Blanche Marvin

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 critic, actress, and producer Blanche Marvin. Over the past seven decades, her life has been immersed in the theatre. She worked with James Mason, Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, and Peter Eustinoff. She calmed the nerves of Tennessee Williams, brought Samuel Beckett to an American audience, and persuaded Peter Brooke to launch a series of awards to encourage artistic risk takers. A doyenne of the West End, she's at pretty well every opening night, and her acute reviews are read by producers on Broadway, looking for the next hit that could cross the Atlantic. She says People say, How can you go to the theatre for fifty years and still be enthusiastic? Well, every time I go, I think, Oh, I'm going to see something. I'm going to be surprised. Can you really? After all this time, Blanche Marvin be surprised by things you see in the theatre.

Blanche Marvin1:24

Yes, you can, because if you have curiosity, you're incurable. So that it is maybe today, maybe in some little corner, I'm going to find somebody, because everything that I have done has been to find the new talented person, the the new play, the new actor, the new designer, the new music.

Blanche Marvin1:47

Originality is is what makes the world go round, and the world is so vast you'll never live long enough to discover everything.

Presenter1:55

On Broadway and in the West End, what theatre producers are looking for right now, of course, are the surefire hits, what they want to do.

Presenter2:03

is get a couple of big stars on the bill, put on a musical that they know will get people on the uh trains, planes and automobiles into the the centre of the city to watch and really look at the ticket sales. That that's what theatre producers want these days. That's very different from what you seem to want. Well that

Blanche Marvin2:20

That's what they've become. Uh but i in my time that's not what it was about.

Blanche Marvin2:27

When I first entered into the theatre, theatre was a very important means of communication.

Blanche Marvin2:33

Governments don't always cover what you want or need. You can't express yourself necessarily in newspapers. But there is something about theatre that is inventive, that is creative, that is still alive, which makes the difference.

Presenter2:47

Can say what you have to say. I mentioned that you worked with James Mason in the introduction. That was back in 1947. What are your memories of him?

Presenter2:55

We were very

Blanche Marvin2:56

Very close, because you know James was a beautiful painter.

Blanche Marvin2:59

And we used to paint and draw together, and we were able to sing folk songs together. He didn't just want to be involved in in the theatre, and he needed another kind of outlet. He was a very sweet and quiet and sensitive man, aloof kind of person, but very dear.

Presenter3:15

Here.

Presenter3:16

So many memories to share with us, Blanche Marvin. For now we're going to have to go to the music, of course, equally as important. Tell me about the first piece of music that we're going to hear today.

Blanche Marvin3:25

That's Beethoven's violin concerto. It has a vibrancy and a vitality, and that was the b my beginnings in New York, being the dancer, being in the different shows. And then a group of us decided that we'd have an off-Broadway movement, and I had the sixth of the off-Broadway theatres called The Cricket. And then I started my children's theatre. This music has that energy of starting new things, and it has a lust of life, which is so wonderful, and it was such a vital period in my life. And I played it all the time.

Presenter4:55

Yehudi Menuin playing part of the opening of Beethoven's violin concerto in D Major with the Moscow Philharmonic conducted by David Oustrach. So, Blanche Marvin, you're very well, you you don't sound eighty-seven and you don't look eighty-seven, whatever an eighty-seven-year-old's supposed to look like. You you're sitting there, I should give people a a quick little uh drawing of how you look today. You've got this splendid sort of scarlet ostrich feather and a beautiful cloche hat, you're wearing a it is a cardigan, but almost a sort of scarlet cape, and you've got this wonderful piece of chinoiserie jewelry round your neck. You still take a lot of pleasure in creating

Blanche Marvin5:29

In yourself every day, do you? Yes, I do, because when I had my own theatre, I I had one of the first of the Off-Broadway theatres, and I went into the whole of the Off-Broadway movement, and I brought over the English plays. I did all the costumes, you know. But you know, that's what you did. You you cleaned the toilets and you did the costumes and you ran the lighting board and you did all the tickets, and you, you know, you did all you selected the plays. There was Beckett, and there was all the famous writers that I was pulling into my theatre, and then the next minute I'm putting in the lavatory paper. And the dressing up is for me. It isn't for anyone else, so that I get a a pleasure out of it because I think of all this that is called art these days. You know, if an unmade bed is called art, why shouldn't I then dress up myself and become the art piece? And so, like tonight, I'm going to see Antigone. Well, what is Antigone about? How am I going to dress in a Greek garb? I mean, everyone would look at me if I dressed in a Greek garb. However, if I dress in red.

Blanche Marvin6:30

Because it's all about blood. It's all about death. I get the theme rather than the th the the actual storyline, as it were. And then also you you see me dressed now because I'm dressed for you, because I feel I should be dressed for you. I don't care that it's radio. I can't do what I want to do if I'm not the way I feel I'm presenting. And I don't think that, um.

Presenter6:31

It's all

Blanche Marvin6:53

Going in sloppy jeans and dirty T shirts to the theatre is the proper thing to do. There is a kind of respective actors have to go through an hour of preparation before they go on stage. The audience has an obligation to present back as well, I feel.

Presenter7:10

Time for some more music, Blange. Tell me about the second thing we're going to hear today, then.

Blanche Marvin7:14

This is the um Bacchiana bracchialis, which I absolutely adore, and it has the voice of the soprano, which sounds like the birds. It's the essence of nature. And if I am to be on a desert island, I would want this kind of music to be with me, and it would be everywhere. It would people the island for me.

Presenter8:32

Victoria de Ros Angere is performing part of Bachiana Brasileira, No. V, by Hitor Villa Lobos, with the eight cellists from the French National Radio Orchestra, led there by the composer. So, Blanche Marvin, you were born in New York, nineteen twenty five. You were fourteen when you left home. Wha why so young?

Blanche Marvin8:49

Who

Presenter8:50

I don't like to talk about my youth.

Blanche Marvin8:52

Really don't. Why is that? Because if you come out of an unhappy background, you carry it with you if you don't leave it. And if you close the door on that and say, Look, I'm going to start from scratch. I shall begin a whole new life and I will be open for everything that happens in life. And I will never look back and I will never feel deprived. And I will always feel life is f

Presenter9:15

Trolled. So looking forward at 14 and never looking back, but I'm wondering, did you leave brothers and sisters behind? I didn't have any.

Blanche Marvin9:22

Closeness to them. It didn't matter.

Presenter9:24

Right.

Blanche Marvin9:24

It didn't matter because I I was beginning a new life, and for my entire life I always had an extended family.

Presenter9:31

Sometimes and and you're a mother of two children we'll go on later, I hope, to talk about the family that you built with your husband, but but sometimes that can cause us to look back a little. If we think we're always propelled forward and it's the next thing and we create ourselves, but actually when we have our own children, sometimes we do look back and we think I see that differently now.

Blanche Marvin9:48

I see that differently. No, that's it's not the same thing. It's not a reinventing. You're beginning at that point.

Blanche Marvin9:56

And you grow on to that point. It's the same thing as when people say, Oh, my goodness, I've grown old and I can't do this and I can't then age. I have found age the most freeing thing in the world. I can do just what I want to do. Take me for what I am, or don't take me. It's such a sense of freedom. And I get away with things I could never have gotten away with if I were younger. Okay, so uh at fourteen then, what what would you do? Fourteen, I I was babysitting, so I could earn enough money to take care of myself, and I was extremely bright, so uh uh I then went

Presenter10:20

Dave Fortino

Blanche Marvin10:29

To college at the age of sixteen. And had you been living with your family in central New York?

Blanche Marvin10:34

Dear well, my father was an opera singer.

Blanche Marvin10:38

And he was n he was always and there there were always constantly other women and other things going on, so that there was never any kind of harmony within the h the house. I mean, there was this gorgeous looking man that all the women liked and with this beautiful bass voice, you know, not particularly interested in the children. So, you I thi thought, well, I'll go off and I'll explore the world. If he can do it, I can do it, why not? Can I just ask, did your parents ever try to find you when you left? No. Because they knew that they I was finished with them.

Presenter11:03

Would you love?

Presenter11:07

Right.

Presenter11:09

Time for some more music, Blanche. We're on your third choice of the day. Tell me what we're going to hear now. Shenandoah.

Blanche Marvin11:14

Yeah.

Presenter11:14

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin11:16

First place, it is a beautiful song, and secondly, I feel that music has to be.

Blanche Marvin11:24

a part of feeding you. And with Shenandoah, there are very few songs that are written about rivers. And yet every city that was ever built was built on a river. So I have a tremendous feeling about

Blanche Marvin11:38

the river and its wide Missouri.

Blanche Marvin11:41

and those beautiful mountains of West Virginia,

Blanche Marvin11:44

When I went up to Scotland I thought, It's Shenandoah, I just see the lakes and and and and the highlands, and I you can sing it out, and you know that that's part of what life is about itself. It's not just people, but land and water. And nature itself feeds you, and one must take in that life.

Speaker 412:48

I long to see.

Presenter13:05

The Vron Clacerte Male Voice Choir and Shannon Doah. Um so, Blanche Marvin, you studied, as we know, at sixteen and you did babysitting to to be able to support yourself and pay the bills. When did you actually start working as an actress?

Blanche Marvin13:18

Well, um uh when I finished at at college at nineteen I went to New York.

Blanche Marvin13:24

And I auditioned for various.

Blanche Marvin13:27

Ingenous, which I never got, and then I was very fortunate because Lutzong came along, which was a medieval.

Blanche Marvin13:34

Chinese musical, which starred Mary Martin and Jules Brynner. And, um,

Blanche Marvin13:40

I had about seven different parts. I was busy all the time. At every rehearsal I was doing, the dancing I was doing, the acting I was Mary Martin's understudy. Oh, by the way, Nancy Davis was in it, who became Mrs. Regan.

Presenter13:52

Yes, misses Ronald Reagan.

Blanche Marvin13:54

Yes. She was the world's worst actress, I can tell you. But anyway, I was doing all these different things and I was only nineteen.

Presenter14:00

You met Mark Marvin, the man who was to become your husband. He was thirty seven and you did for a time split up. He said, No, this isn't good. I'm too old. You need you need a different wife.

Blanche Marvin14:10

Well, that was at the beginning. He felt he uh that I was too young and that I should have a chance to explore other people and live some kind of life without

Blanche Marvin14:20

Committing myself so early. And I said to him, Look, you know, why do I have to go searching when I have found

Blanche Marvin14:28

M my my other soul. Maybe you have to search.

Blanche Marvin14:32

But not for me.

Presenter14:33

You did spend uh some time apart. You were filming Quo Vadis with uh Deborah Kerr and Peter Eustinoff, and and it was then that Mark sent you a telegram. What did the telegram say?

Blanche Marvin14:39

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin14:42

Actually, I was playing not only in Covadus, but I was the leading lady. I was Superman's girlfriend in all the short films which they which they actually then did stills of in magazines, and they would set me on these adventures, all these awful adventures. I was thrown out of planes, I was dumped into the Tiber River, all kinds of things, and I was always yelling for help, and he would have to come and help me.

Blanche Marvin15:05

And then I did the Covatis, and in the middle of all of this I got a telegram saying Meet me in Paris. They killed me off on the little um short films and ran to Paris, and to my shock and surprise he said I've come to marry you.

Presenter15:20

Tell me about what we're gonna hear next. It's your uh it's your fourth track.

Blanche Marvin15:24

Well

Blanche Marvin15:25

I would like to be able first because I love this song, and secondly, because I have a deep involvement with Sweeney Todd, I first co produced this play at Stratford East with Joan Littlewood.

Blanche Marvin15:38

And at that time Joan had no money, it was going to close. And I said, Joan, this will save you. She said, Blanche, what will save us? We need something over the Christmas holidays. I said, The children will love this over Christmas. Let us do it. You will see. So we did.

Blanche Marvin15:53

The swinny tart, and it saved Stratford East. The kids absolutely adored it. And

Blanche Marvin15:59

It was such a hit, and at that point, and I said, I want Stephen Sunheim to do this into an opera, because this is a wonderful book. It will make a perfect opera. What I didn't know, I just discovered this about two months ago in a letter, and an unhappy letter, shall I say, from Stephen said, What makes you think you discovered it? I was on the track as well. I said I could not believe it. He was following it, and I was following him. Neither one of us realized that it we were coincidentally searching for each other.

Blanche Marvin16:34

The play i i is is wonderful and it has a lifetime value to it.

Blanche Marvin16:40

But it is Stephen Sondheim's finest work. It is musically one of the best, and Not While I'm Around is haunting.

Speaker 316:48

Nothing's gonna harm me.

Speaker 316:53

Not while I'm around

Speaker 316:58

Nothing's gonna harm you, no, sir.

Speaker 317:03

Not while I'm around

Speaker 317:07

Eemly's appraising everywhere.

Speaker 317:13

Now what day?

Speaker 317:17

I'll send them howling, I don't care.

Speaker 317:23

I got away.

Speaker 317:32

No one's gonna hurt you.

Speaker 417:34

Hurt you?

Speaker 317:36

No one's come a day.

Speaker 317:41

Others can desert you, not to worry.

Speaker 317:45

Whistle I'll be there.

Speaker 317:49

Dreams'll charm you with a smile

Presenter17:53

Mandy Patinkin and Not While I'm Around from Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondyne. So, Blanche Marvin, it was through uh the man who was to become your husband then, through Mark Marvin, that you you met T Tennessee Williams. Tell me about that.

Blanche Marvin18:06

Well, my my husband was going to be producing at that point on Whitman Avenue. It had not gone on yet, just you know, after the war. Now, Margot Jones directed on Whitman Avenue. She had been working with Thomas Williams.

Blanche Marvin18:22

and uh they had done a play in ca in in Chicago called Glass Menagerie. Then they decided they wanted to bring it to New York. Now, Tennessee had never been in New York before. He was unknown. Now I was an actress, always running out for auditions and different things.

Blanche Marvin18:42

But I, too, was just starting on Broadway, so that Tennessee and I were both terrified of what was going on. We were both not u used to the ways of New York. We were both of us very naive and unsophisticated.

Blanche Marvin18:55

And we used to talk to each other. He said, Would you know

Blanche Marvin18:59

I am not very happy about being in New York anywhere else. I've lost my roots and I'm constantly living in hotels. I hate living in hotels.

Blanche Marvin19:09

And now the Tennessee

Blanche Marvin19:10

Loved my name, and he said, Well, you know, to have a name like Blanche Zohar, it's beautiful.

Blanche Marvin19:17

It's wonderful. He said, My name is Thomas Williams. I mean, isn't that awful? He said, You know.

Blanche Marvin19:23

I am called Tennessee, but you know, can I do that as a writer called Tennessee I said, why not? Do whatever name you want. That's what you you can do.

Blanche Marvin19:31

Three years later, a streetcar named Desire came, and there in the streetcar, if you see.

Blanche Marvin19:37

Is Blanche?

Blanche Marvin19:39

That's what writers do. He never said to me that he would do it, it's not that obvious. But I know that that's my name.

Presenter19:47

There aren't very many people alive these days who could tell us about the young Tennessee Williams and what he was really like as a person. What what did you make of him at the time?

Blanche Marvin19:56

Well, Tennessee

Blanche Marvin19:58

And I had a great

Blanche Marvin20:00

uh closeness together.

Blanche Marvin20:02

He was a very, very sensitive man.

Blanche Marvin20:05

And he couldn't ever recover, and never would recover, from the guilt that he felt over deserting his sister, and the lobotomy that was put upon her, and he would not have happened had he been there. And he said, you know, I don't deserve to be loved.

Blanche Marvin20:22

And he punished himself his whole life over that. And the very sad thing.

Blanche Marvin20:28

is that he died in a hotel.

Blanche Marvin20:31

The one thing that he

Blanche Marvin20:33

was afraid of I met him years later. Many years later. And at that point he was already going downhill. He was taking the drugs. He was punishing himself all all along the way.

Blanche Marvin20:44

And

Blanche Marvin20:45

I said, Tennessee, look, all the wonderful things that have happened to you. He said, Yes, but that doesn't make life.

Blanche Marvin20:52

I've never been able to have a home. I'm constantly on the move.

Blanche Marvin20:57

and I'll never ever be able to forgive myself.

Presenter21:00

Time for some more music then, Blanche Marvin. What are we going to hear now? Your uh fifth track of the day.

Blanche Marvin21:05

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin21:06

Most people know the song from Billy Holiday and they have it out of its context. My husband produced on Broadway a very important play just after the war. Remember that the war suddenly opened up vistas to everybody, and suddenly we were going to change the world, and we were going to make a better place to live, and there was this wonderful sense of hope.

Blanche Marvin21:29

And the play was about a black family moving into a white neighborhood. Now, that was a very big thing in the States at that point. It was also very important because it changed the whole essence for black actors who were only doing song and dances, and now they had serious acting parts to be able to do. And after the show, the meeting place.

Blanche Marvin21:51

was Cafe Society, which was a cafe where where Josh White sang, and at that point it was the beginning w of singing which Josh did, of Strange Fruit, and I would like everyone to know that it was Josh.

Blanche Marvin22:06

who actually first sang it.

Speaker 422:09

Love and tree

Speaker 422:12

They're a strange fruit.

Speaker 422:19

La round

Speaker 422:23

And blood at the room.

Speaker 422:29

Black body swinging

Speaker 422:33

In the southern breeze

Speaker 422:38

Yeah.

Speaker 422:39

Trains brute hanging.

Speaker 422:44

From the Publer Tree.

Presenter23:07

That was Josh White and Strange Fruit and Memories There for You, Blanche Marvin, of your husband producing one of those first productions on Broadway that was seen to challenge the racial stereotypes that people had lived with for so long.

Blanche Marvin23:19

It opened up so many doors. It it it was just a wonderful period when when people felt a better world would happen.

Presenter23:27

So you were living then, Blanche Marvin, in Oxford with Mark, and he was working in the West End, and your two children were born in quick succession, Nikki and Herbert. You found out that your son was deaf. How old was he when you found that out?

Blanche Marvin23:40

Well, I thought there was something wrong from the time he was born.

Blanche Marvin23:44

And everybody said that I was being neurotic. But I said this child does not cry. He's not disturbed by any of the sound or noise.

Blanche Marvin23:53

This was a child who was jolly all the time. I said, That's just not normal. So I spent a year and a half going from doctor to doctor, saying, Test his hearing. And they said, There's nothing wrong with him, there's something wrong with you. And finally, I they started a little audiology unit. It was the first that ever started. And when they tested him.

Blanche Marvin24:16

They discovered they said he's he's profoundly deaf.

Blanche Marvin24:19

And I knew that.

Blanche Marvin24:21

But he was very animated all the time, and I always took him everywhere with me.

Blanche Marvin24:26

When he was four years old I had him running the lighting board in my theater. I had him go backstage and take care of all the actors, so that he never I would feel cheated uh because he would participate in so many ways.

Presenter24:38

And so with your young family you moved you moved back to New York, in fact, because of Mark's career. Yes. And then he died. Yes. What at what point did you find out that he was unwell?

Blanche Marvin24:43

Yes, and then he died.

Blanche Marvin24:48

Yeah.

Presenter24:49

Mark, yes.

Blanche Marvin24:50

I never found out. He never let me know.

Blanche Marvin24:54

I mean, he was protecting me. He didn't he never wanted me to have any more responsibility than.

Blanche Marvin24:59

was necessary. I was his little girl, as it were, all the time. What was his illness? Cancer.

Presenter25:05

Right.

Presenter25:06

And he took his own life.

Blanche Marvin25:08

Yes. And it was something I had to.

Blanche Marvin25:13

Learn to that was the the biggest thing was not to feel.

Blanche Marvin25:20

Uh that it was because of me.

Presenter25:24

You had two young children. Did uh aside from the grief, if if we can put it to one side, did did you feel a degree of anger? I mean, very often. No.

Presenter25:32

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin25:32

Oh no, because I knew why he did it.

Blanche Marvin25:35

He didn't want me to have to deal with a deaf child.

Blanche Marvin25:39

and himself in in in a process of deterioration and that that he couldn't he had always taken care of me.

Blanche Marvin25:47

He would never allow me to take care of him.

Blanche Marvin25:51

No, it was it was a sacrificial act.

Blanche Marvin25:55

How could one be angry at that?

Presenter25:58

We'll have some more music then, Blanche. Um we are now on your sixth piece of the day.

Blanche Marvin26:03

Well, that's the famous love song, the Liebestoat, and that's the song I always think of in terms of Mark, who loved me with a depth that I shall never ever be able to have again.

Blanche Marvin26:16

And every time I hear it, it's always.

Blanche Marvin26:19

That identity with Mark. It's not memory. It's much more than memory. It becomes part of you, and it recreates not the man, but the love, the essence of love itself, which is an enormous force, and it's a force of life.

Speaker 426:35

The sacred music music

Presenter27:30

Maria Callas singing part of How Softly and Gently He Smiles from Tristan and Is Old by Wagner with the Athens Festival Orchestra conducted by Antonino Votto. So for the past forty years then your home has been London and here too you've used your energies to put on fringe productions. Around twenty years ago you set up an award for fringe theatre. You managed to persuade Peter Brooke to get behind it. It was important to have somebody of his stature. How did you do that? How did you persuade him?

Blanche Marvin27:59

But with more than his stature.

Blanche Marvin28:01

This was over like twenty-five years ago. The Arts Council changed its direction because I had been with the Arts Council for new theatre and new plays. And the whole point was that they would sponsor the new plays. If there are two people in the audience, the grants should be given that that development would happen and they would support the new things. Twenty-five years ago, they changed the premise and they said, you've got to have a track record. Well, if you've got to have a track record, you have arrived. And so I was very concerned about it. And I talked to Michael Billington at that point. Michael was on at the Guardian. I said, I want to do something positive. The only thing we can do, and at that time there weren't awards, I want to create an award to these fringe theatres. In order to do this, what are these fringe they're no longer, I call them fringe studio theatres about? Well, they are really about any kind of space. Who created the idea of theatre is in a space, in any kind of space? Peter Brooke. He changed the whole essence of space. So my going to Peter was not because of a name, it was because of a concept. And on that concept, I went to Peter. I never knew him. I picked up the phone and I phoned him. And what did he say? And he said, well, I don't do memorials. I said, I'm not asking you to do a memorial. You're not dead. I want you to contribute because you're alive. It's time you have to give back. Do you remember when you did the birds in the Dunmar Warehouse when it was an advertising studio? And you used that space? He said, Oh my God, I forgot about that. I said, Well, having done that, all these big actors decided they would work in studio spaces and in pub theatres because you opened up something new. I said, I don't really need your name, I need your soul.

Presenter29:52

Okay. And these awards have gone on to become really significant, important awards. Stephen Daldry, for example, was one of the first people he was. He was, yes, who then went on to make his name in Hollywood and so on. And the funding of them I mean, that's always been you're cringing now.

Blanche Marvin30:00

He was. Yes, who then went on to do it?

Blanche Marvin30:08

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin30:09

Well, I just churned in all my annuities. I haven't got any money at all for me. I don't take a holiday. But it is so important, because what we do is never a political gesture. What we do is pure and with integrity, because Peter would never allow anything differently.

Presenter30:26

Time for some music, Blanche. We're on your seventh. What are we going to hear now?

Blanche Marvin30:30

Oh

Presenter30:30

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin30:30

Yeah. Well, w what we're going to hear now is Nimrod from Elgor's Enigma variations.

Blanche Marvin30:37

Every time I hear it it's Mark, and he comes to life for me.

Presenter31:42

The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles McKerris and Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations. So your life then, Blanche, clearly has revolved around theatre. I'm wondering if your two children have

Presenter31:53

He inherited your passion.

Blanche Marvin31:56

Yes, they both do.

Blanche Marvin31:57

Uh my son wanted to make a better world for the deaf, and he has succeeded. He was a scenic designer, and he had his Theatre of the Deaf.

Blanche Marvin32:06

And my daughter was a brilliant ballet dancer, and then when she was nineteen and she was going into the ballet companies,'cause when she was twelve they had her in the Bolshoi,

Blanche Marvin32:17

She overstretched her Achilles' tendons and could never dance again. So I sent her off to drama college and I said, learn how to do the acting with the dancing, which she did. And then she went into production and absolutely adored it. And now she's working on films. Well, she ended up having spent seven years, she produced the Shawshank Redemption. Uh

Presenter32:39

But

Blanche Marvin32:39

She yes, Nikki produced that, but she lives in California.

Presenter32:43

You're at the theatre tonight. You're at the theatre almost every night, I understand. And if it's the time of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I gather that you won't think anything of hopping on a bus and then hopping on another overnight bus to get home in time to go to the theatre in London the next day. From the very beginning.

Blanche Marvin32:46

Epstein I

Blanche Marvin32:58

I went to the Edinburgh Festivals, but I ended up about five years ago going to twenty-one shows in one day.

Speaker 433:04

Ugh.

Blanche Marvin33:05

And that's Edinburgh. No, you you ha you you don't know. Two or three might be, but you have to go to all of the I said, That's it. I'm not going to go any more. The good ones come to London. I will only go up to see the the international pieces that I can't see. So I take the night bus, sleep on the bus, get there at six o'clock in the morning, see what I have to see, make the ten o'clock bus back again.

Speaker 433:07

Well any

Presenter33:26

There's absolutely no chance at all, Blanche Marmin, that you'll survive happily on a desert island, I think. That'll be some sort of torture for you, won't it?

Blanche Marvin33:32

Oh, no, no, no, I'm going to populate it. I'll never live alone. I will find birds and animals that I will make friends of, and I will be able to talk to all these people around me that I've created. Time for your final piece of music, Blanche Marvin. What are we going to hear? Well, my last piece

Blanche Marvin33:51

Is my metaphor because it is Horowitz at the age of ninety playing one of the earliest of Mozart's piano concertas. And you just have to listen to the way this man plays. And I am 87, and for me, as far as I am concerned, it is the younger generation, and that is why I do what I do in terms of the Peter Brooke Award. If we do not keep and feed the young generation and the next generation, there will be no civilization. And so, therefore, it is important that we

Blanche Marvin34:27

Do something in the creation of a vibrant next generation.

Presenter35:26

Vladimir Horowitz with the Orchestra of La Scala Theatre, playing part of the opening movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto, Number twenty three, conducted by Carlo Maria Giolini. So I'm going to give you the books now, Blanche. You get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakspere, and you get to take another book along. What are you going to take? I'm going to take the Golden Bough.

Blanche Marvin35:39

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin35:40

But you get

Blanche Marvin35:44

Yeah.

Presenter35:44

Because I want all of the f

Blanche Marvin35:46

Folk tales. It's yours. Um, and also you're allowed a luxury too. What luxury will you take? Well, my luxury would be as much paper as I can carry, pens and pencils, so that I can keep writing and keep drawing as much as I can, and it will keep me company for the whole time. It's yours.

Presenter36:03

And um if you were to save one disk from the waves, which one would you save?

Presenter36:08

I think it's a very good idea.

Blanche Marvin36:10

The uh Bachians Brasiliere because

Blanche Marvin36:14

It's about

Blanche Marvin36:16

nature and it would it would accompany me and it would be in harmony with where I am living.

Presenter36:21

Yeah.

Blanche Marvin36:21

Yeah.

Presenter36:21

It's yours, Blanche. Marvin, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you for having me.

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.