David McVicar

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.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is the director David McVicker. Growing up, he was, by his own estimation, an awkward we sod from a Glasgow Comprehensive.

Presenter0:35

He's only forty two, but for years has been described as Britain's leading opera director of his generation, and he's in demand all over the world so much so that he's booked up until twenty thirteen. Vibrantly theatrical, revelatory, inventive, his work is testament to his passion and belief in the power of performance.

Presenter0:54

I want to put people in touch with themselves, he says, to put them in intense, burning, agonising contact with their souls.

Presenter1:03

David McVicker, do you think our day-to-day lives militate against us being in touch with our true feelings then?

David McVicar1:09

Oh, yes, definitely. I think the grind of everyday life irons everything out, and I think uh

David McVicar1:16

One of the things about the nature of a live performance is that it it can dredge things up inside people. It's certainly why I'm interested, why I work in live performance. It's the ephemeral nature of live performance in the theatre that excites me and it's also the fact that it's a communal action that takes place between human beings and I find that very, very exciting.

Presenter1:38

You work right now in the area of opera. Is there something particular then about opera that again you think manages to make contact with those very deep and passionate feelings that you have?

David McVicar1:49

Well f fir first of all I didn't choose to work in opera, opera chose me. But I think opera made the right choice. Yes, because w with with opera you're you're doing theatre which is also an act of interp of musical interpretation. And music is is is in in many ways the art form which is the most emotive and the hardest to put an intellectual finger on.

David McVicar2:12

It really does unleash big, big emotions in people.

Presenter2:16

That can also be with opera why people find it difficult to get close to and difficult to connect with because.

Presenter2:23

It is huge, and in a way, almost a lot of the plot lines, which can often be rather bizarre, we'll talk about them hopefully in a little bit more detail later.

Presenter2:32

Can alienate people, can actually distance them rather than getting them close to true feelings.

David McVicar2:37

I understand what you're saying, but I almost feel more it's um the things which surround opera, the presentation of opera, the fact that it happens in theatres which are quite intimidating for people, that it's often performed in another language, that it's seen as being a very rarefied art form for Porsche people, I think that is much more the problem. Certainly what I find is if you can grab people and get them into the opera as you know, if I can get my friends in on cheap seats and they can experience an opera for the first time, they are overwhelmed by the experience.

Presenter2:37

Uh

Presenter3:05

When did you experience opera for the first time?

David McVicar3:07

I experienced opera for the first time watching um BBC Two at a time when the BBC actually bothered to do these things um and showed lots and lots and lots of opera broadcasts. I think the f the first thing I saw was the Bergman movie of Magic Fluid. Although I didn't understand it was specifically opera I was watching, I just enjoyed it as a as a as a movie, as a as a piece of entertainment, as storytelling.

Presenter3:29

Are you able to remember what you felt when you watched it?

David McVicar3:31

M. Entranced.

David McVicar3:33

completely captivated like the outside world didn't matter anymore.

Presenter3:37

And you would have been a house.

David McVicar3:39

I would have been about nine years old.

Presenter3:41

Tell me about your first choice to day, then.

David McVicar3:44

First chart I would have to have on my island something to remind me of Mozart, and I chose the trio from the first act of Cazi Fantuti, which was the first Mozart opera ever.

David McVicar3:58

knew intimately, um actually at quite a young age. I just think it's one of the most exquisite things that any human being has ever committed to paper.

Speaker 34:18

God's the whole love.

Presenter5:05

Montserrat Caballier, Janet Baker, and Richard Van Allen singing Suave sie il vento, so soft is the breeze from Mozart's Cosi Fantuti, with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Colin Davis. You were saying just towards the end of that, David McVicker, that it's it's the beauty of that piece contrasted with what was it you said, the sort of viciousness of it.

David McVicar5:23

It's what makes, in my opinion, Mozart the greatest opera composer. I mean, the context of that trio is a text which, like Tale of the Shrew, can be seen in very misogynistic terms, and yet Mozart somehow invests such incredible love and pity that he fleshes out and rounds out the characters in a Shakespearean way.

Presenter5:46

You said you knew this opera from a very young age. How young?

David McVicar5:50

12.

Presenter5:51

And what were you getting from it at twelve? I mean what you've just described is is fairly complex.

David McVicar5:53

And what

David McVicar5:56

Um it put me in a in a in a cocoon. It put me in a consoling bubble where I could be myself and explore my own thoughts and explore my own emotions away from the pressures of of what was going on um around in in um

David McVicar6:11

My Childhood Household.

Presenter6:13

Are you one of three children I met?

David McVicar6:14

I'm I'm the youngest of three children.

Presenter6:15

And it wasn't a happy household.

David McVicar6:17

It wasn't a happy household. Um my parents didn't have a happy marriage.

David McVicar6:22

It wasn't a particularly stimulating environment, certainly not a stimulating artistic environment to grow up in. And I was I was a very unhappy child, a very lonely child.

David McVicar6:34

This music, I think, helped me give a sense of who I was.

Presenter6:38

Where did you actually get I'm talking about physically where did you get hold of the music?

David McVicar6:42

I'd save up my pocket money and go out to HMV and buy it. Or I would I would go to the school library and beg the teachers let me dig it out of the the cupboard and take it home with me, things like that.

Presenter6:54

It helped you to live in a vivid world, a world that did have colour and culture and passion.

David McVicar7:00

The opera helped me to develop my imagination.

Presenter7:07

And you're well an artistic little boy.

David McVicar7:09

I was very artistic, I mean.

David McVicar7:11

My primary talent was in art. I was painting, I was designing. That was what my parents thought I was going to be, an artist.

Presenter7:20

We'll talk more about that in a second. For now, tell me about your second choice.

David McVicar7:24

My second choice is something to remind me when I'm on Island that I'm came from Scotland, and it's a Burns song, and it's sung by Eddie Reader when she was with our band Fairground Attraction because it's part of my youth and it's a

David McVicar7:40

It's a band I used to love a lot when I was younger.

Speaker 37:44

If fond cares and then we sever

Speaker 37:52

If there will last forever.

Speaker 38:00

Deep and heart wrung, tears obliged thee.

Speaker 38:07

War in size and grown.

Presenter8:13

Eddie Reader and a Fond Kiss. So, David McVicker, your talent for art then continued, obviously, into secondary school, and it meant that you were so good at it you were pretty much left to your own devices. What sort of things were you creating in secondary school?

David McVicar8:27

My last year of school where I um had the wonderful luxury of only studying art and music because I was so bad at everything else or I did a bit of history as well, I think. I spent a year long project um designing um production of The Magic Flute.

Presenter8:45

The entire production

David McVicar8:45

the entire production, like model boxed and uh doing other costume drawings and um I had to like go and and um study theatres and really, really get to know the stage and it bizarrely that really put me in good stead.

Presenter8:59

Yes, I mean the perfect grounding, it sounds as though you're describing for a director. And yet it was art that you were going to pursue and that everyone thought you would.

David McVicar9:03

And

David McVicar9:06

Yeah, the information was going in subliminally.

Presenter9:09

I do want to ask you about the sort of schoolboy you were. I mean, I I said I I used slightly politer language than you've used about yourself in the introduction. I said a challenging we sawed. I mean you were were you a fully paid up member of the awkward squad at school?

David McVicar9:23

Yes.

Presenter9:23

Yes. Contradicting teachers.

David McVicar9:25

Yes. Um I've always had a problem with authority figures. I really don't get on with them. And also I was being quite experimental in what I looked like then.

Presenter9:35

Give me an idea.

David McVicar9:36

While I wore a lot of makeup and a lot of nail varnish, I also was beginning to experiment with my sexuality because I knew.

David McVicar9:43

By then that I was definitely gay. Um in Glasgow, if you're a gay wee boy, you either um batten down the hatches or you get quite aggressive and upfront about it, and I chose to get aggressive and upfront about it, and uh everyone left me alone.

Presenter9:57

And you you're a big guy.

David McVicar9:58

I've always been large, yeah.

Presenter9:59

So that probably would help the fact that you were tall and couldn't, I would guess, easily be uh tripped up or punched in the playground.

David McVicar10:05

Yeah. Emotionally I could be very hurt.

Presenter10:09

How did you deal with that? Was that back to the operating music?

David McVicar10:11

Listened to music, went to the theatre, went to an art gallery.

Presenter10:16

Did you talk to anyone about the fact that you knew you were gay?

David McVicar10:20

Yeah.

David McVicar10:21

Only, only, only people at school. Not not to my family, not to my parents.

Presenter10:23

Right.

Presenter10:25

I mean, knowing Glasgow as I do, I can't imagine that would have been in what the the the beginning of the eighties.

Presenter10:32

So Glasgow was even then just getting its first gay club. I mean, you know, Bennett's was just opening in nineteen eighty two, so it wasn't exactly a place where people were openly welcoming members of our gay community.

David McVicar10:45

But it makes you it makes you a survivor, it makes you pugnacious, and it it stands you in good stead for the slings and arrows of life, doesn't it?

Presenter10:52

Did you feel you were smarter than your teachers?

David McVicar10:55

Sometimes.

David McVicar10:57

Sometimes, I'm sure I was a really annoying little bastard.

David McVicar11:03

And I'm sure he wouldn't have liked me. I'm sure he would have wanted to slap me.

Presenter11:07

And what did your school reports say? I mean, did your mum and dad know that things weren't

Presenter11:11

Going exactly to plan at school.

David McVicar11:14

I have no idea.

David McVicar11:16

I have no idea what they thought. They just thought I was very troublesome.

Presenter11:21

Tell me about your third piece of music.

David McVicar11:24

My third track is A Lead by Brahms, who is not my favorite composer, but it is sung by one of my favourite singers and one of my best friends, the Mezzo Soprano Sarah Connolly, who I think has one of the most

David McVicar11:40

unique voices of our time, with whom I have now done, I think, eight productions. And one of the blessings of my career is that it coincided with that of Sarah Connolly.

Speaker 311:54

Laidmar and Petreston.

David McVicar12:01

Yeah.

Speaker 312:04

On the homeish.

Speaker 312:08

Finding a transformation.

Presenter12:51

Sarah Connolly singing Brahms von Ewich Liebe of Eternal Love. And you said that Sarah Conley is a friend of yours, and rumour has it that unusually among opera directors you even quite like singers.

David McVicar13:02

I love singers. I have met very many friends who are singers. I'm very, very privileged. Wh that's a very strange thing to say to me. What what do you mean? Sorry.

Presenter13:08

That's a very

Presenter13:11

No, I didn't mean to confuse you. I only meant that quite often there can be an antagonistic relationship between a director and his leading lady.

David McVicar13:19

I I have had confrontations with singers. Very, very few. When they have happened, they have been very nasty because it has been a clash of two Titanic egos. Right. But for the most part I've been very, very lucky in the collegiate nature of my relationships with my cast.

Presenter13:30

Right.

Presenter13:38

And what were the early productions you were doing? Like, I mean, you set up this small touring company. It was in Glasgow's Euroculture, so there was European funding around.

David McVicar13:45

It was a wonderful time to be living in Glasgow. There was.

David McVicar13:50

Money and there was a will.

David McVicar13:52

To make lots and lots of culture happen.

Presenter13:55

And you would have been in your very early twenties at this point.

David McVicar13:57

Ah, mid twenties, yeah.

Presenter13:58

Right. And so you set up this this small tuning company.

David McVicar14:00

A small little theatre company and we would do we would fill a niche and that we would do essentially classical texts and we would uh put them onto the back of a truck and we would drive them to the Highlands. And I think what I was doing was I was always experimenting with um a socket to them kind of approach, how to take a uh a text like Doctor Faustus and and deliver it to an audience who would otherwise have absolutely no interest in seeing a Marlowe play with as much pizzazz and theatre.

David McVicar14:30

as I could think of.

Presenter14:31

And did you feel when you were surrounded by these theatre people that, ah, that that fits, this feels better?

David McVicar14:38

This feels better.

Presenter14:59

This next choice of yours then is a voice that you say you could drown in. It's so beautiful. Tell us about this choice.

David McVicar15:05

Well, I had to have something from Handel's Opera Julia Cheseray because it was uh one of the biggest successes of my career and one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had. But I was faced with a big dilemma. Which track do I choose and which artist do I choose? Because when you know as many singers as I do, they all want to know why didn't you choose me on Desert Island Discs. So I chose an aria called Cara Spemi from Act One of Julio Chesery, but I didn't choose a recording by

David McVicar15:38

um anyone that has been in the production in that role, um I've chosen a recording by David Daniels, who did sing seize the title role in um a revival of Julius Caesar. Um I suppose what I'm saying is um I'm really sorry, Daniel Denise, I didn't choose one of your tracks, and please don't kill me when I see you next time.

Speaker 316:01

What does that make we still call?

Speaker 316:17

Good morning, God.

Speaker 316:41

What is baby?

Presenter16:47

David Daniels seeing Cara Spemi from Handel's Julio Cesare. Um we'll call it Julius Caesar probably, because it's simpler and more straightforward. You put on a production of that that was, I mean, hailed not just by everyone who saw it, but by the critics as as truly sublime. July the third, two thousand five was the opening night. When did you know that you had a big fat hit on your hands?

Speaker 316:53

Positive.

David McVicar17:03

What was the opening?

David McVicar17:09

Well

David McVicar17:12

It was a special project from its gestation because it's one of the rare times that I got to choose the piece I wanted to do. But with Julia Chazery we began with just a title and a conductor, William Christie, and an orchestra, Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment, and no singers whatsoever, so we just began to piece it together and I managed to assemble.

David McVicar17:35

a beautiful company of singers, all of whom I had a great relationship with. We knew something very special was happening by the stage rehearsals. We knew we had something very different and we knew it was

David McVicar17:51

reaching people in

David McVicar17:53

An unusual way.

Presenter17:55

And on the night itself, on the opening night, then, w wa was there clearly a point where you felt we've got them?

David McVicar18:02

A good indicator of how well you're doing at Glynbourne is when they all come back from the dinner interval and the conductor comes back into the pit to take his call before you do the final act. And William Chrissy got a standing ovation just for coming back into the pit. Now a lot of cynical people say that the Glynbourne audience have had a little too much champagne by the time they come back.

David McVicar18:24

which may be the case, and I I think a bit of champagne in the supper interval is a good thing because it gets rid of their inhibitions and they just really let us know how much they were enjoying this performance.

David McVicar18:41

And the third act was

David McVicar18:44

magical in terms of the silence and concentration when the singers were performing, and by the scale of the evasion when the singers were finished.

Presenter18:55

What do you think it is that determines?

Presenter18:59

When a production is a success.

David McVicar19:03

Um

David McVicar19:08

I don't know. I think something is really, really working when

David McVicar19:13

It seems to be speaking on its own terms to the audience in a really, really direct way. When the audience are really getting the piece itself, what am I saying? It's such a hard thing to grasp. It's like grabbing hold of thin air. How do you define what it is? But we all know it when it happens. We all know that voluntary communal act of concentration between an audience and performers and musicians, when an opera performance is absolutely at its peak, we sort of flow into each other.

David McVicar19:48

Um

David McVicar19:50

That's the only way I can answer that question. I know it when it happens. I know the only way to achieve it is through incredible hard work.

David McVicar19:58

Yeah, don't underestimate the contribution of directors, please.

Presenter20:03

We won't after this. Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

David McVicar20:07

Oh, my next piece. Um

David McVicar20:10

This is um Tom Waits. I think he's got a wonderfully beautiful.

David McVicar20:17

Whiskey Sodenal Voice

Presenter20:18

You think he has a beautiful voice? Because this would seem an almost perverse choice for somebody who's been a very beautiful voice.

David McVicar20:19

Because this would seem

David McVicar20:22

I think it's a very beautiful voice. I think it's Saul singing. And he's singing here an incredibly camp arrangement of Somewhere from Bernstein's West Side Story.

Speaker 320:34

Somewhere

Speaker 320:39

We finally knew where living

Speaker 320:49

We owe the way.

Speaker 320:53

We're forgiving.

Speaker 320:59

So

Presenter21:00

Where?

Presenter21:04

Tom Waits and Somewhere. So, David McVicker, your production of Rigoletto had only just opened at Covent Garden. That was in two thousand and one, when you were diagnosed as HIV positive. Can you explain to me what happened?

David McVicar21:18

Ooh, well, I wasn't feeling very well during rehearsals and uh and then I started to feel very, very, very unwell at the second performance, and uh four days later I was I was in hospital.

David McVicar21:31

Simple as that.

Presenter21:32

And did the diagnosis entirely come out of the blue for you? Was it something you'd gone through?

David McVicar21:35

It concentrates

Presenter21:35

Plated.

David McVicar21:35

Uh

David McVicar21:36

At the back of my mind I was I was very, very worried about what was wrong with me, but uh

Presenter21:42

And you take antiretroviral drugs daily, now?

David McVicar21:46

I'm on a very, very, very good regime. I have a fantastic doctor.

Presenter21:52

I mean, you look extraordinarily vigorous and healthy. How do you feel?

David McVicar21:56

I am fint I feel fine. I am extraordinarily vigorous and healthy.

David McVicar22:01

It's not as dramatic an issue as it would have been to talk about five or six years ago.

David McVicar22:07

I think it's it's just part of me. There's no reason not to talk about it, but I don't make a big issue of it. I'm not.

Presenter22:13

Indeed. I I'm wondering about your punishing uh schedule, because not only uh do you work incredibly hard, but also you travel a lot too, and and travelling just generally can can bring people down, you know, it can

David McVicar22:24

Yeah.

David McVicar22:25

Uh-huh.

Presenter22:26

Do you take that into consideration at all?

David McVicar22:28

Um I try to it's very, very hard to schedule in

David McVicar22:33

Free time. My m the curse my curse is um the shows are so damn successful that people will keep on reviving them, um, probably way beyond their shelf life. And and that is a big issue because f um do I want to maintain a quality control on my revivals? Well, yes, I absolutely do. And then I have to take on the new productions as well.

Presenter22:52

If a production it's very common in opera, just to explain to people who maybe don't know quite so much about it, it it's common that when a huge success happens, the very bones of that success are taken and and again and again and again over the years and the opera is kept

David McVicar22:56

So much.

David McVicar23:06

And the opera is a lot of fun. And also, the physical production can be hired. Right. Like it can be hired to a big American house. So these are the sets and the costumes, off they go for your production. Yeah, but I don't have the legal ability to stop things like that from happening. So it does get very, very frustrating. But going back to your earlier point, this does entail a lot of travelling and it does clog up my diary. And it is something that maybe I should stop doing because I'm 42 years old now and I just want to have a little more space in my life.

Presenter23:10

Bye.

Presenter23:13

So these are the sets and the costumes, off they go from your production.

David McVicar23:43

And the creation of the new productions is far more important and shouldn't be compromised.

Presenter23:48

Uh what do you want space for? Space for more work or space for others?

David McVicar23:51

Life. Space for living. Space for doing nice things. Space for

David McVicar23:56

Space for learning new recipes and

Presenter23:58

Yes, what are the nice things outsi outside of your work? Because you d I mean, you talk so passionately and you clearly, for so many years, have really lived your work. That has been your life.

David McVicar24:07

Has been

David McVicar24:08

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:08

Not so much now, or or you would like it not so much to be now.

David McVicar24:12

I just want a little more breathing space now.

David McVicar24:14

Um I'm I'm a lot calmer than I used to be. I mean the the greatest pleasure when I'm not at working is to be in my kitchen cooking, which is it's my great passion outside of the arts is making things to eat.

Presenter24:25

What's your signature, Dish?

David McVicar24:26

Oh, I like big hearty, you know,'cause I'm Scottish, so I like, you know, big hearty things that you can stick in a pot and shove in the oven and

David McVicar24:37

W bottle of wine, entire bottle goes into the Bourguign kind of thing. You know, I I really, really enjoy cooking.

Presenter24:42

Let's take a break for a piece of music. What's next?

David McVicar24:45

This is a track by Joni Mitchell who again is an artist that I've enjoyed listening to for most of my life.

David McVicar24:55

It's a really famous song she wrote in her album Blue, it's called A Case of You.

David McVicar25:00

And uh yeah.

Speaker 325:02

I drew a map of Canada.

Speaker 325:05

Who can adapt?

Speaker 325:11

With your face sketched on it twine

Speaker 325:15

Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine, it tastes so bitter.

Speaker 325:24

So sweet oh I

Speaker 325:28

Keep you.

Presenter25:31

Jenny Mitchell and A Case of You. I got the feeling, David McVicker, that you were about to say something before that record started and thought better of it. Um, is it for Andrew, your partner?

David McVicar25:41

Yes, it's for Andrew, because it's the way I feel about him. We've been together for four years now and uh

David McVicar25:48

I think Andrew has literally saved my life, with his love, so

David McVicar25:53

It means a lot to me.

Presenter25:54

Had your life been quite solitary, prior to meeting Andrew, in that respect?

David McVicar26:01

Solitary in terms of not having companionship.

Presenter26:04

Yes.

David McVicar26:05

Yes. The companionship of Andrew is one of one of the most wonderful things in my life.

Presenter26:11

Can we explore a little bit? In the introduction, I used this quote, and it was said a few years ago, I think, about five or six years ago, you said this intense, burning, agonizing experience that you wanted to put people in touch with.

Presenter26:26

Clearly you're a person of immense uh capability, but also immense sensitivity. Do you think that you live life in a way that is um

Presenter26:36

Extreme. Do you personally feel emotions in an extreme way?

David McVicar26:39

I do feel emotions in a very extreme way and in a in a very internalized way. Um I sometimes have great problems with anger, which can sometimes explode out of me l like like a nuclear warhead. I certainly

David McVicar26:55

I take it very personally when in in my work I feel that someone doesn't want to play ball with me, when when I I sort of like come in with open hands, really, there's nothing up my sleeve, and it does upset me, it does actually wound me when I find people resistant.

David McVicar27:14

to to the honesty of the transaction that I'm I need to make the work.

Presenter27:21

The explosive anger then, do you have you found a way at forty two of dealing with that in a more socially acceptable way, or is that just the way it's always going to be?

David McVicar27:29

No, it's it's it's not gonna be that way anymore.

Presenter27:32

Right.

Presenter27:33

So what check was there a point that you

David McVicar27:35

Dear

Presenter27:35

Uh

David McVicar27:35

Yeah.

David McVicar27:38

I turned I turned forty, I realized that um

David McVicar27:43

My career is not going to fizzle out, and I stop worrying about that.

Presenter27:47

More of that in a second. For now tell me about your uh penultimate dis.

David McVicar27:52

Right. I went to something from a musical because um

David McVicar27:56

I really admire musicals and I love going to them. And I needed something from the Holy Grail of all musicals, probably the greatest piece of musical theatre ever written, which is Gypsy. And I chose Ethel Merman singing Rose's Turn. I feel it's an example of where one can honestly say that a Broadway musical can in no way be

David McVicar28:25

Compared unfavourably with an opera.

Speaker 428:33

Everything's coming up roses.

Speaker 428:37

Time for me.

Speaker 428:45

For me, for me, for me.

Speaker 428:51

FUCK ME!

Presenter28:54

Ethel Merman and Rose's Turn from the Broadway cast recording of Gypsy Sing Out, Louise. You must surely want to get your hands on that if you don't

David McVicar29:02

Yes, I do. I I re I have a date at some point in my life with Gypsy.

Presenter29:07

What about other things? Because as I introduced you, I called you a director, not an opera director. You have done lots of other directing, but it was early on in your career.

David McVicar29:15

Oh well, you know, yes, I mean, yeah, we've got I've got a few Shakespeare's that I'd like to get hold of. You have indeed directed Panto.

David McVicar29:24

I have directed Pantop. Early in my career I directed David Tennant in Merlin the Magnificent at Dundee Rep. He was he was Arthur. Was he any good? He was fantastic.

David McVicar29:35

But yeah, Panta was great fun to do. It's difficult, first of all. My diary is is very, very full. And secondly, if you spend your career specializing in one art form, you tend to be off the radar as far as the other art forms are concerned. I would like to work with actors again.

Presenter29:54

Um you're going to be all on your own, of course, on this island.

David McVicar29:55

Uh

Presenter29:57

How we handle that?

David McVicar29:59

Not well.

David McVicar30:02

Not well. I I'm getting increasably sociable from from being very lonely and as a child and someone that's perfectly happy to be in their own. I'm now much more sociable creature, so

Presenter30:02

What?

David McVicar30:12

Am I going to stop there till I die?

David McVicar30:14

Do I get rescued?

Presenter30:16

I have no idea.

David McVicar30:16

Oh, I'd do everything I could to get rescued.

Presenter30:21

Tell me about your final choice, then.

David McVicar30:24

Um I wanted something which wasn't vocal, because I've noticed I've only only chosen things which are vocal, because uh you know I work with the human voice and I suppose it's it's something that I'm obsessed with. And I couldn't decide do I choose another piece by Handel, or do I choose another piece by Mozart and eventually

David McVicar30:46

Mozart, being the first composer I ever fell in love with, won, and I chose piano concerto number twenty three.

Presenter31:51

Mitzko Occhida, playing the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto, No. twenty three, in A major. Um so I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, David. You're allowed to take a book. What will it be?

David McVicar32:03

Well, we'll leave the Bible behind. All right. We're not interested in that. We'll take Shakespeare.

Presenter32:05

Alright.

Presenter32:07

Right.

David McVicar32:09

I thought I was allowed to take something else if I didn't like the Bible, but apparently I'm not.

Presenter32:14

No, you've just you can leave it behind. You can take another religious text, but um no, I'm afraid you're not allowed a two-for-one deal.

David McVicar32:21

And relied a religious text.

David McVicar32:24

Yeah. And I can take the bag of Adgita.

Presenter32:26

Yes, you can take that.

David McVicar32:26

I'll take the bag of Agita. Thank you very much.

Presenter32:28

Drives?

David McVicar32:29

My book would have to be my favourite novel, which is Thackeray's Vanity Fair which I've read fourteen times and never get bored of.

Presenter32:37

Right, you may have that. And the luxury to make life a little more bearable.

David McVicar32:37

Yeah.

David McVicar32:40

Well, I'm imagining that my island is deserted because there's been a tsunami or something, but miraculously preserved is a well stocked bar where the fridges still work, so I can while away my time before I get rescued mixing cocktails. You may have that.

Presenter32:57

You may have that. Thank you. And if I were to press you to pick just one disc, which one would it be?

David McVicar33:09

Until I could see her again I would want to keep the voice of Sarah Connolly with me.

Presenter33:13

David McVicker, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert ion on discs.

David McVicar33:17

Thanks.

Presenter33:24

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