Richard Griffiths

Speaker 40:00

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 six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an actor. As gay Uncle Monty in the film Withenall and I, he won a whole generation of fans. As Beastly Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter films, he's won an entirely new one. He's famous for many other roles, too, as the detective chef hero of the BBC series Pie in the Sky, and most recently as the Englishmaster in Alan Bennett's hugely successful play The History Boys. He's had to work hard for his achievements. Both his parents were profoundly deaf and couldn't speak. Throughout his childhood he was their ears and voice. He disappointed his father by deserting art college for the performing arts and then worked his way up slowly through the RSC and finally into television and films too. He won three best actor awards for the History Boys and the big screen version is currently in post-production while he stars in the West End hit Heroes. All proof, if it were needed, that he's one of this country's leading character actors. He is Richard Griffiths. You've really cornered the market, Richard, in large avuncular figures, haven't you? Gay or beastly or whatever. Which one offers you greatest recognition, you know, when people see you in the street? What do they say?

Richard Griffiths1:40

Amongst the kids it has to be Uncle Vernon.

Richard Griffiths1:43

The guy came to me at eleven o'clock in Tasculus one night.

Richard Griffiths1:46

He said that would you come and tell my son that you are Uncle Vernon?

Richard Griffiths1:51

I said, A, he should be in bed, B, I'm not here for, you know, to to entertain eleven year olds, and C, you know, um, I think you've got to explain to him that films aren't real.

Richard Griffiths2:01

And I'm not Uncle Vernon, I'm just a

Presenter2:02

You and Krusty old Uncle Vernon Moore

Richard Griffiths2:04

I was, I was, I was, you know, and I sort of am. I'm sort of hostile to this thing of trying to make it real. It's not.

Presenter2:11

Mm.

Richard Griffiths2:12

Uh but okay

Presenter2:12

But you can't blame

Richard Griffiths2:13

You can't blame them. It makes it easier. It's easy if you're infected their imagination, you see. That's what it is.

Presenter2:13

Don't blame him. It makes it easier.

Presenter2:19

Exactly.

Presenter2:20

What about Withmall though? I mean Uncle Monty is really a character that dogs you, isn't it?

Richard Griffiths2:25

There's school leavers and upwards of mad about Withno because there's an aut authenticity about the attitudes in Withnow that uh strikes an absolute chiming note with people of a certain age, that age being from fifteen to about thirty five.

Presenter2:40

What is it that strikes them, then do you think?

Richard Griffiths2:42

Uh this auto-destructive, uh hedonistic uh indulgence and disregard for authority is exactly where they repose their trust.

Presenter2:56

Not personified, it has to say by Uncle Monty.

Richard Griffiths2:58

Not at all. Monty's an establishment figure.

Presenter3:00

He's an outrageous old queen.

Richard Griffiths3:01

Terribly so, yeah.

Presenter3:03

And what do they call out to you then when they see you in the street?

Richard Griffiths3:05

Oh, they sing out lines. They all they all know the dialogue b s far better than I I mean, you know, I did it twenty years ago, I can't remember anything I did twenty years ago.

Presenter3:06

Missing that moment.

Presenter3:10

Yeah, I do

Richard Griffiths3:13

But they know the lines, the dialogue, it's all a bit scary.

Presenter3:15

I can remember one. I mean to have you even if it must be burglary.

Richard Griffiths3:18

I mean to have you even if it must be burglary. And you know, when we came to do that in that tiny little bedroom in the cottage, I said to Bruce, I said, I'm sorry, Darnet, I know you will despise me for this, but I cannot do what is asked for, which is to come in with an extraordinary China doll facial make-up and nothing else. And I cannot impose this dilapidated body on the viewing public. And he said, Oh, Darn it, don't worry about it. I said, But I've got an idea. He said, Oh, yeah, what's that? I said, Well, he's got this beautiful dressing gown.

Richard Griffiths3:50

So, what I think you should do is let the audience's imagination do the business for you. I said, Well, how do you do that? I said, Well, I'll come in, I'll back Paul around the room.

Richard Griffiths3:58

And squeeze'cause it's

Presenter4:00

Paul McGann

Richard Griffiths4:00

Paul McGahan, there's barely room to get round the bed and I said and he said, What happens? I said, Well, I back him into the corner and you're now behind me and you're looking at Paul, you see, over my shoulder and then you will see that I flash the dressing gown.

Richard Griffiths4:12

And watch the horrified reaction on his face, and that'll tell the audience what to do.

Presenter4:17

Great moment. No wonder everybody remembers it.

Richard Griffiths4:19

Oh I mean to have you, even if it must be burglary.

Presenter4:25

Record number one. Tell me what that is.

Richard Griffiths4:27

I I was um sort of unemployed teenager when I first heard this, the Beatles, Please Please Me and though I say so myself, I had a sense from the second I heard it, this was a whole new thing.

Speaker 24:43

These were to mine

Speaker 24:48

I know you never even tried that.

Speaker 24:55

Um

Speaker 24:56

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, we won't get like I please you

Presenter5:09

The Beatles and Please, Please Me, and Memories of Your Youth, Richard Griffiths, in Stockton on Tees, um which at home at least was a pretty silent business.

Richard Griffiths5:19

Totally, yes. We didn't have a T V or a radio.

Richard Griffiths5:22

And I didn't know about the B B C and I knew about Radio Luxembourg because when I was a an infant I would be palmed off or babysat in the apartment next to the one we lived by a lovely French girl called André Patterson.

Presenter5:37

And she taught you how did she teach you English?

Richard Griffiths5:39

Well, no, we sat and listened to Radio Luxembourg. I g I remember being sort of two and three and listening sorcerer to, you know, We Are the Ovaltinis and uh Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, which I adored and I've had a lifelong passion for science fiction ever since.

Presenter5:52

But but this, as I mentioned in the introduction, is because your your parents were both dead.

Richard Griffiths5:57

profoundly deaf and therefore couldn't speak.

Richard Griffiths6:00

It's not the

Presenter6:00

It's not that they couldn't make noises.

Richard Griffiths6:01

Oh no no. There's r raw the most deaf people have got nothing wrong with their vocal cords and can make lots and lots of noise in the way that the rest of us can, but they can't form it because they don't hear it. So no language is something that's not. No, no language like that at all. But obviously I had to communicate, you know, with sign language.

Presenter6:12

So no language or something.

Presenter6:17

You're self-taught stuff.

Richard Griffiths6:18

Yes, mainly you p you point at b what you want and then you point where you want it, you say.

Presenter6:23

So you learned to do that at a very early age, presumably, because otherwise you couldn't communicate with your parents.

Richard Griffiths6:27

Yeah, and you st you will starve.

Presenter6:31

William.

Richard Griffiths6:31

So you have to point and take things, and then discipline is when it's taken away, and you're slapped for it, you know.

Presenter6:38

But they took you therefore shopping with them, because of course you became very useful somehow.

Richard Griffiths6:41

Somehow I learned how to talk. I have no idea from whom. So at the time I was g I was dragged around from the age of four to th the shops and I loathed shopping. And to this day I can't bear it.

Presenter6:52

Because you did too much of it early, too early.

Richard Griffiths6:54

I'd find it loathsome.

Presenter6:56

You were the first surviving child of your mother and father, and there were more infant deaths to come after you. Oh, yeah. But tell me first of all about there was one child who preceded your birth who died. Tell me about her.

Richard Griffiths6:58

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths7:03

But tell

Richard Griffiths7:07

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths7:11

Going to be called Mary. Perfectly normal. And then about a week after the child had been delivered, she woke up one morning as my dad was coming down from the north of Scotland where he'd been working. And he arrived at the hospital to meet this to see this distraught woman who'd just been told the baby had died. And had been it had died apparently because she'd pushed it out of the bed and it fell on its head. This five, six day old baby. And to this day I doubt it. I mean it it completely clouded the marriage.

Presenter7:44

What was your mother's take on it and what did she say?

Richard Griffiths7:46

Well she she had the baby in her arms, she was lying on the bed and she noticed that she'd nodded off. But there's I mean, when she woke up, she was still lying basically on her back. Um and the baby was gone.

Richard Griffiths8:02

But there's no sense of the arms sprawling or anything like that I mean you don't do it you really

Presenter8:04

So what did she think had happened to you?

Richard Griffiths8:06

She thinks that uh some nurse had seen that she'd fallen asleep and decided to put the baby in the cot and and it dropped it.

Richard Griffiths8:14

And um

Presenter8:15

But she couldn't explain this at the time.

Richard Griffiths8:17

She did, but nobody believed her.

Presenter8:18

Did your father believe?

Richard Griffiths8:19

Hello.

Richard Griffiths8:20

He believed the hospital, he believed doctors, doctors were all God. And uh he kind of believed the hospital.

Presenter8:26

So it poisoned the marriage, yeah.

Richard Griffiths8:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a desperately unhappy relationship because of that.

Presenter8:34

Mechan number two.

Richard Griffiths8:35

This is just a a song written by a great friend of mine who I I first met in seventy six. Dear Lord, I've known this man for nearly thirty years. And I think it's a marvellous song. And I I just, you know, I just like more and more people to hear it,'cause I I adore it.

Speaker 28:52

Friends

Speaker 28:53

Two or three friends, two or three boughs that don't break, do they give

Speaker 29:00

Oh something they gin, oh and so welcome to take.

Speaker 29:05

Are they two, and few though they be?

Speaker 29:11

They're plenty for me.

Speaker 29:14

They're plenty for me.

Speaker 29:18

That's it.

Presenter9:19

Lenny Preston and his um home recording of his composition called Friends. Um four more of your siblings were to die after that. You you'd followed Mary into this world and then later on there was you had a brother who survived. But what happened to the four in between? I mean, were they caught deaths? Well there were

Speaker 29:19

Then

Richard Griffiths9:32

But

Richard Griffiths9:36

There was uh no, there was there were two miscarriages. Uh the other side infancy.

Presenter9:41

Hmm.

Richard Griffiths9:42

The servant was really servant.

Presenter9:44

And and no explanations really. Your mother was obviously very

Richard Griffiths9:47

Well, I be you know, in retrospect I I think you see them have a sort of incompatibility of bloodlines.

Presenter9:53

Hmm.

Richard Griffiths9:53

So the results came in under the wire. That's the odd one, you know.

Presenter9:55

Finally failed one.

Presenter9:56

And and your brother a bit later. But uh your mother as a result had a an understandable, I suppose, deep distrust of doctors and medicine.

Richard Griffiths9:57

But

Richard Griffiths10:05

Terrified. The minute you s you mentioned uh hospitals, medicine, health, doctors, she turned into a haunted, frightened rabbit. And th this was a tough-minded woman, you know. Um and as a result she

Presenter10:17

And as a result she actually died early, I didn't know.

Richard Griffiths10:19

Died very early in life, yeah. And uh she ref you know, because she couldn't bring herself to go to hospital when she was ill, she was clearly very ill and and she she w she just couldn't couldn't handle it.

Presenter10:29

So you you obviously witnessed a lot of grief in your childhood and a lot of anger too. How could two people who didn't have any language argue?

Richard Griffiths10:32

In your child.

Richard Griffiths10:38

Oh, that that's pretty scary. I mean, when they sort of lost the plot with each other and then it was just very big raw noises and and they would end up sort of mm pounding at each other, you know, and it was just

Richard Griffiths10:49

With him he he wasn't hitting her, he was keeping her he was trying to stop her and she was the one who was throwing herself at him, she was the one who would lose her temper.

Presenter10:58

He was also something of an actor, wasn't he?

Richard Griffiths11:01

He was f yeah, oh yeah, he was marvelous at it because he would, you know, he could act out the parts and he he would try and give you the impression of, you know, what was going on with the people emotionally. And of course he was sensationally gifted at um body language. See, I had a terrible time with the truth with him, you see. You couldn't lie to him.

Richard Griffiths11:18

Because he just knew. Because the body language is always wrong with a and therefore it's untrue. Terrifying. Oh, fierce. He would have made such an interrogator. You know.

Presenter11:23

Terrifying.

Presenter11:25

He would have

Presenter11:29

Quit number three.

Richard Griffiths11:30

Record number three. Now, I was at Stockton Billingham Technical College and um they said uh there's an orchestra coming in. The council have got some some posh musicians to come in. We need some ochre. You all get a pound. So of course, you know, do you should knock down in the rush. And I'd never heard, you understand, any classical music whatsoever.

Richard Griffiths11:52

And a massive number of musicians came out and I said, Who who's this like? I can't even pronounce it. You do German, you you read it And I was doing German and I said, Oh yes they're called the Leipzig German Haus Orchestra.

Richard Griffiths12:05

Oh well, let's see what they're up to. And they came out with this.

Presenter12:58

Art of De Moldau from Smetner's Mauve Last My Homeland, played by the Leipzig Gevanthaus Orchestra conducted by Waclaf Neumann. Um so this was Stockton Billingham Tech. You discovered there that you had a a natural talent for for art. What kind of art did you do, Richard?

Richard Griffiths13:15

Or representational stuff, or originally fine art, my you know, my dad was marvellous at drawing and stuff, and and I'm such an idiot, you're talking to a tr hugely talented nutcase, because I wanted to paint things that look like things, portraits, land, any whatever. And uh everywhere I went all these partial art I won't solo them by mentioning their names, but there were three who accepted me. And they also forget representational art.

Richard Griffiths13:39

Single lens reflex 35mm camera, you hit the shutter, crash.

Richard Griffiths13:43

There's your picture. Not even Rembrandt could get that accuracy, so uh it's not worth it.

Presenter13:48

And he believes them.

Richard Griffiths13:48

And I did. That was the dumbness. That's my big mistake. Otherwise I could have been there contemporary with Mr. Hockney and Mr. Freud, you know.

Presenter13:55

There you are. And your father was furious as a result of

Richard Griffiths13:57

Furious. Yes, absolutely white with rage. Right, that's it. You've had your chance to mock about this college. That's it. Now I've got a perfectly good job for you with me as a steel fixer. Um so you can start next week. No, no, no, I'm gonna change now. I'm not gonna do art, I'm gonna do drama.

Presenter14:13

She ran away to do the drama.

Richard Griffiths14:15

And he says, Right, well you do something at your own expense because I'm not going to give you a penny. Not a billion off, did he? Yeah, yeah. You can you can live here, you'll eat here, you can sleep here uh that's it, that's all you're getting from me, but no actual money.

Presenter14:19

He cut him off, did he?

Presenter14:29

Record number four.

Richard Griffiths14:31

R number four. Yes, so I went to college and I, you know, I got through that and survived. And I came. My first job was at the Harrogate Opera House. My second job was as a member of the BBC Radio Drama Rep. And the next job I got was in Devon with the Orchard Theatre. And I went there and I was given a chance to direct a review show. And I said, We've got this great idea for a sketch, but it needs a piece of classical music. And they said, Well, we haven't got a budget. You can have a pound for music. And I bought this disc for 99p and I put the r this record on, and then I heard this extraordinary piece from one of the Brandenburg concertos. And.

Richard Griffiths15:13

It's w it's it's just one of the most delightful moments of my entire life.

Presenter15:45

Part of the third movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, number three, played on the Moog Synthesizer by um someone who says the daddy of the synthesizer, Walter Carlos.

Speaker 215:54

Yeah.

Speaker 215:55

Yeah.

Presenter15:56

Your your career, Richard Griffiths, took off after that. Whatever your father thought, you'd obviously made a good choice, even if it wasn't the right choice for you, um you're suggesting. But you went into the Royal Shakespeare Company, were there for ten years, seventy four to eighty four, you made a brilliant Ferdinand in Love's Labour's Lost, the King. You started getting the King roles quite quickly, did you?

Speaker 216:01

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths16:12

You saw it again?

Richard Griffiths16:14

Yeah, it's quickly for you know, for somebody who goes through the process, you know.

Presenter16:17

And it was a very good production of Once in a Lifetime, as well as the comedy about three Vaudeville stars going to Hollywood. You you came near to winning an award for that performance, didn't you? But you always were pipped to the post by people called McKellen and Gambon, I think.

Richard Griffiths16:17

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths16:20

Three

Richard Griffiths16:30

Yes, and on that occasion it was somebody called Barry Humphreys.

Presenter16:33

Oh, really?

Richard Griffiths16:34

Which to me just did not compute, you know, and I I've it's rankled ever since.

Presenter16:38

But anyway, I mean, it all came good because you scooped the pool, really, didn't you, this last time around with Mr. Peacie?

Richard Griffiths16:44

It's really starting.

Presenter16:45

In the History Boys, you've got the lot, the Olivier, the Critic Circle, the Evening Standard.

Presenter16:52

He's a wonderful character, Hector, isn't he? I can tell you're you're rather I mean, he's very he's very unfashionable, of course, because he's a a schoolteacher who does not believe in the exam system.

Richard Griffiths17:01

That's right, that's right. I think it it's almost nothing to do with education, to my mind. It is entirely to do with love.

Richard Griffiths17:10

And he says on two or three occasions in the play, he has one or other of the characters saying, Love apart.

Richard Griffiths17:18

It's the only education worth having.

Richard Griffiths17:21

That's what teaches you about yourself. That's what teaches you about loyalty, about truth, about falsehood, about treachery. And he loves those boys to do. Oh, he loves them to death. Yes. Died for them. Does, in a way.

Presenter17:30

And he loves those boys to loves them to death.

Presenter17:35

Yes, yes he does, doesn't he?

Richard Griffiths17:36

Yeah, yeah. Um but he wouldn't dream of hurting anyone.

Presenter17:40

I gather you've got an extra joke in the film version that's based on you personally. Alan Bennett's slipped a special line into you.

Richard Griffiths17:47

Just put this in, you know, just have a look at that. We'll see what you know, see what you think about that.

Presenter17:50

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths17:52

And um what it is is uh there's a very tough actor called Adrian Scarborough. And uh so he plays the PE master and he's pinning some dreary notice on the staff common room notice board. And Mr Hector w walks up as close to him as one can get, I think, you know, without causing a scene, and whispers into his ear, French curse.

Richard Griffiths18:18

And Adrian does this wonderful, you know, text written thing of the eyes coming out on stalks and it's I beg your pardon.

Richard Griffiths18:25

Um, New Market, two thirty. What do you think?

Richard Griffiths18:30

It's just'cause I lo I like little flutters, yeah. Unfortunately, the kind of betting I do is what the what the bookmakers term little old ladies' stuff, you know. Small stakes hoping for a large payback, never happens. Oh well.

Speaker 218:30

This is'cause I like I like little flutters, yeah. Unfortunately.

Presenter18:41

Come on, next piece of music, number five.

Richard Griffiths18:43

Oh no, this is this is um

Richard Griffiths18:47

You know, the the RSC was one of the most significant periods of my whole life. I I I now know looking back, because it was a decade. And one of the best friends I had there was Ian Charlson, who, alas, died on twelfth night, nineteen ninety. He was about forty. AIDS swept him off, and God help us, it was a terrible thing to behold. And I bitterly regret the fact that we weren't allowed to see him have another three or four years for him to stun the world with some fantastic performance power.

Richard Griffiths19:18

But uh here is a piece uh of natural gold from somebody who was the real deal.

Speaker 219:24

Come on to these yellow sands and then take hands you could say

Speaker 219:37

What

Speaker 219:38

Have fun.

Speaker 219:42

The wild ways we

Presenter19:53

Ken Charlson singing Come Ungo These Yellow Sands, one of the songs of Ariel from the RSC production of The Tempest. He was accompanied there by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Wind Ensemble, composed and conducted, it was by Guy Wolfenden.

Presenter20:07

Um Pie in the Sky, Richard Griffiths, uh for BBC Television was a series in the mid nineties that gave you stardom. It ran to um four series, so you must have got something right.

Richard Griffiths20:17

Yes.

Presenter20:17

Um you were a detective who became a chef who loved his food and still did lots of detecting. I mean, was it specially written for you, that that that role?

Richard Griffiths20:25

Andrew Payne's a great friend of mine, the author. I think he would say he had me in mind for it, you know. And it it was extraordinary because I think I was at the nadir of my sort of career situation. You know, I was in a terrible state and financially everything I was down, down, down, down, down, thinking of having to sell the house. And they came up from Select to me and said, We'd like you to do this series. And I said, Oh, I'll have to go in and think about that nearly for a whole second.

Presenter20:50

Hmm.

Presenter20:54

Um

Richard Griffiths20:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:55

But it suited you wonderfully, and not least I suppose because of of your shape and your size, you know, I mean it is the uh d one of the defining things of your presence on the stage.

Richard Griffiths21:00

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths21:04

I'm afraid so, yeah.

Presenter21:05

I think you've m you've joked that you're the only actor who could play Falstaff without the padding, huh?

Richard Griffiths21:09

Well Trevanon said to me, you know, you're probably the only actor would have to lose weight to play full staff You know, which is really encouraging

Presenter21:15

Which is really encouraging.

Richard Griffiths21:19

Do you think it does? Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, my natural inclination is to be a romantic leading actor and uh I can do romance like with text, you know. But I just don't believe it when I have the mirror handy. And so I would like uh ultimately to get down to that, you know, to play some not a gay Lothario, you know, just a Lothario would do nicely.

Presenter21:43

Hmm. We can do it on the radio.

Richard Griffiths21:43

Hmm. We could do it on the

Richard Griffiths21:45

I can certainly do it on the radio, but you know that

Richard Griffiths21:47

It doesn't it cover the overhead, so

Presenter21:51

We talked though about your mother's suspicion of doctors and things. I think you you've got a sense in which you feel you're a victim of medicine, bad medicine, absolutely.

Richard Griffiths21:57

Oh yeah, bad medicine though. Absolutely. It's so sad isn't it? I think my family's been assassinated by the National Health Service, you know. And uh come the revolution, I'm just gonna go around and go and get them back. But um it was sun lamp treatment. And you know, most pasty, way-faced kids in England in in the fifties were pasty and way-faced, skinny, as all get out. And actually that was perfectly normal and quite healthy.

Presenter22:24

But that's what you were, so

Richard Griffiths22:25

But that's what I was. And uh you know, you had this treatment and nobody's ever said why, what it is. And there's a funny little lacuna in the uh uh medical history, you know, we can't we said we've lost the files for those three years.

Presenter22:38

But what do you think it did to you then?

Richard Griffiths22:40

Well, I just I just think it interfered with my system in such a way that I've been I've al from the age of nine

Richard Griffiths22:47

I've had a problem with um excessive weight.

Presenter22:49

Whereas before that you were

Richard Griffiths22:51

Before that they said it was the opposite. They said I was probably underweight, I wasn't thriving.

Richard Griffiths22:55

But if the kid's not thriving, you don't give them radiation treatment. But something funny happened and uh they're they're shamed enough about it uh to to to want to not talk about it. So

Presenter22:58

Cool.

Richard Griffiths23:07

That's it.

Presenter23:08

So that's where it leaves you. Your mother, as we said, died when you were at drama school. Your father died, I think, as well when you were

Richard Griffiths23:12

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths23:14

In seventy-six, he died.

Presenter23:15

So they never really saw you become a star, Richard.

Richard Griffiths23:18

My mother did come to see me at Billingham Tech, so she saw me on stage and thought thought it was hilarious. But my dad, um, he was you know, be he because he'd sort of stated his case and uh he couldn't come back to to make peace about this, so I never I never knew it was only after he died that pals of his would come up and say, Do you know, he used to be so chuffed when you were on the telly. He'd come in and tell everybody in the pup and say, That's my son up there and oh, it burned me because I I I I just wish he'd have let me know that he was pleased with something I'd done, um, instead of being a disappointment to him as I often was.

Presenter23:22

So

Presenter23:56

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths23:57

In that amazing decade at the RSC, I just think things were good, life was good, it was a great time to be alive. And London suddenly turned into a sophisticated chic capital city. And in that glorious summer time, you could be stuck in traffic in London, as I was once in my brand new MGB DT. It was mid-blue and it had a great sound system. And I'm sitting at the Maryburn Road underpass, and this came on the air.

Presenter24:58

Jerry Rafferty and Baker Street and the glamour of being in the big smoke. Currently, Richard, you're in the big smoke, certainly. You're Henri, the gentle, rather passive war veteran in this play, Heroes. He's got a gammy leg. You're in it with John Hurt and Ken Stott. He's got a twinkle in his eye. He's heterosexual, this one, isn't he?

Richard Griffiths25:18

Oh, oh, thank yes, he is, he is, he is. But he he's he is is the most repressed heterosexual probably on the planet. I mean, I I I have a sneaky suspicion he might even be a virgin. Oh really?

Presenter25:28

You get very fond of these characters, don't you, Ari and Mr. Hector? They're very close to you, or you're very close to them.

Richard Griffiths25:34

They are very close to me. Well, they're they're really they're sort of aspects of me, I think, in a way. That's what it is. And so, you know, it's how you treat that.

Presenter25:40

Uh

Presenter25:41

You've stepped out of these roles on two occasions that I know of anyway on on the stage in order to tell the audience off about its mobile phones.

Speaker 225:50

Uh

Richard Griffiths25:50

Uh

Speaker 225:50

Yeah. Uh

Presenter25:51

I mean, it's a large decision, isn't it, for a character on the stage to do it? Because, you know, what damage might be.

Richard Griffiths25:54

Oh, it's interesting.

Richard Griffiths25:56

You're stepping out of the clay. Uh what does that do? And I mean, when I was at the na at the National on History Boys, we had to rewind the whole scene.

Presenter25:58

Yeah.

Richard Griffiths26:05

And go back. And perversely, you know, you think, well, if the audience has seen the beginning of the scene, it's been stopped, and you've had a conversation about the phone, and then you go back and do the scene again, they're gonna miss something.

Presenter26:15

It's not a conversation about the phone, is it? I mean, you kind of sound off, quite

Richard Griffiths26:17

No, no. They don't talk much.

Presenter26:23

What does it do to you as an actor on the stage and to your fellow actors on stage? I mean, surely it just changes the whole dynamic. You can't really spool back.

Richard Griffiths26:32

The free

Richard Griffiths26:33

It it not really it destroys concentration, it just breaks it and and ruins the whole thing. And it's a massive undertaking putting a play on, so it's it's you know, if the audience is not going to respect any of that, I I I don't see any any possibility of going forward.

Presenter26:50

Number seven.

Richard Griffiths26:51

Ah, number seven. Now this is for th th the fans out there who are mad about Wesnill and I.

Richard Griffiths26:56

This piece of music is from the card scene, which was largely one of the the only bit of the film that was improvised. Uh in the background is the scratchy recording on a wind-up record uh machine of the glorious Al Boli and the stars fell down one into the other.

Speaker 227:14

So wait for me in Indiana

Speaker 227:17

And when the long, long day is

Speaker 227:24

Hang out the stars in Indiana.

Speaker 227:27

You like my way back home?

Presenter27:38

That was Al Boli and Hang Out the Stars in Indiana from the original soundtrack of Withnall and I. You're married, Richard, to Heather. Uh-huh. Have been forever, I think since the early seventies coming. And that's about all we know about your adult personal life, isn't it?

Richard Griffiths27:48

Since the early seventies.

Richard Griffiths27:53

Yes, that's part of the deal.

Presenter27:55

Is it?

Richard Griffiths27:55

Part of the domestic deal. Uh I I I I used to talk more freely about my family and it it I cannot tell you it caused seismic movements amongst people.

Presenter28:05

But there are children out there. I mean, are are you allowed to say that maybe?

Richard Griffiths28:08

No.

Presenter28:10

We don't admit of their existence, I see. But but life's life's good. Uncle Vernon kind of saved your financial bacon for

Richard Griffiths28:17

He did, he did, thank God for Vernon. Yes, it's true.

Presenter28:20

That's true.

Presenter28:22

But you nearly starved. It's amazing to think you nearly starved.

Richard Griffiths28:25

Well, starved, yes. I I in not in a literal sense, you understand. I mean, I've been hungry, but I never starved.

Presenter28:30

No, but I mean it was getting

Richard Griffiths28:32

I've had a rough time uh going around the block, yeah, yeah. But hopefully that's past now.

Presenter28:37

Five's good. I do know one little uh personal detail. Rambling farmhouse in Warwickshire I've got down written down here.

Richard Griffiths28:42

Oh, well, yes, that's where I live. Rambling farmhouse.

Presenter28:43

That's what I live.

Presenter28:46

But Uncle Bernard means you can have the have it with baked and yes, I see.

Richard Griffiths28:48

Keep it going, yes. Because I was uh you know, when the firestorm and the fifteen percent interest rates came, I just said, Look, we're on six weeks' notice to quit here.

Presenter28:56

You're very good at the finances. You did your dad's, I think, as a boy, didn't you?

Richard Griffiths28:59

I did. I had to do his tax returns when I was twelve.

Richard Griffiths29:02

Can you imagine?

Presenter29:03

So it's it's ingrained.

Richard Griffiths29:05

Why I'm bored with all those adult things, you know, I just just wish to be given, you know, uh some of my ch childhood back, you know.

Presenter29:11

And you're you're about to go round the world with the History Boys, all over the world, ending up on Baldwin.

Richard Griffiths29:14

You know?

Richard Griffiths29:15

Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Broadway.

Presenter29:20

So you don't want to be sent to a desert island, do you?

Richard Griffiths29:22

I I d no no no I would I would be hopeless now I'd be lost. I'd be a sad thing at the end of that when they've when they've found me. But God, I'd be so slim.

Speaker 229:32

Past record.

Richard Griffiths29:33

The last one. Now, this is a bit of everything in this. The occasion was extraordinary. It was back in 1986 and Mr. Horowitz went back finally to Russia and he played a concert in Moscow. And I'd not wept unlike the 2,000 people in the audience who'd sat in floods of tears through the whole extraordinary beautiful concert. I'd been unmoved by that until this point in the concert when he played this encore, which was Schumann's Treumerai. And it's a piece of limpet majesty in your ears, and it will take you back to your childhood. And if it doesn't break your heart, well, then I'm sorry, I can't help. But I think on a desert island, if you want to be uplifted, saddened, and everything to do with your state, this is the positive way to look at it.

Presenter31:28

Schumann's Troimovai, Dreaming from his Scenes of Childhood, played by Vladimir Horowitz, and that was recorded at the Moscow Conservatory in nineteen eighty six. Now, Richard, if you could only take one of those eight records with you, which one would you take?

Richard Griffiths31:42

Oh dear. Probably the last one. As long as you can have that burst of applause at the end.

Presenter31:48

And your book, we give you the Bible, we give you the complete works of Shakespeare, a lot of which you know.

Richard Griffiths31:53

Yeah, yeah. You shouldn't it's odd. I I just thought I'd I'd go for Vanity Fair.

Presenter31:57

And a luxury.

Richard Griffiths31:59

A luxury. I thought I would like to have the original Velasquez painting of Las Meniñas, which I sort of pay pilgrimage to. Whenever I go to Spain, I would go to Madrid first or last. And I would spend at least a day in the Prado sitting. There used to be a wonderful big leather bench, but you're not allowed there anymore. They've got put it into a bigger salon so that more people can get in, which is odious, because it used to belong just to me. And you could sit there and just look at this exquisite, devastating piece of painterly invention.

Presenter32:34

And you shall have it all to yourself on your desert island.

Richard Griffiths32:36

Thank you.

Presenter32:37

Richard Griffiths, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Richard Griffiths32:40

Thank you, sir.

Speaker 432:48

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive.

Speaker 432:52

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.