Sheila Hancock

Sheila Hancock0:00

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.

Sheila Hancock0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in the year two thousand, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an actress, one of the most versatile in the business today. She's appeared in everything from carry-on films to Shakespeare. She's also directed plays for the RSC. Born into a working-class family in the thirties, she developed a talent for making people laugh. She won a scholarship to Rada and nine years of hard graft in rep followed, until she made her name in the early 60s in the television sitcom The Rag Trade. But as her career was to show, there was more to her than that daffy blonde role. She's a zealous campaigner too. She supported the Greenham Women and alternative treatment for cancer, an illness she's overcome herself. Now in her sixties, she appears finally to have taken the advice of a colleague who told her long ago, lose the inferiority complex, you don't need it. She is Sheila Hancock. I do get the impression, Sheila, that roughly speaking, after fifty, your life has become better and more enjoyable than it was before. Is that about the feel of it? Yes, I think that's true. Partly because one becomes aware of mortality and it's now or never. It's a slightly desperate thing rather than a positive thing. So it was the cancer, really? Yes, to a certain extent. I mean, I really did think I'd live forever until that happened to me. And then suddenly I thought, well, I'd better make the best of it because I might have only a year or two years or whatever. As it happens, I've had twelve. So you kind of reclaimed yourself, if you like, didn't you? An element of that. Suddenly saying, this is what I am, this is who I am. Yes, that sounds rather more positive than it was. I mean, I'm working towards doing that, Sue, let's say. I mean, I can't honestly say when you say I've swallowed my inferiority complex, I don't think that's altogether true. But I think the point is that you think one never does that. No, I don't think one does. If you're born inferior, you remain inferior. But you do get slightly less what people think about you. There's a wonderful thing about getting old is you can excuse everything by saying, Oh, I'm sorry.

Sheila Hancock2:12

Joint question

Sheila Hancock2:13

Now

Presenter2:25

But isn't it also the case that you it also made you stop always being something to somebody else, always being the wife, always being the mother, and actually saying, as I said, I am now going to think about myself a bit first. Yes, I certainly did that when I got ill. With the help of the Bristol Cancer Centre, I realised that I'd got to put myself as a priority for the sake of those other people, because I don't think I'd have survived if I'd carried on in the way that I was. So, yes, I did learn to cherish myself. But you have, and you've I think you've said it yourself before now, kind of lived your life backwards, haven't you? You had your first child at thirty two, your second child at forty two, you stopped wearing a bra at

Sheila Hancock3:03

You had your

Presenter3:08

40 and started studying for a degree at 49. There there is this feel of you that you've always been kind of running to catch up. Yes, but I think that's partly to do with when I was a young girl, there weren't the opportunities. I mean, people, these post-feminist people, forget that. I mean, my my options were very limited as a bright girl. I mean, it was either nursing or not not being a doctor, nursing. And I was at a grammar school.

Presenter3:34

or teaching, um, and anything else was really brave. But going to Radha must have been very brave. A huge jump, a huge jump, and it frightened me to death, and I was always at a disadvantage because in those days it was like a finishing school. I mean, I was a scholarship girl at Radha and and everybody else was paying, um and I felt very out of my debt.

Presenter3:54

Ah, so yes, I yes, I do have the feeling. I still feel I'm waiting to catch up. I still feel something should be happening, and it isn't. Tell me about your first record. Um well, my first record is Jacqueline Dupre.

Presenter4:08

I I think of my island. I have got to have superb artists, and you can't have better than her. I toyed with the idea of the Elgar cello, but I do know every note of that in my mind. I saw her play it towards the end of her life, and there was a marvellous moment you know Daniel Barrenboyne was conducting.

Presenter4:24

And she'd played a particularly over the top section. I mean, she was being so dramatic. And she looked over and grinned at him, and he obviously had said to her, Look, control it, you know. So I've chosen something else, because I know the old guy. I'm I'm going to have Silent Woods, uh a Dvorak piece.

Presenter5:32

Jacqueline Dupre playing the opening of Dvorak's Waldesruh with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barrenboim. It's interesting that you became an actress at all really, Sheila, because you've always suffered from terrible stage fright, haven't you? Yes, I have. It's like a disease, really, being an actress for me. I can't seem to stop doing it, but it does hurt me. Right from the beginning, from I think playing St Joan at school. Yeah, so when I played St Joan, which was the first big part I played at school, I suddenly got this crippling nerves and I I remember I had terrible pains in my tummy, which I still get when I'm nervous. And I took lots of Rennies, advertising with ego.

Sheila Hancock5:55

Sky

Presenter6:11

indigestion pills and

Presenter6:14

Hundreds of them I took because of this pain. And when I went on stage, I was frothing at the mouth with these red things. I was so frightened. And a dreadful story about when you were doing Sweeney Todd in the early 80s, just sort of vomiting in Richmond Park, as far as I could understand. Yes, well, I had this thing, I read Stanislavski, I was in a right panic, because I really was so frightened. I mean, Sweeney Todd had had such hype, and it was Drury Lane, and it was the most enormously difficult part.

Sheila Hancock6:29

Bashita

Presenter6:41

And I really did get crippled with fear. And Stanislavski said you should touch things, you should hold on to things and concentrate on feeling and texture. So I went for a walk in Bridgeman Park and I hung on to a tree and I did find it comforting while I was hanging on to this tree, embracing this tree, but when I came away from it, it felt even worse. And it was purgatory. I actually I've spoken to people since who were in the show with me and they had no idea what I was going through. But the solution came with hypnotism. Really? How? How does it work for you?

Sheila Hancock7:01

And

Presenter7:13

Well, I I I was doing the Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre, which again is a very demanding part, Madame Ranaskaya, and the pressure was on and it was an important company and an important show, and I thought this is going to crack me, this is going to finish me. And it was a small theatre, so I was going to be able to see the critics face to face and all that.

Presenter7:32

Um so I went to a hypnotherapist and this guy said

Presenter7:36

He put me under hypnotism, which feels doesn't feel like anything. I mean, you just feel as though you're feeling rather pleasant, but you don't go to sleep or anything. And he suggested that when the five was called, I would put on my hat and I would be Madame Renaskaya, and nothing would distract me from that. And I would love being her, and I would relate to everybody on the stage, and it would be exciting, and I couldn't wait to get on this stage. Now, normally at the five, I'm vomiting in the sink. You know, I am so scared. Sure enough.

Presenter8:07

Five minutes, please. On went the hat.

Presenter8:10

I perked, bright as a bee. Ian McKellen couldn't believe it. I mean, I could not wait to get on that stage. How would you explain that? I don't know.

Sheila Hancock8:15

How would you

Presenter8:17

I don't know. I mean, one's very sceptical about it. I know. But except it's rather sad that hypnotism has come into such bad odour, because there was a time when medically it was very promising and a lot of people have used it badly, but it still is used.

Sheila Hancock8:30

Who has it?

Sheila Hancock8:32

Yeah.

Presenter8:32

Yeah. I mean, I'm quite prepared to think it's a placebo or something, but whatever it is, it works for me.

Presenter8:39

Record number two. Oh, record number two, another superb artist. This is Martha Agrich. She she played at um the Festival Hall this year when I was doing Vassa in London, and I very nearly tried to make an excuse of being ill or something to get off and see her. She is wonderful.

Presenter8:59

She plays the Rat Man in Off three superbly, but uh uh again, I know that so well, I thought I would have the Tchaikovsky, which I haven't heard for some time, and I was introduced to it by a wonderful teacher.

Presenter9:10

called Miss Chew de Craig.

Presenter9:12

And the first record she ever made me listen to, sat me down and made me listen to, was Tchaikovsky.

Presenter10:18

Mata Agarich playing part of the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number One in B flat minor, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Kondrashen, and memories for you, Sheila Hancock, of Miss Tudor Craig, a Dartford County Grammar for Girls.

Speaker 410:33

Yeah.

Presenter10:34

Opening up to you classical music and and also I think literature. Everything got opened up to you at that school, didn't you? Yes, yes, I was terribly lucky. I got a scholarship to the grammar school and and it well, actually the Education Act came in while I was there, but to begin with you had to pay to go and

Speaker 410:40

B.

Presenter10:51

Those teachers were wonderful. I mean, we didn't have any classical music at home. I mean, m my mum and dad used to sing Gilbert and Sullivan at the piano and and my dad used to do Pagliarchi, I remember, at the piano and cry a great deal. He was wonderful. But on the whole, I didn't know anything about it until Miss Tudor Craig started but we used to have music appreciation classes and I obviously my eyes sparkled so she took a special interest in me. How much did you use that experience when you um had to

Sheila Hancock11:18

How much

Presenter11:21

You played Prynn, you know, the the eponymous heroine of the Andrew Davis play in the West End. Great success you had with about ten years ago.

Presenter11:28

Lesbian principal of a teacher training college. Did you draw on those? Yes, I did, on those women hugely. It's it's m well I've actually just been writing a film script with Sandy Toxvig and we're hoping to do it on the BBC. And

Sheila Hancock11:31

Yes, I do.

Presenter11:39

Yes, it's my tribute to them. Those women changed and still do change people's lives. But you'd always been a little bit of a performer, as I understand it. I I have this image of you as I read about you

Presenter11:53

Playing out, acting out the seven dwarves to all the kind of the Port and Lemon Brigade in the pub that your dad worked in. A bit like Ina Sharpe's snug. That's right, that's right. These poor ladies would be subjected to the landlord's daughter doing all the parts in Snow White's and the they must have.

Sheila Hancock11:58

My dad was

Presenter12:15

hated it, but they couldn't say much, obviously, because they probably got a free drink for putting up with it. But you really wanted to be Snow White? I did want to be Snow White and then when we did it at school I got dopey and I was really upset about that. But my dear sister invented me a lovely dress. You know dopey has a sort of little train on the back and and she and she made she sewed a bit on my dressing gown and we had to go up the steps onto the stage at this primary school.

Presenter12:40

And by accident I tripped over my train, and of course it got a huge laugh. Whereupon I fell all over the stage. I tripped over again and again. It got frightfully boring, I'm sure. But nobody looked at Snow White. And I thought, this is good getting laughs. I like this.

Presenter12:57

Next piece of music. Well my next piece of music is another superb artist. The lady before was a student of his, and his name is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, I think is how you pronounce it. And

Presenter13:11

I call him Arthur actually. But

Presenter13:14

The piece I've chosen, I mean, the first thing I heard was the Ravel, and he plays it like a dream, and he's the most emotional player, but he's also.

Presenter13:21

the most technically accomplished and

Presenter13:25

I found something.

Presenter13:26

Terribly moving about people who have a technique like ballet dancers and people like this. You look at them, you think, well, I know they're the same species as me, but.

Presenter13:35

That that's not their hands. His hands are not like mine. They're no way the same. And this little piece demonstrates his amazing technique.

Presenter14:47

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing part of Mariscotti's Fontasque. What about you in the war, Sheila? You must have vivid memories of it. Lots of of of men one talks to found it all terribly exciting. I wonder what, as a little girl, you felt about it.

Presenter15:03

Well, I suppose there were moments of excitement. I remember, you know

Presenter15:07

standing on top of the shelter with binoculars waiting to see if any doodle bugs were coming after a warning had gone, you know, we were sort of on duty. But on the whole I found it very f fearful.

Presenter15:19

Um

Presenter15:20

I remember when war was declared, um it was the first time I ever saw my I think probably also the last time I ever saw my mother cry.

Presenter15:27

'Cause women of my mother's generation had been through two wars. I mean, she'd lost a fiancée in the First World War and now she was going to have to bring up young children in the in a second world war.

Presenter15:36

And I look back and think it must have been gutting for her.

Presenter15:40

Um

Presenter15:41

And also I was evacuated and that was very scary. Mm. We were well, my particular group were rather bullied and we did get roughed up a bit. Um not all. It all left its mark on you, didn't it?

Sheila Hancock15:51

Um that's all.

Presenter15:55

Yes, I mean when I look back, I did a little programme about evacuation, tiny television programme.

Presenter16:02

in which I said that I thought

Presenter16:06

that I had remained all this stagewright business and all that, I I had remained fearful because I did spend my childhood fearful. I s I sat in shelters with planes going over and bangs and wallops and collected shrapnel and

Presenter16:20

School was conducted underground, you know, and and going to school with our gas masks in a crocodile was pretty scary in case there was a raid. So I was very scared. And I I said on this program, maybe

Presenter16:34

That has remained with me.

Presenter16:36

And I got ever so many letters from people of my generation saying spot on, yes it has.

Sheila Hancock16:42

Yes, it has.

Presenter16:43

There's a little whereas if you have a totally placid, wonderful childhood, I'm sure your inner well is very peaceful and very calm. Mine is slightly panicky.

Presenter16:55

Record number four.

Presenter16:57

Record number four is for my grandchildren. The greatest joy in my life at the moment is my grandchildren. I've got one of four, one of three, and one of one. And Jack.

Presenter17:08

Introduce me to the film Babe.

Presenter17:11

And I adored this film. And I'm always saying to Jack, let's have babe again, let's have babe. Oh no, not babe again. And I said, all right, well, let's just have the bit where the man dances. And there's a wonderful bit where the pig is ill. This sounds ludicrous. The pig is ill. And this man, this granddad, does a wonderful bangy dance, a sort of part-Irish boot dance, and he jumps all over the sofas to make this pig laugh and be happy. And the first time we saw it, I shrieked with laughter. And Jack said, my grandchild said, that's like you, Nana. I wasn't sure whether it was because the man was so old, or whether he was so daft. Anyway, I explained to him that in fact it was a Saint-Son symphony, but so I thought I'd take the Saint-Son because I get more of it than I would the theme tune from Babe.

Presenter18:59

The Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by James Levine, playing part of Saintson's Symphony No. Three in C minor. Then came rep and touring Sheila Hancock. But you always seem at the same time again reading what you've written about it all to feel that somebody else was where it was at and you never were. Well, I think that was true. You see, I I I I was a f an always a rather strange looking person. Not by modern terms. I mean we have lovely actresses like Juliet Stevenson and Fiona Shaw and

Presenter19:31

all that breed of actresses who've played the great classical roles. But in my day you didn't. You had to be Claire Bloom, you had to be Vivian Lee, you had to be middle class, you had to be jolly pretty, you couldn't be very tall because the leading men didn't like people being taller than them. And I couldn't give myself away. I remember once somebody came to see me in a in a play called Separate Tables.

Presenter19:54

A big agent in which I played a model in one thing. And on stage, I could look terrific, you know. I mean, with the right wig and the right makeup and the good lighting, I could look good. And he asked me to go and see him in his office. And I walked in and I could see his face fall. And he sat me under a light and said, Well, the first thing is you'll have to have plastic surgery. And I just came out feeling like hell, and I knew I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that doesn't ring true looking at you from the outside, because again, I remember seeing pictures of you. Certainly, by the time you get to the 60s, you know, when you had all the right sort of mini skirts on and the bob haircut, or you were on a lambretto or a vesper or it was a matter of time. Well, that was really. After things did change, I mean, Joan Littlewood was the one that changed it for me. You know, I went to a general audition at Stratford East and.

Sheila Hancock20:29

Yeah, cut.

Sheila Hancock20:32

Well that was a

Presenter20:42

She let me be myself and even let me have a Gotney accent again and and you'd squash that out, yeah. I'd learnt to get rid of that at Rada with a bone prop in my mouth.

Sheila Hancock20:47

It's gone

Sheila Hancock20:48

Yeah, yeah.

Sheila Hancock20:51

Yeah.

Presenter20:52

What's the bone? You had to stick this sort of bit of bone in your mouth to open up your vowels. And I all my vow they still are. I mean the va diphthongs, I used to say door.

Presenter21:02

And trying to make me say door, door, you know, with this bloody thing stuck in my mouth. And it was so it made me so self-conscious, it really did. But then you hit the end scene, as you say, and you were mixing with all this kind of Lance Percival and Kenneth Williams dotting about on this scooter. Well, it was fun, wasn't it? Well, it was hard work, actually. I mean, I remember Ken we were in a review together, Kenny and I, in s in the swinging sixties. And um.

Sheila Hancock21:19

I feel like

Presenter21:30

The Time magazine thing came out, you know, sort of saying London is where it's at, it's happening and all that and I used to take Ken home on my Lambretta and at that time you could go round Piccadilly Circus, Eros was in the middle and I remember he said, Go on, drive round and I drove round Piccadilly Circus and he was on the back with an umbrella saying, Where is it? Where are all these all geese? Why haven't we been asked?

Sheila Hancock21:43

I'm heavy

Presenter21:53

And that's really what we felt. Then came the rag trade. Television sitcom set in a kind of sweatshop, a East End clothing factory. Miriam Carlin, Barbara Windsor,

Sheila Hancock22:01

In fact,

Presenter22:04

Lots of jokes about boobs. Totally politically incorrect. Absolutely. Except, I suppose the step forward that it made was that women were playing leading roles in it and women were in command. The two men, Peter Jones and Reg Varney, were rather kind of wimpish. They were dominated by all us. And Miriam Carlin was always blowing her whistle and calling strikes, you know, everybody out and all that. And it took on. I mean, I was doing it. I was picked up by a wonderful producer called Dennis Mayne Drain, as we called him, Dennis Mayne Wilson. And he'd seen me in some show in the West End and said, Would I do this? And when I read it and thought, well,

Sheila Hancock22:06

Totally p

Sheila Hancock22:08

Uh

Presenter22:40

Piece of work in a sewing factory. Are they kidding? But it did. It took off. Next piece of music, number five. Uh oh, Barbara Streissend, yes. Got to have Streissend. I was in America. I did the Joe Orton play in New York.

Presenter22:54

Which was a disaster. The the review the first review we read said, Throw this British cesspool back in the Atlantic.

Presenter23:01

But on this trip woo I did see Barbara Streissend in Funny Girl, and she blew my mind.

Presenter23:08

And I brought this L P, which I think is her first L P back to England and bored everybody stiff with it, saying, Listen to this woman, what a voice, what emotion, what everything else And she's been a favorite ever since.

Speaker 423:23

I will walk with my feet off the ground.

Speaker 423:38

True.

Speaker 423:44

Yeah.

Presenter23:50

Barbara Streisen singing A Sleeping Bee. Not only, Sheila, did you go on to star in West End Musicals, as we've said, you became a member of the RSC, you've also directed the RSC's touring company, that you did in the early 80s, taking Shakespeare where it often didn't go, into prisons and converted halls around the country. You've said that it was a very lonely job directing. Why did you say that?

Presenter24:15

Um well, I I I d I did at the National as well. I directed at the National. Because you are absolutely in charge. I mean the buck does stop at you.

Presenter24:26

And there's always a period in my experience when the actors have to turn against you. I mean, towards the end, when they're getting scared, they think it's her fault if it doesn't work, you know. And of course, on the tour, I was passionate about I had only just really discovered Shakespeare myself, again, very late in life, and I was so passionate about how wonderful he was.

Sheila Hancock24:45

Yeah.

Speaker 424:45

Uh

Presenter24:50

That I wanted it to be a huge success. So I took on the emotional baggage, you know, and if anybody wasn't being absolutely marvellous, I was giving them copious notes because they mustn't let the audience down. And it was very stressful to them and me. It's what your husband John Thorpe calls your messiah complex, isn't it? Always kind of wanting to it's kind of control as well, isn't it? As well as caring. And conceit, the fact that you think that you can do it, you know, you haven't got the courage to leave people to run their own lives. I mean, that's a lesson that I have learnt, that I can't change anybody. I can only change my attitude to them.

Sheila Hancock25:05

But

Sheila Hancock25:09

Exactly.

Presenter25:28

Um

Sheila Hancock25:28

Mm.

Presenter25:30

And I can encourage and I can

Presenter25:33

give clues, but I can't make people pursue them.

Presenter25:37

That was all a very stressful period, and as you say, you directed actually in the National Suffolk. I think you were the first woman director in the Olivier Theatre. I was indeed Sheridan's the Critic.

Sheila Hancock25:42

Doing the fir

Sheila Hancock25:44

Hi Boss Indeed Sheridan

Presenter25:46

Do you think it was entirely unrelated that your cancer, when it was breast cancer, began shortly off the back of all of that stress? It's very difficult because there's no absolute clinical evidence that that is true. I mean, a lot of people think that stress causes cancer. There's no doubt that my life had reached a stage where something had to go. Something had to stop me because I was whirling out of control in every direction. I mean, in my personal life and in my professional life. And I needed to have a big shock to say.

Presenter26:22

Hold on.

Presenter26:23

This isn't the way to live. And that did it. Quite a shock.

Presenter26:28

But you know, it's amazing how these things happen when you look back and think thank God. Oh, God, yes. Oh, God, yes.

Sheila Hancock26:30

We can go back and think next year.

Presenter26:34

I was terrified, absolutely terrified, and the doctors were dismissive.

Presenter26:40

Well, no. I mean, it depends. I had I had and still have,'cause I see her once a year, a wonderful oncologist, a woman, Doctor Spittle. But oh, to begin with, when I went with my lump, yeah, the most people didn't think it was anything, but I I think you kind of know when there's something wrong. Well, I did. I knew.

Sheila Hancock26:54

Yeah.

Presenter26:58

And I kept being told, you know, I had a mammography, nothing showed up, and they said, Oh, no, it's nothing, it's nothing, forget it and I just kept on and on and eventually I forced them to take it out and indeed it was malignant.

Presenter27:09

Record number six. Record number six is Elgar. The older I get, the more I realize that I am.

Presenter27:16

Very English.

Presenter27:18

I know we're not supposed to have an identity anymore, but I feel very rooted in England. I mean, religious-wise and everything, I've been, I've explored all kinds of funny mystical things and Indian things. You name it. I've done it. And ultimately, my roots are here. And Elgar.

Presenter27:35

is so English in sound.

Presenter28:37

The Magini string quartet with Peter Donahoe playing part of the Adago from Elgar's piano quintet in A minor.

Presenter28:45

You were no stranger to cancer, Sheila. You nursed your mother, who died of it, and indeed your first husband, Alec Ross, to whom you were married for seventeen years. The effect that it seemed to have on you was the opposite of that which it has on most people, because most people want to be surrounded by their family and cleave under the bosom of their loved ones, and you turned away and you actually separated from John. Yes, there were other reasons as well.

Sheila Hancock29:09

Yeah.

Presenter29:12

Yes, I needed some time to lick my wounds and get my act together and think about myself, really. So you you did a bit of that. You you went for war. You led quite a minimalist life, didn't you, for six months?

Sheila Hancock29:22

Yeah.

Presenter29:23

Yes, I did. And you found you found religion. You found the Quaker religion. Eventually, yes. I I tried lots of things. Some fairly ghastly things, actually. But what were you looking for? What did you want?

Presenter29:36

I don't know. I'd become an atheist after Alec died. I actually thought, no, I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered asking those why suffering and all those questions, you know. But what I will do is I will try to do things. I'll become, if you like, a humanist and sort of, you know, and I worked for the hospice a bit and bereavement counselling and all that sort of stuff and put my

Presenter30:03

experiences to good use, which has always been a sort of policy of mine. If something happens, then, okay, what can we do with this? rather than just going under.

Presenter30:13

But then I began to feel a bit sort of bleak, a bit bereft, you know. I thought there must be something more than this.

Speaker 430:19

Huh.

Presenter30:19

So I went to a Quaker meeting, which is a silent meeting. You know, you just sit in a room in silence unless somebody feels moved to speak, which they don't usually.

Presenter30:29

And I loved it. I just loved it. And I I can't explain it. It's experiential. I mean, it's not something you can explain. But just being with those people in that silence is an enormous comfort to me.

Sheila Hancock30:43

Still there.

Presenter30:44

Yeah, yeah, I do, yeah. And in the end you were reconciled with John. You missed him, really, and you got to get back together again.

Sheila Hancock30:50

Okay.

Presenter30:52

Next piece of music.

Presenter30:53

I love musicals. I absolutely love musicals. I really, really do. And I've been fortunate to be in two that sometimes involved with, I. Gypsy and and Sweeney Todd.

Presenter31:04

But what I thought I'd choose I mean, what I love about Sondheim is his cynicism. He's he is king cynic, and some of his stuff is very bitter. But I came across uh this lovely little song called Live Alone and Like It, which I thought I would play to jolly myself along on my desert island.

Speaker 331:21

Live alone and like it, free as the birds in the trees, high above the briars, live alone and like it, doing whatever you please, when your heart desires, free to hang around or fly at any old time.

Presenter31:22

Live alone

Sheila Hancock31:35

Need a hang around or f

Speaker 331:40

Yeah.

Speaker 331:42

No equivocation, most of all no guarantees. That can be your motto, free of obligation.

Presenter31:48

Go away.

Presenter31:50

Michael Rupert singing Stephen Sondheim's Live Alone and Like It from the original cast recording of Cameron McIntosh's show Putting It All Together.

Presenter31:58

Um live alone and like it. Um you will? You're good at it? You'll be all right? Well I w I I never know whether we're going to be rescued on this island. No, you don't. You don't know? No. No, well I I like it for a bit, but I don't want to be there forever because I do like people. I mean I can't be without my grandchildren. But you're a coper, obviously. Well I don't know that I'm very practical. I don't like killing things. I'm not going to be able to kill fish and things. So you starve gently to death.

Sheila Hancock32:18

Before we have dated

Presenter32:26

To just eat fruit. And before you kind of pop off, what parts will you dream about that that you never played and felt you should have done?

Presenter32:35

Oh, all the Shakespearean roles. I mean, I just would so love to have played Viola, Rosalind, Cleopatra, e all of them. They're they're magic.

Presenter32:44

And which one will you sit on your desert island and think?

Presenter32:47

I was bloody good in that. I don't know. I don't think there's any of them. Um oh dear. I thought you got rid of the inferiorities. I can't think of anything. I think I was awful in all of them.

Speaker 432:54

I can't think of anything.

Presenter32:57

No, Prynn, Prynn, the one that I'm now hopef hopefully doing on telly, I think I was quite good in that because it was sort of very different from me.

Presenter33:06

Last record. Oh, my last record is Ishostkovich. Um when I did Madame Ranaskaya I did a lot of um studying about Russia and things like that and I got really into it. Such a tragic, grand, wonderful country. I mean the art and the literature and stuff.

Presenter33:23

And I want to go there very much. I thought if I was on my island it would remind me that there's a world elsewhere and I've got to get out because I've got to go on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Presenter34:33

The Medici String Quartet playing the opening of Shostakovich's String Quartet number eight, music to dream to on your desert island, Sheila. If you could only take one of those, which one would you take?

Sheila Hancock34:40

Uh

Presenter34:46

I I think I'll take that one actually, because there's something very calming. There's something in the tone of it that stills you. What about your book?

Presenter34:55

Well, I'm afraid I'm going to choose one that lots of people choose. Uh Proust. And I'd I'd like it in French with a dictionary so I can try and understand, because I believe it's ever so much better in the French.

Presenter35:06

And your luxury.

Presenter35:08

Can I hat?

Presenter35:10

A grand piano.

Presenter35:13

But if I have my grand piano, can I have one of those music stools with lots of music in and a pencil?

Presenter35:22

Well, I tell you what, you can't have the pencil. Oh, I've got to have the pencil because I'm going to write. I can then write on the back of the music and I can mark up the notes, you see, the fingering and things like that. I can shelter under the grand piano. No, no, no, no, that's too bad. Don't tell me that as well. You can have the piano, you can have the stool with the music here, and you'll have to find a bit of a piece of paper. Well, I can burn me something, can't I? I can burn it with charcoal. All right, then. A galloper. Okay, it's a deal.

Sheila Hancock35:33

No.

Sheila Hancock35:34

Yeah.

Sheila Hancock35:37

Well I definitely have

Sheila Hancock35:40

And you

Sheila Hancock35:42

Oh well I can burn something, can't I? I can burn a twig.

Presenter35:48

Sheila Hancock, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is. Thank you.

Sheila Hancock36:07

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