Arlene Phillips

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 nine.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the choreographer Arline Phillips. She became a household name as one of the judges on the T V Smash Strictly Come Dancing, but her forty year career has stretched well beyond the sequins and spats of Prime Time T V.

Presenter0:42

She has collaborated with Tina Turner and Elton John, taught Albert Finney how to tap dance, and apparently single handedly corrupted the morals of a nation with her eighties dance troupe hot gossip.

Presenter0:54

It was you then, Arlene Phillips, was it, who corrupted the morals of a nation? Um you caused a lot of outrage in Middle England back then. Remind us of their reaction.

Arlene Phillips1:02

Well, hot gossip had been going three years before they broke on T V and it was a real struggle. I was constantly told, No, it's too sexy for T V

Presenter1:13

And you weren't in the group, just to be clear, you were the choreographer.

Arlene Phillips1:14

Just to be clear, you were the choreographer. I was the choreographer of the group. I pulled the group together and we became London's cult dance group.

Arlene Phillips1:23

And then one of my dancers, the very beautiful Donna Fielding, auditioned for a new show called The Kenny Everett Video Show.

Arlene Phillips1:31

They were all asked to send photographs to the producer.

Arlene Phillips1:35

She sent a very famous hot gossip picture of the group, circled her face, and went This is me. The producer took one look at the photograph and went

Arlene Phillips1:46

Find this group. Bring this group to me. This is the group I want for the Kenny Everett video show.

Arlene Phillips1:52

And we were an overnight sensation.

Presenter1:54

So hot gossip appeared on the Kenny Everett video show and there was there was outrage. There was this is the the moral decline of a nation. Too much sex, too hot and steamy, and certainly not what should be on our television screens. Maybe it belongs in the back streets of Soho, but not in our living rooms, essentially.

Arlene Phillips2:09

particularly as it was six fifteen on a Monday evening.

Presenter2:12

Mm.

Arlene Phillips2:12

And Mary Whitehouse objected very, very strongly, which put hot gossip on the front page of every newspaper.

Presenter2:15

Good.

Arlene Phillips2:21

And of course

Arlene Phillips2:23

Clever, witty, brilliant, naughty Kenny Everett proceeded to play on that, and called us the naughty bits, and every dance routine he said Too naughty for T V Cover your eyes and every week, every number we did was causing outrage.

Presenter2:40

Of course, I would guess that if you were to compare the routines that Hot Gossip did with the routines that are done a lot of the time now on strictly come dancing by the celebrities, I mean the costumes and the moves would look like a Vicarage tea party by comparison.

Arlene Phillips2:54

Well, it's funny in some ways they don't, because we've become so much more politically correct that I don't think people dancing on television at six fifteen to day are quite doing what hot gossip did twenty five, almost thirty years ago.

Presenter3:01

We like that.

Presenter3:11

So do you agree with Mary Whitehouse it was too raunchy for people?

Arlene Phillips3:11

He was Mary Whitehouse.

Arlene Phillips3:14

Well, I didn't think so at the time, but it was very sexy, and a lot of men I know of a certain age formed their opinion of women based on what they saw on hot gossip.

Presenter3:25

As I say, it's all your fault. Uh tell me about your first choice then today.

Arlene Phillips3:26

Your fault.

Arlene Phillips3:28

Well, my first choice is Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side because it was the first number that I ever created for hot gossip.

Arlene Phillips3:37

I love hot gossip to pieces. I want to take them with me in my heart because.

Arlene Phillips3:42

They helped me create something that has never been seen before or after, and so I'm choosing Louise's Walk on the Wild Side.

Speaker 23:52

Little Joe never once gave it away.

Speaker 23:57

Everybody had to pay and pay.

Speaker 24:01

A hustle here and a hustle there New York City's the place where they said he'd be Take a walk on the wild side

Speaker 24:10

I said, Hey Joe, take a walk on the wilds.

Presenter4:13

Uh

Presenter4:15

Lou Reed and Walk on the Wild Side, and I'm wondering, Arlene Phillips I thought it was the tabloids that Christendo, the Queen of Mean, but it wa was it Simon Cowell?

Presenter4:26

When when you were a judge or when you were a choreographer?

Arlene Phillips4:29

Oh, no, no, no. Way, way back. Simon Carol and I went way back.

Presenter4:30

Yeah.

Presenter4:33

So you have this sort of it's it's kind of you've known him for a long time, but you have this sort of constructed fight between each other, which is you're both fighting for the primetime figures on Saturday night, B B C One and and I T V, he he with the X Factor. I mean you are you can be really a Cerbic.

Arlene Phillips4:46

Um

Presenter4:49

I've seen you make people cry on your show.

Presenter4:52

With your comments.

Arlene Phillips4:53

I have actually, and

Arlene Phillips4:55

I have to say that my television persona and that sort of demanding more and more and more of people

Arlene Phillips5:05

is something that has been me. Any of my dancers and hot gossip will tell you what it was like. Sarah Brightman could relay a story of her doing an exercise and me not thinking that she was working hard enough. It's no more than I've ever demanded of myself, but I do push people.

Arlene Phillips5:22

But I do know I have created brilliant dancers, and indeed some stars, by the demands that I have made on them and where I've pushed them to.

Presenter5:31

And what about all of the professional competitiveness? I mean, there is this ongoing spat there has been between the big Primetime X Factor show on IT V and the Strictly Come Dancing on BBC. And you have at award ceremonies, you know, you're always sort of flitting back barbed comments and we beat you to this award or our ratings were up by two million or whatever else. Do you worry about the competitiveness of that? Do you worry that at one point somebody will say, actually, we're going to sit a lovely little kind of twenty-four year old bosomy girl in a dress next to you, Arlene, because we think that'll draw in the viewers?

Arlene Phillips5:39

Yeah.

Arlene Phillips5:43

Uh

Speaker 45:44

Flitting back

Arlene Phillips5:44

Uh

Speaker 45:46

To this.

Arlene Phillips6:04

And

Presenter6:05

Because they do that in X Factor, don't they? They introduce people to upper ratings, people who are younger, who are sexy.

Arlene Phillips6:05

They do that in X Factor, don't they? They introduce people to upper racing, people who are younger and sexy. I mean, do people love strictly because of what it is? And because it's always the same? Because we're always there? Because Bruce and Tess are always there? Because it's always the same? So it's like returning to an old friend. Do they love it because of that?

Arlene Phillips6:24

But

Arlene Phillips6:25

When that happens, and I'm sure it will happen at some point, I've got so many other things in my life. Of course I'll miss it, I'll miss it desperately. You know, I can't imagine seeing somebody sitting in my chair, what I call, you know, my chair, my place, particularly because the four of us have such a good, strong relationship. So if one of us is pulled apart, it will be sad. But, you know, I've had so much in my life and I've got so much more I want to do, and life will go on. But ultimately, you know, it is the BBC show. Strictly come dancing belongs wholly to the BBC, and they will and can do whatever they wish with the programme.

Presenter7:05

Tell me about your second piece of music today then.

Arlene Phillips7:07

My second piece of music is Karlov's Carmina Barana.

Presenter7:11

And why have you chosen this?

Arlene Phillips7:12

And the reason I've chosen this is before Strictly began on our screens, um, they were searching for judges, and they asked if I would come and do the pilot of the show. And at the end of it, I thought, well, this is interesting, but didn't sort of think it was going to be a big hit until

Arlene Phillips7:32

I saw.

Arlene Phillips7:34

Brendan Cole and Natasha Kaplinski do a pasadoble to Carmina Barana. He wrapped his hand and his arm around her and the passion you could feel it, you could feel it, you could breathe it in.

Arlene Phillips7:49

And I suddenly thought, if this show is affecting me, my entire body, I was shaking this way, surely it will affect the viewers at home in this way.

Arlene Phillips8:01

And I knew from that moment on, this show is going to be enormous, and I'm going to be part of it.

Presenter9:01

Karl Orft, Carmina Burana, and you and I were wrapped in conversation there about strictly. We must stop talking about that. It's interesting that you say that you're never more demanding on people than you would be.

Presenter9:10

Upon yourself. But you you are not a dancer. You are a choreographer who I'm sure is a brilliant dancer, but there is a there is a distinct difference between those two people.

Arlene Phillips9:18

There is a distinct difference. I was short, I wasn't limber, I wasn't anything that it takes physically to make a dancer. But I wanted to be a dancer, and I spent my life in dance classes on the back row. I was never one of the girls that got to the front of the class, but nothing was going to stop me. And I worked and worked and worked, and demanded on myself, and demanded on my body, until I became one of the best dancers, certainly in London, that there was.

Presenter9:52

So in in essence it was sheer force of will that turned you into the middle of the middle.

Arlene Phillips9:54

It was force of will, and I was chosen many, many years ago. Not a lot of people know this. There was a show on in the West End called O Calcutta.

Arlene Phillips10:03

The American choreographer came over, and searched and searched across London, and couldn't find a dancer to take over her role that she created for her in the show, and asked me to do it.

Arlene Phillips10:15

And no one in their wildest dreams would ever thought that that Arlene Phillips at the back of the class could take a leading dance role in a West End show.

Presenter10:23

And you did?

Arlene Phillips10:24

And I did it for a year.

Presenter10:25

And how did it go?

Arlene Phillips10:26

It was sensational.

Arlene Phillips10:28

And that's why I know I can make people dance. I can give them something to make them the dancer they want to be.

Presenter10:35

Because you feel you've made that journey of life.

Arlene Phillips10:36

I made that journey and I know how they can make it.

Presenter10:40

Let's find out more about you, Arlene Phillips. You you were born in Manchester.

Arlene Phillips10:43

Mm-hmm.

Presenter10:44

In the early forties. What did mum and dad do?

Arlene Phillips10:46

My father was a barber, and my mother was a mother, a stay-at-home mother.

Presenter10:52

And your father I mean, he suffered sort of periods of ill health. He wasn't always in work.

Arlene Phillips10:55

Yeah.

Arlene Phillips10:56

No, no. He had sort of thrombosis in his arms and he wasn't a well man at all. And were you aware of, I mean.

Presenter11:04

Quite often when one speaks to people who've been brought up in cash strapped circumstances, they say, Well, we didn't know,'cause everyone in the street had the same amount of money, which was no money, and I went to school with people who were all pretty much poverty stricken. Were you aware uh that that money was very tight, and did it make you self conscious?

Arlene Phillips11:17

I was very aware very, very aware that money was um was tight. Yes. In what sort of ways described it? Well, just just in the ways of my parents discussing, you know, where money was you know, was going to come from.

Presenter11:17

Yeah.

Presenter11:19

Were you?

Presenter11:23

In what ways does it

Arlene Phillips11:31

Not being able to have, you know, the clothes or the shoes, you know, what you had was what you had.

Speaker 211:31

Yeah.

Presenter11:36

Cool.

Arlene Phillips11:37

And that was that we couldn't go out shopping for a lot of things. I knew there wasn't money around.

Presenter11:43

It it marks you, doesn't it, I think, that sort of experience as a child.

Arlene Phillips11:47

Oh, I think it does. I think it does. You know, there just wasn't money.

Presenter11:51

And yet, this is curious, they managed to take you to the

Arlene Phillips11:55

Ballet, did they?

Presenter11:55

I'll hate it.

Arlene Phillips11:56

The one thing that my parents both loved passionately was ballet, and played music all the time.

Arlene Phillips12:04

And when the Russians came, my parents took all three of us to see one of these so called variety shows.

Arlene Phillips12:13

And I remember arriving at the Free Trade Hall, and we must have been very small, and we were sitting in the very, very top of the gods, you know, as high and as far back as you can see but we saw the most extraordinary concert.

Arlene Phillips12:29

And then Galena Yulanova came on and danced.

Arlene Phillips12:33

And to me it was everything that was good, that was pure, that was so separate and untouchable from anything that happened in the real world. And I watched her dance, The Dying Swan, and her arms, they just looked like they were made of liquid, and from that moment my my life, I knew that all I was going to do was dance.

Presenter13:53

The swan from Saint Sans, the carnival of the animals. And so the spell was cast, Arline Phillips. You fell in love with Ballet, and were you yourself going to classes as a little girl?

Arlene Phillips14:02

Um I went as a very small girl. My uncle paid for me to go to dance classes, and all I can remember is the teacher shouting at me'cause I couldn't do step together step hop, and saying I'm not going back there.

Arlene Phillips14:16

But then by the time I'd reached the age of seven and a half, eight, I knew that I was going to dance.

Presenter14:22

It's nice to know that you and I have something in common when it comes to dance. I was thrown out of my ballet class at the age of four for not being able to do that very step-together stuff.

Arlene Phillips14:29

No.

Presenter14:30

There you go, damage me for life.

Arlene Phillips14:31

Wiki teachers

Presenter14:32

But when it came to you then, if you wanted to take it seriously, presumably you had to do more than one class a week, I mean w

Arlene Phillips14:38

Well, I went every Saturday to do one class, and indeed that's all we could afford to do. And my sister also went, and my sister said to me, Well, I don't love bad the way you do, Arline.

Arlene Phillips14:54

You can have my class. And she gave up her dance class so that I could do yet another class. That's quite a sacrifice.

Presenter15:03

Sacrifice as a text actually.

Arlene Phillips15:03

It really was. My sister is the most wonderful, beautiful person on earth, Karen, and I shall always be indebted to her because it allowed me to train and improve.

Presenter15:17

How old were you when your mother became ill with leukemia?

Arlene Phillips15:20

I was fifteen, and from the moment I knew she was ill.

Arlene Phillips15:27

To the point where she died was only three months.

Arlene Phillips15:31

And, you know, it was around the time of the whole Windscale fire. And I knew when I went, she was in the hospital in Manchester, and I knew when I went in that something extraordinary was happening because the ward they were seeing more and more people with Hodgkinson's and Hodgkinson's leukemia and got very close. I was fifteen and very close to one of the nurses who had said they'd never seen anything like it.

Arlene Phillips15:59

And, you know, one will never know, but it was it just all happened so, so fast.

Presenter16:06

That I mean, three months is is an incredibly short period to deal with at what point did you know that or did you know that your mother was going to die?

Arlene Phillips16:09

To deal with

Arlene Phillips16:12

Well, my father told me, yes, but you know, I don't think she knew, or maybe she knew in her heart, but at that time you didn't tell people, because you never it doesn't matter when somebody tells you.

Arlene Phillips16:24

Your mother's going to die. You just

Arlene Phillips16:27

You you don't really believe it, and certainly not then.

Arlene Phillips16:30

But certainly our our whole house turned to one of just

Arlene Phillips16:35

Such sadness.

Presenter16:37

I mean, as you say, of course, it's impossible to know and and to draw a direct link between Owen'scalonia and your mother's leukemia, but but what we must surely know is that so often in families w when the mother dies, and especially if the if the children are still at home,

Presenter16:50

the sort of centre, the heart of the household stops beating, that that suddenly there is this great dark hole where the warmth and the love would normally be. I mean

Arlene Phillips17:00

Yeah, because my mother was the softest, the gentlest, the kindest. Even now, you know, we find it really hard to talk about. We're just left with emptiness.

Presenter17:12

Let's take a break for some music then. T tell me about track number four and why you've chosen that.

Arlene Phillips17:17

Um track number four is Dinah Washington Smoke Gets in Your Eyes because my mother was the kind of mother that would sit on the end of the bed or the side of the bed and hold us and sing to us, particularly to my sister and I, who shared a bedroom.

Arlene Phillips17:33

And this was the song that she sang, and I can hear her voice to this day.

Speaker 417:39

They said Someday you'll find.

Speaker 417:45

All who love are blind.

Speaker 417:52

When your heart's on fire

Speaker 417:56

You must realize.

Speaker 417:59

Smoke gets in your eye.

Presenter18:06

Dinah Washington and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Arlene Phillips Chosen because you remember your mother singing it to both you and your little sister as she was sitting at the end of the bed. There you were then at the end of the fifties and you were plunged into the very harsh reality of having lost your mother and also with this burning passion for dance. How did you decide that dance was your future?

Arlene Phillips18:27

I think there was no other future. I was going to dance, but I did go to London. I was sent by my ballet teacher to do a course in London at the newly opened Dance Centre on Floral Street.

Presenter18:29

Right.

Arlene Phillips18:42

And I finished my classes at five o'clock, and as I was walking out I saw a sign saying Modern American Jazz, Molly Molloy, and I paid for the class, quickly joined in, and by the end of that class I knew I was never going home again. I had to learn this style of dance.

Speaker 418:55

Uh

Arlene Phillips18:59

I knew that if I went home even to pick up some fresh clothes, that would be it. I'd never have the courage to leave. So the only way I could do it was to stay. I did anything, any job, waitressing, anything, to to find a way to stay in London to dance.

Presenter19:14

Now, I know I'm taking a big leap forward, but I sort of have to do that to fit everything in.

Arlene Phillips19:16

But I sort of had

Presenter19:19

It was a phone call when you were babysitting for someone, is that right, that sort of turned the key to the door that was your professional success. What happened?

Arlene Phillips19:28

Well, one of the jobs I did, one of the many jobs I did, was with Ridley Scott. I was babysitting for Ridley Scott or helping tidy. And so I would spend a lot of time at Ridley's. We became very close. And Ridley called me up and said, I've got a job. It's choreographing a commercial for Lions Made Ice Cream. Will you choreograph it? And it went really well. I found, oh, I've kind of I can do this. I'm a natural. And not a few weeks later, he called me up again. Oh, I'm doing some commercials for Dr. Pepper. Will you choreograph them? So I said, yes, is there any one thing? The producer wants to talk to you because she doesn't know what you've done. I thought, I haven't done anything. I've done a Lions Made commercial and I teach dance classes. And she made the phone call just as I was about to start my 4.30 professional class.

Arlene Phillips20:19

I put the piece of music on. I said, Everybody, just start the exercises,'cause everybody knew the exercises. I'll just quickly take the phone call. She rang and she went

Speaker 220:23

Yeah.

Arlene Phillips20:29

What's that music playing?

Arlene Phillips20:31

I said it's Pasha Bella Cannon. It's my

Arlene Phillips20:34

favorite piece of music, and I use it to teach class because it's a f wonderful way to start the She I didn't even get out the wonderful way to start the class, and she said, It's my favorite music too. You've got the job.

Presenter21:45

The opening of Pacabelle's canon. And what about then, when you've been faced over the years with these people one imagines with not inconsiderable egos, people like let's just pick Diana Ross for example or somebody i in a pop video who you're you you arrive there in your leg warmers with your stick. Do you have a stick? I don't. You don't have a stick.

Arlene Phillips22:04

The stick in my mouth is

Presenter22:05

The metaphorical state.

Presenter22:07

And you say, This is what I want you to do. I mean, when you're approaching somebody who has a reputation and and has a

Presenter22:13

Something of an ego, where do you begin?

Arlene Phillips22:16

It's really hard. It's funny that you talk about Diana Ross because at first she didn't want to do anything that I asked her to do. It was chain reaction. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I just find I have a way of communicating and making them believe that what I'm asking them to do, they want to do and they want to do it for themselves.

Presenter22:25

It was chain reaction. Yes, yes.

Presenter22:37

It is of course a fear of looking stupid that stops people from dancing.

Arlene Phillips22:40

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and when I asked Dana Ross to get on to this, you know, Perspex table which underlit, you know, with all these boys clamoring over her, you know, I try to find a way of of suiting the movement to the star I'm working with.

Arlene Phillips22:57

What

Presenter22:57

But

Arlene Phillips22:57

But

Presenter22:57

Uh

Arlene Phillips22:57

But

Presenter22:57

Uh

Arlene Phillips22:57

Ding Albert.

Presenter22:57

Yeah.

Arlene Phillips22:58

Albert Finney, teaching Albert Finney to tap. I have to tell you, at five o'clock in the morning, because it was before he started filming.

Presenter23:06

This was for Annie.

Arlene Phillips23:07

And this was for the film of Annie, and we'd both get up early and you know and he didn't want to do it, but, you know, I just I just pushed him and he was a lot of fun, as long as we had lots of hugs in the middle.

Arlene Phillips23:20

I'd get him there.

Presenter23:22

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

Arlene Phillips23:25

Oh, I've chosen Elton John and I'm still standing. One of the things I was asked to do was to go to the south of France to do a video with Elton John. And there was a whole storyboard which involved Elton driving in the car down sort of into the south of France and crashing through a plate glass window which will explode. When we got to the south of France, all of the permits they'd asked for were refused. You can't do this, you can't go into that, you can't go here, you can't go there. And I said to our director, Russell Mulquay, I know what I'll do. I've got a friend who's got a big dance school in Nice. Let's get a whole load of dancers. Let's get them on the beach. And the whole thing was done.

Arlene Phillips24:06

Sort of moment by moment, we were sort of running around, plotting what we're going to do. I was getting the dancers, rehearsing them, and then shoot it. It was all done of the moment, and probably one of the best times of my life. Eltham was wonderful, a joy, and it was just a wonderful time. And I say, I'm still standing.

Speaker 424:26

You never know what it's like, your blood like winter freezes just like ice And there's a cold and lonely light that shines from you You wind up like the wreck you hide Behind that mask, do you?

Speaker 424:40

And did you think this fool could never win? Well look at me, I'm coming back again. I got a taste of love and a simple way. And if you need to know while I'm still standing, you just fade away.

Speaker 424:52

Don't you know I'm still standing Better than I ever did

Presenter24:57

Elton John, and I'm still standing, and and the video that you described so well being made very much on the hoof. And as you say, you were flying all over America, all over Europe at that point, as a choreographer for pop videos and adverts. The thing we haven't mentioned is you were also by that time, was it, mother to one child? You were a single mum.

Arlene Phillips25:14

Um, yes, I was.

Presenter25:15

How on earth did you manage to do that?

Arlene Phillips25:15

How on earth did you?

Arlene Phillips25:19

And

Arlene Phillips25:20

By taking her everywhere with me, she was probably one of the most well-travelled children on the planet.

Presenter25:26

You had b both of your children r I mean, relatively late. I mean, these days much more commonly, you know, twenty odd years on, people do have their children later. But but what were you something of a curiosity?

Arlene Phillips25:37

And

Arlene Phillips25:38

When I had um Alana, actually she was born in LA, and at thirty six it wasn't really a curiosity.

Arlene Phillips25:47

With Abbey, forty seven.

Arlene Phillips25:50

In England I certainly was a curiosity. Everybody that I met was so surprised.

Presenter25:56

Were you surprised?

Arlene Phillips25:57

I was surprised. I thought it was a menopause. I didn't even realise for three months that I was pregnant.

Presenter26:03

As well as finding the phenomenal amount of energy you must have needed.

Presenter26:08

There is then.

Presenter26:10

Again, all the requirements of being a mother and being a mother who is

Presenter26:14

Travelling incredibly driven, you must be.

Arlene Phillips26:17

Yeah, I guess I am. Ah, yes, I really am. I have, I think, always.

Arlene Phillips26:23

Been driven.

Arlene Phillips26:25

To do what I want to do and still have my life with two children and a partner.

Arlene Phillips26:32

And try and balance it all.

Presenter26:33

Have you driven your children to? I mean, do you expect high standards of them?

Arlene Phillips26:37

Well

Arlene Phillips26:39

Gosh.

Arlene Phillips26:40

With my first daughter, yes, I did, and I wanted her to have all of the things that I didn't have, without thinking that maybe these aren't the things that she wanted.

Arlene Phillips26:51

With my second daughter Abby, I've gone completely the other way, the other direction.

Arlene Phillips26:57

and let her discover for herself far more what it is she wants from life.

Presenter27:03

And are they I mean, are they united sisters? Apart from the age gap then, have you got two daughters who've got quite different personalities?

Arlene Phillips27:08

They are united as sisters, yes, but they are completely different. Alana has the same drive as me. Abby, on the other hand, is one of the most really easy going, very sweet, very gentle, very tender. She probably has a lot of the

Arlene Phillips27:26

The sort of the gifts and the inner part that my mother had.

Presenter27:31

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Arlene Phillips27:33

My next piece of music I am playing because

Arlene Phillips27:37

There are many people I have to be thankful to for my career, but possibly the most thankful to of all is to Andrew Lloyd Webber. He was a huge fan of hot gossip.

Presenter27:47

Such a fan he married one of the dancers and fan.

Arlene Phillips27:48

Well, I actually I introduced Andrew and Sarah, but he would come to the shows from the early days of Hot Gossip. He was a big fan and we became close friends.

Arlene Phillips27:59

And then in 1982 he called me up, he said, I'm sort of doing a new musical, it's probably going to be on roller skates. Will you come and do a workshop? I did do the workshop and in 1984 Starlight Express opened in London, the first musical ever to be on roller skates and it's still running somewhere in the world to this day, 24 years later.

Arlene Phillips28:22

But the other thing I will always be grateful for is it opened a career in musical theatre for me.

Speaker 428:28

If you're drawn what you have within you somewhere deep inside highlight express, you must confess, are you real?

Speaker 428:42

Yes or no.

Speaker 428:46

Starlight Express answer me yes I don't want you to go

Presenter28:57

Lon Sattin and Ray Schell performing I Am the Starlight from the West Endcast recording of Starlight Express

Presenter29:04

I wonder for many people when they cross the threshold of the age at which their parent died. Your mother was only she was forty-three.

Presenter29:11

Um it's a moment that sometimes they think cannot exist for them. Was it an important moment for you, and do you think maybe it's one of the reasons why you've been so driven to pack so much in?

Arlene Phillips29:20

It was a very important moment for me, and it was a very, very important moment for my sister, too. That age came and went, and we both really thought of it as a

Arlene Phillips29:35

As Suva landmark.

Arlene Phillips29:37

to move onward from

Arlene Phillips29:39

I think I in some way

Arlene Phillips29:43

I cling to my youth, not that I want to be young, but that I want to stay youthful inside. I don't want life, or life as it is, to stop, and I don't want to stop growing yet.

Presenter29:58

And how would you deal with the island, all on your own?

Arlene Phillips30:02

I don't think that I would be very, very good on my own. I'm not very good.

Arlene Phillips30:07

on my own in open spaces. I find them

Arlene Phillips30:11

Essentially

Arlene Phillips30:13

A place to escape from.

Arlene Phillips30:16

But I think being alone on an island would make me pull my thoughts together and try and think chronologically through my life and everything that I've been given and all the people that I've met along the way, and I think by the time

Arlene Phillips30:34

I'd gone through that, I'd be ready to sit back, lie in the sun, and say what will be will be.

Presenter30:39

And enjoy the music, of course. Tell me about track number eight.

Arlene Phillips30:42

Yes, and enjoy the music indeed.

Arlene Phillips30:46

My final track is Someone to Watch Over Me.

Arlene Phillips30:52

And whenever anything in my life has come to me which I'm afraid of.

Arlene Phillips30:58

And I've always felt that my mother

Arlene Phillips31:01

will be there to watch over me.

Arlene Phillips31:05

And it's something I've always tried to instil in my children, that there'll be someone to watch over you.

Arlene Phillips31:13

And

Arlene Phillips31:14

It was funny both of my daughters sing my youngest daughter, Abby.

Arlene Phillips31:20

One day sh I heard her practising a song that she was going to sing in the concert, and lo and behold, it was Someone to Watch Over Me and her sweet voice and it just touched everything inside me because that has been in my head throughout my life and there was my youngest child singing it.

Speaker 431:43

Yeah

Arlene Phillips31:43

There Uh The sum b

Speaker 431:44

Buddy I'm longing to see.

Speaker 431:51

I hope that he

Speaker 431:55

Turns out to pay.

Speaker 432:00

Someone who was

Speaker 432:06

All over me

Presenter32:12

Ella Fitzgerald and some one to watch over me. Uh so, Arlene, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and of course you're allowed to take a book to the island. What's your book going to be?

Arlene Phillips32:23

Well, the child in me that never grew up would want to take little women.

Arlene Phillips32:27

I wanted to be Beth so badly. I was an avid reader, but I think I must have read Little Women over two hundred and fifty times.

Presenter32:36

It's yours, and a luxury too.

Arlene Phillips32:39

My luxury probably would be tweezers. I'd hate it if my eyebrows look dreadful.

Presenter32:44

Tweezers, huh? Tweezers but no mirror. That's going to be an interesting experiment.

Arlene Phillips32:47

And I'll feel my way round them.

Presenter32:50

The tweezers are yours, and if you had to choose just one of the eight discs, which one single disc would you choose?

Arlene Phillips32:56

I think my one single disc would be Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

Presenter33:02

It's yours. Arlene Phillips, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Arlene Phillips33:06

Thank you very much.

Presenter33:14

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