Tony Robinson

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.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the actor, broadcaster, and campaigner Tony Robinson. His baldrick to Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder turned idiocy into an art form. Filthy, downtrodden, and perpetually clueless, he made an unprepossessing Dullard into glittering comedy gold. For the past eighteen years he's presented Channel Four's Time Team, transforming the crusty world of archaeology into prime time viewing. He says no matter how insecure I may be, there's part of me that says that if I work hard and stay relaxed I can achieve anything.

Presenter1:07

It's not true, but it's a wonderful trick to have as part of your armour. I'm wondering, um, Tony Robinson, which part of that is the difficult bit? Is it the staying relaxed bit?

Tony Robinson1:16

Oh, definitely the staying relaxed, yes, yeah. I always feel that with your work you spend most of the time putting up the scaffolding and then the scary moment comes when you take all the scaffolding down and you appear in front of the camera and

Tony Robinson1:31

Just try and look relaxed without any of the support that you've built up.

Presenter1:35

Yes. You have had a long and varied career. We're going to talk about uh the writing, we're going to talk about the other documentaries you've made, but of course we must instantly talk about Baldrick and that brilliant pairing of you and Rowan Atkinson. Uh when you read that first script, what did you think?

Tony Robinson1:47

Uh

Presenter1:48

I didn't think

Tony Robinson1:48

Much of it. It was about a week to go before the pilot was due to be made, and it was only about eight lines of dialogue, and none of them were funny, but it was with these incredible people. And I'd never been to Oxbridge. I'd left school at sixteen, and I'd always thought, if only I could be involved in what I always thought of as Oxbridge comedy, that was the week that was, and Forty Towers, and the stuff with John Fortune and John Bird. I always thought, I've got a contribution I could make to all that, but that'll never happen, because I've never been to Oxford or Cambridge. So suddenly to get this script, on one hand I thought, what a lousy part. And on the other hand, I thought, I'd love to work with these people. And they'd only given it to me because everybody else had turned it down. It was a sort of act of desperation, I think.

Presenter2:32

You did say of that group of people, as you say, Roan Atkinson, as Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and so Anne Miranda Richardson, um a dozen paranoid perfectionists are not the most charming company. I'm imagining here you're talking about the rehearsal and and shooting of the programme.

Tony Robinson2:45

That's right. They were terribly serious, the the rehearsals. We didn't really laugh much. We would discuss jokes endlessly. Ben Elton and Richard Curtis would tear their hair out because we we would just rip their beautifully crafted scripts to pieces. And by the time we came to perform it in front of a studio audience, we were all twisted in knots of anxiety. The worst was Hugh Laurie. See and he's just disappeared. He never made it after that.

Presenter3:12

No, whatever happened to him.

Tony Robinson3:14

And so when we got the first laugh in front of the studio audience, it was always an intense relief.

Presenter3:19

Plenty to talk about then, Tony Robinson. Let's hear your first piece of music. What are we going to listen to first off?

Tony Robinson3:24

Well, you asked me what was the most difficult thing in the creative world as far as I was concerned, and I said it was like building up.

Tony Robinson3:33

The

Tony Robinson3:34

The scaffolding and then letting it go. Well, the band who do that more than anybody for me are called the band, and they used to be Bob Dylan's backing group. And whatever they do, it always sounds so loose and unrehearsed and improvised, but the artistry is absolutely superb. And on one hand, I can admire them, and on the other hand, there's always that surge in my tummy when I hear the opening chords.

Speaker 24:00

Come on, let's see now.

Speaker 24:04

Mountains were ringing tonight, they drove on Texas

Speaker 24:11

People were staying in New York.

Presenter4:23

That was the band and the night they drove old Dixie down. Uh the interesting point about Baldric is not just um the artistry of the the the comedy timing and the very well written lines and also, you know, whatever it happened to be, a huge turnip being squashed on your head or the the sort of cheese dangling off the end of your nose to catch the mice, but that actually in a way, especially in the fourth series, the last one, set in the First World War, he was every man, really. That was the connection with Baldric, is that he represented all of us at our most fearful and confused about what the world has to offer.

Tony Robinson4:53

Well, when you're surrounded by about a dozen of the smartest young men in Britain you do tend to feel like that, and I think that's how I felt most of the way through the rehearsals. Everyone was so dazzling, and I always felt kind of a little bit stupid.

Presenter5:06

Yeah.

Tony Robinson5:06

Were you fine?

Presenter5:07

And then to open your mouse, or did you contribute?

Tony Robinson5:08

Oh, I contributed like mad. I think whenever I'm in a corner I always get noisy.

Presenter5:13

Was there a moment then where um you know, you say you got the the script, it wasn't very promising, just the seven or eight lines. What was the point when you and the rest of the cast members knew Yep, red hot hit.

Tony Robinson5:22

Well, for me I think it wasn't until the repeats of the second series. I'd got young kids by that time and was living in Bristol, so I wasn't part of any kind of London set. But John Lloyd, who produced the series, on the very first day

Tony Robinson5:37

Of shooting episode one had said to me, So, what's it going to be like for you when you're famous? And I thought he was taking the mick, but he could sort of seen into the future. And I suddenly

Tony Robinson5:48

After Series Two thought, My life has changed.

Tony Robinson5:51

People recognize who I am. It was extraordinary. It was just like that, just changed overnight. I always thought that kind of success was from a Judy Garland movie, but it really happened to me.

Presenter5:59

More about that.

Tony Robinson5:59

About that in a second. Maybe for now it's some music then. What's next?

Tony Robinson6:03

One of the things that I remember so clearly about my early childhood is my dad playing the piano. He had been quite a junior administrator in Hackney Borough Council before the war started. Then he went into the RAF and learned to play the boogie piano and played in what became the Canadian Forces Dance Band. And he could have gone back to Canada and been a pianist, but he and my mum decided to come back and he would pick up on his career as a young working class boy from Hackney. Just to have a career like the one that he was having seemed a pretty good idea.

Tony Robinson6:38

But he bought this baby grand piano, which he put in what we used to call the lounge. And it was massive, it was a tiny little room, and it was this huge flipping piano, and he used to play on it night after night. And I used, as a little, tiny little boy, I just used to sit beside him and watch him play. And when he was playing a riff with the right hand, he would just lift the left hand up and it would just hover there in the coolest way. And I just thought that the way he played was fan flipping tastic. So I'd want on my island something that reflected the coolness of the way my dad played. And I really love him for what he gave me.

Presenter7:44

That was art data and night and day. So, Tony Robinson, this home, as you describe it, with the uh grand piano jammed into the lounge of this semi-detached suburban home, uh a very it sounds solid and secure. You know, your father was on the career uh ladder working for the council. Did you feel very secure? Did you feel like that's the best?

Tony Robinson8:03

Very secure indeed, yeah, yeah.

Presenter8:05

You were born in 1946 in the outskirts of London. What what are your earliest memories? My dad.

Tony Robinson8:12

encouraging me all the time.

Tony Robinson8:15

Playing the piano, arguing with me all the time. He was brilliant at that. And it was like a game between him and me, a real Oedipal game as to who was going to win the argument. Of course, he always did. And what it taught me was, I mean this is really rather posh, but it taught me kind of dialectics. It taught me the way to argue. And for a little guy at school, it probably made me doubly annoying, but it was a great defence and something that a weapon that I've really had with me all my life. And you were an only child? Yeah, can't you hear?

Tony Robinson8:47

You bet I was.

Presenter8:48

Yeah.

Presenter8:49

Have you always carried that with you? Do do you think that's a really intrinsic part of your character?

Tony Robinson8:53

Yes, I do. I do. I would probably like it not to be quite as intrinsic as it obviously is, but uh there is a little part of me that probably thinks I'm the centre of the universe.

Presenter9:04

Right. Yeah.

Tony Robinson9:05

And the upside to that is what? Confidence. Right. The upside is enormous confidence.

Presenter9:10

And do you think that's the same thing that enabled you then in the black adder rehearsal room without the Oxbridge degree to pipe up? Absolutely.

Tony Robinson9:16

Absolutely, yes.

Presenter9:17

Yeah, I'm

Tony Robinson9:17

wasn't going to be intimidated by those guys even though they'd got ninety seven A levels and I'd got four O levels and cheated in order to get them. How did you uh how were you in school?

Tony Robinson9:28

Pan

Tony Robinson9:29

I was bright but dysfunctional, I think it's fair to say. I d I hated school work. I was terribly disruptive. If there are any kids who are in my year at school listening to this, I do apologise for being such a flipping nuisance. Were you sort of always performing in class?

Presenter9:43

Oh yeah, I think I was always performing most of the time. And and when did you start doing a bit of amateur dramatics? What was you can you remember your first production? I think I had a walk on

Tony Robinson9:43

Oh yeah.

Tony Robinson9:51

Part in a Terence Rattigan that's right, I remember it now. Yes, and he was he was a cockney and he had to say something like, How long do I have to ring on this bell? I've been ringing on it for bleeding hours And in the fifties for a little boy to say bleeding hours was just about the uh the naughtiest, most humorous thing possible. I can remember the audience fell about. And on the first night I had no idea that they would, I didn't even know it was funny. But to get that laughter was I think it was uh it was wine to my soul. Was it?

Presenter10:19

Was it do you think that was the the moment when you thought, Ah, that feels better? The balm of laughter?

Tony Robinson10:24

I hadn't thought of it until you asked me that question, but given that I remember it so clearly, I think yes, I think it's probably true. Let's have some more music then. What's next?

Tony Robinson10:32

I think when I was about fourteen I bunked off school, went to see the stage version of West Side Story, uh in The Gods. I think I paid sixpence for my seat and had to queue for half an hour in a little canvas chair.

Tony Robinson10:47

And I went in and I started to hear this singing and.

Tony Robinson10:52

The drama of it and passion and ardour. And honestly, this is true. From the moment the overture started, I thought, This is the world that I want to inhabit. I want to inhabit it in my life and I want to inhabit it in the shows that I want to do. And even today, when I hear it maybe it sounds a bit old-fashioned now, I don't know, but it's still the world that I really want to inhabit.

Speaker 211:14

We're gonna blacken him goodnight tonight There will be more burning storms That will happen tonight We're gonna rock it tonight

Presenter11:43

That was the quintet from the original soundtrack to West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein. Tony Robinson, you appeared in the West End proper in Oliver when you were how old? I think I was probably just thirteen. Right, you're one of Fagan's gang.

Tony Robinson11:51

In all of

Tony Robinson11:57

That's right, yeah. And it meant that I would have

Presenter11:57

That's right, yeah.

Tony Robinson12:00

something like six weeks off school. So

Tony Robinson12:03

You ended

Presenter12:05

The dup being the understudy to the artful Dodger.

Tony Robinson12:08

Yeah, um after a few weeks in, the boy who was playing The Artful Dodger bunked off school one Tuesday afternoon, a boy after my own heart, and uh and nobody could find him, because that's you know, when you bunk off school you're not gonna be found, are you? And it was a matinee day and he'd forgotten. With about quarter of an hour to go before the show was due to come up, the

Tony Robinson12:26

Theatre manager came up to me. I can still remember he was absolutely ashen faced and said, Would I go on? and I said yeah. And I phoned my dad who was working at County Hall Westminster, which was just across the river from the West End, and he just dropped what he was doing. He sprinted in and went up to the gallery. And I went on as the artful Dodger and did all that go on, city yourself bit. And because we all had to have three weeks off every three months,'cause we're only little kids, it meant that I went on as the Dodger a lot of times. So I I was never a a a child star at all, but it meant that I was able to be a child actor because it was such a successful show that everyone wanted something similar for the next three or four years.

Presenter13:07

And so at that point then for you beginning to really abandon the idea of schooling, where you did that seem like some sort of distant memory?

Tony Robinson13:15

Abandoned sounds as though I kind of emotionally possessed it at one time, which I don't think I ever did. But certainly up until the age of sixteen or seventeen, everybody was trying to make me pursue some kind of academic career because I was at grammar school at the time. But I only got four O levels. To go into the sixth form proper, you were supposed to have five. But they said they would let me in because obviously my schooling had been disrupted by being on the stage. And then at the end of the first year, six, they said, right, now is the time to put away these arty leanings. You've got to knuckle down and go to Oxford or Cambridge. Panic, complete panic. There was no way that I could do anything like that. So I said, I want to go to drama school. And so I left school and went to drama school.

Presenter13:56

Do you think, then, if you had studied hard, you would have ended up at Oxford or Cambridge?

Tony Robinson14:00

I don't know, not at that age. I because I couldn't have done it. I think maybe by the time I was in my late twenties uh I'd have had a stab at it, whether I'd have got in, I don't know. How many honorary degrees do you have, Tony Robinson? Well, I won't tell you, but it's more than I've got O levels. Okay. And and there aren't many people in the country who could say they've got more degrees than O levels.

Presenter14:13

Okay.

Presenter14:17

I'm wondering are you terribly well balanced about it? You know, do you have a chip on either shoulder?

Tony Robinson14:21

Oh, I think I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about not being as clever as I'd like to be. I think whenever I see myself in a documentary telling everybody what's what, I think there's somebody who actually doesn't know what's what, but wants everyone to think he does. Let's have a disc. What's next? We're on uh disc number four now.

Tony Robinson14:37

I've always loved pop singles. There is something about I know pop is a terribly old word to say, but that's still how I think of them. That's what I call it. Oh, gutta relief.

Presenter14:44

That's what I

Tony Robinson14:46

There's something about that three-minute twenty seconds which means you've got to make a really well crafted piece of work. And I remember getting off a boat in Spain a number of years ago and going into a clothing shop with a mate, and this record was playing, and I thought it was sublime, and I needed to honour it, so I just sat down on the middle of the floor. Why I thought that was honouring it, I don't know. But just that track seemed so special to me. I wanted everybody to know how special I thought it was. Which shows I'm a bit weird, really, doesn't it?

Speaker 215:21

No matter what they say, yes, words won't bring us down, oh no. We are beautiful in every single way. Yes, words can bring us down, oh no.

Speaker 215:45

Don't you bury down

Presenter15:49

That was Christina Aguilera and beautiful. One of the most striking bits of television that people will associate with you is the Me and My Mum documentary. It aired on Channel 4, I think it was, in 2006. It was about Alzheimer's generally, and very particularly about your mother's Alzheimer's, and your mum was very memorably filmed throughout the documentary, you visiting her in the care home.

Speaker 116:00

Yeah.

Presenter16:14

and in the closing scenes of the documentary.

Presenter16:16

Uh your mother was dying in the film and and you at points were in in the room and your mother was very clearly there with you.

Presenter16:25

That must have been a very big decision to make, to to include your incredibly personal and your mother's experience as part of the film.

Tony Robinson16:33

I was very lucky that my kids were around at the time and so I was able to talk through it all with them and I wouldn't have wanted to continue with that documentary without my kids' support. And also my mum's support. I think as soon as people start to suffer from Alzheimer's, we go, oh well, they can't know anything, so we'll back them off away from the equation. I was talking to my mum about it all the time, and my mum, who had always loved amateur dramatics, suddenly had her own documentary in her last days. And even right up to the last moments, she knew that she was being filmed and she loved it, that all the attention was on her, and she remained dignified, and I wouldn't have let her be less than absolutely dignified. And I thought she was fantastic in that.

Tony Robinson17:22

Really?

Presenter17:24

She I think for anybody who saw it, she her dignity was very, very clear. She was composed even though at times she was confused. And I'm very interested that you say that you discussed it with your two children, because one of the things that I was wondering was as an only child you didn't make that decision alone, because that might well have been the conversations that you would have had with a brother and sister.

Tony Robinson17:42

Yeah.

Tony Robinson17:45

Yeah, yeah. Um my kids and I have always been very close and we've been able to talk about that kind of stuff. My experience was just like so many other people's experiences in this country. For about eight years, a number of times a week I would be sitting in an old people's home watching all these people sitting round being bored to death and it just made me more and more enraged. And the one thing that I was able to do in in a sense to honour mum but also just to liberate myself from the anger that I felt was to make a television programme.

Tony Robinson18:20

What when I'd done it, what was so extraordinary was that the reaction from literally thousands of people was so similar to how I'd been feeling. I would get twenty page handwritten letters. Not many people do that much anymore, do they?

Tony Robinson18:35

I genuinely think that in one hundred and fifty years' time, people will look back on the way we look after our elderly now, in the way that we look back on child labour. The generation that is dying now were the generation who fought the war for us, and we've given them the kind of ending which I think is a disgrace to our society.

Presenter18:53

The very nub of the difficulty with uh Alzheimer's is one that you yourself touched upon in the documentary, which is of course um you called it this sort of a great cocktail of guilt that swirls round most of us. This idea that I do want my parent to be in a care home that is really caring for them. I would like it if there are activities arranged, if they are treated like an individual and not just another unit. That's one side of the argument. The other side of the argument is

Presenter19:23

I should be taking my mother home to live with me. I should be looking after her. I shouldn't be carrying on with my life and all its freedoms. You you talked about that.

Tony Robinson19:31

Yeah, and the reality is there are no easy choices and whatever decisions that you come to, you're always going to feel guilty because it is such a difficult thing to cope with. I think I there was always a a working undertow of guilt about my relationship with my mum throughout most of the time that she was in

Presenter19:47

You said that in the final uh months of your mother's life uh there was a moment each time you went to visit her when you'd take her her favourite I think it was Sherry trifle you would take and you would f feed that to her and you said you knew that there was some of her very much still in there, very much still connecting with the little pleasures in life.

Speaker 119:57

Yet.

Tony Robinson20:07

And there's looks too. I remember that she'd open her mouth and she'd give me that kind of naughty, cheeky look, which always felt so much part of our family communication. And and for those moments we were just right there, right there emotionally and and right there in a tactile sense as well.

Presenter20:25

Let's have some music then, Tony Robinson. We're on disc number five. Tell me why you've chosen it.

Presenter20:30

Um

Tony Robinson20:30

Got him in love.

Tony Robinson20:34

I found the love of my life about uh six years ago, I suppose. And to find somebody who is always interested in what I do, just as I'm always interested in what she does, and I always want to be with her, and she always wants to be with me, and it's just it's just absolutely brilliant. It sounds like she's the greatest person in the world, which is probably true, except I think her taste in music is pretty dire, basically. But just occasionally there are bits of music which we both share and which are so much part of our relationship. And I think it would really do me in having this piece of music on the island with me because Louise wouldn't be with me, but uh I'd want it anyway.

Presenter22:12

Murray Pariah playing part of the second movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. One with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. And that is a track because Tony Robinson, you and Louise, your partner, can agree that you like that. That's right. And you've been together for six years, yeah, is that right? You have uh she's much younger than you are, and inevitably when you're as well known as you are, that attracts.

Tony Robinson22:27

Yeah, it's Yeah.

Speaker 122:30

But

Presenter22:34

A fair amount of press. I don't know was it an avalanche of press when you started going out?

Tony Robinson22:36

Yeah.

Tony Robinson22:37

Nasty, misogynistic press, yeah. So it's a shame really,'cause I it means I don't want to talk about her, whereas actually what I do want to do is talk about her. But uh, you know, it it's a sacrifice we have to make, it's a small sacrifice, but there it goes.

Presenter22:52

And you were in a a long term partnership before. You have two two children you have. And uh you were a young dad in was it Bristol that you brought up? Tell me about that early family life then, having kids, keeping life as an actor going, bringing home the bacon.

Tony Robinson22:59

But as you brought it up, it's

Tony Robinson23:06

Um I found having kids.

Tony Robinson23:09

One of the most exciting and learning experiences of my life. I absolutely loved being a dad. There's something quite selfish about it, in a way, that I began to realize how I had developed through watching my kids develop. I was living at a commune at the time. People were always coming in and out, and we took it in turns to cook communally every night, and there were always friends there. We all talked about art and politics until we all had children, and then we started just talking about childcare and schools.

Presenter23:40

Uh But it was a a very, very formative time. As well as your acting work and presenting work. You've written a stack of books, lots of children's books in among them. Um do you regard your work in you've done Children's T V too. Do do you regard it equally with your other stuff?

Tony Robinson23:46

But

Tony Robinson23:53

Oh yes, I just think there's a space in my head and my heart which I think is the space from where I address children and always have. And I think any any parent would uh would recognize that place. And I think the thing I'm proudest of in in my whole life is that I

Tony Robinson24:13

have a really intense relationship still with my kids and I they're they're probably my best friends. I have rocky times sometimes, I don't over romanticize it, but uh

Tony Robinson24:22

Yeah. So your political flowering, if we can call it that, did it happen around about that? No, no, no. I'd always been fascinated by politics. I've always had this absolute belief that we don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but we can get closer to it if we all kind of get together and try and transform the world that we live in. I believe in that kind of creative optimism of trying to transform the world and make it better.

Presenter24:49

Yes, it is very optimistic, and I was going to say almost idealistic. I don't mean that as an implicit criticism, but I'm wondering how a world view, as you've just described it, sits on Labour's National Executive. Now people don't say, oh, so shut up, Tony, that's not the real world.

Tony Robinson24:59

No, it was a fifty five.

Tony Robinson25:01

That's not the

Tony Robinson25:03

I found that very interesting. What's the point of coming into this world unless you want to change it a little bit? And that's why I've.

Presenter25:09

Brand

Tony Robinson25:10

always have and probably always will be a

Tony Robinson25:13

committed member of the Labour Party and all sorts of other things that I'm involved in.

Presenter25:16

Uh politicians notably knew Laboured, you know, they they loved a celebrity, didn't they? They they tried to get you to stand as an MP.

Tony Robinson25:23

I was asked to stand as an MP a number of times initially, but I think the more critical I became, the less I was invited to become a professional politician.

Tony Robinson25:35

I I went in there believing that uh it was important that everybody should have a say and when things like the Iraq war happened that that made me very angry and I would have felt pretty frozen out round about that time.

Presenter25:46

So they fell out with you? Did you fall out with the Labour Party?

Tony Robinson25:49

No, no, no, no, I'm still, you know.

Presenter25:51

I'm pading away. Let's have some more music, Tony. What are we gonna hear now?

Tony Robinson25:55

I've chosen a record which will remind me of my kids. I wouldn't want to not be reminded of my kids when I was on the desert island. It's Stevie Wonders Isn't She Lovely? And I just have this really strong memory of when my daughter Laura was tiny and in those days every cool dad had one of those pupooses which he used to put on his front. And I can remember listening to this record and bouncing her and taking her out into the garden. It was that one of those long, hot seventies summers. And we were looking up at this tree and the light was playing through the leaves and she was watching it so intently and I was really revelling. In her concentration and the fact that we were dancing together, I wouldn't want to forget that moment.

Speaker 226:39

Even still

Speaker 226:43

Even see what I'm falling.

Speaker 226:47

Infant Sea President

Speaker 226:51

Let's take one

Speaker 226:54

Uh

Speaker 227:00

One that's lovely, yes

Speaker 227:03

Forgiveness in lovely man.

Presenter27:08

That was Stevie Wonder, and isn't she lovely? So Time Team, that's been going for eighteen years now. You you yourself had a sort of bubbling interest in archaeology and then

Presenter27:19

They came to you and said, What do you think about this idea? And and I read that that you said that um people in the archaeological community uh thought their discipline was being traduced by a clown. Was that they thought you were Baldrick, did they?

Tony Robinson27:31

That's right, yes. It was a great wave of antagonism both from the uh broadsheet newspapers and from some people in the academic archaeological community.

Presenter27:32

Yes, yeah.

Presenter27:41

Because they thought you couldn't make a sort of popular programme about that subject, was that it? Or they just thought you couldn't make a programme about that subject? Subject.

Tony Robinson27:48

I don't think I ever took it personally. Right. But I was very upset.

Tony Robinson27:52

on behalf of the archaeologists who worked for the programme, who, like me, believed in community education. I mean, that's what the programme is more than anything else, isn't it? It's taking something which up till then has been the preserve of the clever and offering it to everybody.

Presenter28:08

And you've said the amount of times that you do it every year also gives you time and has given you time over the years to write as well. I mentioned uh the books that you've written. When did you start writing? And how did you find the confidence to start writing?

Tony Robinson28:14

I mentioned

Tony Robinson28:19

I had no confidence in in my abilities as a writer. But when I got into Blackadder, I think it was Macmillan's approached me and said, Would I write a book for children? And I thought, I can't write. I haven't I've not been to university. I don't know about writing. So I went to one of my mates in

Tony Robinson28:37

In Black Adder, and said, Would you write it with me? And he said, Well, all right, but you'll have to come to me and I'll, you know, I'll sort of talk you through it. Who was the mate? Ah, that's the punchline. The mate was Richard Curtis. You picked the right one. Yeah, so it was fantastic. You know, I just had this university education in writing from one of the finest screenwriters in the country. What an incredible.

Presenter28:49

Yeah, so

Presenter28:59

Oh, it's such a tutorial.

Tony Robinson29:00

Oh, it's such a generous

Presenter29:01

And yeah, I love him to bet. You haven't always been as polite about the other people that you've worked with on Black Adder. There was a wonderful moment when you said that you thought that they'd slid straight off the silver spoon and into the rehearsal room at BBC TV Centre. Did you find a terrific sense of entitlement among them as a bunch? An enormous sense.

Tony Robinson29:17

of entitlement. I am still terribly fond of them. But yes, they they were dripping with gifts, verbal gifts, literary gifts. They all knew what seemed to me to be the right people. They

Presenter29:31

Had an enormous confidence. I mean, is it anger or is it envy? Is there a bit of you that thinks, oh, I'm just as good as you are? Or is there a bit of you that thinks I want a bit of that? Oh, it's both. It's also.

Tony Robinson29:39

So confused. All of those e emotions j just swirl round and round like the Tasmanian devil in the cartoons. Do you still have all that, do you? I do a bit.

Presenter29:48

I

Speaker 229:49

Uh

Tony Robinson29:49

I do a bit, yes.

Presenter29:49

I do a bit.

Speaker 229:50

Yeah.

Presenter29:50

Yeah.

Speaker 229:50

Yeah.

Presenter29:51

Let's have some music then, Tony Robinson. What are we going to hear now?

Tony Robinson29:54

Is it Adele? It is Adele. Well, one of the things I felt I really wanted to do was to take a contemporary piece of music and I've chosen Adele who has so blossomed that every time she's on the radio I it just makes me feel really good.

Speaker 130:15

When the rain is blowing in your face

Speaker 130:21

And the whole world is on your case

Speaker 230:23

What is on?

Speaker 130:27

I can offer you a warm embrace

Speaker 130:33

To make you feel my love

Presenter30:38

That was Adele and Make You Feel My Love. Tony Robinson, I'm wondering, sitting opposite you here, I've always thought on screen that you looked like a young bloke, and um you look probably I think you're sixty five, aren't you?

Tony Robinson30:51

Uh sixty-five in August.

Presenter30:53

Right. I think you probably I would say if somebody asked me fifty two, probably. You look you look very young. Do you feel sixty five? You look eighteen. Thank you for that.

Tony Robinson31:03

Do I feel sixty

Presenter31:03

Before

Tony Robinson31:03

Five.

Tony Robinson31:04

Huh.

Tony Robinson31:05

I don't know. I think there are some parts of me that feel sixty-five. Like the fact that I can still remember the first Harold Pinter play in the West End and all those sort of things. Yes, then I I realise I'm that age. I don't care about my age really. I just like being excited by the new day and the new people and the new events. Are you are you a grandparent yet? I am. I've got I I actually have the most wonderful granddaughter in the world. Oh you've got her. Yes. She's called Holly and we took her to the zoo last Saturday, Louise and my kids and their partners and me and it was just one of those wonderful days. That is a good thing about being sixty five. I do think grandchildren are just such a blast.

Presenter31:29

Oh, you've got her.

Presenter31:45

Yeah.

Presenter31:46

And what about your own parents then they lived to see how much of your success.

Presenter31:52

The weak

Tony Robinson31:52

My dad died, I was able to show him a photo of me going to be on the front cover of the Radio Times next week. Isn't that fabulous?

Presenter32:00

Yeah.

Tony Robinson32:02

He's always been terribly, terribly proud of me.

Presenter32:06

You you must surely spend an awful lot of nights away from home. I mean, when you're on location, you're on location.

Tony Robinson32:10

Yeah.

Tony Robinson32:11

Yeah, I s I'm two-thirds of the time I'm away from home.

Presenter32:13

Okay, so life away from home on the desert island then, you you know, you're used to kind of making do, being, you know, not having the comfy bed. How do you think you'll be as a castaway?

Tony Robinson32:22

I'm really quite a solitary person, and I think I would enjoy the solitariness, but I think I would probably end up barking mad. I think I'd be like Ben Gunn when the ship finally arrived, cackling with laughter, not having shaved for two years, totally unable to recognise reality from uh fiction.

Presenter32:41

Right. You're about to be cast away then. Before you are, let's hear your final piece of music. What are we going to hear?

Tony Robinson32:48

Every now and then an artist arrives and when I hear them I think I'm really proud to be British. Something about the fact that artists can arrive out of nowhere and do something so spectacular I think is great. And Beverly Knight is one of those people. She just kind of seemed to arrive to for me from Wolverhampton out of nowhere. And this is her first signal and you should watch her live because she's sensational live.

Speaker 233:15

I wish I, I wish I wish I'd gone a little bit more.

Speaker 233:21

Now shoulda woulda coulda means I'm out of time Shoulda woulda coulda can't change your mind And I wonder what I'm gonna do

Speaker 233:34

I sure woulda coulda are the last words of a fool

Presenter33:39

That was Beverly Knight, and shoulda, woulda coulda. So I'm going to give you some books. It's the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, Tony. And your book will be what?

Tony Robinson33:46

Yeah.

Tony Robinson33:48

Uh

Tony Robinson33:49

I'm going to choose George Eliot's middle march.

Tony Robinson33:54

I've always wanted to be really good and really honourable, and about five minutes in, every time I've failed completely. And I know George Eliot did as well, but she wrote this book about how to live a good life and about how it's those small acts of kindness and understanding and sympathy that really make for a good life. And it's so inspiring and from my point of view, so exquisitely well written that I think I'll keep that.

Presenter34:24

Right.

Tony Robinson34:24

That's your book and your luxury.

Tony Robinson34:28

I thought about this a lot.

Tony Robinson34:30

And then I said, come on, be honest with yourself. When you're away as I am two thirds of the year, what is it that you want? What is it that makes you really happy? And the answer is

Speaker 134:38

Uh

Tony Robinson34:40

A good mattress and a good pillow.

Presenter34:43

Fair enough. So a fully specced up luxury bed is yours to take to the island. And if you had to pick just one of the eight discs, which one single disc would you pick?

Tony Robinson34:47

Yeah.

Tony Robinson34:53

I honestly hadn't made up my mind until now. I wanted to take the Chopin because of Lou, I wanted to take the Stevie Wonder because of my kids, but I think I would choose the

Presenter35:04

The Night They Drive will dix you down. It's yours. Tony Robinson, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert and discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:47

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash radio four.