Liz Smith

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.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:27

My Castaway this week is the actress Liz Smith. As Nana in the royal family she portrayed the vagaries of old age with acute comic timing and poignancy.

Presenter0:37

Indeed, the part was a fitting career-defining performance for someone who specialized in playing.

Presenter0:42

A long line of idiosyncratic old bats.

Presenter0:46

Her success has been a triumph of talent and perseverance over circumstance.

Presenter0:51

She didn't make it as an actress until she was fifty, and her early family life was plagued with loss, abandonment, and sorrow. Now eighty-six, her characters have a habit of dying on screen. It is, she says, an occupational hazard. Even so, acting and making people laugh has always been a way of escaping the often harsh realities of her life, and she isn't planning to retire any time soon. So, Liz Smith, let's start, if you don't mind, with your screen deaths. We had Letty Cropley in the Vicar of Dibley, and Nana in the royal family. Yes. You are, in essence.

Liz Smith1:22

Nana in the room

Liz Smith1:23

Yeah, that's

Presenter1:27

You're at that stage in your career, but you're also a method actor. I mean, how do you?

Liz Smith1:29

But you'd also

Liz Smith1:30

I am. Yes, that's right.

Presenter1:32

And worked for years with Charles Maravair.

Presenter1:37

Yourself dying on screen. If you're a method actor, it must be quite a traumatic process.

Liz Smith1:41

Uh well, it is, but then it's been a long life and

Liz Smith1:46

You kind of see it coming.

Presenter1:49

You won Best Actress recently at the British Comedy Awards for your final performance of Nana. It was. Yes.

Liz Smith1:55

Yeah.

Presenter1:56

Utterly captivating, if I may say so, that performance. It was an intriguing mixture of the highs and the lows and the mundanity that can surround.

Liz Smith1:58

Thanks.

Liz Smith2:00

Mixed

Liz Smith2:04

It was a simply wonderful script by Carolina Hearn. It was just brilliant. I was very, very fortunate to have a script as good as that.

Liz Smith2:15

She mixes sadness with humour.

Liz Smith2:20

in a way that no one else can.

Liz Smith2:23

Now you won a British Comedy Award for that, but you I did, yes.

Presenter2:25

You didn't win the BAFTA for it.

Presenter2:29

What guy?

Liz Smith2:31

Do

Presenter2:31

You did. You thought you were gonna.

Liz Smith2:31

You did. You thought you were gonna.

Presenter2:33

Yeah.

Liz Smith2:33

Yeah.

Presenter2:33

It was Ricky's your face that won it when you were sitting there in all your finery and they read out his name.

Liz Smith2:36

Yeah.

Liz Smith2:38

What did you think?

Presenter2:38

Yeah.

Liz Smith2:38

Uh

Liz Smith2:39

I thought they'd mispronounced my name.

Presenter2:44

You were fully expecting to get it. Yes, yes. That's very honest of you to say that. I mean, most actors wouldn't for a minute say, you know, I thought I'd won it.

Liz Smith2:45

Yeah.

Liz Smith2:53

No, but I did, you see.

Liz Smith2:55

I had a little laugh with uh him as w about it there.

Presenter2:58

I hope you don't mind me saying in the introduction there that you specialize in a long line of idiosyncratic old baths.

Liz Smith3:04

I do. That's right. Because you see, I think I've had to be a little bit batty in order to stay sane.

Liz Smith3:12

And and manage,'cause uh life's knocked me around, and uh if I wasn't a little bit batty, I couldn't cope.

Liz Smith3:21

It was really, really straight.

Liz Smith3:23

Life would be too difficult, I think.

Presenter3:27

Plenty to talk about. Tell me about your first piece of music, though. What have you chosen?

Liz Smith3:31

Well, only the lonely.

Liz Smith3:34

Isn't that what it's about? Only the lonely and who nicer than Roy Orbison?

Speaker 33:41

But only the lonely.

Speaker 33:45

No white.

Speaker 33:49

I cry only

Speaker 33:57

Yay yay!

Speaker 34:06

Only the lump

Presenter4:10

Roy Orbison and Only the Lonely, and you say, Liz Smith, that that is indeed your theme tune?

Liz Smith4:15

I think it is my theme too only the lonely.

Presenter4:19

Your life has been one of great determination and perseverance and an unusual degree of loss, especially in the early years. Tell me about your early life.

Liz Smith4:22

And

Liz Smith4:25

Mm-hmm.

Liz Smith4:28

Uh well, my early life w w was that my mother died when I was two. I lived with my grandparents and

Presenter4:35

And your mother died in childbirth.

Liz Smith4:37

She did die in Chaba. The baby died too.

Liz Smith4:41

And um Do you have any memories of your mother?

Presenter4:43

Uh

Liz Smith4:44

N no, but I'm very conscious of her.

Liz Smith4:47

I I've haven't wanted to let her go, you see, because I felt uh very often uh uh she was all I had to

Liz Smith4:56

lean on and and I have done.

Liz Smith5:00

Do you talk to her? Uh yes, I have done a great deal during my life during the

Liz Smith5:04

you know, very uh difficult times that I've had.

Liz Smith5:08

It's been her spirit, I think, that I've turned to. Well, I I've inherited everything from her that I find good, so, you know, I've got that.

Presenter5:17

What did your family what did her parents tell you about your mother?

Liz Smith5:21

Oh.

Liz Smith5:23

That she she was lovely.

Liz Smith5:25

She was a wonderful horsewoman, she was a wonderful pianist, and she was very artistic.

Liz Smith5:31

and it would have been great fun to have had her.

Presenter5:34

So there you were, a little girl, um, and your grandparents, your maternal grandparents, brought you up. Yeah, I did. What sort of people were they? Tell me about them.

Liz Smith5:42

Uh very homely, wonderful food, and um

Liz Smith5:48

nice trips to the seaside gave me a very, very nice time when I was a little girl. Very nice.

Presenter5:53

Nice. You've written about your grandmother. I love this. You said your grandmother used to say, I'll cook anything with feathers on except a shuttle coat. She did. Uh

Liz Smith6:01

Two.

Presenter6:02

Didn't she

Liz Smith6:02

She cooked everything with feathers on. What sort of things did she make? Brilliant cook. If dad came round he would go out shooting and and then we'd come out, we'd have hares and

Presenter6:05

What sort of things did she miss?

Liz Smith6:13

birds and uh uh pigeon pies and um

Liz Smith6:16

Uh wonderful pies.

Liz Smith6:18

It was just lovely with food and comfort and

Liz Smith6:23

and care.

Presenter6:25

You said there, if dad came round. That's an interesting phrase. I mean, your dad was a character in.

Liz Smith6:27

That's an information.

Liz Smith6:30

Why I never saw Dad. But then he would suddenly appear and uh he might have come back with a brace of rabbits, he's chot or a hare or something. Or on the other hand he might throw me up in the air and um

Liz Smith6:43

And then take me to the cinema. He he was fun. He was a fun father that I hardly ever saw, but he was fun when he was there.

Liz Smith6:51

And I adored him.

Presenter6:53

And then eventually he left too. What happened to him?

Liz Smith6:54

And then then he he just came uh to me outside Sunday school and he s and he said to me, um, I'm going away, kid.

Liz Smith7:03

I I'll uh write and I said, All right, Daddy and that was the last thing I ever saw of him.

Liz Smith7:09

I wait for the postman to bring me a letter from him.

Liz Smith7:12

And um

Liz Smith7:14

I wa waited in this window with this grammophone waiting for him for years.

Liz Smith7:20

Anyway, the the letter never came.

Presenter7:23

And he never came back.

Liz Smith7:24

No, I never saw him I never heard of him again ever.

Liz Smith7:28

And eventually, your grandparents decided to adopt you. Well, why did they do that?

Liz Smith7:33

My grandfather was.

Liz Smith7:36

Amazing. I adored my grandfather. I I thought he was a brilliant man. But he died.

Liz Smith7:42

uh my grandfather and so things were w w were difficult and uh she had decided

Liz Smith7:50

to adopt me so that I could

Liz Smith7:54

Not be just

Liz Smith7:56

taken away b perhaps by my father or something.

Presenter7:59

If he suddenly decided to

Liz Smith8:00

Yeah, if he suddenly decided he

Presenter8:00

Yeah, if he settled

Liz Smith8:03

It would give her the authority to

Liz Smith8:06

Keep me.

Presenter8:06

Your grandmother had suffered then two very significant losses. I mean she lost her young daughter and then she lost the man she loved.

Liz Smith8:09

I mean, she lost her

Liz Smith8:13

It was it was enormous.

Liz Smith8:16

She adored her husband, she adored

Liz Smith8:19

a a a daughter who was a lovely girl.

Presenter8:23

And was that her only child?

Liz Smith8:24

It was her only child. So they're both gone.

Liz Smith8:28

So she she would s she said to me then, I will

Liz Smith8:33

I will try and stay alive until you're twenty, because I consider that you will be.

Liz Smith8:38

Old enough then.

Liz Smith8:40

to look after yourself.

Liz Smith8:43

And uh she did die when I was twenty.

Presenter8:45

We'll talk a little more about that later, but for now let's take a break and tell me about your next piece of music.

Liz Smith8:51

Oh, it's tiptoe through the tulips. This is what I used to play on the grammar phone when I was waiting for the um postman to come up the

Liz Smith8:59

Front pas

Presenter9:00

With your father's letter.

Liz Smith9:02

Uh w with my father's letter which never came, yes.

Speaker 39:05

And tiptoe, close that you lips with me

Speaker 39:12

In flowers we'll strain, we'll keep.

Speaker 39:18

The show was away and they fighting.

Speaker 39:22

Yeah.

Speaker 39:26

Come tiptoe.

Presenter9:35

Jack Hilton and his orchestra and Tiptoe Through the Tulips.

Presenter9:39

So you were nine then, Liz, when you took on your first acting role. What do you remember?

Liz Smith9:44

Well, Lenny said, Granny.

Liz Smith9:46

In order t that I should mix with other children, Rick is envious being this lonely little girl.

Liz Smith9:53

Sent me to little classes, and I I played the part of a woman of about fifty-five actually in a little play. And the laughter was so wonderful, I thought, This is what I want to do all my life. And that fixed it, really. To go out and play to people, and there was all the light and laughter. That was wonderful.

Presenter10:16

Uh

Liz Smith10:16

And you Technical

Presenter10:17

Do you feel nervous about going on stage? Are you waiting for it?

Liz Smith10:19

No, it was just wonderful after all that silence of that house.

Presenter10:24

Now, as you say, after your grandfather died, money was in pretty short supply.

Liz Smith10:27

Short supplies.

Presenter10:28

You were deft with a needle and thread, though. You were pretty good at running up, I think.

Liz Smith10:33

That's right. I used to buy they u used to be sell sort of rag bits from the factories, you know, in shops then. And I it would buy a pennyworth of this and that and the other and stick them together and make a funny frock.

Presenter10:48

And make people laugh. Do you think you're a bit of a magpie? I mean, you're si and I have to describe to people, you've brought in today this incredible handbag that's made from bottle tops, a recycled handbag.

Liz Smith10:55

Yes.

Liz Smith10:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter10:59

I can't do that.

Liz Smith10:59

Do that kind of thing.

Presenter11:00

And you're wearing beautiful, quite fancy blue shoes and a pink sweater and it still appeals to you all that.

Liz Smith11:03

Sweater and

Liz Smith11:07

Clothes and accessories and jewellery and

Liz Smith11:10

Pretty things pretty things I love them, yes.

Presenter11:13

Is it true that you chose to go into the navy because you liked the uniform?

Liz Smith11:17

I'm afraid so, yes. I thought it was a beautiful uniform. I liked the cut of it better. Like the cut of the jib.

Presenter11:24

Um it's interesting. You s you seem very much on the surface of it to be somebody who likes the ritzy things of life. I do. And and I think of your grandmother as being this person I mean, she she said to you from a young age, One day you'll be all alone Did she seem like the voice on your shoulder, the voice of gloom on your shoulder?

Liz Smith11:31

I do.

Liz Smith11:43

No no, the voice of sense, of good sense, she was.

Presenter11:46

Yeah.

Liz Smith11:48

She had no defence against anyone in my future, because she would die.

Liz Smith11:54

So she all she could tell me was really good sense, buy a house, and if i i if you have a husband who goes, he must go, not you.

Liz Smith12:04

And and that saved my bacon, my husband did go. It's interesting.

Presenter12:08

That she would say to a young girl, assume the worst. Assume that, you know, let's make plans in case your husband goes.

Liz Smith12:09

You would say

Liz Smith12:10

Yeah.

Liz Smith12:14

She did just that, and that exactly happened.

Liz Smith12:21

But don't you think that's a strange thing for her to say to you? I do. But I think it's all part of this curious kind of

Presenter12:23

Yeah.

Speaker 312:24

Yeah.

Liz Smith12:28

Caring

Liz Smith12:29

spiritual caring that has gone on.

Liz Smith12:33

is quite

Liz Smith12:35

Strange, really, but

Liz Smith12:38

It's very

Liz Smith12:39

Comforting, really.

Presenter12:41

Do you think she saw in you somebody that because you were attracted to the stage and the lights and the colourful things in life?

Liz Smith12:46

Yes, she thought that I was frippery, you know, lappy dappy.

Presenter12:51

What do you think she would make of you now? I mean, you say that you s you do speak to your mother. Do you ever wonder what your grandmother would have made of you?

Liz Smith12:55

I wonder what you

Liz Smith12:57

Yeah, yeah, both of them, yes, all of them. They'd they'd be awfully pleased that at last I

Liz Smith13:05

I had a good ch I had a chance, you see.

Liz Smith13:08

Hmm. Tell me But your next b

Presenter13:09

Piece of music, then.

Liz Smith13:12

Oh no.

Liz Smith13:14

Just as I left school the war broke out, so I was in the navy.

Liz Smith13:19

And I was in the Fleet Air Arm. And what did we do there but dance? And in the aeroplane hangers used to have lovely big bands. And any one of those lovely big tunes I would love,'cause I love big tunes.

Liz Smith13:37

Uh

Presenter14:36

Glenn Miller and In the Mood and memories there, Liz Smith, of diving in these big ages.

Liz Smith14:38

Memories that

Liz Smith14:39

Diving in these big aircraft. Diving in big uh aircraft hangars. That was our main source of uh enjoyment really, having the dancers.

Presenter14:49

It must have been quite a contrast with what you'd been used to at home, suddenly being surrounded by these gaggles of girls.

Liz Smith14:52

Been surrounded by these gaggles of girls and come straight uh uh away from this silent, dark house with just this one sorrowing

Liz Smith15:02

A lady just propelled into this life.

Liz Smith15:08

It was extraordinary. I could hardly take it, you know.

Presenter15:12

You met your husband, too, Jack Thomas. What what sort of a man was he?

Liz Smith15:16

Uh poetic.

Liz Smith15:20

But I didn't meet him in this country.

Presenter15:22

You had to

Liz Smith15:22

I had to travel to a um

Liz Smith15:25

India.

Liz Smith15:27

And it was there. I I met him. I I met him at uh the music club just down the road from the um

Liz Smith15:35

Airfield.

Liz Smith15:36

And it was tall, dark, and handsome, poetic type.

Presenter15:41

Did he write poetry for you?

Liz Smith15:43

Yes.

Liz Smith15:44

It is, yes.

Presenter15:46

And so

Presenter15:48

You fell in love.

Liz Smith15:49

But yeah.

Presenter15:49

And you marry.

Liz Smith15:51

I did marry yes at the end well end of the war actually.

Presenter15:54

And by this time your grandmother had died, and she had kept her promise to you.

Liz Smith15:57

She had kept her promise.

Presenter15:58

She had left you how much money to buy a house?

Liz Smith16:01

Uh then uh it was two and a half thousand. That was a lot of money.

Presenter16:05

That's a lot of money.

Liz Smith16:07

Uh

Presenter16:07

And really?

Liz Smith16:09

Tell me

Liz Smith16:11

Curious

Presenter16:13

Well curious to say the least.

Liz Smith16:13

Curious to say that

Liz Smith16:14

Quite how to behave, you see, really, I think.

Liz Smith16:18

And I bought a magazine called I think it's called Holmes, you know, and and it flopped open and I just put a pencil on one.

Liz Smith16:27

'Cause I didn't know London, you see, coming from the north.

Liz Smith16:30

And um it was actually just by the Potterbella Road.

Liz Smith16:34

And uh I got to this uh very, very large corner house. I rang the bell, the man came, and uh I said uh This house here in this magazine is this this house?

Liz Smith16:47

And he said, Yes. So I said, Thank you very much. I'll have it.

Liz Smith16:52

And I got out my cheque book and and I paid for it. It was seventeen hundred pounds, by the way.

Presenter16:58

Yeah.

Liz Smith16:58

Yeah.

Liz Smith17:02

Art on the step

Liz Smith17:04

And so he said, Thank you very much. He took the check. I bet he did. And he said, Would you like to see it?

Speaker 217:09

Yeah.

Presenter17:09

Uh

Speaker 217:09

Uh

Liz Smith17:13

I said, Yes, yes.

Liz Smith17:16

I went in and it was

Liz Smith17:17

Paper was peeling off the walls, and there were mushrooms all over the kitchen.

Liz Smith17:24

Fantastic house, though. Fantastic house.

Presenter17:27

So you moved into this rather ramshackle big house just off the Portobello Road. Yes. And you had Sarah and Robert, your two children.

Liz Smith17:28

Yeah, ramshackle.

Liz Smith17:34

Eventually after

Presenter17:35

Y your husband, the poet, was writing and he was writing plays. He was. And so life must have seemed for an amount of time idyllic.

Liz Smith17:39

Yeah, he was.

Liz Smith17:40

He was

Liz Smith17:44

An amount of time it did.

Liz Smith17:48

Most magic life and just around the Portobello Road, all round that area.

Liz Smith17:55

immediately after the war was the most wonderful place to be.

Liz Smith18:00

Everybody was r writing something, writing poetry, writing plays, painting pictures, dancing, everything. It was joyful, and it was like a huge village. It was wonderful.

Liz Smith18:13

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Liz Smith18:16

This goes back to um

Liz Smith18:19

India.

Liz Smith18:20

And uh

Liz Smith18:21

I I think one of the most beautiful.

Liz Smith18:24

Pieces of music that blended in with the night, that blended in with the big moon and the smell of the jasmine and

Liz Smith18:33

And romance was Jerusalem.

Presenter19:34

The opening of the young prince and the young princess from Rumsky Korsakoff's Scheherazade. So you've been describing this wonderful life, a life of acceptance, of creativity, of all the things that you loved.

Liz Smith19:41

Yeah.

Liz Smith19:43

The sea of old.

Liz Smith19:45

Yeah.

Liz Smith19:47

Yeah, no how

Presenter19:47

You had two young children. You decided though that you needed you needed life with well, those very sort of mundane things. Life with a garden. And so you moved out of Nottinghill.

Liz Smith19:53

The Monday season.

Liz Smith19:55

Yeah.

Liz Smith19:56

I did, yes.

Presenter19:57

And you went where

Liz Smith19:58

Move to the suburbs, backing on to Epig Epping Forest.

Presenter20:02

And your move to the suburbs did not bring you joy.

Liz Smith20:05

No. My husband left almost straight away. No money and, um

Liz Smith20:11

And no acceptance as well, because in a very prim suburb to be on your own with two children y you were ignored. People would cross the road rather than speak. Quite literally. Oh, yes.

Liz Smith20:25

Uh it was a very

Liz Smith20:27

Very unhappy.

Liz Smith20:29

state to be in and um

Liz Smith20:32

I I used to go to jumble sales and buy about a c two penny worth of broken china and I used to come back and throw it at the wall.

Liz Smith20:41

Things like that.

Presenter20:42

Do you get that?

Liz Smith20:43

Really? Yeah, it was good. I didn't realise it. I just did it instinctively, but it

Presenter20:43

Really?

Presenter20:49

Yes.

Liz Smith20:52

I um I went to jumble sales. M uh w well, most of the things we had were from jumble sales. Not food. I o always had lovely fresh food, but um everything else was

Presenter21:04

And so, how did you manage for money? I mean, you did.

Liz Smith21:06

very, very badly, uh had very very small amount of money.

Liz Smith21:11

I did all kinds of um

Liz Smith21:16

Awful jobs I was a a postman.

Liz Smith21:20

And uh I worked in a plastic bag factory looking for holes in plastic bags.

Presenter21:26

Look sorry, looking for holes in cancer.

Liz Smith21:28

Uh yes. Uh rejecting them if it had a hole in and not reject you know.

Liz Smith21:34

I mean that sounds

Presenter21:34

I mean that sounds like total misery, wasn't it?

Liz Smith21:36

So yes, I it was all total misery.

Liz Smith21:40

And I worked in shops. I learned how to work in a shop and and so on.

Liz Smith21:45

anything to earn, just a few pounds just to uh make sure we had enough to eat. That that was my main uh ambition, was to have enough uh

Liz Smith21:56

Fresh food to eat.

Liz Smith21:58

And the the the clothes, they could come from a jumble tail, that didn't matter.

Liz Smith22:02

And then, you see, uh the man who'd bought my house

Liz Smith22:06

Couldn't get a mortgage on it because it was so moldy and um he was sending me uh ten pounds a month.

Liz Smith22:14

And that saved my bacon. Always something comes.

Liz Smith22:18

And save my bacon. Did you all

Presenter22:19

You always have the sense that there was something good coming in. Jam tomorrow. Yeah.

Liz Smith22:21

Yes.

Liz Smith22:24

But didn't know how far ahead it was.

Liz Smith22:26

It was a very long way ahead and and it's

Liz Smith22:30

I couldn't see it.

Presenter22:32

We'll come to that next, for now tell me about your next piece of music.

Liz Smith22:36

This is the wind up grammar phone and the old records I bought from the jumble sales.'Cause I think uh on a Desert Island, you see, it'd be very nice not only to hear singing voices, but to hear uh speech.

Liz Smith22:48

And here is um a voice of speech that I like very much, and it's so English. It'd be lovely to have on a desert island.

Liz Smith23:00

Oh this

Liz Smith23:02

See me dance the bulker, said Mr. Wag like a bear, With my top hat and my whiskers That draw trap the pair Where the waves seem chiming haycocks, I dance the bulker there, Standing as children their gay flocks, Maroon the marine and stare To see me fire my pistol, Through the distance blue as my coat, Like Wellington Barr and the Marquis of Bristol Buzz bid great trees float

Presenter23:27

Uh

Liz Smith23:28

Uh

Presenter23:28

While the wheezing, hurdy, gurdy, Of the marrying wind blows me, To the tune of Annie Rooley, sturdy, Over the sheafs of the sea.

Liz Smith23:35

And bright as the seasons pack, with zinnia's cadet of still, is Mrs. Marigold's jacket as she gaps Tain door steel.

Presenter23:45

Yeah.

Liz Smith23:46

Yeah.

Presenter23:47

Edith Sitwell reciting her own work Polka from Facade.

Presenter23:51

So, Liz Smith, uh you had these years of sustaining your family with with uh your young children, with these jobs that you hated and that were hard work, but you wanted to reconnect with the thing that had lit the little fire inside you, which was acting.

Liz Smith23:55

Yeah.

Liz Smith23:56

Yeah.

Liz Smith23:57

He didn't

Presenter24:04

And so what did you decide to do?

Liz Smith24:07

just tried everything I used to buy the stage and I was always sending up my

Liz Smith24:12

photographs and o and and getting them back or or not getting them back. Oh, it's always no, always no. For many years you plugged away you studied method acting. Uh in the stage, uh Charles Morowitz came over from America and he s he brought method.

Liz Smith24:29

That was about the end of the fifties, and he chose of ooh just a handful of people to work together, and but we were together actually five years, and and I was doing these menial jobs to pay the fare in.

Liz Smith24:43

To go and and a baby minder and all that kind of thing, just to come and do it.

Presenter24:48

So you had you had kept the show on the road, and then I'm going to jump forward a bit just because there's so much to tell. You were working in Hamleys, you were selling cheap Christmas toys, and there's a call in Hamleys one day. Tell me what happened.

Liz Smith24:53

Just because

Liz Smith24:57

Happy Christmas.

Liz Smith25:01

One day.

Liz Smith25:03

Just before Christmas.

Liz Smith25:05

selling toys, little cars, you know. And uh somebody says, There's a young director called uh Mike Lee who is making his first improvised film

Liz Smith25:17

And he wants someone by that time I was about forty nine years old. Uh he wants someone who is middle aged. So I went to see him and I got that part not listen, his first film, Bleak Moments.

Presenter25:29

How long was the audition?

Liz Smith25:35

About six hours.

Liz Smith25:39

And you just had to do nothing except wait for an ambulance to come and take you to the outpatients. That's all I was doing.

Presenter25:46

And so you got the part you made two films with Mike Lee. You made Bleak Moments and Hard Labour.

Liz Smith25:53

Hard labor. And that was it. That was it. I never went back to

Liz Smith25:58

Grotty jobs again and I I was aware that after all that time this was the magic thing that I was waiting for happen.

Liz Smith26:06

I didn't I didn't know that. It was just wonderful.

Presenter26:08

What do you think the difference is when when success hits somebody when they're well, I mean, you were almost fifty, you said. I was.

Liz Smith26:14

I walk.

Presenter26:16

Do you think were you able to appreciate it more, or were you afraid that it might slip away?

Liz Smith26:22

Oh no, it wasn't going to slip away. It wasn't going to slip away. I'd waited all that time. My children were grown grown up.

Presenter26:29

What did they make of the fact that their mother was now a proper professional act?

Liz Smith26:33

Really, sure, really?

Liz Smith26:36

Uh because they'd seen me dragging around in jumble sails and no money and

Liz Smith26:42

Oh really? How would I think about it?

Presenter26:44

And I mean you were wi you won a BAFTA for a private function.

Liz Smith26:47

Uh

Presenter26:47

How much did the public recognition mean to you of something like that?

Liz Smith26:49

Stop it.

Liz Smith26:53

Everything. Well, after all those years of just being rejected and the poverty and uh you know, scratching around for threatens

Liz Smith27:05

It was just simply wonderful, wonderful.

Presenter27:10

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Liz Smith27:13

Oh, this is Jerusalem.

Liz Smith27:15

One very nice thing I did at the Royal Court

Liz Smith27:19

Um, it's called a chair.

Liz Smith27:23

By Carl Churchill. And I remember I was projected.

Liz Smith27:28

Into the audience.

Liz Smith27:31

By a piece of music, and I found it so thrilling that it inspired me.

Liz Smith27:37

Even as I was speaking.

Liz Smith27:40

It's just one long stream of

Liz Smith27:43

Beautiful music.

Presenter28:42

Stephen Isserlis playing the opening of John Tavener's The Protecting Veil. So, Liz Smith, you had great acclaim in Alan Bennett's A Private Function. You had many varied roles. The acting offers were swarming in. And then these two

Liz Smith28:53

Acting

Liz Smith28:55

Yeah.

Presenter28:57

Roles that I suppose cemented you in the nation's consciousness. You were in the Vicar of Dibley and the royal family.

Liz Smith29:02

And the royal family.

Presenter29:04

Great roles to be done.

Liz Smith29:05

There were great roles. Great roles. I I was so lucky, you see that things did come my way then. They were good.

Presenter29:14

And did you feel that all the groundwork that you'd done this five years of studying the method, beating down the agents' doors.

Liz Smith29:19

Down the agent's doors my whole life.

Liz Smith29:23

was in there.

Liz Smith29:25

Holy

Liz Smith29:27

Emotion and tragedy and and laughter and everything else is in there.

Liz Smith29:32

Oh, yes. And uh unusually I understand that you watch your own performances. Yes,'cause I can pick up things that I shouldn't have done.

Liz Smith29:40

Now, oh, mamma mustn't mustn't do that again.

Liz Smith29:43

Yes, I like to.

Liz Smith29:45

uh criticize it and think.

Liz Smith29:48

Well, you know.

Liz Smith29:50

That should have been another setting longer or something like that. Do you find that do you find that a difficult process?

Presenter29:53

Yeah.

Liz Smith29:56

Uh no I quite enjoy it.

Liz Smith29:59

It's a pleasure to I've had it after not having it.

Presenter30:04

A pleasure to see yourself working.

Liz Smith30:04

Yeah, it is a pleasure to be there.

Presenter30:08

You've got two children of your own and grandchildren.

Liz Smith30:10

And grandchildren. Four grandchildren, yes. All grown up.

Presenter30:14

And do you feel I mean I don't mean to sound glib about this, but do you feel the satisfaction of having reached some sort of a resolution?

Liz Smith30:19

Yes, I do. I do feel that. And and I feel very grateful that I've been able to because for all I know I might have gone on and on just working in in shops or uh or being a postman or something.

Presenter30:35

Did you have a profound belief in your own talent?

Liz Smith30:38

Yes.

Liz Smith30:40

I I did. That's what drove me on. It really drove me on.

Liz Smith30:45

All I wanted was the chance, and if the chance I'd got the thumbs down, I think I'd have accepted it. But I didn't get the thumbs down.

Liz Smith30:54

So it was

Liz Smith30:56

Wonderful, really. It was wonderful when it did happen. Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Liz Smith31:03

This is Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream. This takes me back to my l student days in the Little Theatre in Westbourne Grove and when I went as a student and I was doing a um

Liz Smith31:16

stage management and I was dragging a curtain made of red felt up and down with a a thick piece of wood at the bottom, clanging it up and down.

Liz Smith31:27

And I had to drop the uh needle onto

Liz Smith31:32

on to the uh music at precise moment, and I never got it quite on the right moment. And every night Titania used to rave at me.

Liz Smith31:45

The big so clumsy.

Liz Smith31:49

Oh but it was wonderful there.

Presenter32:44

The overture from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. So you're eighty-six now, Liz. What about your life now? You live in a sort of a retirement flat.

Liz Smith32:49

It's important.

Liz Smith32:52

Now I've moved yes, because I found houses a bit.

Liz Smith32:55

uh uh heavy to for um keep going uh uh I I move to a retirement flat. It's a good idea because um I've got a warden and I've got friends there, do you know? Um

Liz Smith33:09

They're so nice and friendly, I feel I've got friends and neighbours at last.

Presenter33:15

How do you think that you would do on an island on your own, being cast away?

Liz Smith33:20

Well, I wouldn't sleep at night. I'd be frightened of something creeping out of the forest. Uh, so I'd sleep uh all day.

Liz Smith33:29

And um

Liz Smith33:30

I I I think I could scrounge enough fruit and little fishes and things like that. Yes.

Liz Smith33:38

And of course I love I love being by the sea anyway. Oh, I love the beach.

Liz Smith33:43

I might not ever want to come back, I think.

Presenter33:46

You see, I think you're such a resourceful source that actually you'd make quite a happy life for yourself.

Liz Smith33:48

But actually you can make

Liz Smith33:50

Well, I think I think I'd I'd really enjoy I'd love to be on a desert island right now, quite frankly.

Liz Smith33:58

Tell me about your final piece of music, then.

Presenter33:59

Yeah.

Liz Smith34:01

What else?

Liz Smith34:03

Grandad's choice of Peter Dawson singing one of his lovely songs.

Speaker 234:12

I thought I could hear the curious tone of the corner of the big rhombone, fiddle, chillo, big-bassed drum, bassoon, flute, and euphonium, far away as in a trance.

Liz Smith34:22

Yeah.

Speaker 234:24

I heard the sound of the floor dance.

Speaker 234:29

And soon I heard each other bustling and flancing, and then I saw the whole village goes dancing, In and out of the houses they came, Old folk, young folk, all the same, And that quaint old Cornish talk.

Presenter34:40

Peter Dawson and the Floral Dance. So I will give you the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, Liz. You are allowed to take one other book.

Liz Smith34:45

And

Presenter34:49

What's it going to be?

Liz Smith34:50

Uh I would take a very large catalogue.

Liz Smith34:55

and I'd go through it and choose something different every day to order as soon as I got back.

Presenter35:00

Showing great optimism and what about a luxury.

Liz Smith35:02

And the motion is.

Liz Smith35:03

Yeah, yeah. I've neglected my painting.

Liz Smith35:07

Dreadfully, for years and years. I'd like everything paints, pencils, paper, everything.

Presenter35:13

You may have that a complete success.

Liz Smith35:15

Yeah, a complete artist's outfit, yes.

Presenter35:17

And if you had to choose just one disk, which one would it be?

Liz Smith35:21

I think I'd take Roy. I love his voice and I love him saying only the lonely and I'll be lonely on my island.

Presenter35:29

Roy Orbison, you may have. Liz Smith, thank you very much for letting us see your desert island this.

Liz Smith35:31

It's like a very

Liz Smith35:32

Thank you very much for having me.

Presenter35:41

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