Armando Iannucci

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six and contains some strong language. The presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

Mike Costaway this week is a writer and producer. His latest creation, The Thick of It, a television sitcom about politicians and spin, is currently walking off with prizes all over the place. Its remorseless parody of a Government Minister twisting and turning to the savage demands of the Prime Minister's enforcer is brilliantly performed and very funny.

Presenter0:52

Before that he turned his attention to the media and invented that archetype of modern comic heroes, Alan Partridge.

Presenter0:59

Like all good comedy, his work succeeds because it's based on the shrewd observations of a serious mind, so it's no surprise to learn that he got a first class degree from Oxford, and spent three years writing a thesis on religious language with particular reference to Milton.

Presenter1:14

But in the end comedy beckoned, because, as he says, it allows you to do anything. It can be as believable as you like, as mature or as silly, as intelligent or as daft. He is Armando

Presenter1:28

To carry on with that quote, Ormando, um you also say as offensive or as safe undoubtedly some people would find the thick of it incredibly offensive because it's littered, as we know, with expletives and kind of male locker room humour.

Armando Iannucci1:41

Yes, I mean I'm not naturally a sweare, and it's rather odd to be at the forefront of uh swearing technology. Um

Presenter1:49

But you believed it had to be there.

Armando Iannucci1:51

But I I somehow

Presenter1:52

I mean do you have it on authority? I mean is it aut authentic?

Armando Iannucci1:54

Yes, and the nicest endorsement it had was uh Sir Anthony Jay, who wrote Yes Minister, saw the first few programmes and on the Today programme said it has to have the swearing because otherwise it wouldn't be believable because that's how it works nowadays.

Presenter2:05

Because that's

Presenter2:08

And you've got an expletive advisor

Armando Iannucci2:10

Yes, there's a guy in uh called Ian Martin and he writes not just the swearing, but he he writes parts of the thick of it, but he's very good at coming up with ever more inventive uh swearing phrases.

Presenter2:21

Like what?

Armando Iannucci2:22

Well he

Presenter2:23

Can you repeat them here? I mean, people should know who have not seen this thing. I mean, it really is extreme.

Armando Iannucci2:24

I mean people

Armando Iannucci2:26

How are we going to do this? Because, you know, I've obviously now about to swear.

Presenter2:30

Yeah, well try it and we'll cut it out if we don't like it.

Armando Iannucci2:32

Cut it out if we don't like it. Well, there is a knock in Malcolm Tucker's door. He's the spin doctor, and he says he says, Come the f in or f the f off.

Armando Iannucci2:44

Now, I know now listeners will have just had a whole succession of pips, really, and think it's, you know, think it's 10 o'clock. But they'll get the

Presenter2:48

And I think it's 10 o'clock. But they'll get the general impression if they haven't seen it.

Armando Iannucci2:51

I haven't seen it.

Presenter2:52

But it is also incredibly funny in other ways. I mean, there's a great line, if you don't mind me quoting you, your hapless Minister for Social Affairs, Hugh Abbott, delivers in front of a select committee, doesn't he? He says, I categorically did not knowingly not tell the truth, even though unknowingly I might not have done. How hard do you work to come up with these?

Armando Iannucci3:10

Well

Presenter3:10

Do you hear them every day?

Armando Iannucci3:12

It's so easy because it actually happens. And the day we were recording that scene in which Hugh says that.

Presenter3:15

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci3:19

happened also to be the day in which there was some case over whether or not Stephen Byers had lied to a select committee, and they ended up quoting back some of the phrases that he had come up with. And there were not a million miles from that.

Presenter3:31

But at the other end of the spectrum, I was quoting you, I mean, from offensive to safe. I mean, Alan Partridge was always very.

Armando Iannucci3:33

Yeah.

Presenter3:36

Safe, if you like. Just just uh insensitive, crass, ghastly, unlovable, but safe. You've said that he popped out fully formed. How did that happen?

Armando Iannucci3:37

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci3:45

Oh right. It was when we were recording On the Our and On the Our was a news parody and I asked Steve Coogan if he could come up with a sports reporter. And he instantly came out with this voice and instantly everyone in the room knew who this character was. We knew what his aspirations were, you know, what sort of a day he had. Somebody said he's an Alan and someone else said yes, and a partridge. And so even the name seems to have burst out fully formed. It was bizarre.

Presenter4:00

Yeah.

Presenter4:14

And he grew and grew and he went on to television knowing me, knowing you and I'm Alan Partridge and so on. But but now you don't want anything to do with him ever again, I gather. You've had enough of him.

Armando Iannucci4:15

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci4:17

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci4:22

Uh

Presenter4:22

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci4:23

Yes. The last series of I'm Allen Party took us about eighteen months and and we spent about eight quite intensive months writing it. And and you we write by slightly improvising. So Steve is Alan for those.

Presenter4:34

All of the time, day in, day out, you're in the office with them.

Armando Iannucci4:35

Day in, day out, you're in the office with him. And effectively, you feel you've worked for eight months in the company of this idiot. Yes. And I just never want to hear him again, really. He's broken me.

Presenter4:40

I was

Presenter4:41

Yeah.

Presenter4:45

Uh

Armando Iannucci4:45

Uh

Presenter4:47

Record number one. Tell me what that is.

Armando Iannucci4:48

Well, I'm absolutely besorted with uh Bach and the first piece of Bach I got to know were the solo uh violin sonatas and patitas. And I I always think of these violin sonatas and patitas as a person really, as a as a character. And uh the bit we're going to hear is actually a bit that we had at our wedding, so it'll remind me of that as well.

Presenter6:04

Part of the third movement of Bach's Partita number three, played by Nathan Milstein. So it all began in radio for you, Armando, with as we were saying on the hour, which became the day to day on television, um, with all those important bongs and reporters called Rahan, Rahan, Rahan, Rahan, whatever.

Presenter6:21

Was it easier on on television to make people laugh because you had the added help of the visual, all things visual?

Armando Iannucci6:29

Um well we find it I I find it very difficult because as we were making the day to day, not only were we making the T V version of a show quite a lot of people had a lot of affection for, but we were also working out how to make television at the same time. So there were sort of two learning processes going on.

Presenter6:43

But this

Presenter6:46

And so many people because I mean you've got so many other things and you've got the props and the sets and the graphics and so so in a way it moves away from you. You've got a ho hold on.

Armando Iannucci6:46

And so

Armando Iannucci6:50

The set

Armando Iannucci6:54

Yes, it there's a you know, i on radio, if you say can I have an elephant? You actually do then have to go and get the sound effect of the elephant. Whereas if you happen over a cup of coffee in television to say

Armando Iannucci7:06

Wonder what it'd be like if there was an elephant. Before you know it, someone's gone and booked an elephant, even though you've changed your mind. You know, so there's a massive machine. It's like a super tank when you're trying to turn it around. It does take about five days.

Presenter7:12

You know, so there's a m-

Presenter7:17

I'm going to ask you quickly one of those awful questions. Which do you prefer, radio or television? Making programs together.

Armando Iannucci7:21

Do you know, I've never really uh decided. I mean, I do lots of radio still and so, yeah, I sort of jumped from one. I I in fact I don't feel I I don't feel I have to decide.

Presenter7:30

No, you don't. No. I just thought I'd put you on the spot.

Armando Iannucci7:31

I

Armando Iannucci7:32

No, well, there you go. That's the media trying to come up with some sound bite. That's soundbite culture for you, Sue.

Presenter7:39

But radio was always your first love. You were brought up on it, weren't you? And what did you listen to? I listened to.

Armando Iannucci7:43

I listened to lots of radio comedy on Radio 4 and there was an awful lot of it on Radio 2 at the time as well. And I you know I listened to the news quiz and weekending and um H Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy which first started when I was about 14. I've still got the I've still got the cassette tapes I recorded off air off Longwave. I can still hear on the tapes the time signal for Radio Albania sort of in the background because you just picked up all sorts of interference.

Presenter8:08

But never a thought in your head. When you were working on your doctoral thesis on the language of Milton, you can never have thought you were going to end up producing Week Ending and the News Quiz, can you? I mean, what a strange in a

Presenter8:21

Well, it was a turning point in your life.

Armando Iannucci8:22

Yeah. Absolutely. It was and it was bizarre when I became a radio producer, you know, the first thing more or less that I did was produce quote unquote and weekending and news quiz and find myself working with these people that I I laughed to when I was twelve and thirteen, fourteen.

Presenter8:37

But what did your mother think? She had this academic son, you know, who

Armando Iannucci8:40

Well, yes, I think.

Armando Iannucci8:42

Both my parents were assuming I would be like a doctor or a lawyer or I think even when I went into comedy, I think my mum eventually thought that eventually I would go onto panorama. I don't think she I don't think she ever dreamt that I would hang around in comedy for so long.

Presenter8:58

Record number two.

Armando Iannucci8:59

Well a record I'm doing talking about my mum actually. This is uh my mum's favourite piece of music, it's the overture to the thieving magpie by Rossini and um it would remind me of both my parents really mu we always had opera on in the background, it was always Verdi and Puccini. I slightly railed against it by liking Wagner, which they hated, but uh but this would remind me of of them.

Presenter10:21

Part of the overture to Rossini is The Thieving Magpie, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by David Parry, which takes us back, Armando Yannucci, to your roots, to Glasgow. Um what but the name, obviously, it's Italian Glaswegian

Armando Iannucci10:34

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci10:36

What are its roots? My mother was born in Glasgow. Her parents came over from just outside Rome in um about the nineteen twenties. And my father was born just outside Naples and and he came over uh after the Second World War, stopping off on his way to America.

Presenter10:54

And I I read that your father ran a pizza factory, also made kitchen furniture. Are both true?

Armando Iannucci10:59

Well, yes, no, he was very much uh I mean during the war when he was about fifteen, sixteen he took to the hills and joined the partisans. Then after the war came over to Britain ended up doing all sorts of odd jobs. But for the last ten years of his life he had this enormous pizza factory that had an an extraordinary sort of Heath Robinson-esque machine that ran one length of the factory to the other where you saw the dough going in at one end and then bits of mushrooms and peppers and so on being dropped onto it as it went along and it it being cooked as it went along and then falling off the other end and it was an enormous contraption.

Presenter11:33

But but I gather fortunes ebbed and flowed a bit while you were small, so I mean, did you have to manage without a lot quite often?

Armando Iannucci11:39

Well, no, I mean, uh, you know, being uh self employed, you know, there are ups and downs and I do remember when there were downs, you know, uh we we didn't regularly have a phone or a car or regularly go on holiday, but I didn't think that felt unusual. Um

Presenter11:58

But there were four of you, so I mean it must have been a bit tired.

Armando Iannucci11:59

It must have been a bit time.

Presenter12:02

But whatever else, you got a good education. But they paid for your education. They felt very strongly about it.

Armando Iannucci12:08

Yes, and I I remember my father in particular, it was his great sort of obsession in the way that, you know, knowledge was a wonderful thing and that education was a was a great thing and it must never be squandered.

Presenter12:20

And you were third in this pecking order of four, but you said my brothers and that you had two brothers older than you and a a sister younger my brothers were much more normal than I was. I said now what what does that mean?

Armando Iannucci12:30

You'd have to ask them, well, you know, they were

Armando Iannucci12:33

They went out and played football and cricket and were very, very sporty and had Pink Floyd and Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed up and posters up in the walls. Whereas I went to the, you know, when the local library opened up around the corner, the Hillhead Library, I went and read books and took out classical music. So I must have looked, to them, I must have looked like an embarrassment. I was odd. Number three, go on. Number three, well, after Bach, my other great love in music is Marla. And when I joined this library and started taking out records, we were only allowed on the ticket, especially if you were under 40. You could only take two discs out. But the great thing about Marla was his symphonies were so long that they were a double album in themselves. So it was sort of cheating. But I absolutely adored Marla. It was very, very intensely romantic and passionate, but quite complex as well. And, you know, his music has stayed with me since then.

Speaker 212:45

Mm-hmm.

Presenter12:45

Yeah.

Presenter14:28

Part of the first movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tenstett.

Presenter14:34

Um you set your sights, Armando, on getting into Oxford, didn't you? Which must have been quite unusual. What do we do? Late seventies, early eighties, Glasgow for a a young boy to want to go South was not what you did, was it?

Armando Iannucci14:46

Well, no. I mean, at the time, most people, if they went to university, went to the local university, went to Glasgow University or Strathclyde University. I suppose I was intensely academic, and I was drawn to the academic life. And so Oxford had an appeal, but I knew it was a bit of a long shot. But yes, in terms of the family, I mean, no one had moved away from home, no one had left Glasgow, so it was very unique. I remember when I actually set off to Oxford, like all my family and relatives and everyone were all lined up at the Glasgow Central Station waving me off on the train. It was like, I kind of, what on earth am I doing? What's happening here?

Presenter15:06

No one

Presenter15:21

But of course it was an even bigger step because your father died, didn't he, just before you went?

Armando Iannucci15:25

Just about about two months before I and and he uh very suddenly of a heart attack and he had talked a lot about buying a little car and tooting down the motorway and coming to visit me. So and I think you know because of his passion for education it was um it was something he was very uh pleased with and and it was just a shame that he never he never actually got to see me there.

Presenter15:49

Mm.

Presenter15:49

But you got there, and it was, I gather, you thought, just

Armando Iannucci15:54

Wonderful. It was great. It was fantastic, yes. Which is why I couldn't really tear myself away from it. So when I'd finished my degree, I sort of hung around for another three years.

Presenter16:04

You also said it was almost too beautiful.

Armando Iannucci16:07

It was. Yes, it will. I suddenly, you know, I still felt a bit guilty, I suppose, because, you know, I knew that because my father had just died, you know, I knew we weren't, you know, swimming in cash back in Glasgow. I knew it was quite tough. And then suddenly here I found myself in an environment where, you know, people had summer balls. And I remember the first, in the first term, going for a meal and it costing more than £20 and just feeling dreadful that I'd spent more than £20 on food. And I think I spent my first year or so just feeling slightly puritanical about the whole thing, just simply because of the contrast. And then I just thought, no, enjoy it while it lasts.

Presenter16:53

And it lasted for five years, for more years.

Armando Iannucci16:54

Six years, yes, six years, yes.

Presenter16:59

Next record.

Armando Iannucci16:59

Well actually being at Oxford was the first time I encountered I suppose the Anglican church service and in particular even song which I'm very very fond of and I really like the music the church music of Herbert Howells and that would remind me I I suppose of my time at Oxford but also just because I'm very very fond of it as as a sound. So this is a note de Mittis from Herbert Howells.

Speaker 217:26

Our lettest love thy servant depart me.

Speaker 217:43

The God came into the

Speaker 218:08

I tax fear, I tax fear.

Presenter18:20

That was a Herbert Hauel Nunc de Mittis. The tenor was Roy Rashbrook, and it was sung by the collegiate singers. They were directed by Andrew Millinger, with Richard Moorhaus on the organ. You say, Armanda, that you'd play religious music at the beginning and end of every day on your desert island, would you?

Armando Iannucci18:38

Uh well, if stuck on the desert island, I I I could imagine starting the day with a Howells Magnificat and ending with a Nugdomitis, just to give some sort of order to the day.

Presenter18:47

Are you still a practising Roman Catholic?

Armando Iannucci18:49

No, I'm a sort of a lazy, lazy Catholic really. I mean, I'm I'm still interested. I I was quite intensely religious as a boy. You did think about becoming a priest, didn't you? Yes, quite seriously for a while, and then realized well, well, two things. One is um

Armando Iannucci19:08

You know, this whole poverty, chastity and obedience thing, I mean, I can cope with the poverty, but really.

Armando Iannucci19:15

The other two is not going to happen. And the other thing is, I made the mistake of actually reading the Bible. Now, the Old Testament, I know there'll be letters, but the Old Testament, God is a bit mad. That put me off a bit. And no one quite ever to this day has explained to me why Christ had to die for our sins.

Armando Iannucci19:36

They tell me that he did.

Armando Iannucci19:38

But no one has yet explained why. So I'm still drawn to reading about theology and and spiritual writings and so on, but uh I've sort of settled on the notion that actually you never get to the bottom of all this and and that's part of the joy of it really. You you spend your whole life mulling it over, you never arrive at an answer.

Presenter19:57

You'll be helped to get to the bottom of it now. You'll get a few letters as you say.

Armando Iannucci20:00

Well guided me.

Presenter20:01

But what what kind of age are we talking about?

Armando Iannucci20:04

I mean about what, about fifteen, sixteen?

Presenter20:05

And your mum thought you might be a doctor and you thought you might go into the civil service and you end up in Radio Scotland doing kind of spoofs on the news.

Armando Iannucci20:07

And you

Armando Iannucci20:14

Yes, well I I was asked to um present a radio show. They were looking for youth presenters and I ended up presenting a live music show on Radio Scotland.

Presenter20:24

Pop music

Armando Iannucci20:24

Pop, yes, you could call it pop. I'd see it as indie rock.

Armando Iannucci20:30

Ha ha

Presenter20:30

Not what you liked, not what you liked.

Armando Iannucci20:31

No, not really. No, I boned up in it. I could tell you anything about the music between 1988 and 1989, really.

Presenter20:39

Really?

Presenter20:41

You should go on mastermind. But did you feel in that moment the same as you'd felt when you first arrived in Oxford, that you were in the right place?

Armando Iannucci20:47

I felt absolutely at home and it really came to me very, very quickly what I wanted to do. And they let me write some sketches every weekend and actually go off and make them. So it was a fantastic training course really in how to make radio comedy. And so I knew that that was it, that that's what I should be doing.

Armando Iannucci21:05

Next piece of music. Well, ah, talking of comedy, I I see what you've done here. You've woven these pieces very seamlessly with a sound. Very, very, very professional. It's a bit of Woody Allen. I mean, I just he's fantastic. He's my comedy hero. I I love all his films. And I sort of felt I had to have I had to have the sound of people laughing really on on this island. I know it back to front, but it still always makes me laugh. So I'd love to hear a bit of Woody Allen's sort of nineteen early nineteen sixties stand-up act.

Speaker 321:39

I shot a moose once. I was hunting upstate New York. And I shot a moose. And I strap him onto the fender of my car.

Speaker 321:47

And I'm driving home along the West Side Highway.

Speaker 321:51

But what I didn't realize was that the bullet did not penetrate the moose. It just creased his scalp, knocking him unconscious.

Speaker 321:59

And I'm driving through the Holland Tunnel.

Speaker 322:03

And the moose woke up.

Presenter22:05

And that was Woody Allen and the Moose recorded live in Washington in nineteen sixty five. Your creations, Armando, have several things in comm many things in common, not just you. I mean they're first of all they're born of an obsession with the media really, aren't they? I mean whether it's news or chat shows or political spins.

Armando Iannucci22:19

I suppose you.

Armando Iannucci22:23

I suppose even the politicians in the thick of it are are obsessed by the media. Yes, I hadn't really thought of that.

Presenter22:28

But it's born of anger, isn't it, the thick of it? It it feels as if it is. I mean, how how seriously deep do you feel?

Armando Iannucci22:34

Well, I suppose it was crystallized, you know, without getting dogmatic about it, I was very much against the war in Iraq. I thought it was going to be disastrous, and behold, it was. But it did make me think again about looking at how politics works today and how we end up getting ourselves into positions which, you know, any Martian would tell us from outside are ridiculous. So I was interested in coming up with a show that plotted the the process really, where each episode would end with a ridiculous situation, but actually

Presenter23:04

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci23:13

You know, if you follow it all the way through, you could sort of see and understand why all the people got into that situation.

Presenter23:19

So but so it's it's heavy satire really as much as

Armando Iannucci23:23

And I've always been very, very interested in politics, you know, from again from a young age, you know.

Presenter23:28

Might have become a politician?

Armando Iannucci23:29

I can't imagine because I can't imagine having to nail all my colours to the one mast. I'd be the world's worst person to be spun because I I couldn't cope with it.

Presenter23:40

But we were talking about this obsession with the media and certainly it's reflected in the way that you you make the thick of it. It it's made it's sort of two cameras, isn't it? And you're just cutting and cutting. It's very fast.

Armando Iannucci23:50

It's very, very fast, and it's meant to be very edgy and nervous. I suppose I wanted to do it in a nervous way. And the cast, you know, there is a script, but they don't have much time to learn it. And in fact, I kind of encourage them to depart from the script. So that sort of slightly frightened look in Hugh Abbott's eyes.

Presenter23:52

Yeah.

Armando Iannucci24:10

Are also a fright-looking Chris Langham's eyes as he tries to think, what shall I say next?

Presenter24:15

But the greatest insult, I would imagine, is that Number Ten asked for a set of the recordings for Christmas, didn't they?

Armando Iannucci24:19

Yes, I know that's depressing. But it may be that they asked for the recordings and then said that they didn't like it. In fact, someone in the Treasury said, I mean, we love it, but the guys at number ten, they're all going, Well, actually, you know, if we did leak a story, we'd leak it to the Evening Standard before the World at One, not after.

Presenter24:24

The

Armando Iannucci24:37

So uh I'm glad it goes down like that in number ten.

Armando Iannucci24:42

Number six. It's Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, which I first got to know when I I first started going out with Rachel at university and she who's now my wife she was a Kate Bush fan and and I first got to know Kate Bush. So it would remind me of of of Rachel but but also um I I really you know I really enjoy it as a song as well.

Speaker 225:05

But every time it rained

Speaker 225:09

You're here in my head.

Speaker 225:13

Let the sun come down I just know that something good is gonna happen

Speaker 225:24

Oh no

Speaker 225:27

Uh

Presenter25:27

Uh

Presenter25:30

That was Kate Bush and cloud busting. The other thing that your characters, Armando, it seems to me, um, have in common if we're thinking about all the guys in the thick of it and Alan Partridge and so on, is is that they're not at all lovable. Like those people in sitcoms we've known before, you know, whether it's only Fools and Horses or Terry and June or whatever. We don't they there is no wa we feel no warmth for these people.

Armando Iannucci25:54

Well, I'm sorry about that. It's not a design it's not grand design, really. Although you sort of um tense up with Alan, I think you also

Armando Iannucci26:02

slightly connect with them, I hope, in that, um

Armando Iannucci26:06

A lot of people tell me.

Armando Iannucci26:08

A lot of people say to me, Oh, I know someone just like Alan. It's never them, you know. No one says, I'm just like Alan. But everyone always knows someone a bit like Alan.

Presenter26:11

No one's

Presenter26:15

But that's what I'm saying is is that is that the nature? I mean, and you are now what the visiting Oxford professor of broadcast media, so you're supposed to analyse these things. You are this person for a year anyway. I mean

Presenter26:26

What it is is, isn't it, that is the nature of twenty-first century comedy, and it's quite niche in the way that all of the sitcoms that came before were mainstream. And that's not just because there are so many other ways in new media now of receiving programmes and so many more channels. It's also, isn't it, because that's where comedy's gone, into little cult corners.

Speaker 226:36

And that's not

Armando Iannucci26:45

Well

Armando Iannucci26:46

Although I I would sort of think that maybe I think we have writers and performers now who are as good as John Cleese and Ronnie Barker, but I I would argue that something like Father Ted, for example, which is a very positive, endearing, jolly, stupid sitcom

Armando Iannucci27:08

would have sat quite happily on BBC One about fifteen years ago. It's up there with Black Adder. And I and I would argue also that I think the public are yearning for good, solid stuff. I think that's right.

Presenter27:21

I think that's right. I think they're hungry for it. But it's just not there. That's really my question. Why has it gone off into these little corners and niches, as we say, and how can you get what's the formula for getting it back?

Armando Iannucci27:32

Well, I think I think there's no there's no magic formula other than telling people not to be scared of doing it. And I think people are scared of doing it because they worry if it's not successful, you've suddenly been not successful in front of a very large audience.

Presenter27:32

I think I think

Presenter27:44

And that's where you're at,'cause you're Mr. Blue Skies Thinker for the BBC now, aren't you? Or comedy, anyway, I am told. Are you not, Anna?

Armando Iannucci27:48

I'm on comedy anyway, I am told. Are you not on any? Well, I've been sort of I have this I have this office in a place called the East Periphery Television Centre, and I'm allowed to develop ideas, but they're not I mean, I don't have any automatic you know, nothing's going to k get commissioned just because my name's at the end of it. You know, it still has every idea has to go through the same procedure, but it i I've got a little bit more room to try stuff out and to try it out quietly so that when it is ready, it it really is ready.

Presenter28:22

More music.

Armando Iannucci28:23

This is um Sibelius. It's from his fifth symphony. Sebi Sibelius was one of those composers I came across where I suppose your conception

Armando Iannucci28:34

The sort of the uh the traditional conception of classical music is of something being slightly um precious, slightly effete. And Sebelius' music was the first music that sort of told me actually it can be really rugged and earthy and uh fascinating. The sounds you can get out of an orchestra are fascinating and as fascinating as uh anything Pink Floyd has done. And and this is my favourite Sebelius symphony, number five.

Presenter30:01

That was part of the final movement of Sibelius Symphony No. 5 in E-flat, played by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Petri Sakari.

Presenter30:10

Uh so what's next, Armando? Have have has your blue skies thinking yielded uh up anything yet?

Armando Iannucci30:16

Well, the the next thing that I'm doing is a series called Time Trumpet. And it's a fake history show set in the future, set about 30 years' time, looking back at events now. And you're sort of guided through it by a 70-year-old David Beckham and a 60-year-old Charlotte Church. And it is funny, you know, when a 70-year-old Tom Cruise walks into the room, you think, fantastic. And you do start believing it. It's great. Time trumpet.

Presenter30:46

In the meantime, it's life on a on a desert island. Does does the prospect offer you joy or despair?

Armando Iannucci30:48

Excellent.

Armando Iannucci30:51

Well, a little bit of joy in that, you know, I can quite amiably live in isolation for a little while, um, doing a bit of thinking and a bit of reading and a bit of listening and so on, but I'm hopelessly impractical. Rachel says that she will come out on a boat and try and find me and bring me home. And she probably would actually. She's very resourceful. I couldn't attempt anything approaching a hut or even trying to kill a fish I'm not going to be very good at, so I I don't hold out much hope really.

Presenter31:23

Last record.

Armando Iannucci31:23

That's where I get it. Well it's back to Bach. I love his cantatas. It's the most beautiful music I've heard. And it's it's both simple and charming yet playful at the same time. But anyway, I just um I I am rendered speechless by Bach as you can as you can as you've discovered. Um but no I love this.

Speaker 231:50

Taste good for

Speaker 231:59

I am a grave.

Presenter32:43

Valette Willishtier Geben, I take my leave of you from Bach's cantata Christ is my Life, sung by Catherine Fuge, with the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Elliott Gardner. Now, Armando, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Armando Iannucci32:57

Well, I give it about a year on this island and uh

Armando Iannucci33:02

If Rachel hasn't rescued me, and I have every confidence she will, I think I will have to just

Armando Iannucci33:08

On on the stroke of the end of the first year, I will have to build something and just sail off and see what happens. So I'll need something fair fairly stirring to be playing as I sail off. So I'm going to have the Marlin nine.

Presenter33:22

What about your book? You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, as you know.

Armando Iannucci33:25

Um I'd like to bring the collected short stories of HG Wells. They're fat I mean, I love uh Wells's fiction anime, but he's allowed to get away with a lot more in the short stories'cause he doesn't have to let it sustain for a whole novel. You know, with the sun beating down on me, my going me going off my head. I think the HG Wells will will help me along the way.

Armando Iannucci33:45

And a luxury. Well, I would like, and I would like you to make for me, because it doesn't exist, a virtual trifle. I love sherry trifle, but I know you're not allowed anything practical on this island. But if there was something that I could have which would give me the taste of a really good sherry trifle, but not the nutrition and the calorific value and all that sort of thing, so just give me the the experience of a really good sherry trifle.

Presenter34:12

And a pot of glassy cherries.

Armando Iannucci34:13

Oh, y yes, yes. I mean, again, you know, I'm happy to have them virtual if if I'm not around the the real ones.

Presenter34:20

Armando Ianuti, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Armando Iannucci34:24

This pina.

Presenter34:24

Pleasure.

Armando Iannucci34:25

Yeah.

Speaker 234:32

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