you were concerned with moving props around on the stage, so it was bizarre. The play seemed bizarre. You had to move file of poison from desk to under sofa at the end of Act Two. Act three put file of poison in lamp, and you never really knew why.

Presenter12:28

So did you always do it on cue? Did you always get the curtain coming down or?

Howard Brenton12:32

I once had a bizarre incident when I'd risen to the heights of being a stage manager and I had an ASM.

Howard Brenton12:39

and it was another play with the murderer revealed in the last line. I heard this strange noise coming from the stage, about three pages before the end. I went down on the stage, and there were actors in a state of shock staring at the curtain.

Howard Brenton12:54

My assistant had brought the curtain down three pages earlier.

Presenter12:57

What did the audience do?

Howard Brenton12:58

What did the audience do? The audience applauded and left.

Howard Brenton13:03

And They didn't notice. And to this day the the mystery of the theatre is in that story for me, because what were they watching? They weren't waiting to know who the murderer was. They were reading the play in some other way.

Presenter13:19

But if you believed that you'd never have written for an audience because they're just utterly undiscerning.

Howard Brenton13:23

Well, it is no, they're not they they th they're thoroughly discerning, but they may be discerning things that you as the playwright, or certainly on that occasion as the one of the people putting the show on, um don't quite

Howard Brenton13:36

gather. I think they were there watching the permanent company, a bit like people support their football team. And if it's a sort of rather goalless draw, as probably the play was, they don't mind. They've seen their boys and girls playing.

Presenter13:37

I think

Presenter13:52

Is this a comment on people who go to local rep? They're just faithful and they can.

Howard Brenton13:52

Yeah.

Howard Brenton13:55

I think it's a general thing that you must all you really want to make people understand to be rational, beautiful, strong in w in what you put on the stage, but you never know how people are reading it.

Presenter14:10

Record number three.

Howard Brenton14:12

This is Mahler's The Son of the Earth. In the early days of VHS, of FM radio, I remember taking the family radio into the living room and hearing this for the first time. It blew my mind away.

Speaker 314:42

And become our night vegan beast declared.

Speaker 314:51

We are seeing

Speaker 314:53

Break me on stay.

Speaker 314:57

Irch die Freuh Tirgensla.

Speaker 315:10

Cleek

Speaker 315:14

We shall be standing

Presenter15:27

Fritz Bundelich singing Das Trinkleit von Jammer der Eerde from Mahle's Das Lit von derde, the Song of the Earth, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter15:36

So from SMing in the home counties, Howard, to being mother henned at the royal court, who mother henned you and how?

Howard Brenton15:44

Bill Gaskell, they put on a play just for one night. It went terribly badly. Yes, oh, terribly badly.

Presenter15:49

Your channel

Howard Brenton15:51

And uh

Howard Brenton15:53

Bill Gaskell said, Never mind, write us a long play, and I'll get you a job meanwhile. And he got me a job in an office through an old press officer of his, and I wrote the play and took it back to them, and I've always been a child of the Royal Court since then. I s it was my cradle.

Speaker 316:11

Hmm.

Howard Brenton16:11

Although I was so new, this happens in theatre, it happens in.

Howard Brenton16:17

In the arts, I was a new generation who was.

Howard Brenton16:22

Knocking on the door to take over the theatre from a previous generation.

Presenter16:25

And some huge names in that generation. I mean, David Hare, Trevor Griffiths, Polly Arkoff, Snoo Wilson, so on. And you all c collaborated and and had a great success at the fringe, at the Edinburgh Fringe, didn't you?

Howard Brenton16:36

When we started in the early seventies, yes, we were bored at a theatre conference which was called What is Theatre? So we decided to go into the bar and start writing a play together, and it turned out to be this curious piece called Lay By, which went on at the Edinburgh Festival and then came down to London for a bit of a run.

Presenter16:54

It was very violent, wasn't it?

Howard Brenton16:56

It was a mixture of just everything you'll pick out of the papers. That was our aim. And we wrote bits of it with on crayon on wallpaper. It was a

Howard Brenton17:06

Terrific mess and

Howard Brenton17:08

Full of energy.

Presenter17:10

So how would you define yourself then? If you say you were a new breed, you were coming in off the back of what, Look Back in Anger, Osborne, Wesker, maybe the Angry Young Men as well, the novelists, yes.

Howard Brenton17:21

Yes, we we were a second wave and we were called the New Jacobeans, partly because our plays mixed things up. You had comedy and tragedy, you you had light and dark, you had different styles within the same plays, and also they they tended to be epic, that is storytelling.

Presenter17:39

Hmm.

Howard Brenton17:39

Plays.

Presenter17:40

But they were about issues. They weren't about in life and how she is led. They they they weren't sort of four actors in a room.

Howard Brenton17:44

Yeah.

Howard Brenton17:46

They were issue plays. They became to be called state of the nation plays, which sounds rather grim, really. And everything was.

Presenter17:52

And everything was outdoors, a lot of outdoor action.

Howard Brenton17:54

That's right. We said don't set plays in rooms any more set them in the open air. Tell stories. Tell high and low, like the old Jacobean theatre. Have working class people and aristocrats in the same play.

Presenter18:08

And have political figures. So so instead of kings, you'd have MPs.

Howard Brenton18:10

The king is yours.

Howard Brenton18:11

Yeah, yes. Our kings were were were MPs and businessmen, and our our our foot soldiers were people out of work, ordinary people.

Presenter18:19

And how did that go down then with the established theatre?

Howard Brenton18:22

Well, we became the establishment. It was so.

Presenter18:25

Well eventually you did, but at the time I mean, what did people like Kenneth Tynan think about you?

Howard Brenton18:29

Yeah. Makes

Presenter18:29

Uh

Howard Brenton18:29

Well, he he he was he was rather disappointed and didn't get the

Howard Brenton18:34

Right end of the stick.

Presenter18:36

But I think Lindsay Anderson, as well at the Royal Court at one point, was just furious at your sort of stuff, wasn't it?

Howard Brenton18:40

Yes, I sat in a room at the Royal Court, in the offices, and I heard Lindsay giving forth next door, saying with very, very strong language, This play of mine is never going on in my theatre. This play is expletive.

Howard Brenton18:59

Delete it. And I thought.

Howard Brenton19:02

Oh my God, I suddenly realised he's talking about my pl And were you pleased?

Howard Brenton19:07

No, I was horrified. I wanted him to direct it.

Howard Brenton19:10

Uh but uh the play went on and the generations changed and now there is a new generation at the royal court who is getting rid of us.

Presenter19:17

Who thinks that you're sort of the boring old orthodoxy and they want to set plays indoors in rooms with fair actors?

Howard Brenton19:19

Orthodoxy and they

Howard Brenton19:22

Absolutely.

Presenter19:24

It's just a cyclical business.

Howard Brenton19:25

Yeah.

Presenter19:26

But you were launched, basically, is what we're saying, in the seventies, with all of that. You were launched and Peter Hall then arrived at the National and the first new play he commissioned was from you.

Presenter19:36

Tell me about your next record.

Howard Brenton19:38

Um the next record is from The Marriage of Figaro. Peter Hall told me to listen to Mozart's operas. He said next to Shakespeare, Mozart was the great dramatist of of the European stage. And this is a restitative before a more famous Aria, but you can hear the brilliant phrasing and dramatization. It's like a great soliloquy.

Speaker 320:04

So is that?

Speaker 320:23

A cuato inido i projecto mippo Iadu los pozo si moce etos.

Presenter21:03

Kiriticanoa as the Countess Alma Viva singing her recitative E Susanna non vienne from Act three of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter21:14

During the Thatcher years you were, Howard Brenton, in your own words, more out of fashion than halitosis. They were very long years for people of your political views. On the other hand, I would have thought good years, you know, plenty to kick against.

Howard Brenton21:28

Yes, looking back, we did do very well. There were some wonderful plays written. Carol Churchill.

Howard Brenton21:36

put her finger on the the the age with her play Top Girls and uh the play is now a classic.

Speaker 321:41

Mm.

Howard Brenton21:41

So th the work was done, though it was a very strange era.

Howard Brenton21:47

I I remember putting on a play at the court in'eighty seven, the height of of of yuppie um paradise, and the play was Socialist Utopia.

Howard Brenton22:00

A more unlikely play to succeed I've been hard to find.

Presenter22:03

But the message it seemed to me that you'd been putting forward before that during the course of the seventies was that you can only change things through a kind of remorseless grind of political activity. I mean, that was very much what you'd been saying. In a sense, this was a true test of your theory, wasn't it?

Howard Brenton22:19

Well, what plays can do is just raise banners, add a few songs, maybe create a line.

Howard Brenton22:27

I always think it's rather like living in a tenement, and there's this room called the theatre, it's a rather small room, and you can all go in there and bang on the on the pipes, and maybe you'll be heard in rooms elsewhere in the tenement.

Presenter22:39

It sounds very

Presenter22:41

Limiting, really. I mean, why do you go on if you're only going to hope to be heard by the people upstairs in the tenant lock?

Howard Brenton22:48

You hope to make a it's a pinprick. The theatre can is is is a pin can be a pinprick on the movement of history. You can't expect a a a play to bring a government down, but it can be part of a a a movement. It can pro provide provide a few songs and scenes and stories.

Presenter23:06

So the politics is really just a a vehicle, is it, for doing what you wanted to do, which was to make theatre?

Howard Brenton23:12

Oh, the two are the same. I I'm a theatre man, and that's how I see the world.

Presenter23:18

It makes you sound less serious about your theatre than one believes you to be, though. That that somehow one has the impression that you set yourself up as one of in the great tradition of literary resistors, as it were.

Howard Brenton23:31

Well, Brecht said something very interesting once. He said, I just cannot take myself seriously. Someone like Hauptmann, who is a really serious art expressionist writer, he said, Hauptmann takes himself seriously.

Howard Brenton23:44

I don't think I can ever achieve that.

Speaker 323:47

But did you think you

Howard Brenton23:47

I think you need a sense of irony when you work in the arts, or else you begin to take yourself too seriously and you turn into the latter day Tolstoy, or go balmy like Shaw did, and believe your press releases more than the stories that you're trying to tell.

Presenter24:04

Echo number five.

Howard Brenton24:06

Um, I'm a child of the sixties, and uh this is Bob Dylan. It's not a protest song by him, but it's him at his story telling best.

Speaker 324:21

Your breath is sweet. Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky.

Speaker 324:28

Your back is straight, your hair is smooth on the pillow where you lie.

Speaker 324:37

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 324:41

To the valley below

Presenter24:46

Bob Dylan and one more cup of coffee from his album Desire.

Presenter24:49

One of the most interesting things about um some of the plays you've written, Howard, is that you collaborate on occasions. I mentioned you've written with David Hare Praft, a very successful example. But Tarek Ali um you uh collaborated with on Moscow Gold and there have been others. How how do you do it? How does it work? Do you sit down together and

Howard Brenton25:09

Comedies are are are are very good to write with someone else, because you have to try the jokes out on each other. And you get excited or something dies. You look into someone's eyes while you're telling this line, and if you see coldness, you know

Howard Brenton25:24

It's not working. It's more likely to make you keep it. That's right, and do it quickly. I mean, there have been many com many of the great T V comedies are written by duos and there have been great plays in the past. The front page was written by two people. And you say, Oh, I'd love to see a show.

Presenter25:25

It's more likely to make you keep that right and do it quickly.

Howard Brenton25:40

In which

Howard Brenton25:41

Blairism is put on the stage and defined for the first time in the theatre. And you feel I can't do that on my own. So you you hitch up with someone.

Presenter25:51

But what about something like Pravda with with David Hill?

Howard Brenton25:53

Oh, we rented a a a a flat down in Brighton and went down there separately. Here, drive, I'll go down by train. And we'll be thinking about what we're going to do that day. Meet in this flat, like secret agents, plotting the downfall of Fleet Street.

Presenter26:08

And f

Presenter26:09

And how much do you get involved with the production of your plays? You know, do you do you travel with them in the you know, provinces? Do you watch the reviews in the audience I'm sure you watch the reviews, but I mean, do you do you kind of live and die with them?

Howard Brenton26:23

It's a long thing hard

Howard Brenton26:25

Learning for playwrights to sit in rehearsals and not panic.

Howard Brenton26:31

Um finally perhaps you begin to learn how to do it. But usually actors want you to be there, and you've got to learn how to talk to actors.

Presenter26:39

But d do directors want you to be there? That's probably

Howard Brenton26:41

But sometimes they want you out because you get too twitchy and you can't see the wood for the trees and you say, Why isn't it loud enough? silly things like that.

Presenter26:43

Because we have two.

Presenter26:44

Nine o'clock

Presenter26:48

Mm.

Howard Brenton26:49

The playwrights always want their plays to be loud.

Howard Brenton26:53

But uh it y you begin to learn professionally how to do it.

Presenter26:56

Mm

Presenter26:57

You went with Moscow Gold, the story of Mikhail Gorbachev, Glasnos Perestroika and so on. That was the one with the Berlin Wall in it. You went with a parrot down ver version of that, I think, to Moscow in the winter of nineteen ninety one, didn't you? Gorbachev still in power. How did that go down for the audience?

Howard Brenton27:15

It was received.

Howard Brenton27:17

Ecstatically.

Howard Brenton27:19

And it reminded you what the theatre can really be like, because they'd never seen in their theatre Gorbachev, Raitsia and Yeltsin walk on to the stage.

Presenter27:29

They hadn't seen Laisa and Gorbachev in bed together, which was the same.

Howard Brenton27:30

They'd never seen no, they'd never seen a sat satiric theatre like that. Tarek and I played the other parts and filled in the narrative.

Presenter27:40

But was it translated as a matter of fact?

Howard Brenton27:41

It was translated by an increasingly worried translator, and friends then told us the translation was a bit wonky. But as happens in Moscow, an alarming number of people in the audience understood the English. We had eight hundred people

Howard Brenton27:56

Packed to the rafters, and mafia people selling tickets outside for one performance, and then the world of the play disappeared.

Howard Brenton28:04

And it all went.

Presenter28:08

Next piece of music.

Howard Brenton28:09

The next piece of music is um

Howard Brenton28:12

is Shostakovich.

Howard Brenton28:15

For me, the composer of the century has worked so vast fifteen symphonies, fifteen string quartets, huge amount of piano music, and he's described and fought inside the century, and I think it'll be some time before we really understand how colossal his music is and how important to us. This is him at his deepest. This is from under the permafrost in Russia, and it's a song for all the lost voices from his fourteenth symphony.

Speaker 329:10

The mother swaty and grossly beats it.

Speaker 329:18

Kroskudo hit sikwait ivashtir salo pode.

Presenter29:44

Evgeny Nesterlyenko singing part of Odyelvig Dieelvig from Shostakovich's Symphony No. fourteen with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kirill Kondrashin.

Presenter29:55

Of course, there were people in this country, Howard Brinton, who when you put on Moscow Gold in in nineteen ninety at the R S C thought that it was your big climb down after all that breast beating, that all the, you know, sik lefty stuff of the sixties and seventies was somehow

Presenter30:12

you know, wrong because communism hadn't worked.

Howard Brenton30:15

We were trying to dramatize the reality of it, in that the Soviet Union Communist Party was hopelessly corrupt. We thought there were good Communists there, they seemed to disappear. It it was an agony really, and an agony of the Left. But it has to be faced, we were actually

Howard Brenton30:35

horribly over optimistic and that we thought the reform was going to hold and work and change the world. Instead, it collapsed into the gangsterism we have now.

Presenter30:45

And you go on looking for a middle way. You you always said you and Tarek Ali have said that you want a middle way between Thatcherism and Communism. I mean there's a lot of lot of ground there. Well, I don't think there's a lot of space.

Howard Brenton30:57

Yes, I mean this w what the world we have now, which is like the politics of shopping and little else, is not going to hold for long. It's collapsed in Indonesia. People are going to return to how can we live together justly and share what we have. There's going to be another human attempt at some kind of politics which is communistic political.

Presenter31:20

But what kind of communist politics? So it's it's communistical. It's it's o

Howard Brenton31:27

It it's rather

Howard Brenton31:29

Like the Methodist Church. I mean, it's deep in human history.

Howard Brenton31:34

More music.

Presenter31:34

Yeah.

Howard Brenton31:36

This is uh from Benjamin Britton's Spring Symphony.

Howard Brenton31:40

And it sets Milton to to to music in the most beautiful way. I I I love Milton, but I'm not taking him on the island. And this will remind me of Miltonic glories.

Speaker 332:03

Barbuttis May.

Speaker 332:06

As God inspired and you had won his eyes.

Speaker 332:38

Oh, won't you swear?

Presenter32:48

Part of the Morning Star from part one of Benjamin Britton's Spring Symphony with the Monteverde Chorus and Orchestra conducted by John Elliott Gardner.

Presenter32:56

You may be writing less than epic theatre these days, Howard, but if you were sitting on your desert island with a blank sheet of paper, that's what you'd write. You'd write something big, wouldn't you? Something

Presenter33:07

something that had huge images in it.

Howard Brenton33:10

Yes, I think so. That's what you really like. I'd write um My Times backwards or something.

Presenter33:11

So he really liked it.

Presenter33:17

But lots of devices and props and the big cars.

Howard Brenton33:19

Yeah.

Howard Brenton33:20

Yeah.

Presenter33:20

And is that what you'll do on your desert island, or do you think you'll give the whole business up, you know, done all that?

Howard Brenton33:26

Um I don't know. I'll have to write in my head, or perform to myself. Maybe my the work would become dangerously psychological if I was alone. I don't think I'll deal with being alone very well, to be honest.

Presenter33:39

Do you think you'll go under under the under the permafrost?

Howard Brenton33:40

I think it dangerously could go to pieces, yes.

Presenter33:43

Oh really?

Howard Brenton33:44

Yeah.

Presenter33:44

Be that bad.

Howard Brenton33:46

Well, uh I I work in the theatre. I'm a social animal. I like people around me. Theatre's a collaborative art. And uh suddenly to be alone

Howard Brenton33:54

on this beautiful but probably bug-infested island.

Howard Brenton33:58

Would give me a lot of personal problems, I think.

Presenter34:01

But you could create your own Utopia, which is what it's all about anyway, isn't it?

Howard Brenton34:05

Of one impossible.

Presenter34:07

Last record.

Howard Brenton34:08

My last record is from a bark r wedding cantata, um, simply because it's

Howard Brenton34:15

Sexy and beautiful, and I return to Bach because he's my favourite composer.

Speaker 334:51

Why should I?

Speaker 335:06

Oh, still.

Presenter35:20

Lisa Larsen singing part of Weishet Neul Betrube Schatten from Bach's Wedding Cantata with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Ton Koopman. If you could only take one of the eight records, Howard, which one would it be?

Howard Brenton35:33

I take the Bach wedding um cantata.

Presenter35:36

That one, The Wedding Can Tata. And what about your book?

Howard Brenton35:41

Or I'd take The Canterbury Tales, in the lovely Norton edition, which has the original English, and then a cheat down the side in italics telling you what the lines mean.

Presenter35:52

And why do you want to take that?

Howard Brenton35:53

Because y you wouldn't be able to people th you people your head at least, if not the island, with wonderful characters.

Presenter36:01

But

Howard Brenton36:01

Uh

Presenter36:01

Toppa.

Howard Brenton36:01

But you're luxury.

Presenter36:01

Yeah.

Howard Brenton36:02

I thought hard about this. I I suppose I should take a pencil and a lot of paper, but I won't. I'll take a bottle of wine.

Howard Brenton36:12

which I will drink.

Howard Brenton36:14

A year after being marooned, if I survive, so I take a bottle of Chateau Latrous, the most expensive wine in the world.

Presenter36:22

Howard Brenton, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 236:33

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