Geoffrey Palmer

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

Mike Castaway this week is an actor. His mournful expression and rich voice have made him a household name. In television series such as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Butterflies with Wendy Craig, and more recently As Time Goes By with Judy Dench, his effortless seriousness has had the nation falling about with laughter. He's a late comer to such success. He joined the army after the war, drifted into the theatre because a girlfriend was keen on amateur dramatics, and then, when he was forty four, began getting parts in the West End and at the National Theatre alongside the likes of Ralph Richardson, Paul Schofield, Laurence Olivier, and John

Presenter1:07

Television had to wait until later. He was fifty before that part of his career took off. Now seventy seven, he's still acting. I like, he says, to play comedy that doesn't look like comedy. He is Geoffrey Palmer. So it's comedy, but you play it straight, Geoffrey. You get more laughs that way, do you?

Speaker 11:14

Yeah.

Speaker 11:14

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer1:26

Well, I don't know whether I get more laughs, but uh

Geoffrey Palmer1:29

It's the way I like to do it. I I hate the sort of uh comic actor who

Geoffrey Palmer1:34

Smiles or grins to show he's being funny, you know.

Presenter1:36

But you must have done it. You must have learned it in rep. I mean exactly how to do all of these sort of double takes and these obvious things to get the audience going.

Geoffrey Palmer1:43

Oh, yes, I did. I think I was absolutely appalling. I mean, I was never taught how to do it. I did it. I followed other people and and uh in weekly rep.

Geoffrey Palmer1:53

You learnt a lot of cheap tricks'cause you didn't really have time to, um

Geoffrey Palmer1:57

Learn the lines properly. And you learn what got a laugh. So you pulled, you did pull vases, and you did do monumental double takes.

Speaker 11:58

Yeah.

Presenter1:58

Then you're done.

Presenter2:00

You've caused

Presenter2:04

And upstaged people. I mean, anything, just

Geoffrey Palmer2:06

Well, I never did anything.

Presenter2:07

Yeah.

Presenter2:09

But was there a moment when you thought those are all cheap tricks, I'm not going to do them anymore? I'm now, you know, you've become a bit more classy about it, frankly.

Geoffrey Palmer2:16

I don't know that it was one moment. I think it was a slow progression through the years, being not very quick on the uptake probably. It took me a long while to find out, just have the truth, play it true, let everything else take care of itself.

Presenter2:24

Yeah.

Presenter2:30

But in As Time Goes By as Lionel to Judy Dench's Jean, you know, this couple, as everybody knows, who rekindle their youthful romance in in Middle Age and marry and settle down comfortably in suburbia no cheap tricks, you played it straight. But it does mean, doesn't it, that and it was the script has to be very good.

Geoffrey Palmer2:48

Absolutely, yeah. You know, I've been very lucky with the scripts I've had, you know.

Geoffrey Palmer2:52

David Knobbs, Carla Ain, Bob Larby. You don't get a lot better than that.

Presenter2:57

But it it it fits you like a glove. I remember one line in which um, accused by Jean of of not smiling at some witty remark she'd made, you said uh something like I I am smiling, it's just that my face refuses to cooperate. I mean, that's absolutely you, isn't it?

Geoffrey Palmer3:13

It's a good line, isn't it?

Presenter3:14

Yeah, but but it's true of Geoffrey Palmer is the point.

Geoffrey Palmer3:16

Yes, it is. Yes, I've spent years with truck drivers looking out of their cabs and saying, Cheer up, mate, it might not happen and all that, you know.

Geoffrey Palmer3:24

Um, okay, I've earned a living thanks to it, you know.

Presenter3:28

To the to the bloodhound look.

Geoffrey Palmer3:30

Yeah.

Presenter3:30

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer3:30

Yeah, very good.

Presenter3:31

But isn't one of the downsides of that that people have seen you working alongside Wendy Craig and Judy Dench as their kind of feed man?

Geoffrey Palmer3:40

You've said the dirty word, yes, yes. I do resent it bitterly, yes, when people have said for years. What's it like just being a feed to those clever ladies and not getting any laughs yourself? Rather arrogantly I would say, Well, listen to the show, or watch the show, and I think I get my share, really.

Geoffrey Palmer3:58

It does sound a bit arrogant, doesn't it?

Presenter4:00

And it's just that it's true, but because you're playing it straight, which is where we began this bit of the conversation, people think you're not getting the laughs. It's ridiculous.

Geoffrey Palmer4:10

Okay, yeah, fine.

Presenter4:13

What do you mean, fly?

Geoffrey Palmer4:14

Fine, fine. Well, yes, I'm happy with that. I'm very happy anyway. And in spite of the looks, I'm happy.

Presenter4:14

F

Presenter4:19

It's just your face isn't cooperating. Tell me about record number one.

Geoffrey Palmer4:24

Record number one is Alan Price singing Look Over Your Shoulder, which comes from the film Oh Lucky Man and I was lucky enough to be in that film and I just think it's wonderful. It's a wonderful combination of the sort of bitter cynicism of that film with that wonderful jumpy jumpy jumpy Alan Price tune, apparently cheerful and deeply cynical.

Speaker 34:47

When there's a bluebird singing by your window pane

Speaker 34:53

And the sun shines bright all day.

Speaker 34:58

Don't forget, boy, look over your shoulder, cause there's always someone coming after you.

Speaker 35:09

La la la la la.

Presenter5:16

Alan Price and Look Over Your Shoulder from the soundtrack of Oh Lucky Man, which you appeared in, Geoffrey Palmer, directed by Lindsay Anderson back in the early seventies. You must have felt you were hitting the big time then to work with Lindsay Anderson.

Geoffrey Palmer5:29

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer5:30

It was probably the most exciting

Geoffrey Palmer5:32

Period, I think, professionally, if that's what I have, a profession.

Geoffrey Palmer5:38

I was very lucky to get uh a part in a John Osborne play called West of Suez at the Royal Court, and Lindsay was the head man of the Triumvirate running the Royal Court when I did uh West of Suez.

Geoffrey Palmer5:51

While I was there I got to know Lindsay and then Lindsay did um Oh like a man and after me a bit in it. And it was a big, exciting, wonderful, wonderful and still is, I think, a wonderful film, a great director.

Presenter5:57

And it was

Presenter6:02

Great.

Presenter6:03

But it was after that, actually, as I said in the introduction, that you found your way into television. As I say, age fifty. It's amazing. It was quite late, really. But it's this was mid seventies, when you appeared with Leonard Rossiter in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Um you played a kind of hopeless ex army officer, didn't you?

Geoffrey Palmer6:22

Yes, very hopeless.

Geoffrey Palmer6:24

uh Jimmy, who who was s incompetent and uh a scrounger and uh just an idiot with sort of

Geoffrey Palmer6:32

fairly unhealthy right-wing tendencies but uh

Presenter6:35

But it was always, wasn't it, uh on the scrounge for food, cock up in the case we had.

Geoffrey Palmer6:38

Cock up on the catron front, yes. There's one of a few onions, any you know, anything, bit carrot, bit of bit of lamb chop, you know, joint, uh, venice, anything, you know.

Presenter6:40

Okay.

Geoffrey Palmer6:47

Um lovely, one lovely part, wonderful part.

Presenter6:50

But on the whole he he he was a a bit harmless. But you played a rather more alarming version of him, I think, in in what came shortly after was a fairly secret army. This was Major Harry Kitchener Wellington Truscott retired.

Geoffrey Palmer7:04

That was a

Presenter7:04

That was a kind of extension of Jimmie Anderson, wasn't it?

Geoffrey Palmer7:07

Yes, it was. I thought it was terrific. It didn't take off.

Geoffrey Palmer7:10

It was without an audience and when Channel 4 wasn't really doing comedy, you know, but.

Presenter7:15

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer7:17

A cult show, for those who remember it.

Presenter7:20

And one of your favourites. But he was, as you say, he was a suburban reactionary old F A R T really, wasn't he?

Geoffrey Palmer7:28

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter7:28

Wha why do you think you attracted these roles?

Presenter7:33

Now there's a leading question.

Geoffrey Palmer7:34

Why? Because that's what I look like and I'm

Geoffrey Palmer7:38

Middle class and uh not over bright perhaps. I don't know. No, I don't know how they

Geoffrey Palmer7:44

How it happened.

Presenter7:46

But is there a kind of disgusted Tunbridge Wells in you? I

Geoffrey Palmer7:49

I think there's probably a there probably is a bit of that. Yes, there probably is a bit. I can s I play that, so I use a

Geoffrey Palmer7:57

A facet of my personality to it. Or what you've seen around you. What I've seen around me. And I do can get into trouble with my wife's family for saying that I base all those characters on my late father-in-law.

Presenter8:00

I

Geoffrey Palmer8:11

But uh that's unfair and I don't mean it.

Presenter8:13

Good meaning.

Presenter8:14

But again, I mean, let me quote your character, Lionel, from as time goes by. You know, there's a marvellous moment when he's reading what's on television from the Radio Times. Remember this bit, when he says, eight PM, people shouting at each other, half past eight, people ruining other people's houses, nine o'clock, car crashes. Is that Geoffrey Palmer's view of television as well?

Geoffrey Palmer8:33

Pretty much. Yes. It's getting worse and worse, isn't it? Let's face it. As for redecorating my horrible room in Clapham, no, forget it. It's not what television's about. Come back, Lord

Presenter8:45

Record number two.

Geoffrey Palmer8:47

Record number two is um Fat Swallow. And this choice uh takes me back to when I was at school and actually to June the 6th, 1944. There must have been a break between classes and early on and everyone was walking up the road and uh suddenly there was a discharge. Have you heard? It's happened, it's happened, what's happened, haven't you heard? No. Well we've landed, we're in Normandy, we've land, you know.

Geoffrey Palmer9:10

And every one got quite excited, and then another boy wandered round and saying, Have you heard? Have you heard? Fat Swallow's dead.

Geoffrey Palmer9:17

And uh

Geoffrey Palmer9:18

It turned out that he was actually six months late with the news of Pats Wallace's death, but it seemed a nice sort of balance of priorities, I thought.

Speaker 39:28

When somebody thinks

Speaker 39:30

You're wonderful?

Speaker 39:33

What a difference in your day

Speaker 39:38

Do your troubles disappear?

Speaker 39:41

Like a feather in your way

Speaker 39:45

When somebody thinks

Speaker 39:47

You're wonderful.

Speaker 39:50

Held you with a smile so sweet

Speaker 39:54

What are little stones you're stepping on?

Presenter9:57

Fatswallah and When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful. So D Day and Fat Swallow, this was North London, Finchley, where you were born and brought up, the younger of two boys, Geoffrey. Your father was a chartered surveyor, and your mother was passionate about the theatre. What did your father think of the theatre?

Geoffrey Palmer10:14

He was a a wonderful man, and I was lucky to have had him for a father, but I mean he uh I think he was brought up to think the theatre was synonymous with vice, really. My mother liked music as well, but if she was listening to music, he'd say, Well, I think I'll go to bed now and then he'd come back, having cleaned his teeth or something, and say

Geoffrey Palmer10:33

You know, this Gilly or someone singing, he said, Well, Bleiter can sing and go to bed. I mean, absolutely infuriating as a husband.

Presenter10:40

Go.

Geoffrey Palmer10:41

And

Presenter10:42

But I'm out of here.

Presenter10:46

And she took you, didn't she?

Geoffrey Palmer10:47

And she took me.

Presenter10:47

What did you see with her? This would have been, what, during the war, post-war?

Geoffrey Palmer10:52

Oh yes, during during the war and post-war, I suppose. I saw with my mother Owen Nares, who was a f great matinee idol in the play Rebecca. I saw Ralph Richardson in Tyrone Guthrie's wonderful uh production of Pierre Gynt at the New in their great season after the war with

Geoffrey Palmer11:12

Olivier and Richardson. All sorts of things. I've forgetted.

Presenter11:15

It was obviously, I mean, you you remember it quite specifically, it was obviously making an impression.

Presenter11:20

Was it? Would there have been any stirring in you at that point?'Cause you'd have been what teen a teenager, wouldn't you?

Geoffrey Palmer11:26

Yes, no, no, absolutely no stirrings at all. I just thought I would just went to the theatre like people go to the theatre and l love it, that's all no.

Presenter11:31

Yeah.

Presenter11:33

You're kind of

Presenter11:35

Directionless, aren't you? You're drifting.

Geoffrey Palmer11:37

Absolutely, absolutely directionless.

Presenter11:39

So how does the theatre suddenly happen to you?

Geoffrey Palmer11:41

Do them.

Presenter11:41

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer11:42

Well, it doesn't really

Geoffrey Palmer11:44

quite suddenly happened. But I had a girlfriend at the time who was a member of the local Woodside Park Players, a local amateur dramatic thing. So because I liked her, I joined them and I'd done a couple of plays and around that time I met the cousin of a great school friend,

Geoffrey Palmer12:02

Who's an actor, a real actor?

Geoffrey Palmer12:05

And he seemed to be having a good time in life. He was always smiling, unlike me. And in some pathetic way, I think I thought, well, if I became an actor, I might laugh as much as him, you know.

Presenter12:18

And that was the beginning. We'll hear more, but let's have some more music. Number three.

Geoffrey Palmer12:23

Number three is uh the great Bunny Berrigan and his trumpet and his funny voice with I Can't Get Started. I remember my brother, who was three years older than me, having a sort of a party during the war, I suppose it was, and this was his favourite record, and it was probably just a few chums came round and

Geoffrey Palmer12:42

uh a wound up gramophone and this was played endlessly late into the night and I think my father must have heard this sort of thumping noise from upstairs and thought, Well, God help us, what are my children coming to?

Speaker 312:54

I've been consulted by Franklin D.

Speaker 313:00

And Reda Garbo.

Speaker 313:02

Have me dreaming.

Speaker 313:06

Still I'm brokenhearted Cause I can't get started with you

Presenter13:23

That was Bunny Berrigan and I Can't Get Started. So eventually, Geoffrey Palmer, you became an ASM assistant stage manager at Croydon Grand. This is the late forties. What what was Croydon Grand like, the theatre? Describe it to me.

Geoffrey Palmer13:36

Croin Grand was a very, very beautiful theatre. It was a matcham, prank matcham theatre, a beautiful theatre with uh all the shelves, you know, and circling gallery.

Presenter13:44

Once

Geoffrey Palmer13:45

The standard work wasn't probably all that wonderful, but how can it be in putting on a play every week for I don't know how long the season was. Cyril Fletcher, who died recently, used to do the pantomime for six weeks, but otherwise the company was there the rest of the year, doing a different play every week.

Presenter14:03

And did you get to do any or or were you doing something else as ASM?

Geoffrey Palmer14:07

You know, as a as an ASM you you play the little parts as well. So, um, I think I did about eighteen months and then I was taken into the company as juvenile character man. There's a juvenile who played the romantic leads and the juvenile character man who played

Speaker 314:17

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer14:23

The planar parts.

Presenter14:23

You're obviously showing some talent at this point.

Geoffrey Palmer14:27

Well, it was nothing else on off performing, probably, I think, didn't it?

Geoffrey Palmer14:30

But that was the way a way in. I mean, people there were drama schools, but you didn't have to go to drama schools then.

Presenter14:32

Yeah.

Presenter14:35

A marvellous apprenticeship. Oh, wonderful. Just learning it on the hoof.

Geoffrey Palmer14:39

Absolutely wonderful. Nothing better. And you watch the better people. You know, you watch the

Presenter14:39

Uh

Presenter14:41

Anyway

Geoffrey Palmer14:43

Grown-ups doing it.

Presenter14:44

Much more demanding than television, do you think? Because of course that's how actors and actresses learn the trade now, the craft.

Geoffrey Palmer14:52

No way to learn a craft, is it really? But um

Presenter14:55

It's name.

Geoffrey Palmer14:57

Well, not through television. I mean, ultimately you're going to be uh you know, you sort out the sheep from the goats by putting someone on stage, don't you?

Presenter15:05

But you ended up in television, and as I understand it, your first role on television wasn't in drama at all, was it? You starred alongside Richard Dimbleby.

Geoffrey Palmer15:13

Hardly. It was a series called Round Britain that Richard Dinwobby did, and he went to different parts of Britain, and he went there with a camera crew and film people in location. And then, as far as I discovered with my one contribution, in the old Limegrove studios, they would get two or three key people to do little bits in the studio. And I was employed.

Geoffrey Palmer15:38

as the mate on a little

Geoffrey Palmer15:42

boat going between the Scilly Isles and

Geoffrey Palmer15:45

It was just a mock up over the sort of cabin of a boat, and I was at the wheel, and next to me was Richard Dimbleby, and on the other side was the skipper, and Dimbleby

Presenter15:54

The real skipper.

Geoffrey Palmer15:55

The real skipper of the real boat, who'd been brought up from the the West, um who was probably he was okay. I never saw the Ultimate programme, but um uh he was obviously okay with on location round his in his boat. But in the studio he was gibbering and um Dimbleby asked him a question and he just

Speaker 116:08

He was in chimpanzee.

Geoffrey Palmer16:14

Clammed up totally and couldn't speak.

Presenter16:16

But you were just the prop behind the real.

Geoffrey Palmer16:18

I was at the wheel looking at no lines, no, no, nothing to do with it.

Presenter16:20

No lines.

Geoffrey Palmer16:23

That was my first appearance on television. I think I don't know what I got. Thirty shillings or, you know, two pounds, two guineas or something. But I did get a bunch of daffodils afterwards because they there was another scene in the studio with people with all the daffodils that had been brought up. So

Geoffrey Palmer16:41

Obviously I didn't get enough money, so to keep me quiet they gave me a bunch of defidence. But that was my first television.

Presenter16:47

A record number four.

Geoffrey Palmer16:48

And record number four is Brahm's Nenia. I first heard this driving to work.

Geoffrey Palmer16:55

And I remember hearing this and being fairly overwhelmed by it and uh when I next came to a stop uh writing down what it was and bought it.

Speaker 317:27

Oh God, this grace.

Presenter17:56

Part of Brahm's Nenia with the Berlin Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abardo. So after Dimpleby and Limegrove at Geoffrey Palm, you appeared in the Army game, in a whole string of variety shows, sketch shows. I mean, what what were they? What what were you doing?

Geoffrey Palmer18:12

Well, they were interspersed with um doing um going back to Croydon for the odd week or doing a play at Leatherhead and Canterbury and things. But I mean, if you appeared in a sketch for some director, you would appear in a sketch for another director, you know, they say, Oh well, he can do it a bit, you know, or whatever.

Presenter18:27

So you were the kind of feed man in the sketches world?

Geoffrey Palmer18:30

Well yes, doing little sk yes, being with the police.

Presenter18:32

You were the policeman or the man in the kitchen.

Geoffrey Palmer18:33

Yes.

Presenter18:34

Paul. So y y y your face, of course, would have begun to be very familiar to us, but you we wouldn't have known your name.

Geoffrey Palmer18:41

Well yeah. In fact there was a there was um a Know the Face but and there were a whole lot of a whole lot of us who played Little Bits and in the Radio Times or the T V Times I remember years ago. Probably in the attic there's a copy of it because look isn't he getting on, you know. Um and it was t for being in Little Bits.

Presenter18:52

Yeah.

Presenter18:59

So you were really kind of archetypal jobbing actor, weren't you? You took the next thing that was offered, that's how you made a living and kept body and soul together and the family and children by this stage. Did anyone ever suggest to you that you should sort of think more strategically and become a bit more choosy, kind of elevate, raise the game?

Geoffrey Palmer19:18

Yes, I mean yes. I mean, around that time b well, before I was married, I shared a flat with um Michael Blakemore, a frightfully distinguished Australian who's done quite well as a theatre director in this country, and he was then just an actor. And

Geoffrey Palmer19:32

Michael used to wait around our flat in the wrong end of Chelsea and wait for the big job to come. And he said, Geoffrey, you do so much rubbish. You shouldn't do it. It's not doing your name any good. And I said, Michael, I want to earn a living and I haven't got a name, you know. And it was just two totally different ways of approaching the business. You want one person waiting for the right job to come along and the other saying, sorry, I'm a jobbing actor. I'll take the next job that turns up. And that's basically what I've done.

Presenter19:58

It's your

Presenter19:58

Yeah, but it paid off for the I mean, you played a very long game, but it took a week.

Geoffrey Palmer20:02

Yeah, so it took a week or two.

Presenter20:04

Yeah.

Presenter20:05

Record number five.

Geoffrey Palmer20:06

Record number five is the third of Schumann's three romances. Funnily enough, I heard this again in my car and listening to Sue Lawley and John Schlesinger on this very programme. John Schlesinger I had the privilege of working with.

Geoffrey Palmer20:24

But that's when I first heard it, and I thought that's wonderful. And if you don't mind repeating it, I'd like it too.

Presenter21:27

Part of the third of Schumann's three romances, with Albrecht Meier playing the oboe and Markus Becker the piano.

Presenter21:34

Laurence Olivier was running the National and saw you at the Royal Court in that play we were talking about west of Suez and and and offered you a part. How did it happen that he came to offer you a part?

Geoffrey Palmer21:45

My agent rang up and said, There's a script coming from the National Theatre, and I thought, God, that's amazing.

Presenter21:48

Theatre

Geoffrey Palmer21:51

And she said, it's Eden End, the old J.B. Priestley play that Sir Lawrence was going to direct for Priestley's 80th birthday. And.

Geoffrey Palmer22:02

She said, Part in it I said, What part?'Cause I'd done it years before at Croydon.

Geoffrey Palmer22:07

And uh she says, Well, it's called Geoffrey and I said, Oh, God, I remember I said, It's a really, really, really boring part I said It's it's like a Cyril Raymond part, like, you know, the husband in Brief Encounter and my agent said

Geoffrey Palmer22:21

Darling, Cyril's dead, and there's a lot of work in those parts. So I said, Okay, fine, I'll wait for the script. And the script came and then.

Geoffrey Palmer22:29

I was waiting for the summons to uh perhaps go and see Sir Laurence Olivia.

Geoffrey Palmer22:34

And my wife was got flu or something in bed and I was cleaning out the grate of the fire one morning and the phone went and she answered upstairs.

Geoffrey Palmer22:43

And suddenly there was this rather false sort of voice saying, Jeff, Jeff And Yeah, what is it? And she said, It's Lawrence Olivia So I thought, ooh, so I picked up the phone and this very smooth voice

Presenter22:55

He believed it was him.

Geoffrey Palmer22:56

I believed it was him, but there but I also thought which of my friends can do this imitation that well? And he said, Mr. Palmer, my dear fellow, I know your work awfully well. I don't I don't want to waste your time coming in here, you know, to um see me. If you'd like to play these scenes off Sit Johnny, I'd be very grateful, lovely to welcome you to the company. And I st Oh, Sir Lauren says, Well, thank you, thank you very much, and I put the phone down. I thought, Oh, God, I didn't call him a lord, he's a lord now and all that, you know, but uh anyway, that's how I

Presenter23:26

You are totally seduced.

Geoffrey Palmer23:28

Totally. Well, I was by him anyway to work with. I thought he was wonderful.

Presenter23:32

But presumably that's how he got so many people to he just couldn't be bothered to audition you, huh?

Geoffrey Palmer23:36

Well, that's right. I think so. I mean, he he thought, well, he can play this part. Why waste my time? Well, he wasn't concerned with my time.

Presenter23:43

And it's a Cyril Raymond part anyway.

Geoffrey Palmer23:44

This chap obviously plays Boring Man, you know.

Presenter23:45

This chap obviously

Presenter23:47

Ah!

Presenter23:48

But it was a great break. I mean, there you were what would you have been then, mid forties, wouldn't you? And you end up would you'd begun by then playing with these giants that you'd watched on the stage with your mother.

Presenter24:00

There must have been a moment when you thought, actually, I'm quite good at this.

Geoffrey Palmer24:08

Um I don't know. No, never. I don't know. Well, I don't well, you you only think that when you watch other people and you think, God, he's crap, how did he get that part? I could do that. Those are the moments of arrogance. But when you d not often sometimes, not often, do you think that?

Presenter24:10

No, never.

Geoffrey Palmer24:23

I mean, I still look back and think, I worked for Sir Laurence Olivier, I worked.

Geoffrey Palmer24:29

With and for John Gielgud, I worked twice with Ralph Richardson. I worked with Paul Schofield.

Geoffrey Palmer24:37

Not a bad batch to work with, is it?

Presenter24:40

Record number six.

Geoffrey Palmer24:42

Benny Goodman and his orchestra did this extraordinary concert at Carnegie Hall live January 1938. And afterwards someone said, Hey, this should have been recorded and Goodman said, Well, actually I think they did and they'd slung a mic over the orchestra and two wax sets were made, apparently. One went to the Congress Library.

Geoffrey Palmer25:02

And the other disappeared, and twelve years later, approximately, Benny Goodman's daughter, wandering round the house, went into a cupboard or closet and said, Hey, Dad, what's this? And this is it. This is the the sound that's there, one o'clock jump, terrific.

Presenter26:08

Benny Goodman and One O'Clock Jump recorded live at Carnegie Hall in nineteen thirty eight. So at the same time as leading this incredibly glamorous theatrical existence, Geoffrey, you you've lived in a very conventional life, as you've indicated in in Buckinghamshire with your wife and family. But I presume you know people, as we've said, who

Presenter26:32

resemble Dionel or Jimmie Anderson or whatever. Have you sort of felt part of them all at the same time as portraying them, or have you always felt outside them?

Geoffrey Palmer26:44

Um outside them I think. I mean it's uh I I I I can't join that thing of oh, I I go home and I'm such hell because I'm still playing the part, you know. I may be hell because I'm tired or neurotic about what I've got to do tomorrow, but I'm not carrying the part around with me. No, it's a job. You just

Geoffrey Palmer27:06

Put it on

Geoffrey Palmer27:07

Not like a glove. I mean it takes

Geoffrey Palmer27:10

some time to make the glove fit or make me fit the glove. Let us

Presenter27:15

But I'm just thinking about the people you live among in in in the home counties and they w they will be the accountants and the chartered surveyors and the bank managers as well as the actors. I wonder if you feel an outsider to them, as if you're not quite a fit, or whether they think you're

Presenter27:34

A bit suspect'cause you're an actor.

Geoffrey Palmer27:36

I don't I think they think he's a old good old Palmer, sort of bit of a novelty, you know, n um and ac accepted now. I mean when um

Presenter27:44

Well, you're a national treasure now, but I mean in the beginning, you know

Geoffrey Palmer27:46

Yeah.

Geoffrey Palmer27:47

But in the beginning it was a very different story. I mean we got married in 1963 and moved out to not the same house but to Buckingshire Very Nier in the autumn of 1963 and I was in a play in London and was in it for 15 months or something. And it was very much the days of most people had security of job tenure, you know. And I know if my wife was taking the babies to the WI or Tupperware coffee mornings or all those ghastly things, it was, oh, and your husband's an actor. You know, what's he doing? Well, he's not actually doing anything at the moment. Well, after the play was off, obviously.

Geoffrey Palmer28:26

He's not doing anything. No, he's not. Oh, he's resting. And everyone's so thrilled that they know the word resting, like they know the word lovey, which.

Geoffrey Palmer28:35

No act to use it, either of'em, but still.

Geoffrey Palmer28:38

And they would say then say, Oh, but what's he doing next?

Geoffrey Palmer28:42

to which my wife, or if it was to me, uh one has to say uh no, I haven't got a job.

Geoffrey Palmer28:49

No, but what's the next job? I haven't got a next job.

Geoffrey Palmer28:54

You mean you don't know what you're going to do next? Exactly. I have no idea. As far as I know, there is no job on the horizon ever.

Geoffrey Palmer29:02

But something will happen, we hope.

Geoffrey Palmer29:04

And they used to freeze and back off like you were a leper, you know, really.

Geoffrey Palmer29:09

Couldn't quite understand sort of tramp old boy, you know.

Presenter29:12

And now

Geoffrey Palmer29:14

And now, well, nobody's got security and

Presenter29:17

But now you're good old Palmer says forgotten.

Geoffrey Palmer29:18

No, I'm good old farmer and I know them and I drink their drink and they drink mine, so it's all right.

Presenter29:22

Sure.

Presenter29:24

Record number seven.

Geoffrey Palmer29:26

Uh record number seven, um for no good reason at all except that it's wonderful, no associations. Um Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Presenter30:38

Part of the Adagio from Beethoven's Ninth, played by the orchestra of the eighteenth century, conducted by Franz Brueggen.

Presenter30:44

Um you've recently been, of course, Geoffrey, the voiceover in Grumpy Old Men. Do you do you class yourself as one of them?

Geoffrey Palmer30:51

Um there's an affinity, probably. Yes.

Presenter30:55

You have made in the end. I mean we we've described this sort of gentle drift.

Presenter31:01

into stardom, but you, you know, had a a marvellous career or still have. Did did your father, who thought the theatre synonymous with vice

Presenter31:11

live to see your great success?

Geoffrey Palmer31:13

No n no, not really, and nor did my mother well, my mother did a little bit.

Geoffrey Palmer31:19

They used to come my father used to come down with her to Croydon and uh Leatherhead and was b wonderfully supportive. I mean, my father was wonderfully supportive and my mother of course, but no, they didn't. They didn't.

Geoffrey Palmer31:30

And um as someone had said, because I recently got um catching up with other people, I got a OBE and as people said, God, your mother and father would have been absolutely thrilled, you know. Um

Geoffrey Palmer31:44

But yeah, they were they were very supportive, but they didn't really see the the kind of breakthrough at all, you know. So my father probably went to his grave thinking, Nice chap, pity he didn't get a qualification.

Speaker 331:50

Hmm.

Presenter31:58

Last record.

Geoffrey Palmer32:01

The last record is the third please of the four last songs sung by Jossin Omeg.

Presenter33:09

I'm Schlaffengen on Going to Sleep, third of Richard Strauss's four last songs, sung by Jesse Norman with the Leipzig Gewanthaus Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Mazur. It's wonderful stuff, isn't it? Geoffrey has put you in the mood to lie down on your desert island.

Geoffrey Palmer33:20

Well

Geoffrey Palmer33:22

Lie down on a desert island.

Presenter33:25

Now if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Geoffrey Palmer33:30

Well, I think I've got enough there to

Geoffrey Palmer33:33

To cry over and be.

Geoffrey Palmer33:35

melancholic over. So

Geoffrey Palmer33:38

It has to be the Benny Goodman.

Geoffrey Palmer33:40

Because I think

Geoffrey Palmer33:42

I could sort of jig around in the sand and

Geoffrey Palmer33:46

pretend to be bright and happy all on my own.

Presenter33:49

What about your book?

Geoffrey Palmer33:51

This is a bit of a problem.

Geoffrey Palmer33:53

Because I want the Oxford Book of English Verse, the Quillacouche.

Geoffrey Palmer33:58

I want the Quellicouch'cause I don't like the later ones. So I'm wondering if p if I ask nicely if I could have the Oxford Book of twentieth Century English verse Philip Larkin stapled to the back to make one.

Geoffrey Palmer34:14

Would that be all right?

Presenter34:14

Just to extend it a bit.

Geoffrey Palmer34:16

Yeah, we make it, yes. I mean, it's still only

Geoffrey Palmer34:20

Really? Turn your book of

Geoffrey Palmer34:22

English verse, isn't it?

Presenter34:24

Believe you, Geoffrey?

Geoffrey Palmer34:25

Thank you.

Presenter34:26

I think you're smiling. And what about your luxury?

Geoffrey Palmer34:29

Well, my luxury will have to be I'll have to go into exactly what I would need. It w it would it would be a fly fishing rod.

Geoffrey Palmer34:36

So that I could uh entertain myself, because it's my great obsession. I only work now if it doesn't interfere with

Geoffrey Palmer34:45

Fly fishing. And I could do that and catch all sorts of amazing fish.

Geoffrey Palmer34:50

go into sort of sushi and stuff, you know, to look after my body.

Presenter34:55

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

Speaker 135:08

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