Hugh Laurie

Presenter0:00

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

Presenter0:10

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

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Hugh Laurie, actor, writer, director, musician.

Presenter0:40

If life were straightforward we'd be marooning him on our island because of his achievements as a championship rower but his early promise on the water was scuppered by a bout of glandular fever, so he's had to make do instead with life as a world wide entertainment superstar.

Presenter0:57

Very British comedy, very big budget movies, very successful syndicated T V drama. His thirty year career has taken him from a little bit of Fry and Laurie to a big bit of broadcasting history. His role in the US show House ran for eight series and had a global audience of eighty one million.

Presenter1:17

So why now does he feel the need to risk his stellar reputation by making music, too? Well, he says, as soon as I acknowledge to myself that something is frightening and carries the risk of public humiliation, I feel like I have to do it. And there's the thing, you you seem so far, Hugh Laurie, to have avoided any public humiliation. The music career going well and the television career especially Across the Pond went extraordinarily well.

Hugh Laurie1:41

Um I suppose it i yes. I mean, I've been very, very blessed. But I hear the beating of the wings behind me all the time.

Hugh Laurie1:51

And uh I'm always anticipating disaster and uh

Hugh Laurie1:57

you know, feeling it brush by me.

Presenter1:59

You were working with a very brilliant team on on house, of course, for all those years, especially very, very good writers. But to learn that eighty one million people globally are watching what you're doing

Hugh Laurie2:13

It's awfully hard to absorb, particularly because it's such a verbal, such a densely verbal idiomatic, very, very funny.

Presenter2:15

Take

Presenter2:19

Okay.

Hugh Laurie2:23

intricate show, I cannot imagine what it's like seeing it in Turkish.

Hugh Laurie2:29

We had no car chases, no exploding helicopters or anything of that sort. And in fact, for that reason I feel that my part quite rightly diminishes because it is a triumph of the writers and the translators that the show was able to connect with people on such a scale.

Presenter2:46

Thirty years of work so far behind you. You first appeared on our screens in 1983 here in Britain. What bit of your work is the one that makes you most contented?

Hugh Laurie2:55

Wow. I think of and look at occasionally some things that I did with Stephen that we did on A Bit of Fry and Laurie that I think of with great pride. I think there were moments in Black Adder and I think particularly of the third series of Jesus Moisture I think all the harmonics seem to be blending. But I can't look at anything I've done in the last month and think, oh, got that one right.

Presenter3:18

I do see, as you talk about those things f further back in the past, genuine pleasure flitting across your face, which I'm happy about because I think because of the the press you get, I think over the years, people have this idea that you're sort of

Presenter3:29

you know, this anhedonic character who kind of can't take pleasure in things if you

Hugh Laurie3:33

Yes, and and yes. You don't seem very grumpy.

Presenter3:34

You don't seem very grumpy.

Presenter3:36

No.

Hugh Laurie3:36

And I have mistakenly allowed this this picture to take hold. I am actually a fairly sunny individual.

Hugh Laurie3:42

You know, particularly now, I walk around London, I think this is the most beautiful city in the world.

Hugh Laurie3:47

And um isn't blossom splendid? I'm I'm very easy to please and very very happy I have a spring in my step.

Presenter3:50

Very

Presenter3:54

Your list of eight, given how important music is to you and uh not just making music but listening to it, how did you go about choosing the list of eight today?

Hugh Laurie4:01

These are just songs that have been friends of mine, as it were, for um my whole adult life. And I also notice that they're all old. I tend not to listen to music that was made a year ago. I don't know why that is.

Presenter4:15

Tell me about the first n one minute, what are we gonna hear?

Hugh Laurie4:17

This is uh The Letter by Joe Cocker, a live version that he did at Fillmore in New York.

Hugh Laurie4:23

Every time I hear it, I genuinely feel as if I am in the audience at one of the most spectacular and musically perfect performances ever.

Presenter5:00

That was Joe Cocker and the letter. I feel, Hugh Laurie, that we've cheated you out of a bit of that. You were in a state of sort of superannuated gas there.

Hugh Laurie5:05

I was in I was in a state of bliss and and am every single time. That's why I I can be so confident about that as a first record because uh I will never ever till the day I die tire of that record.

Presenter5:16

People like Dominic West in The Wire and Damian Lewis now in Homeland, you know, we expect it, don't we? We expect all these great British actors to go across to America and make these wonderful award winning programmes and performances. But when you did it, we didn't expect it. So tell me about auditioning. It was was it two thousand four when you auditioned for House?

Hugh Laurie5:33

It's 2004, yes. I did a well, first of all, I did a just put myself on videotape and sent it in.

Hugh Laurie5:43

In a bathroom in a hotel in Namibia, yes. So then I I I flew to Los Angeles and I auditioned in front of the uh the Roman emperors. I mean, that's how it feels. It's sort of thirty.

Hugh Laurie5:55

Television executives.

Hugh Laurie5:56

By the time I actually read the full script, I thought this could be something really, really exceptional. I mean, if you smell something good,

Hugh Laurie6:06

You you follow it?

Presenter6:08

You uh you played a doctor, Greg House. What exactly was his job?

Hugh Laurie6:12

He was the head of diagnostic medicine.

Hugh Laurie6:16

This is a remarkable notion, a remarkable character.

Hugh Laurie6:19

More remarkable then than now, I think, in that up until that point, heroes in television drama had beautiful hair, lots of it, splendid teeth, and fine jawlines, and to find something so jagged, to find such a misfit, such a misanthrope, such a tortured, dark, sarcastic character at the centre of a drama was then very unusual. It's now required.

Presenter6:49

Is required. And famously, it was the case that they thought you were American. Is that right? I mean, I've read that so many times, I can't believe it's true.

Hugh Laurie6:54

I no, I I don't know. I can't believe it either. Brian Singer, who directed the pine up, when he saw the tape that I made, he apparently did believe that I was American. What a tin ear he must have.

Presenter7:06

You mentioned uh you know the cragginess, not having to have the perfect jawline or the perfect American set of teeth or the perfect hair. Did they ever try to to change you a little bit?

Hugh Laurie7:14

They did start adjusting my hair. Actually, I I colluded in this because to begin with.

Hugh Laurie7:23

When I when I started, I was a young man, I was sort of m slightly, faintly, suggestibly balding.

Speaker 17:31

Right.

Hugh Laurie7:31

And you don't want that moment when I turn away from the camera, the only impression of that moment to be, Oh, he's going bald. This should be, Oh, the patient's going to die, not Oh, that man's going bald.

Hugh Laurie7:44

What a rod for my own back because it then became fighting natural decay. So, what was it?

Presenter7:46

Right.

Presenter7:50

So what was it, a weave or something?

Hugh Laurie7:51

And no, they would pour sort of head pepper, a sort of jar of matter, into my head, and then stick it there.

Presenter7:57

I see, now I'm looking at your hair. You're not you haven't got it on today, have you? You don't use it.

Hugh Laurie8:01

I don't use it. No, no, no. I I'm I'm proudly bald.

Presenter8:04

I don't know how we got here, but we are gonna go

Hugh Laurie8:05

No, no, no, let's reverse out of this alleyway.

Presenter8:09

Let's have some beautiful music. Tell me about your second disc. What have you chosen?

Hugh Laurie8:13

This is a song by Sister Rosetta Tharp, My Journey to the Sky. I I can never hear Sister Rosetta's voice and not be thrilled to my boots. I'm not a religious person, but whenever I'm listening to her, I sort of become religious.

Speaker 48:30

There's only one thing

Speaker 48:33

That I don't want

Speaker 48:37

In our re

Speaker 48:40

Right heavenly land

Speaker 48:44

To see my Jesus

Speaker 48:48

Where is Glory?

Speaker 48:51

As I go from land to land, there's only one thing.

Speaker 18:58

Yes, there's only one

Presenter9:01

Sister Rosetta Tharpe and my journey to the sky. Let's look back for a moment, Hugh Laurie Tid, to your parents.

Presenter9:07

Your father sounds like a wonderful man. He achieved a lot in his life, and and you didn't know about much of it until you were in your teens. He won a gold medal at at rowing at the Olympics.

Hugh Laurie9:16

He did not tell you in 1948. He did not tell me. Or anybody else, actually. He was a.

Presenter9:17

And he didn't

Hugh Laurie9:22

He was an excessively modest and self-effacing man.

Presenter9:27

How did you learn that he'd won a gold medal at the Olympics?

Hugh Laurie9:29

I went fishing with him. I was probably about ten, and we got into a boat, set out on to this lake to go fishing.

Hugh Laurie9:36

And my father took the oars, and I can remember whispering to my mother, Does does does Dad know how to row? and she said, Yes, he does he does know how to row. In fact, he used to keep his gold medal in a

Hugh Laurie9:49

Sock draw.

Hugh Laurie9:51

It was not proudly displayed. I mean, he had great pride in it.

Hugh Laurie9:54

He was just the sort of man he was. And I think perhaps it was a generational thing as well. They'd been through a lot, after all. They'd been through a war and uh

Speaker 110:00

Yeah, it's not.

Hugh Laurie10:02

And and and things like uh medals and um you know all the baubles of success they they didn't particularly uh pay attention to.

Presenter10:11

And your mother, tell me about her.

Hugh Laurie10:13

She was, um she could be tremendously, um

Hugh Laurie10:17

funny um in at certain times. She could also rather a gloomy I think it inasmuch as I I am ever prey to to being gloomy, I think I probably got that from her. I think she could be uh

Hugh Laurie10:32

Yes, she could be gloomy.

Presenter10:33

Did you um navigate around her when she was in those moods? Did did you know to steer clear or?

Hugh Laurie10:39

Uh yes, I did. I also

Hugh Laurie10:43

I competed is the wrong word, but we could we could both sulk. I learned how to sulk.

Hugh Laurie10:49

and I am happy to say that I think I have finally reached a point in my life where I have dispensed with that skill.

Presenter10:55

Did you think she didn't like you?

Hugh Laurie10:57

I felt

Hugh Laurie10:59

That I was a disappointment sometimes, yes, I did. Well, I didn't like me, actually. Yes, but that's normal. But to feel your mother doesn't like you is not maybe not quite so normal. Maybe not. I think it maybe it's because she, for whatever reason, she had high expectations.

Presenter11:04

Yes, but that's normal. But to feel your mother doesn't like you is n maybe not quite so normal.

Hugh Laurie11:18

You know, with a capital H. And maybe b when when I didn't live up to those frequently, in fact, wait a minute, always.

Presenter11:25

By doing what?

Hugh Laurie11:26

Suppose academically maybe I I didn't apply myself. I s maybe she thought I was frivolous.

Hugh Laurie11:32

What may have been at the root of it is that I had not been through what she had been through, such as uh fighting a war and going without and and uh privation. And I don't blame her for that.

Presenter11:45

So the sound of the

Presenter11:48

So, the sort of subtext to her parenting was: You have been served all this privilege and calm on a plate, the least you can do is excel.

Hugh Laurie11:54

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie11:56

The least you can do is excel, or torture yourself with how much uh privilege you have been given. They had spent fifteen years uh in living in Africa, and

Hugh Laurie12:06

They had seen and knew well what a crust of bread meant. And that the waste of any kind was uh anathema. And I and I I have that, you know.

Presenter12:12

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie12:18

Can't bear things to be wasted. I can't even bear to see it actually in fictional representations. I can't bear to see people breaking things or crashing cars in films. I go Oh, don't cra oh, you could have pretended to crash things don't someone could have used that.

Presenter12:30

Oh.

Presenter12:31

We'll have some more music, Hugh Laurie. You're third of the morning. What are we going to hear?

Hugh Laurie12:35

This is a a tune by Randy Newman, Louisiana, nineteen twenty seven. I o I've always loved this song, but it came back into everybody's consciousness obviously after Hurricane Katrina. And this is a song about the terrible flood of nineteen twenty seven, and I find it just so beautiful and and stirring.

Speaker 412:56

What has happened down here is the wind air changed?

Speaker 413:02

Clouds roll in from the north and it start to rain.

Speaker 413:10

Rained real hard to rain.

Speaker 413:12

A real long time.

Speaker 413:16

Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

Speaker 413:24

River rolls all day, river rolls all night.

Presenter13:28

That was Randy Newman and Louisiana nineteen twenty seven. I'm I'm wondering, Hugh Laurie, when you talk about the humility that that was expected and practised within your family, the sort of Presbyterian ethic.

Presenter13:40

As a winner of two Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, four People's Choice Awards and an OBE.

Presenter13:48

How are you with accepting praise? Do they all sit easily on your shoulders?

Hugh Laurie13:52

I'm I I'm actually I should point out I'm not wearing them on my shoulders at this moment, but uh although there are some days It was a poor choice, it wasn't you know what I mean. Um n not completely. I mean I I feel that there's probably some mistake. I'll find some

Presenter13:59

You know what I mean?

Hugh Laurie14:09

possible explanation that will at least sort of nurture that doubt, which I think I mean, doubt is good. I think fear is good. I certainly think all performers should be frightened. I I think you have to be frightened of what you're doing, otherwise it it probably isn't worth doing.

Presenter14:23

I read somewhere that there was a point in your life when you stopped feeling fearful. You know, you would be doing dangerous things and you were just sort of flat. Your mood was flat. And that worried you. Is that worried?

Hugh Laurie14:32

I did. I I was in the middle of a stock car race. I don't remember the circumstances. But I do remember cars either side of me were exploding. I mean, literally balls of fire. And I was sort of weaving my way through this. And I remember being bored, actually, neither frightened nor exhilarated. And I thought, that can't be right.

Hugh Laurie14:50

So I s I started to investigate that a little bit. What did you find out? Well, oddly enough, if you if you ask a a psychiatrist or a psycho a psychotherapist whether you might be suffering from depression, oddly enough they're inclined to say yes.

Speaker 115:02

Enough there in the

Hugh Laurie15:04

If by saying yes they encourage you to come back and give them fifty five quid for an hour's uh consultation, yes, yes is the answer you'll get.

Presenter15:12

Right. I I don't in any way want to sort of agitate the possibility that it might you might have an episode of mild depression, but I do want to talk to you about the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, which I understand still in your mind's eye is something that you sort of replay. Tell me tell me about your part in that and tell me what happened.

Hugh Laurie15:28

It is, but this is the most childish thing. I still don't want to give my opposite number in the other boat the satisfaction.

Hugh Laurie15:37

of knowing that I lose sleep over it. I'm still that competitive.

Presenter15:39

Right.

Speaker 415:39

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie15:41

We lost, I think, by the narrowest margin possibly ever. But we lost by five feet after four and a quarter miles.

Presenter15:47

And to be clear, you were in the Cambridge Publication.

Hugh Laurie15:49

I was in the chemical I was in the losing boat, yes.

Presenter15:52

Let's have some more music, you, Laurie. What are we going to hear next?

Hugh Laurie15:55

This is uh Grinning in Your Face by Sun House, which is um a bleak but absolutely haunting piece of music. Sun House was a preacher who turned away from the church and he went over to the blues side, the um the worldly side of music. And this is just his voice and his hand claps and I'm not even quite sure what it is that he's clapping to. He's hearing something in his head and I feel as if I hear it too and I I am absolutely thrilled by this piece of music always.

Speaker 116:23

Don't you mind people grinning in your face Don't mind people grinning in your face

Speaker 116:36

Yeah, just by this and mine, a true friend is hard to find.

Speaker 116:44

Don't you mind people grinning in your face? You know they grinnin' in your face.

Presenter16:54

That was Sawn House and grinning in your face. It should be said, Hugh Lawrence, you were somewhere else when you were listening to that, and I was wondering where you were.

Hugh Laurie17:01

Yes, I was somewhere far away. I was far away. It doesn't show up particularly well on radio, but I actually do have goosebumps on my ear, which I again, that that's something.

Presenter17:04

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie17:10

That's an effect I have experienced r ever since I first heard that record. I mean it might be about the actual words that he's singing, a true friend is hard to find, or it may be something that is is even more basic than that. It is just those notes, tho those notes just do a thing to my body that is absolutely transporting.

Presenter17:31

Let's muse for a moment then on on on the importance of of friendship. At Cambridge you made friends, and as far as I understand it, they they are still close and good friends of of yours, especially Mr Fry. When you first met Stephen Fry, did did you automatically become

Presenter17:47

Quick, firm friends.

Hugh Laurie17:49

It was pretty instantaneous. I mean, it luckily for us, being English, we were.

Hugh Laurie17:54

It was concealed by the need to actually do something. We agreed that we were going to do this show and we had to start writing there and then. We made each other laugh. We played chess until the sun came up and um

Hugh Laurie18:08

We've barely had a crossword. I think we might have had three. One of them was of. I cannot remember what the other two are. It's that's actually not really natural, is it, not to have a crossword? That seems odd.

Presenter18:20

And Emma Thompson also was part of that Foot Lights group. It was the the first one to win the inaugural, as it was then, um Perrier Comedy Award up at Edinburgh. And she said that she looked at you, this great big sort of hunky rower, and thought, yes, star, star, star.

Hugh Laurie18:33

Wow. I well, I I I've got to talk about all of it about that. I don't know how to respond to that.

Presenter18:41

What did you do that made people laugh? Can you remember the first big laugh you got on stage?

Hugh Laurie18:45

It was something foolish. It was playing a moron. I just seem to have a face that lends itself to idiocy, and I think I've probably exploited that. I think I've probably wrung everything I I could out of it.

Presenter18:56

As well as performing, of course, you were writing at the same time. Did did that writing come easily to you? You had a facility for it?

Hugh Laurie19:02

There were days when it went well, particularly when when writing with Stephen, you know, there were days when things would just sort of flop out onto the page in an incredibly pleasing way, just like landing a a big gleaming salmon, which, by the way, I've never done, but I imagine would be a very satisfying thing. You know, we would make each other laugh and the laughter would provoke the next idea and the next idea and the next idea, and all of a sudden, sometimes in a matter of minutes, you would have something that you knew was a genuinely good and interesting and funny

Hugh Laurie19:33

piece of work that we could actually present to the public without shame.

Presenter19:37

Let's have some more music. Tell me about what's next.

Hugh Laurie19:40

In honour of my great friendship with the writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry, this is a song by Professor Longhair called Go to the Mardi Gras. It's something that we actually used for the very first television show we ever did together as the title music. But that's sort of by the by. I also happen to love this. It makes me just so happy. This will get me through some grim days on a desert island, I've no doubt, because it just makes me so happy to hear this.

Speaker 420:11

Going your lane, you ought to go see the mighty girl.

Speaker 420:18

If you're George and Yolly

Speaker 120:19

Yeah.

Speaker 420:21

You oughta go see the mighty girl When you see the mighty girl Somebody'll tell you what's countable for

Speaker 120:27

When you see the m

Speaker 420:35

Get your ticket in your hand You wanna go to New Orleans?

Presenter20:42

That's Professor Long here and go to the Mardi Grei. There are few v actually very few people, only a handful of people that that have to deal and I think it is a case of having to deal with the sort of fame you have.

Presenter20:54

Living in L A day to day, what are the things you would do to

Hugh Laurie20:56

What are the things you would do to survive? Someone asked me if I'd you know, you've lived in California all that time. Didn't you ever go surfing? No, I didn't go surfing because you cannot surf. You're not allowed that sort of tentative first experience of anything without being on on the you know, having a picture taken and so you can't do it, unless you're going to surf in the dark.

Hugh Laurie21:21

which I believe is not to be recommended.

Presenter21:23

You've made that deal with yourself then, but but when it comes to the family, that's a more complex thing to reason out, isn't it? Because if your son does want to play ball with you on the sand and there are other people watching and they're going to take your picture and you know it's going to be in the tabloids, and it it inhibits you

Hugh Laurie21:37

It does, yes, but uh

Hugh Laurie21:40

I suppose I knew all that when I started well, actually I didn't know all of that because digital cameras did not exist when I signed up.

Presenter21:44

Yeah.

Speaker 121:44

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie21:47

For example, I heard the other day that there have been more photographs taken in the last twelve months than have ever been taken in the world, ever.

Hugh Laurie21:55

Because people are now photographing I shudder to think what they are photographing everything and nothing. No interaction is is deemed to have actually happened unless somebody has a picture of it. Nobody is satisfied with having met a person without having a a photograph to to prove it. I think that is odd and I think it's so odd that it might actually be starting to alter the way we think about each other and the way we think about sort of general day-to-day social interaction.

Presenter22:21

Today

Presenter22:23

The house is finished now and you are back, as far as I understand it, living in Britain. Um do you notice a difference in how people treat you here? You're not just that funny man off the telly anymore.

Hugh Laurie22:33

No, I was never really aware of well, I suppose maybe I was aware of that. You know, Black Adder I kn I know was a thing that would that, you know, really did connect with people. I was immensely proud of that.

Presenter22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:41

The men

Hugh Laurie22:43

House was not such a big thing here. I mean relative to other countries. I I became a very big cheese in in France and Italy and Germany. But less so here, which I also understand because this was a country where people would probably find it harder to believe in because they knew that I was the Burke from Black Adder or something. It would be just harder to to buy it as as a as a premise.

Presenter23:08

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

Hugh Laurie23:10

We are going to hear a wonderful tune. This is a recording by Nina Simone. I wish I knew.

Hugh Laurie23:16

Well it's actually I wish I knew brackets how it would feel to be free, brackets. And it's a sort of musically perfect thing that could as for me could just go on for hours and hours and hours. I never ever want this to stop.

Speaker 423:28

I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart.

Speaker 423:36

Remove all the bars that keep us apart I wish you couldn't know

Speaker 423:47

What it means to be me

Speaker 423:51

Then you'd see and agree that every man should be free.

Presenter23:59

That was Ina Simone, and I wish I knew how it would be to be free. I wonder, Hugh Laurie, why you've gone public with your music. I mean, you can play and you can sing, but a man of your means could have just made the album, given it to his friends, and not faced any of the heartache of wondering if the record buying public was going to like it.

Hugh Laurie24:15

I am wondering the same thing myself.

Presenter24:19

You could have just given it to your friends for pressing. I could have. I could have. What am I thinking? The first album went to number two. You have recently released your second album. Does it matter to you that the public likes it?

Hugh Laurie24:21

I could have.

Hugh Laurie24:32

Yes, it does, you know, and I'm proud of it and I would like people to hear it. I suppose one of the sort of incidental

Hugh Laurie24:40

explanations is that because a record company came and said we're we're prepared to do this and we'll we'll we'll put ourselves behind it, I got to play with these the most wonderful musicians

Hugh Laurie24:52

In the world. I mean, which I

Presenter24:53

Do you feel up to them? I mean, do you feel much fit?

Hugh Laurie24:54

Not fit. Not at all. But I, from their point of view, I hope that I bring something else besides whiskey.

Presenter24:56

Right.

Presenter25:00

Have you always played I mean you've always played B since you were little

Hugh Laurie25:02

I have, yes, yeah, yeah. The piano is my constant companion.

Presenter25:06

Did didn't you when you were a kid gi give up I mean, you really chucked in your piano lessons and went on human beings.

Hugh Laurie25:11

Especially in piano lessons, I hated the way music was taught and I still I must say that many, many years later when my own children started piano lessons and I started investigating the the Royal College of Music's sort of instructional audio tapes, you know, I was thinking, bloomy, this has not changed at all. This is pretty dry stuff.

Presenter25:33

What do your three kids make of you making music? Is that highly embarrassing to them?

Hugh Laurie25:37

It's probably mortifying. They're a pretty tolerant bunch, though, and uh there are certain things they'll give it a sort of nod, no, that that one's all right, you know no no no, don't do that.

Hugh Laurie25:46

And when I play on stage I'm afraid to say and this is every child's nightmare I do occasionally dance, and no child should have to witness their parents dancing.

Presenter25:57

And you used to play with your kids, didn't you th you all played together. They're musical too.

Hugh Laurie26:00

We did. We went by uh the name the Von Krapp family and we were available for weddings and von Mitz was and uh I love hearing my children play. It's probably the greatest pleasure I can think of, in fact, is is hearing them play the piano.

Presenter26:14

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

Hugh Laurie26:16

We are going to hear possibly the greatest assembly of musicians gathered under one name, one banner. This is the Leicester Young Trio. But his buddy Rich Nat Kinkole and Lester Young Trio playing I Cover the Waterfront.

Presenter27:00

Enjoy?

Presenter27:04

That was r

Hugh Laurie27:04

That was extraordinary place.

Presenter27:06

That was Buddy Rich, Nat Kinkle and the Lester Young trio, and I cover The Waterfront. Um for all of those very many millions of of fans, Hugh Laurie, who who lust after a bit more of Fry and Laurie, would you ever think about recapturing the partnership?

Hugh Laurie27:21

Oh, absolutely. We do. We do we talk about it all the t uh all the time. We talk about it often.

Hugh Laurie27:27

I think probably sketching is a young man's game.

Hugh Laurie27:31

Because by and large it's it's about uh mocking people much older than you. We are now we're not only the age of Cabinet Ministers, we're actually probably older than half the cabinet.

Presenter27:42

If it wasn't Sketches then, what do you think you might do with Stephen Fry?

Hugh Laurie27:45

A sort of Flanders and Swan type review, I think a stage review with a with a couple of uh

Hugh Laurie27:51

Wing chairs and a and a rug and a decanter of Madeira.

Hugh Laurie27:56

and my colleague will recount amusing stories, and I will sit at the piano and play ditties. I know no more than that. We have not advanced with this idea, but that would be my pick for the way to go.

Presenter28:08

promoter is picking up the phone as we record this very programme. You are heroically self-effacing, but I'm wondering I'm wondering if in a tiny little hidden part of yourself you do now accept that you are a great actor.

Hugh Laurie28:23

No no, I don't. I think I've learned a thing or two.

Hugh Laurie28:27

and I think I know a good thing when I see it.

Hugh Laurie28:32

I mean, I'm fascinated by acting. I'm fascinated by...

Hugh Laurie28:36

by behavior. I'm fascinated by people and I and I uh

Hugh Laurie28:41

There are things I would love to to capture and explore and in any guise actually as a writer or director as much as an actor. I I find the whole process of it fascinating, but I absolutely don't. I mean, I was just so lucky to find

Hugh Laurie28:57

Find a thing that fitted, and my collaboration with the creator of the show, David Shaw, I'm not saying we we didn't uh pat each other on the back exactly, but we did quite often say

Hugh Laurie29:08

Boy, we w we were lu very lucky to have found each other.

Presenter29:12

Given that you were brought up in a family where you didn't find out for a good long time that your father had won a gold at the Olympics, were your parents able to take pride in your achievements?

Hugh Laurie29:23

Uh I do have a memory of winning a prize at school, and I was probably eight or nine min there was a school drama prize I I think every class had to do a ten minute thing, and I won the pri my parents were late, they missed it, so

Presenter29:39

Yeah.

Speaker 129:39

Yeah.

Hugh Laurie29:41

But th th that was th that was not uncommon.

Hugh Laurie29:44

So they missed what I did, but they were there when my name was read out at the winner of this year's Acting Prize. And I do remember

Hugh Laurie29:53

a moment of real pleasure and pride on their faces. I was sort of peeking through the curtain to see whether they'd arrived and I could uh just as my name was read out I saw this big beaming smile on my parents' faces and that was a great thing. That will never leave me, I must say. And I think my father as a doctor I think would have enjoyed ha a very different kind of doctor to house. He's absolutely didn't share any of his characteristics but I think he would have uh enjoyed the the rationality of it.

Presenter30:20

It's time for your final piece of music, then, here, Laurie. What are we going to hear?

Hugh Laurie30:23

We are going to hear a song by Van Morrison. This song is called Brown Eyed Girl. There is a Brown Eyed Girl in My Life and I'm lucky enough to be married to her. And this is a song that will forever summon up my my life with my wife Joan.

Speaker 430:43

Hey, where did we go?

Speaker 430:46

Days when the rains came

Speaker 430:49

Down in the hollows

Speaker 430:53

Playing a new game

Speaker 430:56

Laughing and running, hating

Speaker 430:59

Skipping and a jumpin'.

Speaker 431:02

In the misty morning fog with

Speaker 431:05

Ah, a heart's the found banana.

Speaker 431:10

A bright girl

Speaker 431:15

And you mad.

Presenter31:18

That was Van Morrison and Brown Eyed Girl. So I'm going to give you some books now. You you get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to the island, and one of your own books too. What would you like to take along?

Hugh Laurie31:28

I would like to. Am I allowed to take an encyclopedia? Yes. It's simply that. I find myself.

Hugh Laurie31:33

Less and less interest in fiction as the years go by. I don't know why that is, and I think probably an encyclopedia probably gives me the most consistent.

Hugh Laurie31:41

pleasure that I get from reading now is delving into strange and unlikely areas about which I know nothing.

Presenter31:48

Right, that's yours, then, and a luxury.

Hugh Laurie31:51

A set of throwing knives.

Hugh Laurie31:54

Not just three. If I can have a double set, because otherwise you throw three and then you've got to go and get them. Right. So if I could throw six before I have to go and get them, that would be t terrific.

Presenter31:58

Right.

Hugh Laurie32:03

I would like to return from the island with an uncanny skill.

Hugh Laurie32:07

To be able to knock the pip out of an ace of spades at twenty paces, that would be a great thing.

Presenter32:12

They're yours, those two sets. And if you had to save just one track from the waves, which one would it be?

Hugh Laurie32:18

I will obviously be in terrible trouble if Brown-Eyed Girl isn't it and, luckily, Brown-Eyed Girl would be it.

Presenter32:24

Hugh Laurie, thank you very much for letting us know your desert island is. Thank you.

Hugh Laurie32:26

Time is here.

Presenter32:46

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.