Adrian Noble

Presenter0:00

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.

Presenter0:08

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

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a theatre director. For most of his career, he's worked for one company, the RSC, which he calls the finest classical theatre company in the English-speaking world. The son of an undertaker, a very theatrical profession, he says, he was only thirty when he joined, after working at the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Exchange in Manchester. His outstanding productions of plays such as A Doll's House, King Lear, and The Master Builder, his decision to take the company on a rolling tour of the provinces for six months of the year, and his popularising of its repertoire have meant that his time with it has been both energetic and controversial. He believes passionately that the theatre is a force for the good. It makes better citizens, he says. He is the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Adrian Noble. How does it do that, Adrian? How does it make us better citizens, the theatre?

Adrian Noble1:20

I've always found it fascinating that in the ancient Greek society, theatre going wasn't just regarded as a pastime, but it was actually regarded as a duty of a citizen to go to the theatre. And I've often asked myself why is that the case? And I think the the answer to that is that the theatre poses moral choices and I think it equips the audience to address those moral choices and to make up its own mind. And that seems to be the centre of democracy.

Presenter1:50

You said that you put on a a production of Henry V in the early eighties because the nation had dropped its moral knickers over the Falklands. That that's part of what you're saying, is it? But explain it.

Adrian Noble2:00

Well, I was born in nineteen fifty, and so um for my generation we'd never directly witnessed our nation going to war. And I observed during the Falklands rather a number of rather curious um things going on. War

Adrian Noble2:15

was not only horrific, but there was a side to war that was attractive to many people. There was there was a need in the nation, and I was part of it as well, a need to rally round the soldiers, a need to unite

Speaker 12:20

Uh

Speaker 22:20

Hmm.

Presenter2:31

The Our Boys meant that.

Adrian Noble2:32

The Our Boys mentality, yes. Now, I'd never really been interested in directing Henry V and I set about that production with Ken Branagher and we found that in that play the arguments were extraordinarily well balanced, that on the one hand there was the the anti-war play, the the play that exposed the horrors of war, the human cost of war, on the other hand there were the very fine political arguments as to why sometimes one has to fight one's neighbour, but also the way that propaganda and the selling of war is a very, very crucial issue during war. And we found it a fascinating thing to explore just after th th the the Falklands War.

Presenter3:18

So theatre is is morally improving, it's also emotionally liberating.

Adrian Noble3:23

Yes, every night at the back of the stalls in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, there are usually, lined up too deep, young people who are very often seeing Shakespeare for the very first time. They're hearing those stories for the first time. They are entering into the imagination of the poet for the very, very first time. And I think that's a great responsibility because the theatre and Shakespeare in particular, I think, can take us literally on a journey of the imagination, can take us into parts of ourselves that we are probably not even aware of. The language itself can work upon us in ways that are below the conscious level.

Presenter4:06

It's it's happening without our knowing it, is it?

Adrian Noble4:09

Well, I think it's like Shakespeare's language, like music, operates on several levels. On one level, there is the level of sense of the meaning of the language, but also like music, there is the pulse, there is the sound, the visceral communication that poetry can give to us. Tell me about your first record.

Adrian Noble4:32

Well, this is the great quartet from Fidelia, Mirisse Vundba. And for me, it's probably the most perfect piece of music ever written, I think. It also encapsulates for me what opera can do, that nothing else can do. We have here four characters each in their own world, one joining after the other, and each communicating directly their thoughts and their feelings to the audience, but collectively creating an extraordinarily rich whole.

Speaker 25:12

Yeah.

Presenter5:12

Yeah.

Adrian Noble5:22

Happy head of sorrow.

Presenter5:28

I am glory, John in grace, and blame faith.

Presenter5:40

And

Presenter6:05

Ingeborg, Hallstein, Christa Ludwig, Gottlob, Frick, and Gerhard Unger singing part of the quartet Meer Istzo Vunderbar from Beethoven's Fidelia with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer. Adrian Noble, your theatrical provenance is undertaking. Why was your father such a brilliant undertaker? You've said he was?

Adrian Noble6:25

He was a brilliant underdaker. Yes, it's very interesting. I've always thought that um you're called a funeral director and indeed that um you conduct a funeral.

Speaker 16:34

Hmm.

Adrian Noble6:34

He was, on the one hand, a very strong man, and on the other hand, a very compassionate man. And I think he understood ceremony. I think he understood the need for ceremony in grief. There's a wonderful thing in Hamlet, when Laertes is at the graveside of his sister, who's committed suicide, of Ophelia, and he says to the priest, What ceremony else? And he's appalled that there aren't the trappings of death, the need to, if you like, go through a process of grief. And he was.

Presenter7:06

I'm

Adrian Noble7:07

He was wonderful with he was wonderful with the grieving. He was wonderful with the

Presenter7:11

Good good bedside manner.

Adrian Noble7:13

Yes, I th and I I think people trusted him with their grief.

Presenter7:16

Hmm.

Adrian Noble7:17

I remember one day seeing this young girl, I suppose, arriving at the front door with a bundle in her arm, and I took no notice of it at all, and my father came into the kitchen about half an hour later.

Adrian Noble7:28

And very sombre, and very, um clearly, rather, rather upset and.

Adrian Noble7:33

She had uh her baby, her dead baby, that she'd just brought in and she didn't know what to do with it, and so she just turned up at the Undertaker's with her dead baby.

Presenter7:42

Did that did that kind of thing happen often? I mean, it must have been a very sombre household.

Adrian Noble7:46

No, no, a rather a a rather happy household in fact it was. Every morning would begin with the sound of Elvis Presley. My brother was a fanatic and it put me off Elvis Presley for life. But the rest of the time we heard hymns. My father sang hymns all day long, funeral hymns all day long. And so my the the sound of my childhood in fact is is the sound of is is the sound of funeral hymns.

Presenter8:11

Which you're going to hear in a minute. But just let me ask you as well about that household. I mean, was it particularly literary? Was there Shakespeare in it?

Adrian Noble8:17

No, not at all. There were very few books. My parents brought us Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia, which I thought was literally fabulous. I adored that. There weren't many, weren't many books around at all. We went to the library and got a sort of two or three a week, but not many. My grandmother bought me the complete works of Shakespeare. For some reason, I have no idea. Ten shillings from Woolworths, so rather cheap paper you can get them. And she brought me that, and that was really a rather crucial turning point, I think, in my life.

Presenter8:48

Was it what you you ate it up, did you?

Adrian Noble8:51

I ate it up, and I remember very clearly sitting in my bedroom saying the words out loud, reading the speeches, oh, for a muse of fire Oh, this too too solid flesh would melt once more into the breech and I thought they were wonderful.

Presenter9:06

Let's have that hymn then, number two.

Adrian Noble9:08

Well, this is Abide With Me. It's played by a brass band. I've always sort of had a bit of a a love of brass bands as well. My father was a was a was was a South African of Cornish origins, and of course brass bands Cornwall, it's it seems a rather a nice choice.

Presenter10:26

Harry Mortimer and his brass band and Abide With Me. Chichester, of course, has its festival theatre, Adrian, which was set up there when you were a boy, and you were somehow in on its kind of origins, weren't you?

Adrian Noble10:38

Yes, I was a little short-sighted and my optician was Leslie Evershed Martin and while he was poking about in my eyes and testing my eyesight, he would rattle on and on and on about his pet project, which was this theatre he was going to create. And so it was sort of rather it was I was sort of drip-fed by this over a period of years and then, amazingly, he succeeded and he created this festival theatre. And not only did that, he persuaded Laurence Olivier to come and join us, its first director.

Presenter11:12

What did he do just write to him?

Adrian Noble11:14

I think he just wrote to him, yes. I mean, he was the most famous actor. He was the right person to run it, and he persuaded him to run it. I think it was good for Larry at the time, because he was planning the first national theatre company, and so this seemed a rather good sort of mezzanine stage en route to that. But it quite literally transformed the life of this little town in Chichester, which is rather curious little town, really. I mean, I always remember it as being almost left over from the 1930s, sort of black and white town, you know, that towards the end of the 50s and early 60s transformed into colour after rationing and austerity, but with the opening of the theatre. And it literally transformed our lives as schoolchildren. Did it? Absolutely. Well, certainly for the kids, anyway, that we would we would go to the theatre, we would see these shows, we would see these amazing actors. We didn't know they were the creme de la creme, but we would see these actors, we would see concerts, and suddenly there was culture available on our doorstep. And I've never forgotten that lesson, in fact, that we didn't have to travel to it. It was there for us.

Presenter12:16

Who did you see? What did you see? What did you hear?

Adrian Noble12:18

The very first production I saw was The Royal Hunt of the Sun with Robert Stevens. And I think probably the very first concert I heard was the The El Gocello Concerto, Daniel Barren Bohem. I mean quite quite astonishing work was coming down there at the time. The Othello with Laurence Olivier, The Uncle Vanya with Redgrave. I mean amazing, amazing work.

Presenter12:42

Tell me about your third record that's relevant here, I think.

Adrian Noble12:44

Well, this is Robert Stevens.

Adrian Noble12:48

And for me he is the quintessential Shakespearean actor.

Speaker 112:52

All the world's a stay.

Speaker 112:55

and all the men and women merely players.

Speaker 112:58

They have their exits and their entrances.

Speaker 113:01

and one man in his time plays many parts

Speaker 113:05

His acts being Seven Ages.

Speaker 113:09

At first the infant mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Speaker 113:14

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school.

Speaker 113:23

And then the lava.

Speaker 113:25

sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow.

Speaker 113:31

Then a soldier, full of strange oaths,

Speaker 113:36

Bearded like the pod,

Speaker 113:38

Jealous in honour

Speaker 113:39

Sudden and quick in quarrel

Speaker 113:42

Seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth

Speaker 113:48

and then the justice.

Speaker 113:50

In fair round belly.

Presenter13:52

Robert Stevens as Jacques in as you like it. Uh you saw him, Adrian Noble, you say, when you were, what, a boy of twelve, I would think, and it was thirty years on that you um when you took over at the RSC, he was the first person you asked to join.

Presenter14:06

You say he is the quintessential classical actor. Why? Can you define that?

Adrian Noble14:12

He could.

Adrian Noble14:14

shine a light into all the hidden corners of a character. He could say lines that one knew by heart as if he was making them up on the spot. He had

Adrian Noble14:30

a presence that was um that defied his shape almost. I remember when he was in the Royal Hunt of the Sun this quite gorgeous, gorgeous physique, this wonderful charismatic body. And then I also remember him coming on stage for the um curtain call, probably at his last performance on the stage as King Lear, this um very frail

Speaker 114:53

Yeah.

Adrian Noble14:57

Old man in um in with holes in his socks, in pyjamas, um, but he'd just given a performance of Titanic proportions.

Speaker 115:07

Yeah.

Adrian Noble15:08

And that is, I suppose, the ability of a great actor, that once sees the spirit overcome the frailties of the body.

Presenter15:17

And it is that physical thing. It's an it's amazing how many actors talk about the physicality of acting. Almost. I'm not saying that they don't necessarily

Presenter15:27

Entirely uh take on the kind of intellectual side of the part, but it's somehow the physical business of it is more important, it seems.

Adrian Noble15:36

I think that's right. I think a part takes over a great actor. I think quite literally they they it's not that they just become it, but I think it it energizes them, it it um it's it's like being possessed by a character. And I've I've seen actors do things that are almost superhuman.

Speaker 115:50

But

Adrian Noble15:56

Anthony Scher playing the fool, an amazing, amazing transformation. John Wood as the master builder, a towering performance whereby actors b they they seem to do things that you wouldn't that seemingly no human being can do. And this is the power of the imagination.

Presenter16:16

And how does it affect the way you direct these let's let's call them geniuses then, or people of great talent. Do you direct them differently from the way you direct ordinary mortals, members of the market?

Adrian Noble16:27

Well, it makes directing much, much, much more fun, of course, because the key is danger. They're more dangerous creatures. They will go into areas of themselves that other actors might need much more prompting and encouraging to do. They'll frequently work quicker. They will frequently make bolder, more unusual choices. They will live in the moment more intensely than another actor might. Bitcoin number four.

Adrian Noble16:59

This is Bob Dylan, one of the great icons of the nineteen sixties. A very, very heady time for my generation. We would go to a demonstration in the afternoon to the Royal Festival Hall and hear a concert in the evening. And Bob Dylan I saw first

Adrian Noble17:17

In Concerta on the Isle of Wight, um in I think 1970. A great genius, a great poet, I believe.

Adrian Noble17:29

Does it feel?

Adrian Noble17:33

Ah

Speaker 217:34

And then fear

Speaker 217:38

To be without hope

Speaker 217:43

Like a complete unknown

Speaker 217:47

Like a rolling stone.

Presenter17:52

Bob Dylan and Like a Rolling Stone. How early did you decide to direct, not act, Adrian?

Adrian Noble17:58

I think at university I started acting at school and rather enjoyed it. I especially liked the bits where you um put a lot of makeup on and you pulled faces and you put funny voices on. And then I went to university and I realize there's a whole lot more to it than that.

Presenter18:14

But did you realize it was sort of you know, more authoritative?

Adrian Noble18:17

Well, uh truth to tell, I didn't know there was such a thing as a director, really. I didn't really know what they did until I went to university. And then I realized that there was a rather fascinating job that in fact was to do with getting other people to do their jobs well. And so I found myself moving sort of inexorably towards directing and found that that was what was really, really interesting.

Presenter18:17

What?

Presenter18:39

But you you don't strike me as having been a particularly bossy person. In fact, I think somebody who came across you, one of your tutors when you eventually ended up at the London Drama Centre, said that you were very sort of insecure and directionless. He didn't think you'd go especially far. It's funny that it appealed to you.

Adrian Noble18:53

20

Adrian Noble18:55

Yes, well I it was curious. My time at university was was was was odd because I realized early on that I would like to become a director, but at the same time I realized early on that the way I was perceiving directing via the university drama department was very, very unattractive. I found them all rather rather pompous, rather pretentious, and it seemed to me not a world I particularly wanted to enter. I didn't really understand this. And it wasn't until I made a connection with the London Drama Centre that, if you like, I came home and I re and there

Adrian Noble19:31

I entered into the great European tradition of Stanislavski, of Brecht, of Louis Jouvet, of Jacques Coppeau, and suddenly I realized this is this is what I wanted to do, this is where I belong.

Presenter19:43

But what about when you started doing it as a job for real, you know, when you eventually directed at the Bristol Old Vic?

Adrian Noble19:49

Well, I was very lucky, and I always have been in my life, that there have been one or two figures who have given me great breaks, wonderful opportunities. But the first thing I was given was a play called Kennedy's Children, which actually is a bit of a dog of a play, in fact. It's a series of monologues. And I remember very clearly the first day, the first two days, I started directing it, and the actors sat around and stuff like that, and it was okay. And I remember going home and talking to a friend of mine. She said, How was it going? And I said, Well, it's all right. And she said, Well, what's wrong? And I said, Well, it's not really what I want it to be. And I remember very, very clearly I had a decision, a choice to make, if you like, in my life that I could avoid confrontation or I could confront and get what I wanted. So I went in the next morning, and I remember the actor

Adrian Noble20:38

The first actor started, and I stopped them after about five words and said, Sorry, could we just look at that again? Could we just think about that? There was a pause and they said, Yes, of course, Adrian. They went back and they did about two sentences, and I stopped them. I said, No, no, look, no, that's not quite what I mean, in fact. Let's And it was a pretty frosty atmosphere for a bit because they didn't know who I was, I was just this kid. But I won through, and the production was a success. And from then on, I've always known that you have to go through things to go around them or to avoid them very often leads to poor art.

Presenter21:12

Pick up number five.

Adrian Noble21:14

Twelfth.

Adrian Noble21:15

When I was at Drama Center, um we were taught by a wonderful chap called John Blatchley.

Adrian Noble21:21

Who worked at the Colosseum at the time, and he was teaching us directing, staging, and he encouraged us to go along to the Collie, and we would go along, and we would pay 75 pence, or whatever it was, 15 shillings in those days, or whatever it was, and we would sit right at the top of the gods, and we would see all these operas. I'd never seen an opera in my life, I'd never heard an opera in my life before, and I was completely blown away. This is Mozart, the great force of sanity in the world, I think. This is the marriage of Figaro. This is the Countess's Aria Dovesona, when she's lamenting what's happened to her marriage.

Adrian Noble22:15

First.

Presenter22:22

Yeah.

Presenter22:58

Felicity Lott as the contessa singing the Aria Dove Sono from Act Three of Mozart's Marriage of Figure with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heiting.

Presenter23:07

It didn't take you long, Adrian Noble. I think you were twenty nine when you finally joined uh the Royal Shakespeare Company. You are company man, aren't you? I mean, it it's absolutely what you stand for. Why? Why is having a company so important to you?

Adrian Noble23:21

I think it goes back to Shakespeare. On the front piece of the first folio of Shakespeare, there is a list of 27, 28 actors who, I think it says, performed in all these plays, which was Shakespeare's ensemble, if you like, the prototype of the Royal Shakespeare Company. And for me, a group of actors working over a period of time on several texts, very often in different theatres, very often in different towns.

Adrian Noble23:51

brings about um a working method, a harmony, a level of achievement, which I think is very, very hard to replicate.

Presenter24:00

Okay.

Adrian Noble24:01

In any other system.

Presenter24:02

So it gives him an ident UN identity, the whole thing, and presumably short cuts quite a lot.

Adrian Noble24:08

It gives an identity, it gives short cuts, it means that a whole variety of different skills can be brought to bear on a text. In the production I've just opened, The Seagull, for example, there are in that cast Richard Johnson, who joined the company in 1959 for Peter Hall, and he's been coming back on and off to the company ever since. Now, that range of skill to be brought to the part of Dr. Dawn is absolutely astonishing.

Presenter24:36

But in a sense you're asking these big name actors to do you a favor, aren't you, in the sense of of accepting much I mean, how much can you afford to pay Robert Lindsay to do Richard the Third? How much per week?

Adrian Noble24:47

About seven hundred and fifty quid.

Presenter24:49

Yeah, and I mean wherever else he goes in television or the cinema he gets a huge amount of money. You have to rely on their goodwill or their

Adrian Noble24:54

Yeah.

Presenter24:57

What they often say, really, isn't it? Their desire really to get back to their roots, to tread the boards again.

Adrian Noble25:02

Well, the the the English acting profession subsidises the theatre in this country and has done for years and years and years. What they give to the nation, what they give to audiences is in my view incalculable, but I'm afraid we're not in a position to reward them in a commensurate way at all. I think it's incredible.

Presenter25:20

And it does create a contradiction though, doesn't it, that that you want to hang on to this company principle, but you can't really afford to cast the stars. And you want to cast the stars because that puts bums on seats.

Adrian Noble25:33

No, it doesn't really work like that. The RSC has always created its own stars. We look for the best talent, the best classical talent. They may be famous on television, they may be famous in film, but not necessarily. When Ray Fiennes joined us to play Henry VI, nobody knew who Ray Fienn was. And that goes right the way through through through the board.

Presenter25:55

That's the cast. What about the repertoire? Because also what you've done in recent years, you've put on the main stage at Stratford, you've put on School for Scandal and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Presenter26:06

Highly successful in financial terms, good strong family entertainment, some people would say it's dumbing down.

Adrian Noble26:13

Well, I would I would strongly r re resist that. Um

Adrian Noble26:18

That accusation, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, introduced about 75,000 new people to the theatre in the West Midlands. They'd never been to the theatre before. We know that perhaps for a fact from research. Now, it's a fantastic children's story. It's a brilliant story. It's a very spectacular but moral tale. Draws heavily on the works of William Shakespeare. Now, those those young people who come and see that will never forget it. For them, going to the theatre is not a boring experience, it's a life-enhancing experience. And they will therefore, I believe, be much more confident in going to the theatre in the future.

Presenter26:57

Sure. So you're inculcating the habit again, if you possibly can. But what you're saying is it says more about society today than it's it's not you dumbing down, it's that society has dumbed down and you've got to lure it back in again, huh?

Adrian Noble27:09

I think that's true. And I also think that the the British regional theatre movement has been rather scandalously allowed to run down, j particularly during the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties, so there are fewer opportunities for young people to go and see shows.

Presenter27:28

Which is why you went out there, and I want to talk about that in a minute. But let's pause for record number six.

Adrian Noble27:32

This is Van Morrison singing with the Irish band The Chieftains. I got together with my wife towards the end of the eighties and I was directing The Three Sisters in Ireland and we played this all the time on the car when we were driving all around Ireland.

Presenter27:48

My young love said to me

Adrian Noble27:53

My

Speaker 227:54

And mother won't mind.

Speaker 227:58

And my father won't slight you.

Speaker 127:58

Father won't

Speaker 228:01

For you lack of kind.

Speaker 228:06

And she stepped away from me, And this she did say.

Presenter28:18

Van Morrison and the Chieftains and she moved through the fair. So you did this incredibly controversial thing a few years ago, Adrian Noble. You took the RSC out of London, you took it to the people, and this kind of huge amount of flack came down on your head.

Adrian Noble28:33

It did, yes. Well, I mean, like, tons and tons and tons of that came down on my head, yes.

Presenter28:37

So, yeah.

Presenter28:39

Why do you think people felt so strongly? Was it just the critics?

Adrian Noble28:43

It was principally the critics, to be honest. I think that's partly the metro-centricity, if you like, of the British press. London is the centre of the universe. And I think also they were surprisingly short-termists about it. They couldn't see that a process of change was going on here and that change can actually be a healthy, progressive thing. I think people wanted things to stay as they were. But it seemed to me a matter of principle that the people of this country pay their taxes to the arts, and therefore the people of this country should have a reasonable access to the arts for which they pay their taxes, including the...

Presenter29:24

How reasonable is their access to you?

Adrian Noble29:26

Well, we

Adrian Noble29:28

We tour the length and breadth of the country, including a residency in Newcastle and in Plymouth, by which in which we take all our work. And now we're in a situation whereby about eighty percent of the population can visit a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Adrian Noble29:47

With a forty-five minute drive.

Presenter29:50

Two. Uh

Adrian Noble29:51

Yeah.

Presenter29:52

So what are you going to do? What's the what's have you got a big idea? Is there something you're going to do that we couldn't get anywhere else?

Adrian Noble29:59

We are about to embark upon um

Adrian Noble30:03

The history cycle, by which I mean all eight of Shakespeare's plays.

Adrian Noble30:08

From Richard II right the way through the cycle of Henry IV, Henry the Fourth, Henry V into Henry VI, into Richard the Third, and then we're going to bring bring the whole cycle together in two thousand one.

Presenter30:19

And meanwhile you're also the other big idea is you're going to rebuild the theatre that we all know and some don't love in Stratford, is that right?

Adrian Noble30:26

Yes, it's all part of the modernisation, if you like, of the company. The Stratford Theatre, from the day it opened in 1932, has always been a very, very difficult beast. One of the very first actors who stood on that stage said it was rather like standing on the white cliffs of Dover talking to somebody in Calais. But also it's a fundamentally undemocratic theatre, by which I mean if you're a young person buying perhaps one of the cheapest seats, the first thing that happens when you walk in the foyer is you're sent outside, round the corner and up the back stairs, and you have to go up to the gods. So you're going to knock it down.

Adrian Noble31:05

We won't necessarily knock it down, but we will certainly make radical improvements, which may involve knocking some of it down.

Adrian Noble31:11

Yeah. Echo.

Presenter31:12

Uh

Adrian Noble31:12

Yeah.

Adrian Noble31:14

Just before I took over the RSC as artistic director, I had a few months, a few very happy months, out in the big wide world, and I went to the Aix en Provence Festival and directed Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen.

Adrian Noble31:30

And this is the Grand Chacon, the final dance choreographed in our production by an extraordinary French genius called Francine Lancelot.

Presenter32:36

Les Ars Florissant, directed by William Christie, playing the final dance from Purcell's Fairy Queen. You're such a company man, Adrian, that I doubt you're suitable fodder for a desert island, really, are you?

Adrian Noble32:47

I think I'd enjoy the first um month or so enormously. The the idea of the telephone not going, the idea of um a day that doesn't consist of about forty meetings that go on till about midnight. That just sounds like the idea of heaven to me.

Presenter33:02

But generally speaking, pretty hopeless without your wife, your children.

Adrian Noble33:06

Yes, that would be the the devastating blow, not not having my wife and children close to me all the time. That would be um crippling for me.

Presenter33:15

And of all the Shakespeare and you must know masses and masses of it by heart, you know, which which bit will you stand alone in the depths of your despair on the beach and declaim to the horizon?

Adrian Noble33:26

Prospero from The Tempest, standing on a desert island.

Adrian Noble33:32

Saying, We are such stuff as dreams are made on, And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Adrian Noble33:39

Last record.

Adrian Noble33:40

This is from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's the last great anthem from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Because of my children, this is the first play that my.

Adrian Noble33:50

Daughter Rose and my son Jude ever saw in their lives, and I'd like this song to remember them by.

Presenter33:58

Will we really go back to Narnia again someday?

Speaker 234:02

Yes, of course.

Speaker 234:04

Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia.

Speaker 234:10

Once Queen Narnia.

Speaker 234:12

Always a queen in knock

Speaker 234:20

A mid of mountains, a mid of water

Presenter34:26

Long live the Mountains, the finale of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. If you could only take one of those eight records, Adrian Noble, which would it be?

Adrian Noble34:34

It would be the Beethoven.

Presenter34:36

The Fidelia.

Adrian Noble34:37

And Fidelia.

Presenter34:37

Quartet. Perfect piece.

Presenter34:39

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Adrian Noble34:42

I would take a book by Francis Yates.

Adrian Noble34:45

called The Art of Memory. It's a wonderful book about Renaissance and Greek memory systems to enable me to conjure up in my mind all the things I might otherwise forget.

Presenter34:56

And your luxury.

Adrian Noble34:57

Well, I'm hoping there'll be some rather tasty seafood, so I'd like um a case or two of white burgundy, maybe a le Montraché, ninety-six perhaps.

Presenter35:06

Why not? Adrian Noble, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Adrian Noble35:11

Thank you.

Presenter35:19

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