Sir David Frost

Speaker 30:00

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

My Castaway this week is a broadcaster. For ubiquity and longevity he has no equal. He is as famous on BBC television as the BBC logo itself. He started in the sixties, straight out of Cambridge, with a satirical show called That Was the Week That Was. It and the spin-offs that succeeded it defined the age in which they were made. Their presenter continued to grow with the Times, moving from satire to mainstream current affairs, interviewing the country's and indeed the world's most famous men and women, a man with a guaranteed entrance ticket to everything that mattered. His last big BBC programme was his famous Sunday Breakfast Show, a role from which he retired earlier this year.

Presenter1:10

With typical appreciation of what to morrow might bring, he's now joined the Middle Eastern station Al Jazeera International. I don't think I am a retiring person in either sense of the word, he says. My ambition is always to find the new frontier. He is, of course, Sir David Frost. Eyebrows shot up, David, at the idea of Frost on Al Jazeera. Why would you want to go there?

Sir David Frost1:33

Well, the thing is it's really people's reaction was was really rather exciting. They were sort of intrigued, this is cutting edge and so on. Obviously you need to explain that there's Al Jazeera Arabic, you know, which

Presenter1:44

You're not going to speak in.

Sir David Frost1:45

Not going to speak in it. I'm not going to speak in it. That's one thing. And there's Al Jazeera International, which is really their attempt to create a new CNN. So that made it, as per what you said, a frontier that I wanted to explore.

Presenter1:59

But you famously commuted in the sixties twice a week to uh New York. You're not going to commute to Qatar to do this.

Sir David Frost2:05

No, no, alas not. The studios are not on the outskirts of London, but the Al Jazeera studios are at number one Knightsbridge.

Presenter2:14

Oh really?

Sir David Frost2:14

The Lanesborough next door is the canteen. Not bad, eh?

Presenter2:18

Not bad at all. Did you have any concerns? Why eyebrows shoot up?

Sir David Frost2:19

And uh

Presenter2:22

Is that obviously Al Jazeera itself has been talked about as glorifying terrorism as having.

Presenter2:29

Celebrated suicide bombers showing beheadings.

Sir David Frost2:33

Yeah, the showing beheadings turns out definitely not to be true. But I checked out the whole thing with senior people in London and Washington and senior Jewish friends and so on and so forth. And I got the absolute clearance from them all that Al Jazeera is clean in terms of links with terror.

Presenter2:36

Okay.

Presenter2:51

But it's known to have links with Al Qaeda. I mean, w is there somewhere in the back of your mind one day you might get an interview with Osma Bin Laden?

Sir David Frost2:58

Well, I think that's a very difficult one. I don't know that I'd do that, because suddenly your your duties as a citizen

Sir David Frost3:05

you know, cross with your duties as a journalist. You know, really, I mean, you should perform a citizen's arrest rather than an interview. Uh

Presenter3:14

Boom.

Sir David Frost3:14

How you get out of there is another matter. But but I mean

Presenter3:17

But you're going to do that. You're doing more single interviews for the BBC. You're still doing through the keyhole.

Sir David Frost3:21

See ya.

Sir David Frost3:23

Oh yes, and that's sacred. Sacred through the keyhole. Absolutely sacred. David. And you're 66 years old. You're going to be.

Presenter3:24

And that's

Presenter3:26

Through the keyhole. Absolutely. You're 66 years old. You're going to be rich and famous until the day you die. And people will be thinking, why does he want to go on to what more has he got to preach?

Sir David Frost3:36

He must love it, they must think. I still get the same buzz when I wake up with a show to do. Do you? Yes, same buzz as ever. Perhaps more so. Goes back to my parents, I suppose, about not wasting time. That was one of the things, the Methodist things, you know. Not to waste time and your talents, you must use them to the full and all of that. So it's a bit of the old Puritan.

Presenter3:41

Do you?

Speaker 33:42

Uh

Presenter3:43

Perhaps not.

Presenter3:54

Which is what you've done, and we're going to hear all about it. But first of all, we force you to take time out. We force you to sit in a deck chair on Desert Island. I know it's anathema to you. Tell me about the music. What's the first piece you want to hear?

Sir David Frost4:04

Well, we used to listen to Noel Coward in those days. This is probably his classic and uh what great lyrics. Mad Dogs and Englishman.

Speaker 14:12

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out to the midday sun. The smallest melee rabbit deplores this foolish habit in Hong Kong. They strike a gong and fire of a nonday gun to reprimand each inmate who's in late. In a jungle town where the sun beats down, to the rage of men and beasts, the English garb of the English submiller gets a bit more creased. In Bangkok at twelve o'clock they foam at the mouth and run. But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday, out to the Midday, out to the midday, out to the midday, out to the midday, out to the midday, out to the midday, sun

Presenter4:40

No Coward and Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and that was recorded live in nineteen fifty five.

Sir David Frost4:45

Yes, and when I uh talked to him in about sixty eight, I talked about this Bad Dogs and Englishman and I said to him, The perfect thing about Mad Dogs and Englishmen is the rhyming, isn't it really?

Sir David Frost4:55

And Coward said, oh.

Sir David Frost4:57

I don't think it's the only perfect thing about it.

Sir David Frost5:01

And I said, What are the other perfect things about it? And he said, Well, it's a bloody good tune.

Sir David Frost5:06

I mean that's it.

Presenter5:06

It's absolutely right.

Presenter5:08

Let's go back to the sixties. Bernard Levin, writing about the sixties at the end of the sixties, said that you were the man of the sixties, David. And let me quote you what he said. I'm sure you know what he said, but let's tell everybody else

Sir David Frost5:19

Maybe the bit that I memorize.

Presenter5:22

He said he divined by a remarkable instinct what the age demanded. Did it feel like that at the time? Did you feel kind of exasperated with the establishment and so on, or were you just poking fun and having fun?

Sir David Frost5:36

From 1956 to 62, we were all, including us as audience, wanting a show in fact, like that was the week that was, though we didn't know it. But from the moment of Look Back in Anger and Suez, we were all fed up with the fag end of the Conservative rule and them saying that they were our elders and our betters and people were wanting at the end of the 50s, the boring old 50s, they were wanting very much something fresh and so on. So we were...

Speaker 15:59

Yeah.

Sir David Frost6:01

without knowing it really, I suppose, reflecting in our feelings and our anger and so on, what the audience was.

Presenter6:09

Huge audiences as well, weren't you?

Sir David Frost6:10

Yes, I it started with two and a half million and went five, six, seven, nine, twelve within six weeks.

Presenter6:16

People made a date with it. Everybody talked about it. It was the time when people did stand in pubs talking about what was on the television.

Sir David Frost6:17

Yeah, everybody.

Sir David Frost6:21

Oh yes, there was this guy from the Salvation Army who said to me, Mr. Frost, you've done what we could never do, and empty the pubs on a Saturday night.

Presenter6:30

Uh

Presenter6:30

But the story goes that you were actually plucked for that job by Ned Sherin out of the Blue Angel Club in Mayfor Fair, a strip joint, where you were doing a one-man stand-up, is that right?

Sir David Frost6:42

That's right, yes. It wasn't quite a strip drink, but it was a sort of Hooray Henry's nightclub. Yes. And Ned came down one night and we had lunch in the next day in Bertarelli's in Shepherdsbush Green and it all really started from there.

Presenter6:55

Mm. He just he booked you then and there. Of course you you were criticised by all the right people, Mary Whitehouse and the clergy and MPs on both sides of the house. Wonderful. You were poisonous and filthy.

Sir David Frost7:03

Wonderful. Oh yeah, there's a wonderful thing. There was a thing that the paper that took longest to realize that people were associating with the BBC because of that was the week that was, was The Express. And Robert Pittman, their leading polemicist, did a series in

Sir David Frost7:21

One of my proudest exhibits really is a series called The Hate Makers, Number One, David Frost. And at the bottom it said, Tomorrow Bertrand Russell. If you're twenty-three and it's tomorrow Bertrand Russell, you know, the next day was John Osborne and Punch commented, it sounds like a rather nice club to belong to.

Presenter7:36

The next day was John Osborne.

Speaker 37:38

Uh

Presenter7:42

But isn't it the case? I mean, Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister at the time, w was one of your greatest targets, obviously.

Sir David Frost7:47

Yeah.

Presenter7:47

But it was he, was it not, who stopped you from being taken off air?

Sir David Frost7:51

What happened was that in the third or fourth show, it was a cracker of a show, and the next day the Postmaster General who was in charge of broadcasting then, a guy called Reginald Bevins, said, I'm going to stop these disgraceful sketches.

Speaker 18:01

But

Sir David Frost8:05

And so we waited for the the reverb on the Monday and so on and nothing happened.

Sir David Frost8:11

And thirty years later, when the papers for that year came out, it said how Reginald Revins had said on that Sunday, I'm going to stop these disgraceful sketches and on his desk on the Monday morning had been a note from the Prime Minister saying,

Sir David Frost8:26

Oh, no, you're not.

Sir David Frost8:28

It's better to be mocked than ignored. H.

Sir David Frost8:32

So we never knew that until thirty years later.

Presenter8:35

Mechanical number two.

Sir David Frost8:36

Number two is uh

Sir David Frost8:38

A dear friend, Elton John, and this is the first time I met Elton doing the show in New York in nineteen seventy. And he'd just broken through in America, and he'd got his number one

Sir David Frost8:51

First number one hit, and it was this one.

Speaker 38:54

And you can tell everybody.

Speaker 38:58

This is the sound.

Speaker 39:01

It may be quite simple but

Speaker 39:05

Now that it's done

Speaker 39:08

I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind.

Speaker 39:17

I wonder for life while you're in the world.

Presenter9:23

Elton John and your song. It was then, David, overnight stardom for you really, wasn't it? It all happened. You were not only where it was at, you were at the centre of where it was at. Did you feel comfortable with that from the beginning?

Sir David Frost9:37

Yes, it it came naturally. Well, it's a nice thing to come naturally, obviously, but it it happened so quickly, uh, as you said.

Presenter9:43

But the reason I ask the question is is that it's so different from where you came from. Your father was a Methodist preacher in Kent, wasn't he? You were a bit of an afterthought. Your two sisters were much older, weren't they?

Sir David Frost9:53

Yeah.

Presenter9:54

I mean

Sir David Frost9:54

I was an accident, I think, not even an afterthought. My father never earned more than £750 a year.

Presenter9:57

How are you?

Sir David Frost10:01

in his life, obviously. So I never never will realize how we had a joint every weekend. Not on a Sunday,'cause Sunday was so busy. And uh and in fact, until I was eighteen and went to Cambridge, I didn't really know there's anything you did on a Sunday other than go to church, you know, at 10.45 in the morning, 2.30 in the afternoon and 6.30 in the evening. It was full programme. I mean basically the house

Speaker 110:14

1044

Speaker 110:18

Okay.

Sir David Frost10:22

There was a piano, because my mother played the piano. There was a study, a den for dad, obviously. There was rooms for my two sisters, but

Sir David Frost10:33

They were rarely there, so we would have occasional disputes over whether we were going to listen to, as Jean suggested, Henry Wood promenade concerts or, as I suggested, Ignorance is Bliss with Harold Behrens, Avril Angers, and Gladys Hay. There were certain

Presenter10:46

And glad

Sir David Frost10:48

Yeah.

Presenter10:49

So it's a very, very conventional

Sir David Frost10:51

Very conventional. Quite frugal. Quite frugal. Quite frugal.

Presenter10:52

Quite frugal. Quite frugal. Quite frugal. And am I right in thinking that when you did go up to Cambridge, it was the first time you'd ever spent a night away from your parents?

Sir David Frost11:01

That's right. I'd never been abroad and I'd always been in the same place as my parents and and yet when I went up to Cambridge on a Saturday evening driven by father in his

Sir David Frost11:12

nineteen thirty five singer, I think it was. I checked in, I unpacked at five o'clock and I felt at home and everything by six,'cause I was I'd had a fantastically happy childhood, but now I wanted to get out to the wider world.

Presenter11:26

But

Sir David Frost11:26

Number three.

Sir David Frost11:27

Well, the next one we've got here is uh a choice not of my childhood but of uh

Sir David Frost11:33

Our son's childhood, we asked Myles and Wilfrid and George what they would

Sir David Frost11:38

What they would pick for this programme. I want to take one of their choices with me and they came up unanimously with Cold Play.

Sir David Frost11:46

And the song in question fix you.

Speaker 311:49

Lights will go out.

Speaker 311:53

Hey, Cheer Ho!

Speaker 311:56

And ignite your bones, and I will try.

Presenter12:08

Fixed.

Presenter12:11

Co-play and fix you. Give you memories of your sons on your desert island, David. It has to be said you weren't totally well behaved as a schoolboy, were you? I didn't you s write spoof letters to newspapers.

Sir David Frost12:22

Oh, very successfully, yes. Yes, the we did these letters from trying to

Presenter12:25

The heat.

Speaker 312:25

Uh

Presenter12:25

Cool.

Sir David Frost12:29

whip up fury in the on the letters page of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. J. Howard Granger, that was our alleged person, my nom de plume, um

Presenter12:40

This is my now. You've become singular now. It was you. What is this we? Yes, I know. I was.

Sir David Frost12:44

Yes, I know. I was trying to be modest. You know, I I was a humble youth. No, but the the it was me. And the uh so we did I did this thing saying, All dogs should be shot.

Sir David Frost12:56

And of course this caused a huge concern. And the next day

Sir David Frost13:00

There were nine

Sir David Frost13:03

Huge letters in the evening telegraph.

Sir David Frost13:06

But the bewildering thing about them was that four of them were in favour of this idiotic idea.

Sir David Frost13:12

And there was one from a man called

Sir David Frost13:15

Lawrence Walgrave, I think his name was, which said, I think that maybe gassing would be the right humane solution.

Sir David Frost13:23

And I thought, did I write that letter as well? That's as insane as mine.

Sir David Frost13:28

And it came from a reader.

Presenter13:29

But you can see the makings of early the early satirists if you like, if you look and look hard.

Sir David Frost13:32

Yes, if you like, if you're gonna look hard.

Presenter13:35

You narrowly avoided becoming a prof professional footballer, didn't you? You turned that down. No money in it.

Sir David Frost13:41

No, I mean in those days the maximum the maximum, not the minimum, but the maximum wage was twenty pounds a week. I mean it was it was a sort of surf system. So that was not and I want wanted to go Cambridge as well, yes.

Presenter13:47

And it was it was a sort of surf system. So that was not the plan.

Presenter13:52

Yes, exactly.

Sir David Frost13:52

And so the so the the two things combine.

Presenter13:55

So you went up and for the first time you were beginning to be in the right very exciting time. Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Eleanor Bronn, all your contemporaries. Wonderful.

Sir David Frost14:04

Oh yes, it was it was an amazing time to be up at Cambridge. Peter Cook and uh John Cleese came up while I was there and Tim Brooke Taylor and the the goodies and and and just an incredible cross-section. Plus the two main actors at Cambridge at that time, were undergraduate actors were Ian McKellen and Derek Jacoby. I mean the plays were directed by Trevor Nunn. Books were written by Margaret Drappel. I mean it was it was an extraordinary time to be up there.

Presenter14:32

Amazing. So footlights and writing and producing and appearing was just meat and drink to you.

Sir David Frost14:39

Yeah, you knew what

Presenter14:39

Yeah, you knew what you wanted to do in the minimum.

Sir David Frost14:40

Yes, yes, absolutely. And the first time I walked in television studio I really thought, I'm home. You know, I really did. I mean, I remember that day.

Sir David Frost14:49

Uh-huh, this is for me.

Presenter14:51

Next piece of music, number four.

Sir David Frost14:53

Number four on our song sheet is a great artist Ray Charles. But I wanted to have America the Beautiful because a lot of my life has been in America and I owe it a great debt too and I've had a great time over there. So I'd want to reflect on that as well. So it's Ray Charles, America the Beautiful.

Speaker 315:14

America sweet

Speaker 315:19

I'm happy to be able to do it.

Speaker 315:22

You know, God don't shed his grace on me.

Speaker 315:28

Keep me from that good.

Speaker 315:33

Yes it is!

Speaker 315:35

Here, brotherhood

Speaker 315:38

From C

Speaker 315:42

Shot and sing.

Presenter15:43

Ray Charles and America the Beautiful. We're talking about those colleagues at Cambridge, David. I mean, you've taken a lot of flack from some of them over the years, haven't you?

Sir David Frost15:53

Well, a bit at the time, but the mainly there were some sort of public school sort of snobby type comments at Cambridge, but those those passed very quickly. To you as the grammar school boy.

Presenter16:04

To you as the grammar school boy. But I'm talking about, you know, the the Peter Cook being a bit disparaging about a kitty muggeridge saying you he rose without trace and all that sort of stuff.

Sir David Frost16:13

Oh yeah, that's a very good line. But the p the Peter Cook thing was interesting'cause he was a good friend. We had a period of uh rivalry when I was doing that was a week that was to the whole country in England and he was doing brilliantly Beyond the Fringe to the Broadway audience in New York. I and in fact right at that time I went to stay with him in Connecticut and I'm not a good swimmer, in fact I'm not a swimmer at all. And I was in fact about to drown and he

Speaker 116:31

I am positioned.

Sir David Frost16:42

pulled me out, you know, and he said afterwards with people accusing us of being rivals, I thought I'd better pull him out or they might say I pushed him in, you know, and so on. But we we we remained friends through the years, right through to um to what was unfortunately his last birthday par dinner party, which was a a very happy occasion. So uh so no, that was really just a passing thing.

Presenter17:04

Yeah, I just wondered if they kind of resented your stardom,'cause they were actually abroad, weren't they, when you were first chosen to to front That Was the Week That Was. I mean, the Establishment Club. Peter had taken John Bird with him, whom I think was Ned Sherrin's first choice to present That Was the Week That Was, and you got in there and by the time they came back

Presenter17:23

There you were. You were an icon already, my life. One senses a kind of resentment among some of them.

Presenter17:31

That you made it and in a sense you weren't the pure satirist'cause you went on to be the mainstream interviewer and so on. You know, it's a bit of a weather.

Sir David Frost17:39

Well I think the ones the ones who managed to carry on doing satire for thirty, thirty-five years were deserve a medal, you know. And it's lovely in fact in the case of John Bird and John Fortune that they have greater fame now than they e ever had before, which is well deserved. And that's great because uh John Fortune was someone else who lent me essays and helped me get a degree along with the neglected.

Presenter17:59

Oh really? You neglected the work quite a bit, didn't you?

Sir David Frost18:01

Ian McCallan essays, they were important. And Corin Redgrave's essays, so

Presenter18:06

Yeah.

Sir David Frost18:06

Those were the three that I owe this great debt to.

Speaker 318:09

Yeah.

Sir David Frost18:09

And the maybe I should take

Speaker 318:09

Ha ha.

Sir David Frost18:12

their essays with me as a luxury item or something. But I suppose you're never really aware of people

Speaker 318:13

Luxury item or something.

Sir David Frost18:18

jealous of you. I mean, Karina is much more perceptive. She'll sometimes say to me, you know,

Sir David Frost18:24

That person you were just talking to is very jealous of you.

Sir David Frost18:28

And I said, what are you talking about? I'm just completely unaware of it, you know, so maybe that helps. Typical bit of.

Presenter18:31

Mm.

Sir David Frost18:35

Male insensitivity.

Presenter18:36

Record number five.

Sir David Frost18:37

Well, number five is

Sir David Frost18:39

Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Sir David Frost18:41

I first met Andrew Lloyd Weber in 19

Sir David Frost18:44

69, when we we had on the Frost program on IT V, we met for the first time, it was the first ever television performance of the one song that they'd got written from Jesus Christ Superstar, which was Jesus Christ Superstar. But I've taken here the music of the night, because I just think that is a fantastic again, the boys and Karina would agree with me on this song. And of course, I mean, this it's amazing, this is the most successful show, including film.

Sir David Frost19:13

In all history. I mean, the s the second one is cats and the third one is Titanic, I think.

Sir David Frost19:19

And this is the one and only Michael Crawford who was the first person to perform this and probably the best.

Speaker 319:26

Let the dream be clean, let your darker side give ear to the power of the music that I write.

Speaker 319:43

The power of the music of the sky.

Presenter19:52

Michael Crawford and The Music of the Night from Andrew Lloyd Weber's The Phantom of the Opera. Too many eponymous television programmes to list after that was the week. I mean The Frost Reporter, Degree of Frost, The Frost. You were a touch of Frost before David Jason, weren't you? Yes, yes, yes. Frost over America, commuting twice weekly to New York. But

Speaker 320:07

Yes, yes, I guess he.

Sir David Frost20:09

Uh

Presenter20:13

Let's talk about the Nixon interviews because surely they were a, if not the, high point of your professional career. You got him, didn't you? Everybody wanted to interview Nixon after Watergate, and you got the deal with him. How did you get the deal?

Sir David Frost20:26

How

Sir David Frost20:28

Um

Sir David Frost20:29

Because when it came down to the final, as it were, the finalists was NBC News and myself. And in the last stage, I said that I would because I thought it was obvious that it was the most fascinating figure

Speaker 320:46

Mm.

Sir David Frost20:47

that I would guarantee him six hours

Sir David Frost20:50

And NBC only said they'd guarantee him two. That was the key to it.

Presenter20:54

And how much?

Sir David Frost20:55

I paid six hundred thousand dollars

Sir David Frost20:59

for six hours. NBC were offering $400,000 for two hours. So I got a better rate.

Sir David Frost21:06

But I was doing more.

Presenter21:07

But you spotted the deal, Isabel. I mean, you just

Sir David Frost21:09

Yeah, and I and I uh got a the contract stipulated

Sir David Frost21:14

Twenty-five percent would be Watergate. And that was vital. That had to be stipulated because Nixon tried to get out of Watergate with me and and he would have got out of it if it hadn't been there in the contract. So that was.

Presenter21:26

But not talk about it.

Sir David Frost21:27

Yes, I mean he was trying to say for legal reasons he could. I mean there was a lot of that sort of

Sir David Frost21:32

tight rope walking before we got right there in the sessions and and of course he'd have no right to know the questions in advance, nor even to see the edited programmes before they were broadcast. And he said afterwards that they he thought they'd been tough but fair.

Presenter21:46

You really you extracted more of a Mayor Culper out of him than you might have

Sir David Frost21:51

Yeah, more than even we have the I cannot tell you the

Sir David Frost21:54

The two and a half hours, the key two and a half hours, the second day of Watergate, it was so exhausting, it was electric. It was pushing him to go further. He came on the second day, he knew he'd got to admit more than he admitted on the first day, so he would admit mistakes, but then he wouldn't go further than mistakes. And getting to the point where in the end he said, you know, I let down the American people, I let down our whole system of government, the hopes and dreams of young people who think that politics is just some dirty business and so on. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I mean, it was amazing, Mayor Cooper, at the end. And everybody said the word that was.

Speaker 122:23

Yeah.

Sir David Frost22:29

Which I think was true in America, that it was really a catharsis, you know, that America needed that to clear that cloud out of the air and so on.

Presenter22:37

Did you like him?

Sir David Frost22:38

I think like is almost too personal a word for Nixon, the man with no small talk, with a barrier between him and the rest of the world. Do you know what I mean? It's almost too personal a word. And also one had to bear in mind that although one felt he was a tragic figure, that in fact there were thirty people or so who were in jail for following out his orders or, you know, trying to help him.

Presenter23:01

Record number six.

Sir David Frost23:02

Well, the next one here is for Corina, and it's Boblind, an elusive butterfly of love.

Sir David Frost23:09

We're All Alone by Rita Coolidge, she considered deeply because that was the tune that was playing in the car on our wedding day, but in the end this particular one won the female vote.

Speaker 323:21

And if the sleep has left your ears, you might hear footsteps running through an open meadow.

Speaker 323:30

Don't be concerned, it will not harm you It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of I drop my dreams, with nets of wonder I chase the bright illusive butterfly

Presenter23:49

Bob Lind and Elusive Butterfly. You've uh taken some flack in recent years, David, for your kind of good cop style of interviewing. I mean, I'm not so sure. I mean, people

Presenter24:02

Suggests that that's not a good way to to approach things, but it's it's a very good ploy, isn't it? You get a lot more out of it.

Sir David Frost24:09

Well, I think I think it works, yes. I mean, I think the thing the key thing is obviously when you're going into an interview, as you know, here am I talking about interviewing to you, but the task is obviously to

Sir David Frost24:20

draw the person out to not to shut him up but to open him up or her up. And I think the thing is that

Sir David Frost24:26

You can ask just as tough questions or just as testing questions or whatever in a conversational tone as in a hectoring tone.

Presenter24:33

Do you think it's different with politicians though? Do you think sometimes because they're so used to it and because really they can't be allowed for all the best reasons to get away with too much that perhaps sometimes they do need to be asked the same question fourteen times? Oh yes.

Sir David Frost24:46

Oh yes. Oh no, I think that's that's right. I'm I mean uh th that's a perfectly valid technique. I didn't remember doing it with uh Edward Heath on the just on the question of do you like Harold Wilson? because he didn't, you know, he can and he but he he didn't want to say so.

Presenter24:58

Mm.

Presenter25:01

Indeed, you I mean you used to do a lot of it. I remember you taking on Enoch Powell many years ago after his Rivers of Blood speech. I mean you really were the prosecuting counsel on that. And he was amazing.

Sir David Frost25:05

Yeah.

Sir David Frost25:07

Really? With the prosecuting counsel on that. And he was it was amazing'cause everyone was waiting for this sort of uh f f fist fight, which it was indeed. But just thirty seconds before the programme started he was live uh with an audience and

Sir David Frost25:22

And Enoch Powell fell in his pocket and came out and said, I wonder if you could give my daughter an autograph.

Presenter25:29

Plenty.

Sir David Frost25:29

It is a real it's a ploy just before the start of the thing.

Presenter25:33

Oh, to soften you up.

Sir David Frost25:34

Yeah, d yes. Or to put me off a bit.

Presenter25:35

Yeah.

Presenter25:37

But what, David, about knowing people so well as you do now? I mean, time and again you must find yourself interviewing people you know. I mean if you've got an ounce of human decency, it's very difficult to stick the knife into somebody you've sat down to dinner with.

Sir David Frost25:50

Well, I think yes, I think that the overall I think that it's a help usually because everybody knows that this is a professional assignment. And although we're friends and

Presenter26:04

But does it just stay your hands slightly in that?

Sir David Frost26:05

Stay your hand slightly in that.

Presenter26:08

Yes, I know, but in that moment it might just stay your hand. You might suddenly see the gap where you could actually really go for the jugular, and you don't because you know them too well.

Sir David Frost26:19

Yeah, I can't I can't remember an example of where that happened.

Presenter26:22

But are you telling me that um

Presenter26:25

Despite the criticisms, you know, the killer instinct is still in there, is it?

Sir David Frost26:29

Yes, oh yes, yes. And and uh hopefully through the years that you develop more techniques and so on and so probably I've got more strings to my bow or ways ways to try and get to the answer.

Sir David Frost26:44

Uh

Presenter26:44

Record number seven.

Sir David Frost26:45

Number seven coming up now. Now this is uh Paul McCartney. We were together last just two years ago in

Sir David Frost26:53

We did a show, Paul McCartney, in Red Square. I did some interviews for it. And it was an amazing experience because there we were in Red Square, where the Beatles had been banned from for twenty, thirty years. And it was important for the evening, but also for the resulting television show we were doing, that it be really nice weather, because there was no cover for Paul, no cover for the audience or anything.

Speaker 326:57

Uh

Sir David Frost27:15

And uh we woke up on the morning, the Saturday morning, I remember. We looked at the papers and the weather forecast was dreadful. Disaster, disaster And they said, Oh, don't worry about that, we we'll just inject the clouds with iodine and everything'll be fine.

Sir David Frost27:32

We said, what? Well, we just do that. We just inject the clouds with iodine, and everything will be fine. Don't worry about the weather.

Sir David Frost27:39

And they did it, and the evening was a beautiful sunny evening.

Sir David Frost27:45

No rain, no clouds.

Sir David Frost27:47

Amazing. I thought

Sir David Frost27:49

Maybe Wimbledon should have done that instead of putting those things over the top. But I think the Green Party is probably a little bit stronger here than in Russia.

Sir David Frost27:57

Anyway, here's the song. It's the long and winding road which Paul wrote himself.

Sir David Frost28:03

In Scotland.

Speaker 328:04

Many times I've been alone.

Speaker 328:08

And many times I've cried

Speaker 328:11

Anyway, you'll never know But many ways I've tried And still lately

Speaker 328:23

To the lawn.

Speaker 328:28

One day

Presenter28:33

That's the Beatles, well, Paul McCartney, and the long and winding road. Okay, some signature frost questions to India. All right.

Sir David Frost28:39

Alright.

Presenter28:40

Um, having been where it was at in the sixties, you must have smoked pot. Did you inhale?

Sir David Frost28:45

Oh, very good question. Do you know the the answer to that is is it's pathetic, which is that I didn't smoke much cigarettes really in the sixties. I really started cigars about

Presenter28:55

You're not talking about cigarettes and scraps. David, no, no, but I never did.

Sir David Frost28:57

David. No, no, but I never did. No, I did I never I can't inhale. I had two two megastars.

Sir David Frost29:06

Each devote two hours to trying to teach me how to

Sir David Frost29:10

Inhale a funny cigarette.

Presenter29:12

So you've smoked it, but you haven't inhaled it. Okay. Have you sniffed or swallowed anything worse in your time?

Sir David Frost29:18

Worse.

Presenter29:18

Piers.

Sir David Frost29:21

Maybe once I oh, I once ha I once uh rode on a bicycle without lights. Would that would that do?

Presenter29:27

No, no, it won't do. Uh what I have to say next is a classic uh Frost retort is would you stake your career on that? You've never sniffed or taken anything worse. You would stake your career on that.

Sir David Frost29:34

Oh, yes.

Sir David Frost29:38

Would you say okay? Yes, I would. Yes, yes, absolutely. Tis a good fight.

Presenter29:45

It's a very good one. Here's the big one, though. This is the very big one, and you've used it often. How would you like to be remembered after your death?

Sir David Frost29:53

I think really that when I think back we talked about

Sir David Frost29:56

my parents and our boys and so on. I would say if I if people thought I was half as good a father

Sir David Frost30:02

to our three boys as my father was to me, I'd be more than happy with that as a epitaph.

Presenter30:10

Last record.

Sir David Frost30:12

Right, the last record. Well, this I always thought that Dan Busters was a great film. And on and on the occasion of the millennium, Corina's brother Ed had a fireworks display and a fantastic soundtrack.

Sir David Frost30:27

This is

Presenter30:28

This was at Aberundal Castle, yes, the Duke of Norfolk, yeah.

Sir David Frost30:29

That's right. And he had a show with this fantastic fireworks display with great synchronized music to it bellowing out.

Sir David Frost30:41

People loved it, but when they heard the Dambusters Mark

Sir David Frost30:46

They almost saluted.

Sir David Frost30:48

Because it had such emotional

Sir David Frost30:51

And I think it is probably most the strongest classical music score ever.

Presenter31:56

That's the end of the Dambusters' March, played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves. If you could only take one of the eight, David, which one would you take?

Sir David Frost32:05

I think I'd probably take that last one.

Presenter32:08

Good patriotic staring stuff.

Sir David Frost32:09

It's good stirring stuff if I've got to set up my

Sir David Frost32:14

My own republic on this island or something. That can be the national anthem.

Presenter32:18

What about your book?

Sir David Frost32:20

The London A to Z, I think, you know, it'd be nice to be reminded of London there and so on. So I think a a London A to Z would keep me happy, I think.

Presenter32:28

And a luxury.

Sir David Frost32:29

Ah.

Sir David Frost32:31

Either a weekly

Sir David Frost32:34

Airdrop

Sir David Frost32:35

of the Sunday papers, or possibly a weekly airdrop of Havana cigars.

Presenter32:40

Which, if you had to choose?

Sir David Frost32:42

If I had to choose, would you stake your life on that?

Presenter32:45

Yeah, cigars or newspapers.

Sir David Frost32:47

Well

Sir David Frost32:49

I suppose the Sunday papers would win out. It's just habit.

Presenter32:53

Sir David Frost, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Sir David Frost32:56

Thank you, sir.

Speaker 333:05

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