Julian Fellowes

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.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is the writer, actor, and director Julian Fellows. An Academy Award and Emmy winner, his is a class act. The movie Gosford Park, the T V hit Downtown Abbey, and the best selling book Snobs have all flowed from his pen. He captures Dowager Duchesses, social climbers, and housemaids with equal acuity. For years he earned his living as an actor.

Presenter0:58

His parents would rather he'd gone into the Foreign Office, but he managed to avoid becoming the pathetic figure I think my father thought I'd become. I am a late starter, he says. I feel I have a lot to do in a very short time. Sir Julian Fellows, um, you won your Oscar let's call it your first Oscar show. There might be more to come, at fifty-two. It was for the screenplay, of course, uh, Gosford Park. Really, that's

Julian Fellowes1:24

So shall King to me.

Julian Fellowes1:26

I always think of I'm about forty four.

Julian Fellowes1:29

Now

Presenter1:30

Was there a feeling of unreality about it given that you had been making your living in show business for a while?

Julian Fellowes1:35

Well, the whole thing was very unreal, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I had I'd been an actor for, you know, hundreds of years, and I'd had a sort of reasonable career, you know, and I was sort of I had that level of fame where people think they met you in Norfolk when they were last there, you know what I mean. And then I was suddenly rung up by Bob Balaban, an actor-producer in America, and he said, Would you like to write a a script for Robert Altman? And it did come out of the blue. I mean, I'd written a script that was never made for Balaban, but it seemed so unreal. It seemed like the plot of a sort of Judy Garland musical. And yet, I knew that I had to take it seriously and do my best, because if the film got made and I hadn't written it, then I would have to kill myself.

Presenter2:19

Recently, of course, you've had the Emmys for Downtown Abbey. You yourself personally won two. I think overall it won six. Huge success. Ha have you all but chucked in the acting now? Is that it?

Julian Fellowes2:28

Well

Julian Fellowes2:30

No, I'd I'd love to act again, actually, but the difficulty is I couldn't make my acting career match my writing career. You know, in the in my writing career I was writing for sort of Graham King and Martin Scorsese and people, and in my acting career I was trying to get a job on peak practice, you know, so they didn't sort of mesh. But no, I'd love to.

Presenter2:48

The first series of Downton Abbey, with all the the certainties of pre World War One, of course, uh the certainties of the Edwardian era, it's very interesting that that was as beguiling for viewers as it as it was. Wh why do you think you just hit people at the right time for a little bit of comfort viewing?

Julian Fellowes3:06

Well, of course, if I had a clear understanding of why it had done so well, I would continue to write shows that attracted record viewers for the rest of my life.

Julian Fellowes3:16

I don't fully understand why it did so well. I think we did one or two things right, but for me, I think the main reason it was so popular is that we are allowed to give completely equal weight to all of our characters, and we don't set them off in a group, so we don't make all the toffs horrible or all the servants funny. They're just a group of people who are under one roof, and they are there in one capacity or another. And the romance between Bates and Anna is exactly as important as the romance between Mary and Matthew. There's no difference in dramatic weight. And I think that was in a funny way.

Presenter3:54

Goodness now

Julian Fellowes4:01

Quite innovative in that we don't take either side, you know, we just show them all these people.

Presenter4:07

Before we come to your first piece of music, who is Mary going to marry?

Julian Fellowes4:11

'Cause what I love about this question is if I did answer it, it would spoil it for everyone. Nobody would thank you.

Presenter4:18

Excruciating. Let's go to the music then, Julian fellas. We're going to hear what to kick off with today.

Julian Fellowes4:23

Uh my first record is Macy Gray singing I Try. And why have you chosen this?

Julian Fellowes4:30

Well, if you marry someone who is much younger than you, which is what I did, and my wife is fifteen years younger than me, you suddenly get reintroduced to a whole lot of new music. Then suddenly all these different singers and different sounds came into my daily life, and I find Maisie Gray a very witty performer. I I think she's quite distinct, quite unique and um marvellous actually.

Speaker 34:56

Tryna say goodbye, aren't you?

Speaker 35:00

Try to walk away and I stumble. Though I try to hide it, it's clear. My world crumbles when you are not there. Goodbye and I choose. I try to walk away and I stumble. Though I try to hide it, it's clear. My world crumbles when you are not there.

Presenter5:22

That was Macy Gray and I Try. So, Julian Fellows, your success uh in writing has come from expertly mining those seams of class division. And I'm wondering I'm wondering which class you are.

Julian Fellowes5:34

That's such a difficult question to answer really, because I don't know the answer any more. I'm always portrayed, or at least I have been portrayed, as a kind of snob for being interested in social difference. I don't see it like that. I I I am fascinated by the conditioning that changes us and and I am interested in that. I don't hide that. And I think for the British class sort of marbles practically every element of our lives.

Presenter6:01

Do you not want to say which class you think? You must sort of have an opinion.

Julian Fellowes6:05

Uh

Julian Fellowes6:07

I mean I think

Julian Fellowes6:08

There there was a sort of

Julian Fellowes6:12

Bottom end of the top.

Julian Fellowes6:15

Lower upper classes. You know, the sort of.

Presenter6:16

Have you got a new one then?

Julian Fellowes6:21

Landed gentry is a phrase that's often misused now to include the nobility, but the nobility are not part of the landed gentry, but but

Julian Fellowes6:28

I feel that's the same as the upper-middle class now. I don't think there is a meaningful distinction between the lower, upper, and the upper-middle. I mean, still, in 2011, if you are born to be the Duke of Marlborough, then your life is to some extent steered and guided and made for you. Whereas I don't come from that group. I come from the group below who might be asked to dinner occasionally, but on the whole has to swim through the power of their own arms and legs. And one of the

Julian Fellowes6:59

Sort of odd features of being a little bit more known, you know, than I was before.

Julian Fellowes7:06

is that the newspapers kind of invent a personality for you. And so I suppose it has made me touchy, you know, and and and and slightly kind of raw about all that.

Presenter7:17

What are the most annoying things that have been written about you that you think I simply don't recognize that person? I don't know who they're talking about.

Julian Fellowes7:21

Okay, so

Julian Fellowes7:23

I think I do get offended when I'm accused of being snobbish, when I think the appeal of Downtown Abbey is the the exact opposite, that the characters are taken completely seriously from wherever they are. And so it seems to me to be accused of something that is the exact opposite of what you're trying to do is rather annoying. I mean

Julian Fellowes7:47

I think you must in the end acquire some kind of tough skin where you just throw it off, you know, and you and you think, well, if we're getting this many viewers, we must be doing something right. But I haven't yet quite acquired that, and I I think it's something I have to work on, really.

Presenter8:04

For now though it's it's time for some music, Julian Fellows, we're on our second disc.

Julian Fellowes8:08

Uh well, this is perhaps more predictably uh for me, Land of Hope and Glory by Elga. Um

Julian Fellowes8:15

I mean, the truth is, I do love England. I I love England, I love being English, and although we complain about it from morning till night, I think it is a love that will last my life long, and this seems a good expression of it.

Speaker 39:29

Uh

Presenter9:32

That was part of Land of Hope and Glory by Elgar, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andre Preven. So, Julian Fellows, let's take a little trip back down memory lane. You were born in Cairo, but you moved back to Britain when you were very young, end of the forties. Where was home then? What do you remember?

Julian Fellowes9:47

Um I came out of

Julian Fellowes9:50

Egypt as a baby. I spent my childhood in a house on the corner of Hereford Square in in South Kensington. It was Two Wetherby Place, which is just the first red brick building there. I mean, I did have a fairly idyllic childhood in a way, because it was very stable, you know, my parents very happily married and all all that sort of stuff. And I and I now know how lucky I was, but I don't think I knew it at the time.

Presenter10:14

You were the fourth boy, and I don't mean this to be rude, but

Presenter10:17

Were you meant to be a girl, really? Was your mother hoping for girls?

Julian Fellowes10:20

Color

Julian Fellowes10:21

I think from my brother David down, we were all meant to be a girl.

Julian Fellowes10:25

Which one was David then? David II and then and then Rory and then me. We were all meant to be a girl. But my mother had this rather strange dream on the night I was born.

Presenter10:26

But it gave us a lot of money.

Presenter10:29

Right.

Julian Fellowes10:36

She fell into a deep sleep, and there was a vision of a little girl walking away from her into the mist, and as she walked she turned and she said, Goodbye, mummy.

Julian Fellowes10:48

And my mother said at that moment she knew she would never have a daughter, and that was that.

Julian Fellowes10:53

And uh she didn't.

Presenter10:56

And so you you say it was a very happy household. Your father worked at at what was his

Julian Fellowes11:01

My fa well, my father had his own drama really. He he had tuberculosis in the war and then he was in the Foreign Office and he was on the ambassadorial ladder and then the tuberculosis came back and they sent him to an expert, you know, one of those notorious experts and the experts said, Oh, yes, this is hopeless now and he will be dead before 1960 and this was, you know, nineteen fifty one or two.

Speaker 311:19

Yeah.

Julian Fellowes11:28

And so the Foreign Office said to him, You know, we won't train you any more as an ambassador, because you're never going to make it, and you can be a consul if you like. And he didn't want to be a consul, so he left. He was very, very depressed, actually. And my mother took him to a fortune teller who we always thought she bribed. And the fortune teller said, Oh, no, you're going to live for many, many years. You're going to live until you're 72.

Julian Fellowes11:54

And so then he went off and he joined Shell, and it was very interesting. But he lived the rest of his life with his career having been stolen from him. You know, he was.

Julian Fellowes12:05

He would have been a very good ambassador, and God knows my mother would have been a good ambassadoress. But anyway, you know, in life you have to get over things. But I do remember as a child those rather dark years when he he wasn't ever going to have what he'd wanted. But they were very happy together,

Julian Fellowes12:20

You know in the end that's what matters, isn't it?

Presenter12:23

It is so much to talk about from that, Julian Fellows, but we must fit in the music as well. Yes. So disc number three.

Julian Fellowes12:26

Yeah.

Presenter12:29

What are we going to hear?

Julian Fellowes12:31

You're now going to hear Joan Sutherland singing Sempre Libre from Traviata when I was about 14. We were having some conversation, and my mother said, Oh, well, you know something, brother. And she referred to something. I didn't know what she was talking about. And then she said, Well, surely you've heard of a clue. And she looked at my father and she said, We are raising a barbarian. And I have this extraordinary holiday when I was dragged off. I was dragged to the opera to see, you know, various things. Sutherland singing, certainly, and OM and Arabella, and I was dragged to the ballet to see Margot Fontaine, and I was dragged to the theatre to see Laurence Olivia doing Othello. And Maggie Smith, actually, my first experience with Maggie Smith, when I can honestly say, as Desdemona, she stole the evening. She stole the evening.

Presenter13:17

How young was the

Julian Fellowes13:19

Very young and do you know when she was appealing to him

Julian Fellowes13:24

I can remember now I was crying.

Julian Fellowes13:26

Crying in Shakespeare know me, I'm crying with boredom.

Julian Fellowes13:29

And I was so moved by that. But anyway, at the end of the holiday, of course, I was.

Julian Fellowes13:35

madly cultured, and my mother relaxed a bit. But it had been a rather intense period, and this was one of the experiences that came out of it.

Speaker 313:56

Let's go in and don't go for us. So we're gonna play with all with play!

Presenter14:44

Joan Sutherland, with Carlo Bergonzi, singing Sempre Libra, Always Free from Verdi's La Traviata, with the orchestra of Maggio Musicale, Florence, conducted by Sir John Pritchard. Uh we should clear up the business of your father's life and death there, because it was it was predicted by the psychic that he would live until seventy two. He did in fact live until he was

Julian Fellowes15:03

87. No, what happened was he was fine because, of course, when you're, you know, whatever he was then, 40, 72 seemed a long way off. And of course, he then got to be 71. And by this time, my mother had died some years before, and he had married again. And suddenly, he went into this sort of terrible depression. And I said to him, Now, when you get to be 73, are you going to think, oh, they were only a year out? Or will you leave this prediction behind? He said, no, I absolutely promise. If I'm 73, I'm going to let it go. So we planned this great celebration dinner.

Julian Fellowes15:41

We always had some restaurant, my brothers and laws, and my stepmother had never been sort of part of this conversation.

Julian Fellowes15:47

And she said in the middle of the evening

Julian Fellowes15:49

I'm l I'm loving this, but but seventy three seems a rather odd birthday to be celebrating. And of course the whole story was then told, and she looked at my father and said, You married me when you only had two years to live.

Julian Fellowes16:02

And anyway we got past it.

Presenter16:03

You said that your mother would have made a great ambassadress. What w what w why was that? What sort of person was she?

Julian Fellowes16:09

She was a very

Julian Fellowes16:11

vivid person, very good looking, which of course is always a a passport, you know, when you're young and you're a great beauty and people wanted to paint her. She was very funny and she was kind of anarchistic. She did have that kind of

Julian Fellowes16:25

Life sans frontier, you know, and you know, there are a lot of men who aren't very gifted socially and they need a woman to kind of open that side of their lives. He wasn't terribly confident, my father. I mean, he was a very clever man, and a marvellous man, actually, but uh he wasn't terribly confident in that way, and she she pushed all that over.

Presenter16:47

And and is it indeed the case that when he'd been at the Foreign Office he'd worked with Burgess and MacLean and Kim Philby? I mean worked closely with?

Julian Fellowes16:54

Oh, yes. And I mean, in fact, he had the job with Guy Burgess of decoding sensitive telegrams. And of course, Burgess was sending it all back to Moscow. But you know, it was funny with Daddy because he went to Moscow often on shell business. And he said to my mother, you know, what am I going to do if I run into any of them? Because.

Presenter16:54

Uh

Julian Fellowes17:15

He said, I think I can cut Philby and Maclean. He said, but I just don't think I can cut Guy. And in fact, it never happened. But

Julian Fellowes17:25

He couldn't really bring himself to be unkind about Burgess, because he said he was the funniest man he had ever known, and Burgess could make him die laughing, you know. And it's difficult to take against someone who's

Presenter17:40

It's had that effect on you. Let's have some more music, Julian Fellows. We're on our fourth disc of the day.

Julian Fellowes17:45

Uh well this is Love Walked In by Gershwin, which was absolutely my parents' favourite song. Um it's right to include it. I love them very much.

Speaker 317:58

Right in and brought my funny day

Speaker 318:05

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOM MAGICICIC MOMENT

Speaker 318:09

And my heart seemed to know

Speaker 318:15

That phone said hello.

Speaker 318:20

Oh not a word of man.

Presenter18:26

That was Virginia Verrill singing Love walked in from the musical The Goldwyn Follies by George and Ira Gershwin and Memories There for You, Julian Fellows, of your parents. You've said of your teenage self I'm quoting here I had come to the end of being a rather unsuccessful sort of fat shy boy that people didn't want to dance with. I had done that. So much in there to talk about.

Julian Fellowes18:46

I had duck

Presenter18:50

Why did you feel you were unsuccessful?

Julian Fellowes18:52

Um

Julian Fellowes18:54

Well, I felt I was unsuccessful because I was unsuccessful.

Presenter18:57

With girls, do you mean?

Julian Fellowes18:57

With girls, what else is there at that age? You know. I mean, I was good at school work and things, but I mean that didn't give you much to negotiate with. And and basically, if you're not very attractive, which I was not, you haven't got any of the currency.

Presenter19:14

You were schooled at Ampleforth in Yorkshire, a very prominent Catholic school, and indeed it was there that one of the monks spotted, or thought he spotted you in your talent.

Julian Fellowes19:22

Yeah, he was running the theatre at that time, and he said to me, you know, you ought to consider the theatre, or whatever he called it, as a possible career route. I bet no.

Presenter19:35

I bet nobody knew he was saying that to you.

Julian Fellowes19:37

Devil.

Julian Fellowes19:38

Five I mean, that was like telling someone to be an astronaut or or a disreputable astronaut, you know, and I'm grateful to him. You know, it it it worked for me.

Presenter19:45

Good

Presenter19:46

And what about from that quote, I had done with that? It sounds like there came a point where you thought, right, this is going to be my strategy for that.

Julian Fellowes19:49

Sounds like

Julian Fellowes19:52

Well, I had an unusual situation in that before I went to university, in the sort of long gap between leaving school and going up to Cambridge, I had an aunt who was living in Columbia, and she had this summer camp. And I realised that within the family context, I was quite talkative and quite lively, and you know, and everything was fine. And it was only outside the family unit that I wasn't really any of those things. And I realised that I was in a unique situation in that I was going to stay with my aunt and my cousins, but they didn't know me. So

Julian Fellowes20:28

I could get off the boat being anyone I wanted to be. So I I got off a completely different person. So when I got back to England, I went up to Cambridge. Nobody knew me there. And at the same time, I was picked up by um a chap called Peter Townett, who used to um run the the London season as it was then called. And I never really went back to East Sussex sort of socially.

Presenter20:55

Now, when would that have been? You you took part in the season, which is the Debs coming out and finding suitable partners. When was that?

Julian Fellowes21:00

I took part in the season of 1968. I mean, that period was.

Julian Fellowes21:07

Tremendously informative, actually. Because now we always take the Channel 4 Nick Jagger version of the 60s, whenever it's represented. But when you were there, it was a Janus time. It was looking both ways. It was only just after the 50s, when your mother wouldn't leave the house without a hat and gloves. In one way, we were aware of the fact that these changes were happening and we were moving into a different kind of world. I mean, I remember once when I was at a ball, and one old colonel, you know, I walked off the dance floor and he said, Good God, man, do up your tie, there are ladies present. And we had just been dancing to Jetaine by Jane Birkin, and it seemed such a wonderful encapsulation of the difference of the two sides of that period.

Presenter21:13

Yeah.

Julian Fellowes21:51

Yeah.

Presenter21:51

Time, of course, for some music, then, Julian. Uh what are we going to hear?

Julian Fellowes21:54

This is Marvin Gay singing I Heard It Through the Grapevine, which was very much a song we were dancing to at that time. I mean the whole of the Tamla Motown sound very much dominated actually my era as a kind of young dancing man, which rather again illustrates the two sides of that. There we all were bopping around in white and black tie and you know and there were they changing popular music forever.

Speaker 322:23

So I bet you wonder how I do

Speaker 322:27

Outro Man's demand

Speaker 322:31

With some of the gun

Speaker 322:33

New before

Speaker 322:35

Two of us guys, you know I love you more

Speaker 322:38

It took me by surprise I'm afraid

Speaker 322:43

When I found my cast they used to look at

Presenter22:51

That was Marvin Gay, and I heard it through the grapevine memories of your great dancing days. Do you still dance, Gillian Fellows? Are you on the floor at a party dancing?

Julian Fellowes22:59

I slightly feel my dancing days are done. I mean, my wife is a good dancer, and so she always sort of bullies me up into a standing position for a little bit. But uh I still sort of bop, you know, from side to side, as if it was still nineteen seventy three. I can't really find a new way.

Presenter23:17

Um your wife, you you met in nineteen ninety. Her name is Emma, and if I

Julian Fellowes23:21

No, I no, I I met her in nineteen eighty nine.

Presenter23:22

I met her in the

Presenter23:23

Oh, I beg your pardon, you married and I'm not.

Julian Fellowes23:24

I married her in nineteen ninety.

Presenter23:26

It was a it was a coup de foudre. Well, for you at least it was a coup foul.

Julian Fellowes23:29

It was a coup de food. I mean, I I was quite extraordinary actually, because I'm normally as psychic as a door. I mean, I can get eight hours in the room where someone's been strangled the night before, you know. But I was at this drinks party and I saw a man I knew, and I was chatting to him, and he said, Do you know Emma Kitchener? And she turned to me and said, Lo, and I knew I was going to marry her. It's called love at first sight, but it isn't exactly love at first sight. It's knowledge at first sight, that you you know this person is coming into your life. And I did, in fact, propose to her twenty minutes later, but it was only because it took me nineteen minutes to get up the nerve.

Presenter24:08

But you were forty and she was twenty-five. Yes. So you were old enough to know better than to ask her to marry you twenty minutes after meeting her. Most women would run a mile if she were.

Julian Fellowes24:10

Yeah.

Julian Fellowes24:16

Well, she ran a mile. She thought I was a madman. She just skedaddled, and she wrote in her diary A funny little man asked me to marry him. But as I pointed out, I had the last laugh.

Julian Fellowes24:27

When you're

Julian Fellowes24:28

Fill thirty nine as I was then, and on your own.

Julian Fellowes24:32

I'd begun to think, oh, well, I'm I'm going to be one of those people who is on their own, you know, and uh and not in a kind of suicidal way. I mean, I'd just be had begun to think that was the kind of life I was going to have.

Julian Fellowes24:42

And then to suddenly see the person you're going to marry it was extraordinary. And I suppose in the extraordinariness it came gushing out. And in fact, it was a calendar year. That was on January the thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine, that I met her. And on something like December the twentieth, I proposed again and was accepted. And so it was a year which I think is neither terribly quick nor terribly slow.

Presenter25:09

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

Presenter25:11

The mixed

Julian Fellowes25:12

a bit of music is going to be Carol King singing It Might as Well Rain Until September, which was a big hit when I was in my sort of middle teens. For me, it's haunted me really because my teenage years

Julian Fellowes25:25

were often rather sad, and at that time there was a great fashion, you know, for these sad songs, sort of Tell Laura I Love Her and Softu, Leader of the Pack. This isn't tragic in that sense. Nobody dies on a motorbike, but there is a sense of the fact that teenage love is not uncomplicated, and so it rather spoke to me and speaks to me still.

Speaker 225:47

The weather here has been as nice as it could be.

Speaker 225:53

Although it doesn't really matter much to me.

Speaker 226:00

For all the fun I'll have while you're so far away It might as well rain until September

Presenter26:13

That was Carol King, and it might as well reign until September. Um you talked there about melancholia. Do do you have the tendency to to to be uh a bit of a grump, feel a bit low?

Julian Fellowes26:25

Yes, I think I am.

Julian Fellowes26:28

a sort of potentially a depressive. And I'm very, very fortunate in being married to an optimist. And Emma's great gift is that she occupies the present. She is in the middle of whatever's happening. And, you know, that is a very

Julian Fellowes26:43

Positive element in my life. I mean, she has this responsibility of sort of rolling me uphill, really.

Presenter26:50

You you seem very good humoured. I'm wondering d are you short-tempered?

Julian Fellowes26:55

I am short-tempered. I am afraid it's a quality in my family that all the men all my brothers, my father tremendously. We don't sulk. That is the only thing I will say. We're not in a bad mood for days. We explode and then it's sort of over. And I think what's difficult for our wives and friends and things is to realise that.

Presenter27:16

What's her attitude then? How does she handle you when you explode?

Julian Fellowes27:18

Oh, she just you know. Go away now, and then come back when you're normal.

Presenter27:22

We know all about your successes, but I read once, I don't know if this is true, that you'd written twenty odd screenplays that are never even sort of made well, been made, actually.

Julian Fellowes27:32

I started writing for BBC Children's, which in those days was a separate drama department.

Julian Fellowes27:40

And then little old Faunt Roy won an Emmy in New York and everything. So suddenly I'd sort of become this writer without really planning it. I mean, rather like there's no point in going into politics unless you want to be Prime Minister. There's no point in becoming an actor unless you want to be a successful actor. And I wanted to be a successful actor. I wanted to be one of the actors of my generation. But I wasn't quite somehow really gelling, you know, and the writing did bec come to fill that gap.

Presenter28:06

Anything that's very successful always, as you well know, attracts a fair amount of criticism as well as praise. There quite a lot of stuff in the press about well, this isn't historically accurate and they wouldn't have danced to that tune and I could I saw a television aerial and how much does that get up your nerves?

Julian Fellowes28:20

Well, I think there's a bit

Julian Fellowes28:22

Pompous about it actually in the first year because I sort of did but in fact I think two things. One is I think there's a difference between there's a television area because either there is or there isn't and they wouldn't be dancing to that tune when in fact they would be because it wasn't that tune, it was this tune which was published in 1911. And in fact the tune complaint was wrong, the livery complaint was wrong. So you know what the annoying thing was that the newspapers would always assume the complaint was correct. But where I think I was silly was I didn't really understand that you know that papers are not full of complaints about a programme no one's watching. I think I misinterpreted what was an expression of the joint experience. But it's always irritating when the newspapers assume that you are wrong because they're lazy. Now I'm going back, aren't I, into kind of Miss Pouty? And I think I have to rise above that.

Presenter29:18

Yeah, so the answer to my question, does it get up your nose? Is clearly yes.

Presenter29:21

Let's have some music, shall we, Julian fellas? We're on our penultimate disc number seven. What is it going to be?

Julian Fellowes29:27

This is Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, which was the music to which Emma entered St Margaret's when we married. I had this best man, you know, who said, You can't stare at her all the way down the aisle. I said, No, but I want to have a look. And he said, You can turn now. And I turned, and there was this extraordinary vision. She very, very beautiful, in a wonderful dress by someone or other, and, you know, and all the children who were dressed as the flower fairies. And, you know, it was very romantic.

Speaker 331:00

Uh

Presenter31:01

That was the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonning and Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. We should remind people that that since Gosford Park you've gone on to write the screenplays for what V Vanity Fair, The Young Victoria. I said in the introduction that you felt you had a lot to do in a very short time. Do you feel you've done enough, or is still plenty more to get on with?

Julian Fellowes31:23

No, I think that is um an inevitable

Julian Fellowes31:26

sort of by product of finally being allowed a piece of the pie, you know, in your fifties is you you do feel you've you want to do a lot, you know, and it's it's very hard to turn things down. You spend so many years aching for people to offer you something really interesting.

Julian Fellowes31:45

that turning down something really interesting

Julian Fellowes31:48

It's almost impossible.

Presenter31:49

Yeah.

Presenter31:49

You have a son, Peregrine, who is twenty now. Is he following in your footsteps, artistically inclined?

Julian Fellowes31:54

Well, actually, he wrote, co-wrote, and directed a play up at the Edinburgh Festival, which I thought was very well executed and finished, and a slightly startling subject matter, you know, of a marriage that only works when the lover is present, and when the lover goes, the marriage falls apart. I mean, you know, I could see people in the audience looking at us and thinking, where's this come from? But I mean, I think he is drawn to the industry. In a way, it's inevitable. I mean, you know, doctors' children are always doctors, aren't they? But you know, with your children, I mean, I

Julian Fellowes32:28

You do what you can, and then you have to light the blue paper and stand back, don't you, really?

Presenter32:32

Uh your own parents saw a a degree of success in your acting life, but they they didn't witness this extraordinary worldwide acclaim that you now have. I wonder what they might have made of it.

Julian Fellowes32:42

Obviously they would have been thrilled, and I'm terribly sorry they missed it. Of course, you know, the small Catholic voice in me uh tells me that they're adoring it, you know. But I I am sorry they missed it.

Julian Fellowes32:54

I think particularly for my father.

Julian Fellowes32:57

Because he was less kind of happy-go-lucky than my mother. I mean, my mother would have been more interested in whether I was happily married and, you know, whether I was living in a nice place, all those stuff. But my father wanted me to make my mark. And I remember I was doing, you know, reasonably well when I was doing the children's series and Fortner won its prizes and here and there and so on. And someone said to him, you know, isn't Julian doing well? He said, What? This is nothing. And I think he did have a great expectation, which, of course, you know, if he'd lived to be a hundred, you know, would have been fulfilled. But

Julian Fellowes33:33

I don't know, you know, your parents are in you, aren't they, really?

Presenter33:36

Indeed. Let's have your final piece then, Julian Fellows. What are we going to hear?

Julian Fellowes33:40

This is Mosetta's Waltz from La Boheme. It's a piece of music that I have asked to be played at my own memorial, and happily Emma will outlive me by about fifty years, and so I know it it's in safe hands. Actually, in the opera, it's Musetta rather telling off the men, you know, Rudolphe and Evan, she's just sort of chastising them. But when you take it out of the opera, it has to me a wonderful kind of lyrical lament. I mean, I think I am quite a melancholic person in many ways, and I do seem to have this kind of attraction to this slightly tear-making music.

Speaker 334:29

Earth is the upper killing life.

Speaker 234:31

Yeah.

Speaker 334:33

Glory, glory.

Speaker 334:41

So brave.

Presenter35:08

Elizabeth Harwood with Mirella Freine and Luciano Pavarotti singing Cuando Menvo, Mosetta's Waltz from Puccini's Laboem, with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Carigan. So we come to the point where I'm going to give you the books. It's the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, of course, Julian. Um what other book are you going to take?

Julian Fellowes35:24

My book, I'm not sure if this is cheating, but my book would be The Complete Works of Anthony Trollope.

Julian Fellowes35:31

I think he is a wonderful writer. He is absolutely my favorite novelist, because every one is painted in a shade of grey. And I think he has an extraordinary

Presenter35:41

Sympathy. Well, it's slightly stretching the rules, if not bending them, but I will give you that. And a luxury, too.

Julian Fellowes35:47

Ah, yes, I've wrestled with the luxury. I think what has to happen is by some extraordinary

Julian Fellowes35:52

accident, as I fall from the deck of the yacht, or whatever has taken me to the to the desert island, by some chance two enormous casks of Chateau Margaux are also released from the deck, and they come bobbing towards the beach, as I feel then I could sort of stand anything.

Presenter36:11

There's a very good nineteen ninety, the year of your wedding. We'll give you that.

Julian Fellowes36:14

Yes, let's go with that.

Presenter36:15

Okay. Um and if you had to choose just one of the eight disks, which one would you choose?

Julian Fellowes36:21

Probably La Boheme.

Presenter36:23

It's yours. Julian Fellows, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Oh, thank you.

Presenter37:03

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.