Frank Skinner

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Frank Skinner.

Presenter0:37

Comedian, writer, T V host and it would seem walking contradiction.

Presenter0:42

He was expelled from school as a teenager, yet he went on to get a master's degree in English.

Presenter0:47

A staunch Catholic, he's unmarried and childless, sharing with audiences the most intimate details of his many sexual adventures. An opera buff, he once paid eleven grand at auction for a shirt worn by Elvis Presley.

Presenter1:01

He was thirty when he realized where his future lay.

Presenter1:04

I was an unemployed drunk going nowhere, he says, and then comedy turned up. Comedy saved my life. Um it began Saving Your Life on december ninth, nineteen eighty seven, then. How did that go? That was the first gig. I must say I sound absolutely fascinating.

Frank Skinner1:20

I'm looking forward to this.

Presenter1:21

Good, that's what people are meant to think. Don't disappoint us.

Frank Skinner1:23

Don't the f

Frank Skinner1:24

Now the first gig was horrendous.

Frank Skinner1:28

But you know, first kicks should be for a comedian, because uh you have to learn the terror of of dying on stage. And anyone who experiences that, basically you either get better or you get out.

Frank Skinner1:41

and I decided to try and get better.

Presenter1:43

And you say you you have a choice of either sort of getting better or or getting out of it. Have you ever considered getting out of it since that first gig?

Frank Skinner1:51

No, because I um in my foolishness, when I decided I wanted to be a comedian, I uh immediately booked a room at the next Edinburgh Festival and I took out all my life savings, which were at that time four hundred pounds, and paid for it. At this point I'd never done a gig. So when I did the first gig and realized I was awful, I couldn't lose that four hundred quid, so I thought I had about eight months to get an hour of acceptable material. So there was no opportunity to pull out.

Presenter2:21

Can you remember the first time you intentionally made somebody laugh?

Frank Skinner2:25

I seem to remember um at school the teacher once she w she had to go out for some reason and she said, Can you entertain the class? and she put me at the front of the class and I did like about four or five minutes of funny stories. Looking back it feels destined, but I didn't work it out till I was thirty.

Presenter2:45

And you've described it as an addiction.

Frank Skinner2:48

Hmm.

Frank Skinner2:49

Well, I was um I had a proper old-fashioned run-of-the-mill addiction before I started, which was um alcohol.

Presenter2:52

Yeah.

Frank Skinner2:55

And when I quit doing alcohol, I started doing comedy very shortly afterwards. So I need a big obsession in my life, I think. So I replaced alcohol with comedy, which is um safer, I think.

Presenter3:09

And beneficial to us all. One of your obsessions is music. I mean, you're very, very keen on all sorts of music. Tell us about the first thing that you've chosen today for your island.

Frank Skinner3:18

Well, I got an office that I write in, and it's very, very close to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. And I'd never I didn't really know anything about opera, but I thought, well, as their neighbours, I ought to go in and see what they're doing. So I went and saw the Magic Flute.

Frank Skinner3:32

And I just paid like I didn't get one of these two hundred quid tickets, I paid like twenty quid and sat in the Opera Amphitheatre, as it's called.

Frank Skinner3:39

And it started off and I was, you know, I was a bit bored. And then this woman, the Queen of the Night, comes on and does this aria. I don't think I even knew the word aria at the time. But she did things with the human voice which I couldn't believe were actually leaving another human being. And I realized that I'd

Frank Skinner4:01

listened to the whole thing with my mouth open. I mean, it completely blew me away. And it was the first time I thought, you know, there might be something in this opera lark.

Frank Skinner4:11

And then a few weeks later I went to see Placido Domingo.

Frank Skinner4:16

And he hit a note which I I think was a high C.

Frank Skinner4:20

And I felt a physical shiver go through. I mean, I moved in my seat. It was like being struck by lightning. And I was in the the bar after, and a very kind of posh guy in an evening suit came up to me and started asking me if I liked the opera. And I was quite intimidated because I thought he's probably an expert and he's going to ask me something technical.

Frank Skinner4:38

And he said, Did you get the tingle?

Frank Skinner4:41

And I said, did you get that as well? He said, Oh, yeah, I think most of the people in here would have got that.

Frank Skinner4:45

It is a bit magical, I can't think of any anything else like that.

Frank Skinner4:50

I haven't explained that very well, but it blew me away.

Speaker 45:07

Okay.

Speaker 45:16

Man, for a board in the ship, yeah.

Speaker 45:32

Money

Speaker 45:41

Ah ah humbum

Speaker 45:49

Are you the ball?

Presenter5:55

Lucia Popp singing The Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer. You have in the past won what is considered to be the most prestigious award in comedy. You won the Perrier Award of a very successful T V series. You went back to Turing two thousand seven. Why did you go back to Turing?'Cause I mean it is very hard work.

Frank Skinner6:19

It is hard work, but I think I I was starting to lose my mojo a little. I mean, with the T V things, I was I felt going through the motions a bit, and I felt that I needed to return to the source, as it were. I don't mean start drinking again, I mean source S O U R C E and go back to stand up comedy.

Presenter6:37

So it's not true then that you went back to Turing because you were skimped?

Frank Skinner6:41

Um no, I wasn't actually skinned at at that point.

Presenter6:44

Did you lose money, though I read that?

Frank Skinner6:46

Yes, I did. I was a victim of the credit crunch.

Presenter6:46

You lost money.

Frank Skinner6:50

Yes, I had I'd been persuaded by my uh personal bankers that AIG was a very, very safe place to put my life savings. And AIG, um, as you may remember, had a bit of a hard time. So there was a period when

Frank Skinner7:05

I I thought I'd lost it all.

Presenter7:07

And when you say your life savings, can I be rude enough to ask you how I mean, how much did you lose?

Frank Skinner7:12

Um well you can ask. Yeah, I know I know all I can do is ask.

Presenter7:14

Yeah, I know I know all I can do is ask.

Frank Skinner7:20

Um

Frank Skinner7:22

I can't believe I said that. I'm a billionaire, for goodness. Well, it was. Anyway, so first I I thought I'd lost it all. And I s you know, I went home and said to my girlfriend, um, look, um,

Frank Skinner7:34

Bit of bad news. I think I might be broke. And um.

Frank Skinner7:39

She said, You know, we'll be all right, you know, you s you can still get work, you can go about and do the clumps, we can move to a smaller place. And we actually practically dealt with it quite well. I never really had the big panic about it, which I find now very reassuring.

Frank Skinner7:54

But it also gave me my hunger back, I think. I think it made me think, No, I've got to get out there and do it and if anything put the mojo back in me, it was the idea that I might not have any money left.

Presenter8:04

At Bob Monkhouse, I believe, once said of you, you weren't a man who'd let success go to his wardrobe. I mean, what what do you what did you spend the vast amounts of cash that you had on? What do you like spending your time?

Frank Skinner8:15

Well, you know, not.

Frank Skinner8:17

I'm not a very extravagant man, really. You know, as long as I've got a season ticket for West Bromwich Albion.

Presenter8:24

Is this true? Is it a problem?

Frank Skinner8:24

See, no, really, I drive a very run-of-the-mill car. I do live in a big posh flat. I must admit I like a nice view.

Frank Skinner8:31

At the end of two consecutive three year contracts with I T V I remember shaking the hands of the boss here and saying, Oh, thanks so much for my flat.

Frank Skinner8:40

It's lovely.

Frank Skinner8:42

But no, I don't I don't as you can probably um see I don't you know spend a lot of money on clothes or

Presenter8:48

I have to say it was Bob Monkhouse that said that, not me, you look perfectly well turned out to me.

Frank Skinner8:50

Perfectly well turned out. I just like to be spoken of by Bob Monkes. That was an honor.

Presenter8:56

Let's have some music, tell me about your second disc.

Frank Skinner8:59

Well, one of the things I spent a lot of money on was um I bought one of Elvis Presley's shirts for eleven grand. Elvis Presley has kind of been my hero since as long as I can remember. I think my big brother Terry liked Elvis, and he gave me this album.

Speaker 19:04

Mm.

Frank Skinner9:17

I played it.

Frank Skinner9:18

I mean, I can't tell you how many times, but I when we play this track now, I'm going to be expecting it to go

Frank Skinner9:27

in the background because this really was like someone was in the studio doing eggs and bacon in the corner. And I just completely fell in love with it. I don't just know the words, I know every little grunt, I know every click of the symbol, you know, I listened to this so many times. And uh I remember that shirt, I wore it on a T V show, it's one of the few times I've worn it in public, because then I was able to um claim it against tax as um stagewear.

Frank Skinner9:55

Little tip for anyone who's listening.

Speaker 49:57

Ha ha ha.

Speaker 49:59

Ready, set, go man, go. I got a girl at Hollow Soul. I'm ready to ready, ready, I'm ready, ready, ready, I'm ready.

Speaker 110:09

Yeah.

Speaker 410:10

Ready, ready, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da, ready, ready to rock and roll down to the corner, become a sweetie pie. Give a rock and roll, baby, she's eye for my.

Speaker 110:16

Even

Speaker 410:20

Ready to be I'm a red old

Speaker 410:22

Ready, literally, I'm ready.

Speaker 410:25

Ready, ready, to the ready, ready, ready to rock and roll up.

Presenter10:28

Elvis Presley and Reddy Teddy. Um, let's go back then. Let's go back to West Brom. It was about nineteen fifty seven that you were born. You were the youngest of four.

Frank Skinner10:36

Yeah.

Frank Skinner10:39

That's right, yeah. I've got um two brothers and a sister. And there's quite a gap, there's seven years between me and Keith, my next oldest brother. So it was an element of Only Child, even though, you know, three of us slept in a a bedroom.

Presenter10:53

I don't want to play up to any sort of stereotype at all, God forbid, but there is a wonderful picture in your autobiography of your father standing with a whippet in front of his garden shed.

Frank Skinner11:03

Well that yes, there is an element of uh stereotype about us. And also the road that we lived on.

Frank Skinner11:11

There was council houses on our side of the road and private houses on the other, so I had a very early sense of the class war.

Presenter11:19

Yeah.

Frank Skinner11:22

No, I rarely went to the other side of the street. When I walked up and down that road, it never occurred to me to walk on the other side of the street. It did seem like a an alien land.

Presenter11:32

And that wonderful picture of your father that I've seen, I think he's wearing a suit in it. I mean, he is what I would describe as a sort of respectable working class.

Frank Skinner11:40

Exactly. My dad, um, if he went to put a bet on, he had to put a suit on. In fact, he used to send my mum to um to put the bets on because he said if I put a suit on I might as well go to the pub as well. I remember him getting up one day and he got the suit on, so I knew he was going to the pub, and he looked out the window and said, What a lovely day for changing a fiver

Frank Skinner12:01

And he had that kind of uh

Presenter12:02

Yeah.

Frank Skinner12:02

He was quite a big drinking man and a very much a big character and he loved football and he loved uh singing. He sang all the time.

Presenter12:11

And what about your mum? What was she like?

Frank Skinner12:13

My mum was uh much quieter and uh never drank, never smoked, but was quite funny.

Frank Skinner12:22

on the sly, as it were. She had she had a sort of drier sense of humour. My Dad was much broader and louder. So, for example, they used to um my dad used to vote Conservative, he was a working class conservative. My mum always voted Labour.

Frank Skinner12:36

So one year they made an agreement that rather than cancel each other out they just wouldn't vote at all, it'd just save the bother.

Frank Skinner12:43

And we were watching the telly that night with the election results and it said, you know, the polling booths have now closed and my mum under her breath said, I voted.

Frank Skinner12:52

My Dad went absolutely crazy.

Frank Skinner12:55

So she was she was crafty.

Presenter12:57

And they work they were factory workers. What was the factory? Did they work in the same factory or?

Frank Skinner13:01

No, no, they um oh, they worked in a whole string of factories. In the West Midlands at the time there was so much work and so much industry that you really could leave a job on a Monday and get a new one on a Tuesday.

Presenter13:12

And so he liked to bet, and he liked a bit to booze. Did he have a, as they say, a temper on him at home?

Frank Skinner13:18

Um, yeah, he did have a temper at home, but I don't you think it was uh he wasn't like, you know, beating us up or anything like that. But we knew that when his voice hit a certain register it was time to start behaving well.

Presenter13:30

He tore down the garden shed once, you know.

Frank Skinner13:32

Well, what he did was, um, my mum and my brother refused to take him a bet to the betting office and he didn't go and the horses won.

Frank Skinner13:41

and we had uh two sheds and a a pigeon loft in the garden, and he he didn't say anything, he just went up the garden and he started physically dragging all three of them into the centre of the garden, which was quite a feat, because they were full of garden tools and uh and indeed pigeons.

Frank Skinner13:59

And then um he let the pigeons out and then he burnt all three of them down to the ground.

Frank Skinner14:07

Such was the inferno that ensued that I remember the next door neighbour her lace curtains singed up the windows. So he had I think it's fair to say he had a temper.

Presenter14:17

Did your mum give him hail about something like that, or was it just that's just your dad?

Frank Skinner14:21

No, no, she would give they used to have I mean, their form of communication was mainly arguing. And he used to do this thing that they'd have a blazing row about something and she'd say, I'm going to bed and you could say, No, you sit there, sit there now and she'd sit in the chair and he'd sing two lilting romantic ballads to end the evening. And then uh and then that would be it.

Frank Skinner14:43

And he always used to say this thing, If you there's only one thing I want, if you die on the Monday, I want to die on the Tuesday. And he'd say that after some terrible, terrible row.

Frank Skinner14:53

And uh and when she did die, my mum, he died within a year, and it really I watched him physically dwindle. So for all the arguing and general chaos, I think there was genuine love there, yeah.

Presenter15:07

Let's have some music, then. What are we gonna hear now?

Frank Skinner15:08

Uh

Frank Skinner15:09

Well this was a song my dad used to sing a lot. And it's called The Volunteer Organist and it it tells a tale of something that happens in in a church on a Sunday morning. And this song is it's got some great turns of phrase in it. So I wrote I very much think of him singing this when I was a kid.

Speaker 415:27

The preacher in the village church one Sunday morning said

Speaker 415:33

Our organist is ill, today will some one play instead?

Speaker 115:35

Yeah.

Speaker 415:39

An anxious look crept o'er the face of every person there, As eagerly they watched to see

Speaker 415:50

Would fill the vacant chair.

Presenter15:54

Benjamin Lutson and the volunteer organist.

Frank Skinner15:58

Any song that involves alcohol and religion is right on my street.

Presenter16:01

Perfect confidence.

Presenter16:03

How often did you go to church when you were a little boy?

Frank Skinner16:06

I know I want every sunday.

Presenter16:07

Right. And so did they was it just something you did because you were a Catholic family, or w was that sort of lived out at home? I mean, did your parents talk to you about religion and?

Frank Skinner16:16

Um, my dad would, you know, do things like say grace, but like I say, he would also um get drunk and hit people. So, you know, it's a it's it's all about balance.

Presenter16:24

So

Presenter16:27

I feel sometimes when you're talking about your dad that there there is a sense of r reticence that you sort of you do want to talk about him and celebrate him, but you don't quite

Presenter16:35

Want to talk about him because what is that?

Frank Skinner16:36

No, I do. I'm happy to talk about him. I think it's easy.

Frank Skinner16:40

For other people to misunderstand, because he was in many ways a difficult character. And I think it's easy to think, oh, I can imagine the kind of father he was, but you wouldn't then get a sense of the amount of warmth and love. He was just an incredibly open human being, and his anger poured out, as did his love, as did his joy. And I really like that. You know, I still know when I watch the FA Cup final, he used to insist that we were all in the room for Abide With Me. And I cannot watch that now without crying. Even when I've been to the FA Cup final and I'm in company, often like you know, at some celebrity jolly, I think, how on earth am I going to get through Abide With Me? because I just know I'll think of my dad watching it and I'll think of when he used to talk to me about football and when he used to tell me jokes when he used to sing and that all that has really made me and I suppose I'm reticent to talk about him because I don't want anyone to not understand how brilliant he was.

Presenter17:41

Right. And how close are you now to your brothers and sisters?'Cause as you said, there was a fair age gap between you and your closest brother, and then so your your sister was the eldest, so she'll be a good deal older than you now. Do you see a lot of them? Is family something that's sort of central, or are you living more of a, I suppose, an isolated life?

Frank Skinner17:45

Between you

Frank Skinner17:59

Yeah, I I don't see them very often. I probably see them, you know

Frank Skinner18:03

Really once a year or something like that once or twice a year.

Frank Skinner18:07

We're not a terribly close family in that respect, in that I don't they never visit each other even though they live quite close together. They don't even send Christmas cards. And I think when my mum and dad died that that you know, the the hob of the wheel went.

Presenter18:21

And and your m mum was how old when she died?

Frank Skinner18:24

She was um sixty-nine.

Presenter18:27

Relatively young, re really. And do you think y your father died within a year? Do you think he sort of turned his face to the wall that that was as he'd said, If you die on the Monday, I want to go on the Tuesday?

Frank Skinner18:28

Yeah.

Frank Skinner18:38

Yeah, I think that um after that I thought that the idea of dying of a broken heart is not quite as metaphorical as I thought it was. I think you can just not want to be around any more.

Presenter18:50

Let's have some music then. Tell me um a change of pace somewhat.

Frank Skinner18:53

So this is something of a this is um I love the fact this is on the same programme as Mozart. This is the England 1970 World Cup singing Back Home.

Frank Skinner19:25

We will sell it.

Presenter19:35

Who else but the England nineteen seventy World Cup squad and back home and you bought that that was the first single you bought from us?

Frank Skinner19:41

That was the first single I bought with my own money.

Presenter19:43

You didn't pinch it then?

Frank Skinner19:44

No, no, I I didn't pinch it. I had pinched a few records after well, actually it was later I started pinching records.

Presenter19:50

Oh, was it? What did you do? Shove them up your jumper?

Frank Skinner19:50

What do you do?

Frank Skinner19:52

No, I did a very strange thing. It makes me wonder how I got away with it. I'd sort of take my jacket off and then put them under my jacket, so it looked like I had some sort of square coat hangler in my jacket, and then I'd carry out this kind of um self supporting garment. It's a wonder I wasn't stopped really looking back.

Presenter20:08

Um you yourself of course had this massive hit single in nineteen ninety six with uh the anthem then, which was Three Lines. It's not among your records to tell us.

Frank Skinner20:16

I could tell as a Scottish person you could barely get that spit out sticking in the craw.

Presenter20:20

It's a massive

Frank Skinner20:24

I did write a Scottish World Cup song as well, to be fair. Did you? Yeah, it's called Three Games.

Presenter20:26

Did you?

Presenter20:30

I fell right into that.

Speaker 420:31

BAAP

Frank Skinner20:31

I think that is beautiful.

Presenter20:33

That was Kiffard. Um yeah, that so as a obviously I mean the one of Britain's most famous football enthusiasts, that must have been quite a moment doing the Three Lions thing and hearing every because everybody, every England fan, knew the words and sang along and sang it on the terraces.

Frank Skinner20:42

Yeah.

Frank Skinner20:49

Yeah, I mean I remember lying in bed and hearing drunks going past, you know, singing it as they caroused at night. And it was the end, it was in the European Championship in 96, at the end of the England-Scotland game, and we'd just won 2-1. I'm sorry to bring this up. But as they were exchanging shirts at the end, they played it over the loudspeakers and I thought, great. And then the crowd really, really sang it. And that was when I knew we'd got something special. And I was with David Badil and Ian Brody, and we'd written it together. And I was saying that this is our magical summer. We have to savor every second of this. We'll never have anything like this again. Because, you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a footballer, as many kids do. And, you know, I was awful at it. I wasn't even borderline. But this was as close as I was ever going to get to be really.

Speaker 121:05

Uh

Speaker 421:05

Where

Speaker 121:06

Uh

Frank Skinner21:39

To be part of an England World Cup squad, to have the official song.

Presenter21:44

And what was it that captivated you as a little boy? What did you love about it?

Frank Skinner21:48

Yeah.

Presenter21:48

Yeah.

Frank Skinner21:48

Football was so different in those days as well. It you know, the smell of woodbines and meat pies when you went it was all terraces. As a kid, you know, I probably saw about six goals in about ten years because you couldn't see a thing on the terraces. Kids used to take milk crates and stand on and stuff like that. It felt very much like you were part of something.

Presenter22:09

Let's have some music. Number five we're on now.

Frank Skinner22:12

Yeah, this is Johnny Cash. The first gig I ever went to was Johnny Cash. And this song, I used to play this song before I went on stage in the dressing room because I find it impossible to hear this song without feeling uplifted and happy. It's like taking some sort of drug. This is the happy pill that people speak of.

Speaker 422:32

Love is a burning thing.

Speaker 422:38

And it makes a fiery ring.

Speaker 422:44

Bound by wild desire

Speaker 422:50

I fell into a ring of fire

Speaker 422:54

I fell into a burning ring of fire Went down, down, down, and the flames went high.

Presenter23:02

Johnny Cash and Ring of Fire.

Presenter23:05

Frank Skinny, when did you start drinking?

Frank Skinner23:08

Um, I started drinking when I was about fifteen. I think we found a pub that would be prepared to serve us at that age. And I found that it mai seemed to make me funnier and happier and generally speaking a much, much better person. And you were funny. I mean, you held sort of if

Presenter23:26

You were out. With your friends, you were the funny guy.

Frank Skinner23:29

Oh God, I was unbearable in those days, because now I have a legitimate outlet for the comedy, but then that was it. So I was never off. You know, I'd be using props and uh doing all sorts of thing. That was

Frank Skinner23:42

They were my audience, you know, so I gave it the words. And, you know, it's very nice being, you know, known as the the funny one in the group.

Presenter23:48

And how were things going at school? I'm thinking now is sort of when you were a teenager, fourteen, fifteen.

Frank Skinner23:54

Um well they were going brilliantly, I was getting loads of laughs.

Frank Skinner23:57

I wasn't doing any work at all. I didn't even tell my parents I was doing O levels. What were you expelled for?

Frank Skinner24:04

Well the latter said embezzling the school meal service.

Presenter24:08

When I asked that question, I wasn't expecting that answer.

Frank Skinner24:12

Well, I found out where they threw the dinner tickets, the used dinner tickets, and then I resold them. Much cheaper, can I point out.

Frank Skinner24:19

But it never occurred to me they had serial numbers on them, and that they would notice things like, you know, the money being down.

Frank Skinner24:25

So, um what did you do with the money you were making?

Frank Skinner24:29

I probably spent it on cider at that at that stage.

Frank Skinner24:33

So I went home and uh I told my dad I'd been expelled and uh that was one of the few times he ever hit me.

Frank Skinner24:41

And I remember uh he threw his overalls at me, his dirty work overalls, and said, Well, you better go and get down the factory with the rest of us then.'Cause I think he thought I might do something more special, you know. And um I went and worked in a factory, as was predicted. And then I did a series of other factory jobs which were all quite, you know, grim. So I decided I was going to do evening classes and see if I could get some qualifications. I didn't know why, but just I wasn't running to I was running away from.

Presenter25:11

And you read your first book when you were. Is this true? Was it when you were 21? Did you read it? That's right, yeah.

Frank Skinner25:15

That's right, yeah.

Presenter25:17

What was the book?

Frank Skinner25:17

It was a Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Frank Skinner25:22

By Alan Sillito, yeah.

Presenter25:24

So you were reading at twenty one and you were still drinking at twenty one. How m how big how big a part of your life was uh the drink at that stage?

Frank Skinner25:29

How big?

Frank Skinner25:33

Well, if it was a pie chart, it'd be a lot bigger than the reading. I remember I would go to the supermarket and think, oh, the meat pies set uh twenty four p, that's that's two and a half pints. I'm not paying that. So it became my currency.

Presenter25:45

Yeah.

Presenter25:49

Did your mum, the teetotaler, talk to you about the drinking?

Frank Skinner25:52

Um, they did talk to me about it, but you know.

Frank Skinner25:56

I mean, who listens to their parents? You know, my dad got in drunk, my brothers had got in drunk, it was it was a bit of a family tradition. I think it was just accepted that that's the way it went.

Presenter26:05

And so wh when did you decide you weren't going to accept it, that actually it's not going to go like this?

Frank Skinner26:10

Well, I got uh a place at Birmingham Polytechnic doing English, and every day I went in and learnt new stuff, and it was amazing. I couldn't wait to get in, but the hangovers were getting worse.

Frank Skinner26:25

And um I then went and did a master's degree, but I got the flu and I couldn't drink and it's I went three days without a drink. It's the first time I'd been three days without a drink for about twelve years. And I thought, well, I'll see if I can keep this up. So there was no pledges, no big moment. Right. That's how it's carried on. I haven't had a drink since September the twenty-fourth, nineteen eighty-six.

Presenter26:43

No

Presenter26:50

Let's take a break for some music then. What are we going to hear next?

Frank Skinner26:53

The next choice is craft work. I am very much a a city boy. And what I love about craft work is they sort of celebrate cities and industrialization, and they sound like they're a machine.

Frank Skinner27:08

So I've completely fell for craft work and this is a song called Neon Lights which is about as close as they get to romance.

Speaker 427:28

Timoring new online

Speaker 427:33

And at the fall of night

Speaker 427:38

The city's made of light.

Presenter27:43

That was Kraftvark and Neon Light. Um what about being as you were, the poster boy for the Loded Generation, you know, the man who represented the very embodiment of Laddism?

Presenter27:53

Quite limiting, I'm thinking.

Frank Skinner27:55

Hmm.

Frank Skinner27:57

But you know, I think that happens to everyone. I think we all know people in a certain edited way. We have a little sense of who they are, which is often mistaken and certainly incomplete. Um you know, I was doing this

Speaker 128:09

Yeah.

Frank Skinner28:13

Fantasy football programme for the BBC. And people used to say to me, God, you get through some beer on that, don't you? I always drank water on it, very clearly drank water on it. You know, I spoke in interviews about being a practising Catholic. I mean, by that stage, everyone knew I'd got two degrees and stuff. But people just thought, oh no, he likes football and he does dirty jokes. He's the king of the lads. And I didn't feel strongly enough to try and fight that because, you know, there are laddish elements to me, but they're combined with all sorts of

Frank Skinner28:45

Other thing.

Presenter28:46

It strikes me, especially when you were talking about cities and how much you like them, that you have a sort of brummy Woody Allen quality to you. Are you a bit neurotic?

Frank Skinner28:56

Um, I only really get neurotic about my work, I think. I get very fretful that one day the bird of comedy will fly away from my shoulder and leave me alone and naked.

Presenter29:09

Tell me about disc number seven.

Frank Skinner29:11

This number seven is uh the magnificent George Formby doing uh Why Don't Women Like Me?

Frank Skinner29:18

I have to say, I I like seeing myself as part of a British comedy tradition. I like to think that I'm walk in the same path as Chaplin and George Formby and people like that.

Presenter29:29

There was a critic who who said if if Max Miller was around today he would he would be Frank Skinner, really. Quite a compliment, I suppose.

Frank Skinner29:34

Yeah.

Frank Skinner29:35

But even when you said that then I felt a tingle, because I I love that. I went to see George Formby's grave, and I expected the the big epitaph, and it said George Formby in brackets, comedian, and I thought that is all I want on my grave. That would make me very, very happy.

Frank Skinner29:54

This particular song as well, I think every man in the world has at some point asked himself this question. It's called Why Don't Women Like Me?

Speaker 130:05

Now I know I'm not handsome, no good looks or wealth, But the girls I chase say my plain face will compromise their health Now I know fellas worse than me, bow-legged and boss eyed

Speaker 430:16

Now I

Speaker 130:21

Walking out with lovely women clinging to their side Network women like them, like men like those Why don't women like me?

Presenter30:32

George Formley and Why Don't Women Like Me? Frank Skinner, you're are you fifty-three now?

Frank Skinner30:37

I am fifty three.

Presenter30:38

You're not married and you don't have any kids, does that matter to you?

Frank Skinner30:41

Um well, I'm not married, but I live with my girlfriend and it kind of feels like being married. Kids, I I guess I just um found the right person too late, really.

Presenter30:53

Right.

Frank Skinner30:54

I could end up as one of those you know, those kind of dads you see, like American chat show hosts who have children when they're seventy.

Presenter31:01

Yeah.

Frank Skinner31:02

And uh I always feel with that that you're sort of meeting your child at the revolving door of life. They're just on the way in and you're just on the way out.

Presenter31:10

At least you're meeting them, though.

Frank Skinner31:11

Well, you are meeting them, but only enough to give them some painful memories probably. So, um, you know, if it happened, I'm not saying it would break my heart, but I don't know if it is responsible to start having children when you're fifty three.

Presenter31:21

And so your your mother and father didn't live to see your huge comedy success, but they did live to see the master's degree and the sober son. Did that must have been a big deal for them?

Frank Skinner31:32

Yeah, I think they were very certainly very proud of the educational thing, definitely.

Presenter31:37

Did they come to see you get your degree and

Frank Skinner31:39

Dy tail.

Frank Skinner31:40

They had put a little advert in the paper with a sort of mortar board and a rolled up scroll logo at the top. So yeah, that they were proud of that.

Frank Skinner31:49

I don't know how they would have been about my comedy career,'cause I mean, we had lived in a house where you weren't allowed to swear in the house and all that, and uh I think they might have been a bit

Frank Skinner31:58

shocked by it. But um the one regret'cause I think I would have been I don't know if I would have been quite the same comedian if they had been alive. I think I might have been a bit ashamed of my material.

Frank Skinner32:10

But I do wish I'd had a few Bob when they were alive. But I I I remember having a dream where m I saw my mum and she was on an open top bus tour in the West Midlands.

Frank Skinner32:22

And she said, Oh, I love getting out and about and seeing things And I said Hold on, if you want to go out, I'll I'll I'll send you anywhere in the world you want to go, I'll you know, I'll I'll send you anywhere and she said Oh, that's brilliant.

Frank Skinner32:32

So I started saying all the places they could go and I woke up and I remember thinking, why haven't I done this before?

Frank Skinner32:38

And then of course I remembered they were both dead. So the the big regret, rather than them seeing me as the big star, was I'd just like to have given em some money, really.

Presenter32:49

Let's have your final piece of music, what have you chosen as disc number eight?

Frank Skinner32:52

Well, I am a man who is prone to obsessions and a few years ago I discovered a band called The Fall. And although I was, you know, late forties at the time, I was like a fifteen year old again. I bought all their records. I listened to them every day. I saw them on tour seven or eight times, and I've continued to do that. I wallow in The Fall.

Frank Skinner33:14

In truth, if I went to a desert island, I'd probably take just eight fall tracks, but I decided to be um responsible and I just went for this one.

Speaker 433:29

Rouse!

Speaker 433:30

A rumble

Speaker 433:32

Arous!

Speaker 433:33

A rumble!

Speaker 433:35

It's very a b

Speaker 433:37

Hello.

Speaker 433:38

Bay up.

Speaker 433:40

Brouch!

Speaker 433:41

A rumble, a nice rumble.

Speaker 433:50

Yeah.

Presenter33:52

The Fall and Roush Rumble. I'm going to give you, Frank Skinner, the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. Brilliant. And you may choose a book. What's your book going to be?

Frank Skinner33:57

Yeah.

Frank Skinner34:01

Um well I like to be learning stuff all the time. I feel that one should be having actual lessons in something at all times. I've done ice skating, horse riding, drawing, salsa, tango, many, many things. So I'd like to teach myself French'cause it's been my uh New Year's resolution to learn French since 1986.

Presenter34:22

Okay, so a Teach Yourself French book is your book. And a luxury to

Frank Skinner34:24

Okay.

Frank Skinner34:27

Two.

Frank Skinner34:28

This is difficult because really it should be a a pen and paper because as soon as I get off the Desert Island, obviously I want to tour with Frank Skinner's Desert Island tour when I talk about, you know, my funny routines about tropical parrots and stuff like that. But I would love to have a ukulele on there because part of my George Formby fandom is that I started playing the ukulele. So I'd love to get really, really good on the ukulele.

Presenter34:55

Right, you may have that. And if I were to force you, as I'm about to do, to choose just one disk, which one would it be?

Frank Skinner35:01

It would have to be the fall,'cause the idea of living without at least one fall trap would break my heart.

Presenter35:07

Frank Skinner, comedian, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thanks.

Presenter35:58

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.