Sue Johnston

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

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an actress. We probably know her best these days as one of the nation's favourite couch potatoes, dispensing endearing platitudes from her permanent position in front of the royal family's television set. Before that we saw her as the long suffering Sheila Grant in Brookside, the part which brought her to public attention in the first place. She was in her late thirties when she started appearing in the Merseyside soap. Before that she'd slogged it out in radical theatre groups and provincial rep, determined to fulfil the dreams she'd had ever since appearing in a school play at the age of fifteen.

Presenter1:04

Now the star of many different stage and television productions and the winner of an award for best comedy actress, she still lives for her work. I want to do it, she says, until I fall over on stage or become a Thora Hurd. She is Sue Johnston. So you still love acting just as much, Sue, do you? What is it that makes you love it so much, want to do it all the time? I think it's a lot to do with losing yourself, becoming somebody else. I find it maybe a bit like being a psychologist in that you have to dive into characters and find them out. But you've dived into so many grim characters really, it seems. Not only Sheila Grant who on Brookside went through the mangle endlessly, battered, bereaved, divorced, homeless, whatever, but you were the impoverished miner's wife in Brastoff, weren't you? And you were a sufferer from motor neurone disease in Goodbye, Cruel World. I wonder you've not been traumatised by this endless run of grim characterisations.

Sue Johnston1:51

Universal.

Presenter2:00

I've never been traumatized by it, and you know why? I think it's because it's like drama therapy. If I had something on Brookside to do, like I remember when I did the rape stuff, and it was pretty harrowing to do, and I had once been attacked, so

Presenter2:15

To relive that was quite frightening, and I didn't quite know how I'd behave. But in pouring it out, I suddenly felt relaxed about it. I always come away singing. I you can throw it off and think

Presenter2:28

Gosh, well, isn't it amazing? I haven't been raped. Isn't it amazing? I I'm not downtrodden. And isn't it great that my life is so much better? And aren't I a lucky girl? You talk about going into characters and becoming somebody else. And certainly one hopes that you're somebody else other than Barbara Royal, because

Presenter2:47

As to be said, glamorous she is not. It was written by is written, the Royal Family by Carolina Hearn. Did she ever say to you, Look, do you mind being so desperately unglamorous?

Presenter2:57

No, not she never said that. In fact, she said to me once, You've no vanity, have you?

Presenter3:03

And I thought, ooh, now is that a good thing or a bad thing? My mother would say it was a bad thing, but I actually think for an actress it's a very good thing. That's what's necessary for Barbara. And I remember that I've got those awful leggings and I had them on for every series and they got moth holes in them which got bigger and bigger and more and more. And Wardrobe kept saying, Is sure you don't want a new pair? But of course I didn't because Barbara would just pull those on in the morning, meaning to take them off later on, but never get around to it. And and no makeup, do you sort of go in there and take your makeup off?

Presenter3:37

Well, no,'cause it was too early in the morning to have put some on, but I I always called it make down, you know, that um as opposed to make up makeup, yeah.

Sue Johnston3:43

Bye.

Presenter3:45

But the big difference is that she's funny, although you don't play her funny, do you? You play her straight. Well, yes, she's.

Presenter3:53

She's another character that is totally real and then if you start playing the gags, you've lost it really. But it is amazing, it must have struck you as an irony, that a after playing all those grim characters we've mentioned that you end up winning a comedy award. I've never really thought of it as being a comedy. I know that sounds ridiculous. I know the whole thing is a comedy, but

Sue Johnston3:58

But I do

Presenter4:11

Working on Barbara, doing Barbara, is probably the realest thing I've ever done. You don't play her for comedy, don't play her for laughs. She has to be totally truthful and totally on the ball. So it was very strange to be nominated for a comedy, and even, well, even stranger to win it, but delightful, I have to say. Tell me about your first record. My first record, Love Walked In, it's Brooke Benton down to Washington. I'm not clear when this actual recording crept into my life. I feel it's always been there. I remember I did used to play it on the piano when I was young, so that my mother could sing it or I could sing it, and nobody wanted to listen to us, but we rather enjoyed it. And I just find it the most beautiful and touching record.

Speaker 44:57

Well love.

Speaker 45:00

Yeah.

Speaker 45:01

Right in and roll the shadows.

Speaker 45:07

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 45:11

Walked right in and brought

Speaker 45:14

My son is Dave.

Speaker 45:18

What a magic moment.

Speaker 45:23

And my husband.

Speaker 45:25

No,

Presenter5:27

Dinah Washington and Brooke Benton and Love walked in. You said, Sue Johnston, that The Royal Family is one of the most disciplined shows you've worked on. What do you mean by that? It may look as if we make it up on the spot and giggle a lot, but in fact it's extremely carefully written and Caroline is very strict. Carolina Hearn is very strict about us knowing those lines, those pauses, those oohs. They're all written in those scripts. But they're so long. Does she write in the length as well? I mean, I'm not complaining that they're so long. They're absolutely accurate, those silences. You have to be quite brave to allow those, don't you? You have to be very brave. And Ricky and I, I think, who've been brought up on television, come and, you know, it's not going anywhere, move it. You have to get up at this point because nothing's happening. This is Ricky Tomlinson, yeah. There's Jim. That's right. Wonderful character. And it's just that one camera that they're all kind of looking into, which is the television set. That's the brilliance of the concept, isn't it? That's how it appears, but it actually isn't like that. There's a cameraman kneeling on his knees with a camera on his shoulder all day long, blistered by the end of it, shooting it from all different angles. So we often do a scene about 10 or 12 times because there's so many of us in a room that we have to keep turning the angles round all that time. So it takes a long time. And where we might go on the floor and do a scene and all fall about laughing. And the crew will be giggling, the boomswinger will be shaking. And by the time we've done it twelve times, nobody's laughing at all. In fact, I don't think it's funny anymore.

Sue Johnston5:46

Carolina Hearn, yes.

Sue Johnston5:58

I mean that I

Sue Johnston6:15

Yeah, it's Jim.

Sue Johnston6:18

Yeah.

Presenter7:02

But how big a deal? Because you were in on it from the beginning, weren't you? Carolina Hearn had written it and she said she wanted you to be her mother and Ricky Dominson to be her mother. She recognised you, she chose you. Yes, yes. How difficult was it, because you were in on that process, to get that way of doing accepted by the people who were going to produce it? It was extremely difficult. She was trying to fight desperately to have it done.

Sue Johnston7:05

Thank you, Cal.

Sue Johnston7:10

Yeah, she's

Presenter7:26

As it was done, she was very much, it was like a peep show, that it was.

Presenter7:31

uh fly on the wall, that sort of stuff. But she was having to convince them, because it was comedy, that you didn't need a set, you know, you didn't need the multi-camera shoot and the audience.

Sue Johnston7:32

Hmm.

Presenter7:43

She wanted it to be just enclosed in that room. Very intimate. Very, very intimate. Yeah, and there was a great feeling that they were going well, when Barbara goes off to the cake shop

Sue Johnston7:46

Very

Sue Johnston7:47

Very, very good.

Sue Johnston7:50

Yeah.

Presenter7:55

We need to go with her and see. He said, Nope, nope.

Presenter8:00

However, we started the first to record the first one, and she'd sort of won half a battle, which was we did it in studio with no audience but multi camera. It was so appalling. We've never been treated to watching it.

Presenter8:14

because she buried it in her garden or her brother's garden, would not let anybody see it. It was she s said, You can't believe how bad it is. It's very I'd love to see it, it's very intriguing. And we were then put on hold for a month while they rethought and she rethought and um got her way.

Sue Johnston8:31

And

Presenter8:32

It works perfectly. What do you think it says about us that we like it so much, that we recognise it, as it were, as a slice of British life? Because they are.

Sue Johnston8:32

It works perfectly.

Presenter8:41

Pretty grotesque. Do you know, I find it terrifying that people say to me all the time, oh, it's just like my dad, just like my family. And I think, is that what we're all about in this country? And I'm talking about people from all cross-sections of life. I once met Prince Charles, you know, and he said, what was I doing? I said, oh, I'm in the royal family.

Sue Johnston8:55

Black

Presenter9:01

Not mine, surely. But I don't know, it's so well observed. What is nice about it is, for me anyway, it's so comfortable. I mean, they curl up on that sofa and nobody worries about anything. And none of them's very nasty, I think that's what it is. They love each other, I think that's a very important aspect to it. People have been known to cry because they have memories of that life with their families, of that comfort, that security and warmth that they've all shared. There's nothing nicer than curling up on the sofa with the people you love best, I think. Well, this is my teenage years because I'd always loved music like Love Walked In, romantic stuff, and then suddenly along came this Eddie Cochrane man, and I sort of woke up a little.

Speaker 49:50

I'm a boo-raiser bus, I'm a boo-razer hollow.

Speaker 49:56

I'm about to work in all summer just to try to own a thought.

Speaker 410:02

Every time I call my baby, try to get a date, my boss says. No doubt you gotta work late. Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do, but there ain't no cure for the summertime.

Presenter10:18

Eddie Cochrane and Summertime Blues and Back into Your Youth. I said you decided to be an actress when you first appeared i in a school play. Uh you were fifteen years old. What was the play? It was The Tinderbox. I played The Witch.

Presenter10:30

and funny that isn't it and just adored it. I felt as if somebody had waved a magic wand and everything had fallen into place. I remember the moment I'd fallen down and people were laughing and I just looked up and thought

Presenter10:45

I am so happy.

Presenter10:48

sort of like I'd gained a sense of

Presenter10:51

Myself being good at something. Did anyone else recognise it? My drama teacher, bless her heart, who was then Miss Potter, now Mrs. Sutton, and she was the one who said, You must do something with this. You've got a gift, you must do something. But was there any history in the family of theatre or performance, or were you taken a lot? Did you notice that?

Sue Johnston11:10

Well

Speaker 211:11

Uh

Presenter11:11

There was no history of anyone doing it, but I was certainly taken a lot, and lot to do with my godmother Lavinia, and it was our treat on my birthday every year in December. We'd go to the Playhouse Matine in Liverpool.

Presenter11:24

And she would take me to Lewis's cafeteria and we'd have roast chicken dinner and very posh and then we'd go to the matinee and it was such a lovely time. It was just so memorable, such treats. And so I had that influence. And then an awful lot of influence came from my mum and my aunties in Warrington. We used to go to Manchester to see the ballet. I think I must have seen Capella about five times when I was little. And your dad, who was a plumber, was not encouraging about all. He thought it was all a bit flighty, did he? These dreams of becoming an actress? I think he'd always been disappointed because he'd never had the opportunity to have education.

Presenter12:06

By the time he passed for the grammar school they'd run out of money for a uniform, so he had to go out and get a trade. He was always very sad about that.

Presenter12:15

He was um became a clerk of works.

Presenter12:19

But he loved literature too, and I think what his dream for me would be, this opportunity for me to go to university and perhaps do literature and do drama that way. But he lived to see your success, didn't he? Yes, yes. His major thing was that once he'd got into the idea that I could be successful, was to see me at the Royal Shakespeare Company, because he loved Shakespeare so much he could quote anything. And I think that would have been his dream. But he lived to see me get an award for Goodbye Cruel World, and he was very proud.

Presenter12:49

Next record. My next record is well, anybody listening will probably think this is an obvious choice. Um it's Jerry Marsden's You'll Never Walk Alone.

Speaker 412:59

When you want

Speaker 413:04

Through a storm.

Speaker 413:07

Hold your hand

Speaker 413:10

The pie.

Speaker 413:13

And uh

Presenter13:29

Jerry and the Pacemakers and You'll Never Walk Alone and memories for your island, Sue Johnston, of singing and swaying with the scarves on the cops. You're a passionate Liverpool sporty, yes. Passionate, yes. Was that your dad's influence? That was my dad's influence, yes. That and rugby league he used to take me to when I was being six, I think. He obviously longed for a boy. But that song you say you played even at your father's funeral, you know? I did. Yes. Tears all round.

Sue Johnston13:36

Yeah.

Presenter13:55

Oh yes, yes, even now it's just a very emotional and beautiful song. And Jerry is also part of my life and his wife was a great friend of mine. He used to go to the cavern with her. So there's so many tie-ups and I took I dragged my son to football from being seven or eight and I'm not sure that he was that interested, but he was dragged along and you will love this and you will sing you'll never walk alone.

Sue Johnston14:18

Uh

Presenter14:21

So you you left school at seventeen in a huff, I read. Walked out, did you? And didn't do your A levels? I didn't do my A levels, no, I left. What was the huff about?

Sue Johnston14:29

I don't know

Presenter14:30

I just knew in my heart that I wanted to be an actress and I had no clue as to how to do it. And the rebellion I think came in, well, I'm not going to do it from here.

Presenter14:41

So I just get out and see what there is out there. So you went to work in the Liverpool tax office? I went to work in the Liverpool tax office. But the cavern down the road, huh? Well, yes, things that lead you onto things. That's how I discovered the cavern. Yes, it was on the corner of Matthew Street. And the girls there, when I first started, said, We go down to this club. Do you want to come? So I went, okay.

Sue Johnston14:48

But the character down the road, huh?

Presenter15:04

And there were all these wonderful groups. There were the Beatles, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Jerry and the Pacemakers, the Big Three, the Mersey I mean, the list was endless. And I was

Presenter15:16

I was just in love. I thought, wow, this is fantastic And was there any sense that this was, you know, the the the seed bed of a revolution, as it were? I think when I first went the Beatles might have been away and they came back.

Sue Johnston15:19

Was it

Presenter15:28

And the minute I heard them,

Presenter15:31

I thought, these boys are extraordinary. This is just unbelievable. Did you? That's not the wisdom of hindsight.

Sue Johnston15:35

The

Presenter15:37

Oh no, no, we knew people would people had started then queuing overnight if the Beatles were on.

Sue Johnston15:37

You don't

Presenter15:44

And this was before they even Brown Epstein discovered them. And you knew them. And I knew them. I knew them eagles. I know. You knew Paul, I think, didn't you? I knew Paul and I knew Ringo. And you knew that. And I met the others to John Rotten. But didn't everybody?

Sue Johnston15:48

I knew them. I knew them easy.

Sue Johnston15:55

I don't know.

Presenter16:00

I couldn't bring myself to speak to him even.

Presenter16:03

You better have the next record. Well, it obviously has to be a Beatles, and it had to be Twist and Shout because.

Presenter16:09

I was there the very first day they performed it, and John Lennon came on stage and said

Presenter16:14

We've got a new tune.

Presenter16:17

And they played Twist and Shout and we erupted.

Sue Johnston16:28

SAY

Presenter16:51

Beatles and twist and shout and memories of being in the cavern and working in the tax office. From whence you moved to Pilkington's Glass Factory. But this this was to do with your dramatic ambitions, wasn't it? Yes. I knew that they'd just built a new theatre in St Helens. Uh the Glass Factory, Pilkington's Glass, had built this wonderful theatre for its

Sue Johnston17:02

Yeah.

Presenter17:10

amateur companies. So I thought if I got a job there I could be in their drama group. So I got a job in the welfare department and paying out the pensions to the old

Presenter17:19

Deers and and then I I went into the amateurs, their first production and they were casting and I got the lead. And I did this, I used to remember the matinees when all the deers had come in, you know, that I'd pay out the pension and they'd all be sitting there going, Oh, there she is

Presenter17:35

Sort of no sense of being in the theatre at all. They were just so lovely. But you were spotted. I mean, it turned out to have been the right thing to do. Absolutely the right thing to do. And offered you an acting job. Yeah.

Sue Johnston17:42

Absolutely not for you in there.

Presenter17:45

And funny enough, it was Duncan Weldon, well known now, huge impresario in the West End, and he offered me an acting ASM job, and I didn't hesitate. I was right there. And off you went then to London. You got a place at the Webber Douglas Academy to do your acting, despite your dad's opposition. I think mum signed the form. Yeah, that's right.

Sue Johnston18:00

Despite

Sue Johnston18:03

Yeah.

Presenter18:04

You said I felt like a working class girl in a rich man's world. But I mean this was the the swinging sixties in London and surely a Liverpool accent and to be working class was exactly you know where it was at, what you were supposed to be then. When I arrived it it was just happening. The Beatles were just happening. I teamed up with Agoko Val, Owen and Mike Lewis. The three of us used to cling together in our little working class accent trio. And one day Ray Fiego, who took over in my second term as principal, he said

Presenter18:39

Who here is working class? And we all put our hands up and he was like, We suddenly thought our chess went, Yes, we are and we've got accents like the Beatles and it all was sort of happening and then suddenly we were like the people who they wanted to know.

Sue Johnston18:58

Both

Presenter19:00

Well this I discovered I was on tour, I think I was in my early twenties. It was the first job I had from drama school and I stayed at a friend's flat in Cambridge and they had this record and I'd never heard it before and I played it and it just bowled me over and has done ever since. It's Tannhuizer.

Presenter20:15

Part of the Overture to Wagner's Tannhuizer, played by the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerd Albrecht. That'll get you going on your desert. A lot of passion in your life.

Sue Johnston20:23

Lotted.

Speaker 220:24

Yeah.

Presenter20:25

So fringe theatre, Sue, uh, rep touring, community theatre, education theatre, and so on, it all followed. Um but by this time you were in the second half of your thirties and although you'd been married you were a single parent and you had a little boy by then, Joel, who's it was when he was about three, I think.

Presenter20:44

And it was really his existence that led you to getting a northern agent and led you into soap, wasn't it? Yes, it's amazing how children change your outlook. I knew I had to get a job that was more responsible, paid better money, and had much more sociable hours that fitted around a child, really, because I was the one who was providing the security. So I decided I'd give it one year before he had to start going to school. And I got a Northern agent and did a bit of rep. And she sent me up for a coronation street. And I got three episodes, which was just fantastic. And while I was doing that, I got this audition for this thing called Brookside. This was 1982, because Channel 4 was about to launch, and Brookside was the big and different soap. That's right. Yes. So I walked in the room. There he was at the end of the room, this rather young, rather glamorous chap, not what I'd expected. And he was sat with the floppy hair and the eyebrows. And

Sue Johnston21:42

Phil Redmond.

Presenter21:47

He was sat with the casting director and he had to walk this long route.

Presenter21:51

which was quite nerve wracking. But he then started asking me about what I'd done, and was very challenging about theatre and education and and you know, socially aware work, which I'd done a lot of, and

Presenter22:03

And I sort of got a bit ratty with him. And a long time later he said,

Presenter22:08

I did that on purpose. I just had to see if you could rise to a challenge. He said that when I walked in he saw Sheila Grant. He recognized you straight off. He knew you were exactly the right person for the part.

Sue Johnston22:16

Yeah.

Presenter22:18

Yeah. Indeed you were. You said getting that job was a gift from God. It was. Why? Because I filmed from seven till seven.

Presenter22:29

But it was five days a week, then?

Presenter22:31

I had my weekends off. I moved where we filmed, which was near my mum where my mum and dad lived. So I could I bought a house just round the corner so they could pick up Joel from school if I wasn't there. I wasn't worrying about bills anymore. So my blood pressure went down considerably. And also a part that I just adored, and working with the Grant family, which I also adored. And you played her for eight years, Sheila Grant, and two husbands and

Sue Johnston22:56

Uh-huh.

Presenter22:58

And became a a household name because of course the the the lesbian kiss notwithstanding, it was actually your long drawn out affair, wasn't it, with uh what was his name? Billy Cork that had people glued to their screens.

Sue Johnston23:06

Billing

Presenter23:10

How big a decision, therefore, in the end, was it to quit?

Presenter23:14

huge. I think it almost made me feel

Presenter23:18

Ill.

Presenter23:20

That sounds very dramatic, but I the stress and the worry of whether I was doing the right thing. In fact, I'd started to think about it two years previously.

Presenter23:28

And then they'd give you a wonderful storyline, and then Phil let me out to do a play at Bolton Octagon. And so there were all these things that kept me ticking over for another two years. Then, when I knew John McArdle, who played Billy, was leaving, I thought, I can't let this character go through another loss, another set of weeping eyes. And so.

Presenter23:51

I decided I would leave.

Presenter23:54

But I felt guilty because Joel was eleven.

Presenter23:59

and I thought I might I might never work again, but I just knew in my heart I had to go.

Presenter24:05

Record number six.

Presenter24:07

Record number six. Well talking about my son, this is Paul Simons, you can call me Al. We've often gone to Italy together and my memory is of us driving through the Italian countryside with this blaring out on the cassette and the joy of finding that now he's grown up, he's got his own copy because he loves it too.

Speaker 424:28

I can call you daddy, and daddy, when you call me, you can call me out and call me out.

Presenter24:55

Paul Simon and you can call me Al. Well you won an award too for the uh the very first part you played after Brookside, uh Goodbye Cruel World for the BBC, another Barbara, but this one was in a wheelchair and and suffering from motor neurone disease. Obviously you decided to test yourself straight out of Brookside really because that was a hugely difficult part wasn't it? It was, but it was a wonderful experience because it had.

Presenter25:21

time after Brooks' side, which is which by the time I'd left was doing three episodes a week and it was punch him out, punch him out. So he had this time to think. It was an extraordinary challenge to get it right, to to feel that you were not letting anyone down, which I've always

Presenter25:36

rather like the responsibility of that, just tackling in depth things like that. But to see it work so well for all of us, for everybody got above the nomination.

Sue Johnston25:44

But everybody got a BAFTA nomination.

Presenter25:48

You've done so much since then, we can't n name them all obviously, but Six Chips and Rock and Roll and you did Duck Patrol with Richard Wilson and you've done theatre as well, Sugar, Sugar at the Bush and so on. Oh, The Play What I Wrote. Play What I Wrote. But you also did And The Mysteries. I have to mention The Mysteries at the National, which was just a

Sue Johnston25:52

Oh, yes.

Sue Johnston26:00

They watched it.

Sue Johnston26:03

And the nice

Sue Johnston26:05

Yeah.

Presenter26:07

A fantastic experience. But my uncle Silas, um, with with Albert Finney, you did for I T V, and and you played his hatchet-faced housekeeper, Mr Mrs. Betts, that um

Sue Johnston26:12

Yeah.

Presenter26:18

That again, I think, was a kind of fulfilment of a dream, wasn't it, playing opposite Albert.

Presenter26:23

Absolutely. When I was at school and my lovely drama teacher, Mrs. Sutton, took us all off to see Coriolanus at Stratford, starring Laurence Olivier. And we were all sat in the theatre and they announced that he wouldn't he'd broken his leg and he wouldn't be able to play and his understudy was on. And of course there was a total huge groan of disappointment through the audience.

Presenter26:47

And who should come on but the very young and the very delectable Albert Finney? And of course we were swooning by Act Two. Therefore he became my hero and I've loved what everything has done ever since. So when I was asked to play opposite him one, I was terrified and two, I was so excited and I told him, eventually told him this story said, Do you realize I was in my dressing room when you all went and I had to go on?

Speaker 427:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 427:11

And I had to go off.

Presenter27:13

And you've just finished another Waking the Dead with Trevor Eve for BBC. That that's I should remind people, because I know it's coming on again in the autumn, that that's you, if you'll forgive me, as Cracker in a Skirt, isn't it? You're the kind of crime profiler, Grimes.

Sue Johnston27:24

Yeah.

Presenter27:28

And not as dysfunctional as a character, so. No, no, she's she's the most together woman I've ever played. But also fascinated by sexual deviancy in the same kind of way.

Sue Johnston27:33

But I also have

Presenter27:37

Yes, based on I met for research a woman who does the job for the Met. She's a wonderful woman. She was a great inspiration for me because here was a total relaxed human being doing this extreme job. Record number seven.

Presenter27:54

This makes me want to cry and it makes me want to laugh. It's just a very special record with no.

Presenter28:01

It doesn't really make me it doesn't really belong to any era or any part of my life, it'll just always be in it.

Speaker 428:08

It was Christmas Eve there.

Speaker 428:13

And the drunk time

Speaker 428:17

When a man said to me.

Speaker 428:21

Don't say another one.

Sue Johnston28:22

They're not

Speaker 428:25

And then he sang a song.

Speaker 428:30

A Christmas Day

Presenter28:37

Fogues and Fairy Tale of New York. You go on holiday on your own, Sue, so your own company won't be a problem on this desert island, will it?

Sue Johnston28:41

Are you

Presenter28:44

Yes, I love going on holiday on my own, but I know I can come back. I think that's the little

Presenter28:49

tink at the end of it that makes me frightened that I think

Presenter28:53

Ooh, how long will I really be able to stand it? Because I wouldn't try and escape, you see, because I have a terror of being out of my depth in water. So I think that I would have to make a home there. Well, you'd be good. I mean, you're good at making home, at nesting. Oh, I'm very good at that. A bit like being on the royal sofa, really. Yes, I think it's a good idea.

Sue Johnston29:07

Oh, I'm very good at that.

Sue Johnston29:09

Yes, I'll make it.

Presenter29:12

I I will, and I'll be very good at my books and uh dancing about my records, but I think there will come a point where I know I need to be back amongst people and I don't quite know.

Presenter29:24

How I'll handle that, really. Well, I'd be fine, wouldn't I?

Sue Johnston29:27

Well, I'd be fine, wouldn't I? I know.

Sue Johnston29:31

Like

Presenter29:34

And of course you've got the complete works of Shakespeare, so you could learn all those parts you want to play. Absolutely. That I'm now too old to play, but never mind. Isn't there one? I mean, there isn't, as we know at the moment, any ongoing artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, so you couldn't be accused of touting for work. What would you really like to play?

Sue Johnston29:38

Parts you want to play.

Sue Johnston29:39

That I'm not

Sue Johnston29:41

Never mind.

Presenter29:51

I played Amelia once in a from the Fella, you know, Desdenones, when I was at drama school, and I've never played it since. And I always thought that that was a lovely part for me and still could play that. Last record.

Presenter30:04

Well, my last but by no means least record is Bob Dylan, and Bob Dylan was such an influence in my young student life. I still have Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll as one of my favourite poems. But I wanted to take something of his that was later. I just had to have something of his that would make

Presenter30:23

I know all the words to those others, and this one, it's not just the words, it's just the way he sings it.

Sue Johnston30:32

Lay lay ly lay

Sue Johnston30:35

Lay across my big grail space

Sue Johnston30:45

Lay lay lay

Sue Johnston30:48

Lay across my big breast baby

Presenter30:54

Bob Dylan and Lay Lady Lay. You can play that one on your desert island fantasize. Certainly can.

Presenter31:01

If you could only take one of those eight records, Sue, which one would you take? I'll have to take You'll Never Walk Alone for all the associations it has with me, my dad, my son, my mother, my friends in Liverpool, all that.

Presenter31:14

It has to be that one, I think. And what about your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Presenter31:19

I want to take Peter Aykroyd's book on Dickens. Because I love Dickens so much, I've had this book for seven years and I dip in and out of it, but I've never s had the time to sit and read it, and time is what I'm going to have a lot of. And your luxury.

Presenter31:36

Can I have radio five? I know it's an awful thing to ask on radio four, but Five Live. Five Live, because I feel it would be the greatest treat whenever I was lying on this desert island

Speaker 431:42

5.

Presenter31:52

Feeling sad and homesick, I would listen to their Friday night road reports about traffic on the M one and the M six, which I'm usually stuck in, and think, Hey, life ain't so bad here on this island.

Presenter32:07

Sue Johnston, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 232:18

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