Andrew Davies

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 seven.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the writer Andrew Davis. He's the king of television adaptation. Pride and Prejudice, Vanity Fair, Middle March, Tipping the Velvet, and Daniel Deronda are only a few of the period dramas he's brought to our screens. He found success comparatively late in life. Until he was fifty he was a part-time English lecturer. It was a sort of midlife crisis that sent his career soaring. Since then, his signature has been stripping down the classics, sexing them up, and serving Austin, Eliot and Dickens with a large dose of erotica and a relevant contemporary edge. The sexual imperative, he says of his historical characters, is one of the clearest links between us and them. Is that the key, then, to any successful adaptation, finding the links that will make things relevant for a twenty first century audience?

Andrew Davies1:14

Yeah, well, absolutely, because there there's no point in doing them unless yeah, unless you can make them enjoyable and relevant for now. Wanting to get on, uh, falling in love, falling in lust, needing to get money.

Andrew Davies1:29

All the same things.

Presenter1:30

Sex and greed are the sort of big headlines then.

Andrew Davies1:33

I guess they are, yeah.

Presenter1:34

Um, you are, of course I mean, in every headline that I've read in preparation for Speaking to You, people always talk about the sex thing, and of course I brought it up. It makes a good headline as well, doesn't it?

Andrew Davies1:43

Yeah, I don't mind it. I always like to think that people might notice that uh one of the things I'm very good at doing is is finding the humour and the jokes and the way the humour in in those uh old nineteenth century books still works today. But it's the sex that everybody picks on.

Presenter1:59

Of course we do. Um Pride and Prejudice, which was a huge hit for you, almost the thing that made you a a writing superstar in essence, uh became very famous for the Darcy scene where Colin Firth walks out of the lake with his drenched shirt clinging to every sinew and muscle. I mean, did you actually write that into the script, or was that in the direction?

Andrew Davies2:18

No, it was a bit of a mistake, really, because I wanted him to dive in with nothing on at all. But for some reason, I don't know what it was, it was decided, or he decided, that he was going to dive in, you know, with his shirt and his breeches on. And then that gave us that scene. And I'd always thought of that wet shirt scene as just a rather amusing, embarrassing scene, because there's Darcy in a state that he wouldn't normally want to be seen in, you know, trying to be pleasant and polite to Elizabeth. But in fact, half England's womanhood was going crazy about his wet shirt. Yes, it sent the cook a little bit.

Presenter2:56

Yes, it sent the Cocoa Cups rattling in the evening, didn't it? That one. I mean, of course it's it's not in the book. How much do you worry about changing what's in the text uh when it makes it to the screen?

Andrew Davies2:58

That one.

Andrew Davies3:07

I love to do it. I love to make up scenes that weren't in the book and convince people that Jane Austen wrote them. I like the sense of people riffling through the book trying to find their favourite scene and it's not there. But I particularly wanted to write a very pro-Darcy adaptation. And in the book, she never writes any scenes where you see Darcy on his own or Darcy with other men. It was a restriction she made for herself. So I thought, well, what would Darcy be doing now? How's he feeling? How's he dealing with Elizabeth's rejection? And so I'd write quite a few scenes like that so that the audience got a kind of identification with him.

Presenter3:53

Well, you you say that that she puts those restrictions on herself, but don't you worry that you're you're changing the premise, changing the character if you do that.

Andrew Davies4:00

Um no, I'm absolutely sure I got I got the character right. I mean I know it's arrogant but you you kind of have to be if you're doing this kind of thing. And and I suppose my ultimate defence is there the book still is, you know, and if you didn't like my adaptation, well, you know, get hold of the book and make your own ada adaptation in your head, which is what most good readers do anyway.

Presenter4:24

Tell me about your first desert hana.

Andrew Davies4:25

Interesting. Uh

Presenter4:26

Yeah.

Andrew Davies4:26

The first one is Beethoven's Violin Concerto. I've chosen this partly because it's a a wonderful piece of music, but partly because I I can remember my dad used to used to sing Beethoven all the time round the house. We didn't even have a have a record player or or a gramophone. He said he got all his music off the radio and um and he'd make up little words to it. Where is my bunny? Where is my teddy? Where is my teddy? And where is my bunny? Where is my and so on. You know, and he was carrying me or my my brother about and it was very nice to grow up with that.

Presenter6:02

Sir Yehudi Menuen playing part of the final movement of Beethoven's violin concerto in D major, and memories there of your father making up these little rhymes to go with the music. Did you grow up in a bookish household? Was there a lot of Eliot and Dickens and Austin around?

Andrew Davies6:17

Yes, there yes, there was. My dad was a teacher. He taught French at Cardiff High School for boys, but he was yeah, he was also very l very kind of literary and there were plenty of books about. And um I do remember my dad as being very, very good at playing you know, he used to we used to play cricket, um, in the strip of grass outside our house.

Presenter6:38

And what about your mother? W was she did she dote upon you?

Andrew Davies6:40

Um, I I mean, she did. Uh she did when I was little. I think she'd have pre preferred me probably to stay about five years old and and totally in love with her. And because she was somebody who

Andrew Davies6:53

sort of herself very much like to be the centre of attention.

Presenter6:56

Guys.

Andrew Davies6:56

Yeah.

Presenter6:57

Or in a rather theatrical way or in

Andrew Davies6:59

Well, yeah, I I I guess so. Yes, a lot would depend on her moods and she had to be pandered to a bit and uh

Presenter7:08

Was that a dialogue between you and your father? Was that kind of well, mummy's feeling a bit this way or mummy's feeling a bit that way too?

Andrew Davies7:13

Yeah.

Andrew Davies7:14

We know.

Presenter7:14

Uh

Andrew Davies7:14

Uh

Presenter7:14

Yeah.

Andrew Davies7:15

He didn't

Presenter7:15

Is that anything?

Andrew Davies7:15

Yeah.

Presenter7:17

So Hahmoud would occupy a room.

Andrew Davies7:17

So how mood

Andrew Davies7:18

Oh yes, yep yes, totally, yes. But but I mean, but that was uh that was only the bad side. I mean, I suppose when she was m merry and gay, that was all right.

Presenter7:29

You you said that you think that uh certainly you got the impression that she would have preferred you to stay five. I mean, what happened as you progressed through adolescence?

Andrew Davies7:36

Well, what it was was I I I mean I had

Andrew Davies7:40

you know, views of my own and things I wanted to do, you know, like like going out with girls and reading the nearest thing to dirty books you could get in the early fifties, which is, you know, not not very much, I can tell you. But she'd always find things. She no, and she'd always discover things because she'd always go through my stuff when I wasn't there and so there then there would be scenes and things like that. And she didn't like me having girlfriends or anything at all.

Presenter7:54

But she'd always find things.

Presenter8:07

Did you I mean, did you bring girlfriends round to the house?

Andrew Davies8:10

Yeah, for a bit. But after most of them wouldn't come back for a second time. What would she do? I don't know. She just kind of freeze them out and make them feel very scared and uncomfortable. We had a school reunion. I must make this whole thing about my mother. 50 years after. So we're all 60-year-olds. Completely unprompted. A couple of them said, God, your mother was awful, wasn't she?

Presenter8:16

What?

Andrew Davies8:38

We never liked going around there.

Presenter8:42

Tell me about your second disc.

Andrew Davies8:43

Oh, yeah. This is uh Britain's Missa Brevis, which I you know, I didn't hear until I was in my twenties, but I was completely blown away with it. I I just I just love uh treble voices. When I was a little kid I had a very nice voice myself until my voice broke. You know, I used to win competitions and old ladies would say, Oh, he's a lovely voice he's got, you know, and um and my grandson has now got uh a a very good voice and he sings in Manchester Cathedral Choir and uh you know I like like to think of him singing this really because I think it's such a fabulous piece of music.

Speaker 39:40

Kiri and heavenly told me

Speaker 310:04

Eat breakfast time and soul.

Presenter10:19

The choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, singing the Kyrie from Benjamin Britton's Missa Brevis. So, Andrew Davis, you were born before the war. The family home was a village just outside Cardiff. Was it a small life, village life?

Andrew Davies10:31

Yeah.

Andrew Davies10:34

Yes, it was. Uh there wasn't very much to do at all. Um, rather old-fashioned boyish things like like going bird nesting, going for long walks and tobogganing in the winter and all that kind of thing. And uh it was quite dominated by the chapel. And when you were growing up, it was where the girls were. You kn you know, you'd go go to the evening service and then it was dark. You'd you'd you'd walk home with one of them or two of them or, you know, whatever your luck was, really.

Presenter11:03

And how was school for you? I mean, did you immediately connect with the power of words and the power of literature?

Andrew Davies11:10

Yeah, I did really. Because first of all, just in a very conventional sort of way, you know, because I was a good and clever little boy and enjoyed writing stories and being praised by the teacher. But then this rather weird thing happened, which was I wrote a sort of sex poem when I was eleven about our French teacher who was called Mrs. Irwin, who was extremely beautiful. So I made up this poem about her and the head of modern languages. I'll quote you a little bit out of it. He kissed her, she kissed him back. He took her knickers off and put them in a sack. Not very good, but it had to rhyme. She took his underpants and put them in her bag. He said, Excuse me, moi, but could I have a shag? And there was much more of it than this. And it sort of circulated in Samizdat all round the school. And I felt very thrilled because really big boys, you know, with deep voices and stubble would come up to me and say, E, you were the one that wrote that poem. And I'd say, yes. Bloody good.

Presenter12:18

I read that by the time you left school Dylan Thomas was your hero. You were sort of somehow notionally modelling yourself on him. Is that true?

Andrew Davies12:25

Well, yeah, in a way it is true, because I didn't know anybody who was a writer.

Andrew Davies12:33

And and so he was a bit of a inspiration to me, really.

Presenter12:36

And there was this notion that you would leave the small Welsh life in the village with the chapel and

Andrew Davies12:42

Yes, I used to long for Soho. That's where I thought it was at, right in the heart of London.

Presenter12:48

How had you heard of Soho?

Andrew Davies12:49

Uh

Andrew Davies12:50

Oh, through uh through reading. Dylan Thoms himself, in fact, because he he led this very rackety London life in between sort of London, where he spent all his time sort of drinking and and going to wild parties and Wales where he

Andrew Davies13:05

was solitary and wrote his great poems. I thought this would be a good sort of life if I could avoid dying of drink in my uh my thirties.

Presenter13:13

Like he did, indeed. And we'll talk about your Soho life in a moment, but tell me about your next piece of music.

Andrew Davies13:13

Like he did, indeed.

Andrew Davies13:16

Yeah.

Andrew Davies13:18

Um oh yeah, the the next one really sort of comes very much from uh university days, Chris Barber's Hiawatha Rag, and every time I hear it, A, I remember being eighteen years old, and B, you know, it just makes me feel frisky, you know.

Presenter14:37

Chris Barber and the Hiawatha Rag. And and memories there of the beginning of life in London, Andrew Davis? You you you came to London to read English?

Andrew Davies14:46

Yes, yes, that's right.

Presenter14:47

And did you have this great soho life that you had imagined from when you were in Wales?

Andrew Davies14:47

A digital

Andrew Davies14:51

Well, it wasn't as dramatic as Dylan Thomas's. Yes, but it was great. I mean, University College London is right in the heart of London. You can walk into Soho in ten minutes. And in those days, it was all very innocent because there were coffee bars. But it didn't matter. You sort of didn't really need alcohol. They were crammed with nurses and they were all very jolly places and you can make friends there and pick up girls. And so I thought that was great.

Presenter14:55

Yeah, it's probably interesting.

Andrew Davies15:20

Uh

Presenter15:20

And what about the writing? Were you writing then?

Andrew Davies15:22

I was writing all the time, yes, but but, you know, extremely unsuccessfully. I'd get things in in sort of university magazines and things like that. But I and I was always am you know, optimistically sending things off to, you know, pota places, but never getting anywhere.

Presenter15:39

By the time you left university then, television had already established itself as the next big thing. It was the exciting medium. Did you have any notion that you might write for television by then?

Andrew Davies15:48

Not at all. Not at all then.

Andrew Davies15:52

'Cause uh we never had a television. By the end of university I I was more or less uh shacked up with Diana, whom I'm still married to, and we we just used to go out every night virtually.

Presenter16:05

So you met Diana when you were iconic.

Andrew Davies16:06

As a student, yeah, she was a student of English at UC.

Presenter16:11

Yeah. And you've been together forty seven years now. They have they been forty seven happy years? Yeah.

Andrew Davies16:13

Good snap.

Presenter16:15

Yes.

Andrew Davies16:15

Yes, yes, having ups and downs. But uh but yes, I think I made a very good choice.

Andrew Davies16:22

She was sitting on Tom Courtney's knee when I when I first made my move. He he did an English degree before he went on to be an actor and and she was going out with him. And I had a sort of sense that I could I could take her from him. I don't think he he was much more interested in in being an actor, I think. So anyway, um yes, I made my move and um and here we still are.

Presenter16:47

Um, so by the end of nineteen sixty then, you were settling into what seemed like, I mean, quite a sort of domesticated way of life, where I mean, you say you went out with Diana and you didn't sort of sit at home and watch much T V, but by then you were working at a teacher training college.

Andrew Davies17:01

Um, I I got this job at Coventry

Andrew Davies17:05

Teachers' Training College, which eventually got swallowed by Warwick University. But I thought, what a wonderful, soft job it was. You know, you didn't have to keep order. All the students were keen, and they were mostly, you know, lovely, intelligent young women, most of them. And it was only about 15 hours a week or something like that. So bags of time for writing. So I just thought, you know, this is what I'll do for the rest of my life. And also, we wanted to have kids and a dog. So then we bought a telly. And then I was immediately entranced and, you know, got very inspired by the likes of Dennis Potter. And I just thought, yeah, I could do this as well. Because I was already getting radio plays on by then. So I thought, yeah, I can see how to do this.

Presenter17:50

Let's take a break for your next piece of music. What have you chosen?

Andrew Davies17:54

Oh, yes, the the opening theme to On the Waterfront. I I think a lot of our the most important, you know, things to us, favorite films, are things that

Andrew Davies18:03

You saw when you were eighteen to twenty one that sort of age, and I I was just so so knocked out by On the Waterfront, it's uh it's such a romantic film, and there's some absolutely wonderfully written scenes in that that made me think, Yeah, I'd I'd love to write a movie like that.

Presenter18:50

The opening theme to On the Waterfront. You you say there, Andrew Davis, that it made it inspired you the thought that something could be as powerful as this on film. You wanted to write a film. I mean, you have written Bridget Jones's diary and the follow-up, and you're working just now, I understand, on Bride's Head Revisited. But your career has been built on your reputation for writing for television. Do does that bother you, that you haven't made such a mark on the big screen?

Andrew Davies19:14

Yeah, I do find it slight a slight niggle. I mean, you know, like most writers in the business, I've written a lot more film screenplays than have been made into films. And funny, some of you know, my best experiences have been working on films that never got made. I've spent a long time working with Robert Altman, which was such a thrill. I mean, it was such fun to work with for a film about Rossini that never got made. And film is just so chancy. What I like about television is, you know, if the thing gets commissioned, there's usually a date when they're going to put it out and it happens. Whereas film's always having these little hold-up things and you know, when they haven't got the stars or a bit of the money isn't there, so they say, Let's have another look at the script.

Andrew Davies20:06

Let's get him on the rider. And you get treated as a writer, or my experience is by and large, with absolute contempt, really. They don't even bother to tell you they've sacked you. Your agent meets some other agent who says, Oh, you know, my client's writing that script now.

Presenter20:24

That's in the movies, but in television, are you accorded a a a grand rhyme?

Andrew Davies20:24

Back in the movie.

Andrew Davies20:28

I am accorded almost as much r respect as I'd like. Yeah, no, no, that I get I get treated very, very nicely indeed.

Presenter20:38

When it comes to changing things, I mean, do producers and directors dare to say to you, actually, we don't think this is working? Or do they just go?

Andrew Davies20:44

Oh, they do. As soon as I've written the first draft of a script, I'll be having meetings with the producer and the script editor, and they'll usually have, you know, quite a lot of suggestions about about how the thing could be better.

Presenter20:59

And you don't mind?

Andrew Davies21:00

And and I've grown not to mind. When I first started writing for television, I was desperately suspicious and, you know, I was very reluctant to change uh a single word. But no, I'm and I I I think as I got older I'm I'm probably easier to deal with.

Presenter21:16

Yeah. Tell me about your next piece of music.

Andrew Davies21:19

It's the Jimmy Jufery trio, and it's The Train and the River. And I first saw that when I went to see this film, Jazz on a Summer's Day, and I thought.

Andrew Davies21:29

God, I never heard anything like this before, and I don't think I've heard anything quite like it since, either.

Speaker 321:35

Dun dun dun dun dun da dun.

Speaker 321:41

Okay.

Speaker 321:48

Yeah.

Speaker 321:50

Yeah.

Presenter22:03

The Jimmy Jufrey trio and Train and the River from the soundtrack of Jazz on a Summer's Day. As we've mentioned, Andrew Davis, uh, teaching and writing for you worked in parallel for many years. You spent twenty-five years as a lecturer. Uh many of the classics that you've adapted, as I mentioned, things like Vanity Fair and there's been Pride and Prejudice, Middle March, you must have known these texts back to front by the time it came to actually working on them to adapt them for T V.

Andrew Davies22:26

Yeah, pretty much. So so I had a a head start on other people. I'd also had my private thoughts about them for a long time, which is like rather subversive thoughts about, say, Middlemarch, which most, you know, serious literary people reckon it's the greatest novel in the English language. But I thought it could have done with cutting, because she writes these beautiful scenes that tell you everything and you think, ooh, I've just sussed out what's the matter with Dorothea. And then she writes three more pages pointing out, you know, what what she's just said, you know, just in case you missed it, because she always thought her readers weren't quite as intelligent as she was. And I just thought if we dramatized it, we'd be free from all her crushing comments. And so it was a it it was a it was a thrill to do it.

Presenter23:16

It's interesting that you mentioned Middle March, because when you were commissioned to write that for television, there was at that time in television a great resistance to the idea of well, you know, period drama, costume drama. It was thought to be sort of rather passe.

Andrew Davies23:28

Yes, it was. And it was a big toss up whether it was going to work or not. I mean, they were going to see if Middle March worked. Um and if it didn't, then it would like be

Andrew Davies23:39

Years and years before they tried again.

Presenter23:40

And by golly, it did. I mean, that's a big responsibility for you. You had a sense in which I mean, it wasn't just your own career, but but uh the the work of a lot of people depended on you getting it right.

Speaker 223:41

But that was

Andrew Davies23:52

Yeah, yeah, it did, but I I didn't worry about that at all because I'm I think I i in a way I'm quite an irresponsible sort of person. I just thought, you know, well, if it flops, you know, uh it's somebody else's headache and I can still go on being a teacher.

Presenter24:06

Yeah.

Andrew Davies24:06

Yeah.

Presenter24:06

Obviously, you're devoted to the text, and you've just described beautifully how you can agonizingly read through three pages and think, well, we'll get rid of that because it's just not relevant. But do you seem to me to be a writer with a very strong

Andrew Davies24:08

Yeah.

Andrew Davies24:11

And I

Speaker 224:11

Isaac

Presenter24:17

Visual sense. It's not simply about the words. Do you see things filmically? Oh, absolutely.

Andrew Davies24:22

Absolutely. And I I I find it hard to imagine how people

Andrew Davies24:26

would read things without seeing all the pictures. And I do sympathize with those people who who say, No, you know, it's it's not like your adaptation at all. You know, she's got fair hair and blue eyes and you you you look in the text and there's no description of her at all. I it's just people have a very firm picture in their in their heads of what something looks like.

Andrew Davies24:47

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Andrew Davies24:49

All my friends say

Andrew Davies24:51

Andrew, you can't add this, but I'm totally unrepentant. It's uh Bonnie Tyler and totally clips of the heart. I just love female singers who who just belt it out, sort of yell their guts out, and what's more, Bonnie Tyler comes from Cardiff and you can hear it.

Speaker 225:10

The Jagan's giving up, oh, I really need it tonight!

Speaker 225:15

Forever's gonna s

Speaker 325:16

That's tonight.

Speaker 325:19

Forever's gonna start too upon a time I was falling in love

Speaker 325:25

Now I'm only falling apart.

Speaker 325:30

There's nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the house.

Presenter25:33

Yeah.

Presenter25:38

Bonnie Tyler and Total Eclipse of the Heart. Not only were you unrepentant, you just said there, Andrew Davis, you would quite like to have written a big hit like that.

Andrew Davies25:45

Oh God, yes, it'd be wonderful, wonderful. About ten years ago, Leonard Cohen was doing I'm Your Man with with these amazing backing singers, and I thought, you know, that's not a bad life for a sixty year old man. But uh, unfortunately, you know, I never seemed to get around to doing it.

Presenter26:02

Well, you still could you're too busy, of course. I mean, you you are consistently churning out these these huge hits. Uh let's talk about sex, if we may, because of course that is what you are

Presenter26:14

I mean, entirely in relation to your work. Um that is what you're you're known for. You're n I mean there are a lot of bosoms and buttocks and thighs in what you bring to the screen.

Andrew Davies26:26

Yes, indeed. Well, nothing wrong with that. I like to celebrate life and I always think it it balances out all those all those serial killers and people that that so many people s seem to be churning out. I don't really like either doing those things or watching them.

Presenter26:46

But what about putting the sex in where it it isn't? I mean, for example, in in Moll Flanders, you know, some critics got their knickers in a in a bit of a knot about the fact that you you were including the sex where none was in the text.

Andrew Davies26:57

Um

Andrew Davies26:59

It's only it's only a few of them really, I think. And and there's there is a lot of sex implied in in Moll Flanders, and she is for for part of the story a prostitute. Uh she has five husbands, one of whom is her own brother. I mean, she didn't know that when she married him, obviously, and she went right off him.

Andrew Davies27:18

When she found out. So, I mean, Defoe didn't write sex scenes because if he had in those days it would re be regarded as as a genre pornographic novel, of which there were quite quite a few. But you know, when the sex is implicit in the in the narrative, you know, I I think we ought to um turn it into scenes.

Presenter27:29

We'll mix that.

Presenter27:39

Are you quite territorial about the work that you have? I mean, you seem to have cornered the market.

Andrew Davies27:44

I am a bit. I mean, some of them do escape my my grasp, you know, but but not many. And I do seem to get f get first choice. And I I am greedy.

Presenter27:54

I read a wonderful quote from you. I don't know if this is true, but I read that when you found out that Emma Thompson was adapting Sense and Sensibility, you memorably quipped, I didn't ask to play the female lead in Howard's End, so what's she doing micking my classic adaptations?

Andrew Davies28:06

Exactly. Yes, I always I don't always say that sort of thing, but it's always something like what I think, yes.

Presenter28:12

She did a very

Andrew Davies28:13

She did a very good job, incidentally. Wonderful, wonderful, Emma.

Presenter28:14

And today

Andrew Davies28:17

I'm I'm I'm just doing my own sense and sensibility now. Um they're just they're just finished filming it so everybody can see it and see what Emma Thompson got wrong and

Andrew Davies28:28

Tell me about your next choice. Great contrast to the last female voice. It's Françoise Ardie and La Maison Gique Grandie, which is the house where I grew up. And I love her little sort of whispery voice and she was a kind of, you know, ideal fantasy French girlfriend for me when I w when I was young. I used to think, ooh.

Andrew Davies28:54

If in another life it could have been me and Francoise.

Speaker 328:57

Et l'Amis only flows conger maidens, n'existe bleu.

Speaker 329:06

Mm.

Speaker 329:07

Uh

Speaker 329:09

Il save tou mes enmire.

Speaker 329:14

Il saves partage.

Speaker 329:18

Mait toutois finie, pour tandon à la vinie.

Presenter29:22

Uh

Speaker 329:22

They should do but

Presenter29:24

Francoise Ardie and La Maison Augi Grandie. Um you're aged seventy now, Andrew Devis, which seems extraordinary. You do not at all seem like a seventy year old sitting opposite

Speaker 329:30

Yeah.

Andrew Davies29:30

Did you have a switch

Andrew Davies29:35

Do you

Presenter29:38

So you have a huge amount of energy.

Andrew Davies29:41

I think I do. I think I do, really. My wife might say when she when I'm flopped in front of the television. I suppose I can serve it um quite a bit. We have very quiet evenings these days and and th then I kind of go to town and um get excited and

Presenter29:58

And is it the writing is it the writing that gets you excited?

Andrew Davies29:58

And is it the writing?

Andrew Davies30:01

I think I think it is now. Um I used to be one of those guys that like most guys apparently who who think about sex about forty times a minute and uh and now I I it's it's writing and it's food.

Andrew Davies30:15

I think about my next meal and what I'd like to eat.

Presenter30:18

What prompted the change? I mean, was that necessity or you just wanted to do that?

Andrew Davies30:21

No, it's just just years, just years.

Presenter30:25

Um do you have any fear of the expectation that's on you? Because you've you've won so many awards and you are known uh not I mean to call you a safe pair of hands would be to woefully underestimate it. You are known as a man who makes the hits. Do you ever worry that when you hand in a script and your executive producer comes back to you that they're going to say, actually, Andrew, this one, you haven't quite you haven't quite nailed it. Oh God, that would be terrible.

Andrew Davies30:48

Uh um I worry more about my own expectations. Usually by the time I've handed something in, I'm pretty confident about it. So if they did say that to me, my first reaction would be

Andrew Davies31:02

That's not right. It's perfectly good, you know. Um let's see if I can get you sacked. Uh

Presenter31:07

Uh

Presenter31:08

And is there a big one that you haven't yet adapted that you've got your eye on?

Presenter31:13

Uh

Andrew Davies31:13

Uh no, I don't think there is. I'm sure I'll, you know, dis discover some some really good ones. But, you know, what I what I really want to do and wh why I'm so pleased I'm going to this desert island is I really ought to do some original work. So, you know, so I've got paper and pens and and nobody tempting me with offers of lucrative ada adaptations. You know, I can I can write the great novel about growing up in Wales or something.

Presenter31:40

And is that formulated in your head? Or would you have to start?

Andrew Davies31:44

I feel as if it is. I feel as if it is. But but maybe if I started doing it, I'd I'd find

Andrew Davies31:51

you know, it wouldn't work. But I do have I do I literally dream about going home to uh the little house in Rubina where I where I grew up. And I go up to my my own bedroom as a boy and I've got this pile of exercise books and I write a novel in a weekend.

Andrew Davies32:10

And it's wonderful. So so in in a sense there's you know there's

Andrew Davies32:16

There's something that I I need to write, and maybe a bit of solitude would would help for that.

Presenter32:22

Tell me about your last record.

Andrew Davies32:24

Oh, the last record is Foray's Requiem, the the last movement in Paradisum. Um it's not that I'm religious or anything like that, it's just blissfully serene piece of music and I I I imagine putting it on last thing at night and uh the mosquitoes would come round and listen and we'd all be at peace together.

Presenter33:30

In Paradisum from Forays Requiem We do of course give you, Andrew Davis, the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, we grant you one other book, what will it be?

Andrew Davies33:39

Well, it um no, I I I just wouldn't read Proust. I know, I tried before. Um yeah, probably a Dickens. Great expectations.

Andrew Davies33:50

I could re-read that a lot of times.

Presenter33:50

Quite a bit.

Presenter33:53

And a luxury?

Presenter33:54

Yeah.

Andrew Davies33:54

Could I have um an endless supply of mojitos?

Presenter33:59

Yes, you certainly with ice, I imagine.

Andrew Davies34:02

With ice, yes, and and and I think they'd be very healthy as well, wouldn't they, because of all the mint in them.

Presenter34:07

Virtually detoxing.

Andrew Davies34:09

Yeah.

Presenter34:09

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

Andrew Davies34:15

Uh

Andrew Davies34:16

I think it had to be the Chris Barber, strangely enough, because um it w I might get depressed and it would all always, you know, wake me up in the morning.

Presenter34:25

Andrew Davis, thank you very much for letting us see your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter34:36

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