Simon Russell Beale

Presenter0:00

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 seven.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the actor Simon Russell Beale.

Presenter0:31

Critics are torn over their descriptions of him. To some, he is the greatest stage actor in Britain to-day, to others, merely the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation. Whichever it is, when he's cast in a play, it invariably sells out, the audience is spellbound, and the reviewers smitten. Yet it initially seemed as if music was his calling. A choir boy at St Paul's, he won a singing scholarship to Cambridge and went on to study at the Guild Hall School of Music.

Presenter0:58

A collaborator by nature, he seems happiest when pushed to new heights by others who are already confident of his talents. Sam Mendez is his great stage mentor. So, Simon Russell Beal initially was an English teacher who spotted your talent for acting. What happened?

Simon Russell Beale1:11

For listening what happened?

Simon Russell Beale1:12

Brian Worthington, who was a great teacher and a very strict teacher and a very puritanical intellect, and in fact not a great lover of the theatre, actually, uh professional theatre, I think he'd forgive me for saying that. I met him when I went to senior school when I was thirteen, and he cast me as Desdemona and uh started the whole thing of well didn't start the whole thing about Shakespeare, but he got me to fall in love with Shakespeare.

Presenter1:37

And how did you look as Testimona?

Simon Russell Beale1:39

Oh, I should gaslash a thing.

Simon Russell Beale1:41

Unwatchable. I I think I had there was a review in the school paper that said he makes up in clarity what he lacks in feminine charm or something. I can't remember what it was, but something like that.

Presenter1:51

Yeah.

Presenter1:51

And he realized then that that was where your future lay. Did he sort of spot the talent from the very beginning?

Simon Russell Beale1:58

Well, as I said, he wasn't a great fan of professional theatre, so

Simon Russell Beale2:01

It was a bit of a surprise when I did my O levels as they were in those days.

Simon Russell Beale2:06

That he said to my parents when they came round for a chat to see what I was going to do for A-level.

Simon Russell Beale2:10

What about a career in the theatre? I remember that very clearly. We were on the steps of his house, and he as his parting shot, he said.

Simon Russell Beale2:17

Probably the theatre, and that took me by surprise.

Presenter2:20

I mentioned in the introduction that you seem to like, from what I can uh understand, you seem to like the collaboration, you like being pushed on by a director that you have confidence in. Sam Mendez is somebody that you've worked and had uh great success with.

Simon Russell Beale2:32

Yes, I mean I

Simon Russell Beale2:34

I've spent most of my life in the two major theater companies in this country, and I love it because it is uh a community, but I also love it because

Simon Russell Beale2:44

I think I probably need a lot of stimulus at the beginning of any process. And also and I've said this many times about directors is that they you know they've got to pour confidence into you. And I think I I need that, to be honest.

Presenter2:58

It seems a significant contradiction that somebody who is able to put themselves out live on stage every night in front of hundreds of people with high expectations at the same time lacks confidence. That doesn't quite make sense.

Simon Russell Beale3:09

I think that's an absolute classic actor's thing of low self-esteem and huge ego. That's.

Presenter3:17

So low self-esteem plus huge equal equals actor.

Simon Russell Beale3:18

Self-esteem plus huge equals actor. That's a terrible my actor friends will kill me for saying that. But I think it's not an easy route to find out why somebody actually appears on stage live, but it's not entirely to do with

Simon Russell Beale3:30

Confidence.

Simon Russell Beale3:31

It's sometimes to do with the exact opposite, somehow.

Presenter3:34

Tell me about your first piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale3:36

I had to have a a bit of Bach, and this is sort of early morning this is breakfast music. It's um Bach Spanderberg concerto No. One, and played by a group who are sort of wildly early musicky and the horns are great.

Speaker 44:16

Uh

Presenter4:51

The opening of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, No. One, performed by the Concerto Italiano, conducted by Ronaldo Alessandrini. Simon Russellbeel, you've said several times, I believe, that you feel that you're almost born middle aged. What do you mean by it?

Simon Russell Beale5:05

Yeah, I mean, I don't know I don't know whether my brothers and sisters would think I was serious. I I I think what I meant by it is that I've always taken work very seriously and I I think I'm a bit of a prodder in in terms of, you know, everything has to be

Simon Russell Beale5:17

Perfect. And, you know, writing essays at school, I remember, my brothers used to tease me about it. You know, if I made a mistake on the last word of a page, then the whole page had to be rewritten. All that sort of rather obsessive stuff. Yes, and a perfectionist.

Presenter5:26

So by nature a perfectionist.

Presenter5:29

So this studious little boy from the age of seven was schooled in England whilst your family were living abroad. What what was the situation?

Simon Russell Beale5:35

Well, yes, it's it's rather extraordinary looking back on it now. Um it didn't seem extraordinary at the time, but I was left with my grandparents in Newport and South Wales.

Simon Russell Beale5:43

When I was just about to turn eight, and the whole rest of them lucky things went off to Singapore. So why were you on your own?

Presenter5:49

But why were you on your own?

Simon Russell Beale5:50

Well, because they I'd got into the choir school and mum and dad obviously thought that was the best place for me to be educated. And in fact, the twins, my two younger brothers, followed a year later coming to school in England. So that was obviously the plan. And brothers and sisters.

Presenter6:03

And brothers and sisters quite a few brothers and sisters.

Simon Russell Beale6:05

Um three brothers and a sister, yeah.

Presenter6:07

And you had a sister who died when she was very young.

Simon Russell Beale6:09

My sister died, yes, uh, Lucy. She died when she was four. When I was still at the choir school, actually, so I remember that when I was eleven.

Presenter6:17

And you wrote rather a heartbreaking note back to your parents when she died.

Simon Russell Beale6:22

Gosh, how do you know that? Um I yes, I wrote I said it must be all for you who knew her so much better than I did, um which mum kept.

Simon Russell Beale6:32

And in a way, well, it was true. I mean, I'd I'd grown up

Simon Russell Beale6:36

Um not knowing Lucy particularly well, because I only met her during the holidays.

Presenter6:41

And what was it that she was ill of?

Simon Russell Beale6:42

A hole in the heart. I'm not a I'm not a medic, so unlike the rest of the family. Um so I don't know the official description of it, but I was told a hole in the heart.

Presenter6:50

So you were at St Paul's Cathedral School in the choir, obviously a a very able voice. And do you think partly that's how your studiousness was developed? Because there must have been quite a a strong routine through the day there?

Simon Russell Beale7:01

Yes, it was a very strict school. It was a very disciplined school and a very small school. It was only thirty-eight kids in this block at the end of the cathedral in the middle of London. And um.

Simon Russell Beale7:12

For two hours a day, you were a professional singer, I suppose. And I think that that had some sort of effect on the way.

Simon Russell Beale7:21

The rest of the work was done. And it's astonishingly, I mean, I I don't remember having to learn to sight sing, for instance. So you go in there as a very, very young child.

Simon Russell Beale7:31

And just by osmosis you learn how to to sing and to sight read, um which is fairly extraordinary education really when you think about it.

Presenter7:40

It's quite pressurized, isn't it? When maybe you should have been kicking a ball around a field or something.

Simon Russell Beale7:43

Do not mean

Presenter7:45

Or some

Simon Russell Beale7:45

Something like that.

Presenter7:45

Something like that.

Simon Russell Beale7:49

Yeah, it's well, as I say it it didn't feel pressurized. It didn't feel pressurized at the time. It didn't feel odd that I spent Christmas Day there with the other you know, um which is extraordinary really when you think about it.

Presenter7:59

And did you ever celebrate Christmas with your parents then, give away?

Simon Russell Beale8:01

Oh yeah, he says I had two Christmases, you see.

Presenter8:03

What happened?

Simon Russell Beale8:03

What happened? Well, what happened is that w we we had celebrated Christmas at um school and you'd have your stockings and and I always remember you had you had orange squash for lunch instead of water. That was quite a big truth.

Presenter8:12

What a treat. Yeah, what a treat. Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale8:14

This is the late sixties, remember. Um and and then this is the real glamorous part for me was that uh grandma would come and collect me on Boxing Day or whenever.

Simon Russell Beale8:25

Take me to Heathrow and pop me on the plane and uh at the other end were mum and dad and another Christmas. I can't tell you how exciting it was. I mean walking off the plane and hit being hit by the heat, you know, you know what that's like, and walking down the stairs in those days at Singapore Airport. It was thrilling, absolutely thrilling, and and then I think to the huge irritation of my siblings.

Simon Russell Beale8:48

I would be welcomed home with another Christmas. I mean that must have infuriated them. So I was I was spoiled in that sense.

Presenter8:54

You're a bit of a star.

Simon Russell Beale8:56

Oh, well, I mean I don't know other mistard my family. No. I've got the front seat of the car.

Presenter9:02

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale9:04

My family's all being rather good at Christmas, and um this is a carol. It's it'll be memories of Christmas memories of my mem memories of um North Wiltshire too. It's a very sort of

Simon Russell Beale9:15

Hugely richly harmonically positioned, but it's um a rather cold piece, but it's North Wiltshire.

Speaker 49:25

Most we try and see where all thy silence stand.

Speaker 49:36

His comet's sweet words fail.

Simon Russell Beale9:38

It was free.

Speaker 49:41

Maybe the Lord is made.

Speaker 49:47

For through our Lord's merit

Speaker 410:00

We are cold.

Presenter10:22

The Cambridge Singers, led by John Rutter and A Spotless Rose. Let's talk about music, then, because clearly you have a huge enthusiasm for music. We've heard that from the first two choices, and from the way that you've introduced them. But it it held a central role in your life. You were schooled in what? Piano and oboe?

Simon Russell Beale10:38

Yes, we had to do two instruments and we had to do the piano.

Simon Russell Beale10:41

Music was absolutely the central part of my life and indeed a hugely central part of my family's life. I mean dad was an amateur singer, still is.

Simon Russell Beale10:50

And conductor and whatever, you know, that was part of my life. And then, you know, up until I was twen early twenties, that was what

Simon Russell Beale10:57

I was going to do

Presenter10:58

You were awarded a music scholarship to study at Clifton College. So one imagines that you imagined your life, your professional life beyond, lay in music?

Simon Russell Beale11:01

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale11:07

Well, yes, except for the fact that I I and I'm I'm not being f falsely modest here. I I I really wasn't top class. And I and I think that my head of music said, you know, when I got to A level, you know, he could make he could make a career in music, but it won't you know, it it'll be um pedestrian.

Presenter11:24

So the the problem really is being middling. You couldn't stand the other I mean you probably could have made a rather middling career as a professional singer or a professional musician, but it wouldn't have been top drawer.

Simon Russell Beale11:26

Dang.

Simon Russell Beale11:33

Yeah. That sounds dreadful though, doesn't it?

Presenter11:36

No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. It sounds honest. It sounds as if you have high ideals and you want to aim to be good.

Simon Russell Beale11:40

The

Simon Russell Beale11:42

And and I did love it. I mean, I I I loved it, but I I that's not quite enough to get you get you through.

Presenter11:48

Okay, you've convinced me. And and where was all of the the the acting? Because early on, as as as you've described it, there was a teacher who said, This could be the real deal. This this person could go on and act. Were you acting at the same time, or studying literature, keeping up the shakespeare?

Simon Russell Beale11:49

Mm-hmm.

Simon Russell Beale11:57

Listen, this person could go on and act.

Simon Russell Beale12:00

Literature keeping up the Shakespeare page. Well, absolutely. I mean, I I remember the first time I was asked to read a Shakespeare passage was when I was ten at my prep school. I remember it clearly. I remember where I was sitting, I remember what the weather was like.

Simon Russell Beale12:11

If I remember that, then something must have hit home.

Simon Russell Beale12:14

I just remember the physical sensation of of reading out aloud.

Simon Russell Beale12:18

Being somehow thrilling.

Simon Russell Beale12:20

It might have been a bit to do with showing off, I suppose. And and I never stopped wanting to read out loud in class.

Presenter12:26

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale12:28

I remember hearing this for the very first time, and I'd been picked up in it was m dad and mum were in Germany, and I was picked up at the REF airport or whatever, and driving home. It was either in the car or when we arrived home, dad put on this tape, as it was in those days, and said, You've got to listen to this and it was the first score I bought for my own pleasure rather than for O level or A level.

Presenter12:51

Was it expensive?

Simon Russell Beale12:51

Uh

Presenter12:51

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale12:52

Phenomenally expensive, because this is one of the biggest pieces of music ever written. I just wanted to see I was in my t I was a teenager, I wanted to see what it looked like in this huge, huge sand. So this is, um, the beginning of Marla's Eighth Symphony.

Presenter14:03

The opening of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, performed by the chorus of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Boys' Choir, with the Vienna Singers, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte. To Cambridge, then, Simon Russell Beel, where you studied English, and among your contemporaries at the time people like Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie. Were were you part of that set?

Simon Russell Beale14:23

No, actually. They were part of the Footlights, you know, the Great Review uh company, which I wasn't. Again, actually my job was music, um, because I had to sing a service every day. It's like um my secondary school I was there to do music.

Presenter14:39

You graduated with a first. Could you have become an academic, do you think?

Simon Russell Beale14:43

I asked my tutor, actually, one of my tutors there, what I should do, and he advised against it. But of course I was I was tempted.

Simon Russell Beale14:53

And bizarrely started thinking about a doctorate about the culture of death in Victorian literature and especially the death of children, which of course looking back on had something to do with Lucy, I should think. But I probably would have found it a bit lonely, to be honest. And again, middling.

Simon Russell Beale15:15

I think.

Presenter15:16

It sounds again like a very quite a serious time. I mean, you seem to me somebody who who fizzes with quite a lot of sort of humour and and maybe even impishness. And yet here you were studying, doing the music, following a disciplined life at a time at university when a lot of people are are having a lot of fun and and the studying comes soon.

Simon Russell Beale15:34

I had a lot of fun at university, but I have to confess I did work hard. Yes, I did. I loved it.

Simon Russell Beale15:40

You know, with The Big Boy, with um Shakespeare, it's like Beethoven, you can't you can't fail to be knocked out as you read them them.

Simon Russell Beale15:50

The really beautiful stuff.

Presenter15:52

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale15:55

This is just the happiest piece of music ever written, really.

Simon Russell Beale15:58

It sort of uh reminds me of my time at the R S C when I first started. It's uh Mendelsohn's octet.

Presenter17:06

Part of the first movement of Mendelssohn's octet in E-flat, performed by members of the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields. You were at the Guildhall School of Music, which of course is the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Did you look at the drama? Did you look at the drama students and think

Presenter17:22

I fancy a bit of that. I wish I was doing that.

Simon Russell Beale17:22

I wish I was doing that. Absolutely. Did you?

Presenter17:24

Did you

Simon Russell Beale17:26

There's a sort of communal area in the middle of the college and at one side is the singers, at the other end are the actors, and in the middle are the instrumentalists.

Simon Russell Beale17:34

And also I had a very tough I had a very tough teacher, who was a very brilliant teacher, called Rudolph Pierni. He you know, he basically said you've got to reconstruct your technique if you want to be a professional singer. And I probably, you know, wasn't prepared to do that. But I know I wasn't prepared to do that.

Presenter17:46

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale17:47

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale17:49

Yes, yes. I mean, wi w with his blessing, it has to be said. Um, it was so weird after university anyway. I mean, I was a a sheep. I followed the other choral scholars to music college. That's what you did. Um, because I was very naive about these things. I just wrote to the head of the drama department and said, Would you please audition me? Um very I'm very grateful to them, you know, for having um for risking it.

Presenter18:15

And so you auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company. How did that go?

Simon Russell Beale18:18

Oh, I failed first time. Uh but obviously I mean I then did this play at the Royal Court and I think that's when they came and saw me and thought, Okay, we'll get him back in.

Presenter18:29

And when uh you did join the company, did you have uh an idea that you wanted to nail down the biggies? Did you give yourself a sort of window to say, By this time I will have done Hamlet, I will but no.

Simon Russell Beale18:41

Absolutely not. I mean, I was employed as a a clown. That's how they saw me. And um I did the clown in Winter's Tale and various sort of comic parts. Um so I suppose I don't know you'd have to ask them, but I I I think they saw the route being up to the big clowns. So I don't know whether the range is very big, really, to be honest.

Presenter18:46

Make it

Presenter19:03

There you are, doing yourself down.

Simon Russell Beale19:04

No no, I mean I I'm just trying to be honest.

Presenter19:06

The reason I say you do yourself down is everyone who's listening might not have read all the reviews I've read. I I have never read reviews of an actor that are as unremittingly glowing as the ones I've read of you, which is why I want to put it in context for people when I say you're doing yourself down. I want to ask you about Sam Mendez. At what point in your career did you meet him?

Simon Russell Beale19:26

Oh, I'm now. This is another one of those moments I can remember absolutely clearly. There was a phone call, and it was from this person I'd heard about, this new.

Simon Russell Beale19:34

He hates the phrase Vunderkin, he's too old for that nine. But he was twenty five at the time, so he was nine, yes. And he'd just directed um something at Chichestern, Save the Day and.

Presenter19:37

But he was twenty-five at the time, so he was

Simon Russell Beale19:45

Anyway, he was on the phone and saying, Look, Simon, I want to offer you the sites and trolley sequester, which is a clown part.

Simon Russell Beale19:51

And I remember thinking, Oh, God, no, no, God, no, not another clown, I can't do it and I can't do Shakespeare comedy but thought, Well, you know, he is the new kid on the block and I ought to work with him. So it's with a heavy heart I said yes. And I had a fantastic time doing this great, great role, which is genuinely funny, which you can't say often about Shakespeare clowns.

Simon Russell Beale20:13

It was a very simple, clean, clear production of one of the most complicated of Shakespeare's plays. So, you know, listening thought this this guy's got class.

Presenter20:23

And he saw something in you. He took he took the casting in terms of you as an actor to places where people before would not have considered you.

Simon Russell Beale20:32

Yes. There was a sort of actually if you look at the parts I did with Sam, there were quite there were quite a few a series of quite hard edged, extremely unpleasant people, which was where the CITES led to. You know, so Richard the Third and then Iager, who's

Simon Russell Beale20:49

The nastiest person I've ever played.

Presenter20:50

And when you were is it true that when you were rehearsing Iago you had to actually stop for a moment and take some time away from rehearsal because you found it so thoroughly, uh unrelentingly horrible as a as a character to address?

Simon Russell Beale21:03

Yes. Um it's a peculiarly unredemptive play and um and yes, I I there was a scene and and David it was a modern dress production, so David Harewood, who was playing Othello, had a gun, and he put it to my neck.

Simon Russell Beale21:17

And for some reason I thought I've just had enough of this So I said to Sam, Can I can I just take some time out, please? So I just went and had a walk. Um in a way that's that's the sort of survival mechanism for playing it in an odd way. You sort of switch your I remember sort of switching your brain off.

Simon Russell Beale21:36

I have no interest in this other person I'm talking to. Not really any genuine interest. It's entirely he's dead. He's dead. He's in he's in hell. He's dead.

Presenter21:44

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale21:47

Well, this is the big man really. I mean I I when I was doing an A level in music I remember one of the teachers saying I wish I didn't you didn't have to listen to Beethoven until you were much older. I think it was struggling through the fifth concerto or something. Um and I came back to him in about ten years ago and he's just the best and almost every piece that he wrote at one point takes your breath away. And this is um Beethoven's fourth symphony.

Presenter23:12

Part of the first movement of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony performed by the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardner. Sir Simon Russell Beale, when you're faced with alas, poor Yolick, or to be or not to be I mean that is a mountain to climb in order to try to actually make it sound as if it's

Speaker 423:25

B

Simon Russell Beale23:26

I mean it

Presenter23:31

Freshly minted. I mean, it's one of the things that is said often about you in reviews, that the great skill you have is that you make it appear as though not only are there your words, but the thought is simply just occurring to you at that moment. How how do you be even begin that?

Simon Russell Beale23:48

That's very kind of them.

Simon Russell Beale23:51

Oh, I don't know. I mean, actually, to be or not to be, for instance, that was um I didn't really like the speech, to be honest to begin with. Oh god, here we go. Actually, uh over the year that I played it, I suddenly realised this is this was an amazing piece of writing. Um uh I have this little this tick, which is that I I try to wipe away all preconceptions about a part before I do it, which is actually more difficult than it sounds. Try and just make no presuppositions about the part you're playing. I th I find that very interesting, which is a sort of literary criticism, isn't it?

Presenter24:29

And you were rehearsing it at a time when you had uh recently lost your own mother. So did that I mean, did that, um inevitably it must have, I'm sure, have been involved in in part of the character you developed?

Simon Russell Beale24:33

Recently

Simon Russell Beale24:41

Must have done. Must have done, mustn't it? I mean, I didn't uh she knew I was going to do it. She said at one point, I will.

Simon Russell Beale24:48

I will see it.

Simon Russell Beale24:51

And rather distressingly, she got the the date wrong, um, but I didn't correct her on that, you know. She said, Are you doing it in July? But I knew I wasn't doing it till October, but anyway, um.

Simon Russell Beale25:00

She didn't survive to see it.

Simon Russell Beale25:02

It became my tribute to her really to be honest. Uh on the first night I um I asked the cast if they'd mind having if I put a photograph of her in um just in the wings so and uh it was the one time I've never felt nervous really about it'cause I thought actually you know something this is this is peanuts compared to the big things in life really and this is my my uh thanks to her.

Simon Russell Beale25:30

I mean I I was I I was unaware of how it affected it, you know, in detail.

Simon Russell Beale25:36

My little brother Matthew said.

Simon Russell Beale25:38

But it wouldn't have been like that if if this awful thing hadn't happened.

Presenter25:42

And what do you think she would have made of your performance?

Simon Russell Beale25:45

Um oh, I think she knew. I mean, by that stage I was so, so wanting to do it and and, you know, I was forty. Uh, she knew I wanted to do it so badly by that stage that, um

Simon Russell Beale25:58

I think she would have been thrilled that I got it done at all, really.

Presenter26:01

She did of course know that you by that stage were a hugely respected and well known stage actor. Did did she take a great deal of pride in that? Did she talk to you about it much?

Simon Russell Beale26:10

No, we didn't talk about it, but I I think she did. Yeah. Well I hope she did. Not in that terribly English way. It was just known between the two of you. Yeah, I I think she was proud of me.

Presenter26:15

Not in that terribly English way. It's just known between the two of you.

Presenter26:19

Thank you.

Simon Russell Beale26:22

Extremely high-achieving children, yeah, I think she was b I think she was proud.

Presenter26:28

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale26:31

Um this is about sort of bleakness and

Simon Russell Beale26:37

Northern Europe, which I've always wanted to visit, and I've I've never got up to the Arctic Circle, which I'd love to do. Um it's Sebalis and it's um his violin concerto.

Speaker 327:29

Yeah

Presenter27:46

Joshua Bell, playing part of the first movement of Sibelius' violin concerto in D minor. Some of the names, people like Ray Fiennes and Tilda Swinton from your university days, have combined very credible stage acting careers with big careers i i in the movies and indeed also in t v. Uh you've chosen not to do that. You have had success in television, but you've you've chosen not really to work in front of the camera. Why is that?

Simon Russell Beale28:12

I think I mean now it's probably is a matter of choice, but I think at the beginning it was probably sort of chance. I mean I I'm afraid I'm I'm I'm a bit greedy about parts and they kept you know, they said, Okay, would you like to do Richard III? Okay, would you like to do The Seagull? And I can't resist it. And it just there wasn't space for the film things.

Simon Russell Beale28:34

I love being control, I suppose. And I love gauging an audience's response. You know, I find that very exciting.

Presenter28:42

Greedy for the parts then, but not greedy for the cash. I mean, there's there's a there's a whole lot more money to be made, isn't there, if you go to Hollywood and get an agent and get signed up.

Simon Russell Beale28:45

There's a h there's a whole

Simon Russell Beale28:47

Uh

Simon Russell Beale28:50

Yeah, subsidized theatre isn't um yeah it's a it's a decent salary, but it's it's uh yeah, I'm not really

Presenter28:57

I mean, when you did stray into it was it was television, it was Dance to the Music of Time, it was very well received, you won awards for it, you won was it a a BAFTA, you won for your performance there. Were you tempted to flirt? Did you speak did your agent try to convince you that out there was at the end of the the televisual rainbow or the film rainbow was a great big pot of gold and you could go and pick it up?

Simon Russell Beale29:17

Oh yes, I think.

Simon Russell Beale29:19

Well, I don't know about the money. I mean, I I certainly th th think that they're always trying to say, you know, would you would you take some time out? And

Simon Russell Beale29:27

have a look at the the film world. But yes, no, I am

Simon Russell Beale29:30

I I I would do it. I'm perhaps a bit late now. I don't know.

Presenter29:34

The other route that a lot of actors of your calibre venture down, of course, is directing, because they you know, you have to as you've said, you have to properly understand the text and you love to be in control. It would seem for somebody like you to be quite an obvious thing to do, but you haven't.

Simon Russell Beale29:50

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

Simon Russell Beale29:52

I know that if I if well I haven't tried it yet, but I I'm not an an auteur, is that the right word?

Simon Russell Beale30:00

I mean, I'd I'm I'm I'm perfectly you know, if somebody r would risk it, I'm perfectly willing to to um give it a whirl, but uh

Simon Russell Beale30:08

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale30:10

I think I'm probably better.

Simon Russell Beale30:12

Being more passive.

Presenter30:15

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale30:17

A great delight of my life is um even now when I haven't practised for years is playing piano duets and um and almost invariably in a in a big company there's somebody who can play. So this is a piano duet version of um a movement from Peter Warlott's Capriol suite.

Presenter31:36

The Fifth Movement, Pied En Lair, from Peter Warlock's The Capriole Suite, played by Peter Lawson and Alan MacLean. Um, looking down the list of your credits over the last fifteen years, I mean we've mentioned uh a fair bit of the Shakespeare also. There's been a lot of contemporary work too. Do you feel exhausted by it? It looks like an exhausting amount of work to churn out.

Simon Russell Beale31:53

Yeah, I'm a bit tired at the moment. Are you? Part of the of the price you pay for greed, uh like mine is that yeah, I I tend to tend to overbook sometimes. So I do get a bit a bit tired.

Presenter31:53

Yeah.

Presenter31:54

Are you sure?

Simon Russell Beale32:06

And people have said to me, You've got to you've got to calm down a bit.

Presenter32:09

Are you a workaholic?

Simon Russell Beale32:10

Uh

Presenter32:10

Yep.

Simon Russell Beale32:12

I admit it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it I think like most workaholics I'd also love to be in bed.

Simon Russell Beale32:19

I may be perfectly happy.

Simon Russell Beale32:21

sitting for weeks just, you know, lying on the sofa reading and so I mean it it is a sort of conversatory thing, I think.

Presenter32:28

Um you're perfectly straightforward about your homosexuality. Do you would you like to be in a long-term relationship? Would you like that when you close the theater door and open the the door to your home, there's somebody waiting?

Simon Russell Beale32:38

I don't know.

Simon Russell Beale32:39

Uh

Simon Russell Beale32:40

I mean, it hasn't happened, but um, you know, I'm sure it'd be lovely if it did. But I um no. I mean, I I have got nothing to compare it to, so it might be hell closing the door on another person there.

Presenter32:55

Um, how would you handle island life then? If you like your own company and you've always li lived alone, do you think you'd be fine with it?

Simon Russell Beale33:02

I'd be terrible.

Simon Russell Beale33:04

For a startup completely uh you know, uh impractical. I'd be dead before I could listen to the records, I think.

Presenter33:10

I wonder if you might have projects though, if you might because you're so used to being busy and because it seems to be ingrained in your very DNA would you be

Simon Russell Beale33:17

You might be right, you might be right. I might find projects to do. I might become a interested in natural history or something. That'd be quite interesting, wouldn't it? Um I suspect, however, I'd be uh you know, I wouldn't be able to build a shelter.

Simon Russell Beale33:30

Anything like that.

Presenter33:32

Tell me about your last piece of music.

Simon Russell Beale33:34

Oh, it's all been a bit Germanic so far, so I wanted something sensual and and I love

Simon Russell Beale33:42

The late nineteenth century French stroke Spanish stuff.

Simon Russell Beale33:46

It reminds me of traveling, it is Ravel's Rhapsody Español.

Presenter34:49

Part of the final movement of Ravel's Rhapsody Espagnol, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andre Preven. So now we give you, as you will know, Simon, we give you the Bible, Shakespeare. I don't know if you'll even need it. It might already be all in there already. Um and one other book. What would it be?

Simon Russell Beale35:03

Be all in there.

Simon Russell Beale35:07

Oh this is terrifically difficult as it always is. Um

Simon Russell Beale35:13

Uh I I'd like a history book. I I'd like the Cambridge Medieval History.

Presenter35:16

You may have that, and as a luxury.

Simon Russell Beale35:21

Can I have a daily crossword flown in? I mean, not flown in, pigeoned. Yes. Any particular crossword that I have? Well, actually there's a particular setter which anybody who does crosswords will knows is the g the master, which is um Aricaria. So if I could have a daily Aricaria crossword.

Presenter35:27

Yeah.

Simon Russell Beale35:40

Well I can use a twig bird twig.

Presenter35:44

And if I was to force you to uh save just one record, which one would it be?

Simon Russell Beale35:50

Uh Beethoven.

Presenter35:53

Simon Russell Beale, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Simon Russell Beale35:56

Thank you.

Presenter36:04

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