Marianne Elliott

Speaker 40:00

This is the BBC.

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

Presenter0:16

For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Presenter0:49

My castaway to day is the theatre director, Marianne Elliott. War Horse, the curious incident of the dog in the night time, Angels in America. Her productions are always ambitious, often audacious, and frequently thrilling.

Presenter1:03

She must have a pretty big mantelpiece, multi-award winning on both sides of the Atlantic. She also happens to be the only woman director with two Tonies, and has recently been honoured with an OBE. Looking at her lineage, it's easy to assume the die was cast early. Her theatrical pedigree goes back three generations, and her father was one of the founding directors of the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Her mother's sixty-year-long acting career is still going strong. But, in reality, amid all the theatrics of her background, my Castaway was a quiet, shy little girl, and was in her late twenties before she made a living directing. She says theatre can fundamentally change who you are and how you view things. Therefore the stakes are really high. You have to take risks. Immediately I read that, Marianne, I wondered when you talked about fundamentally changing who a person is. You're talking about the people doing it, or are you talking about the people watching it?

Marianne Elliott2:00

Oh, yeah. I'm talking about people watching it. I don't really think there's much point getting out of bed unless that's what your aim is because.

Marianne Elliott2:08

It's so what I call emotionally expensive. It's so difficult to do. It costs so much emotionally of yourself to do it that why do it if you're just doing something that's easy or just a bit of light entertainment? It does have the potential to fundamentally affect people hugely.

Presenter2:29

And when I think of your productions I mean the really big ones something like War Horse or something like The Curious Incident, which recreated what it is like to experience the world if you are a young person with Asperger's the risk of deciding to try to communicate something as complex as that

Presenter2:48

It seems like a pretty big risk. Oh, risk is something you're obviously comfortable with.

Marianne Elliott2:52

I I'm not really comfortable with it. I find it uh terrifying. The the job is terrifying, but I think that it's worth it because

Marianne Elliott3:02

The challenge is a creative one, and if you have a good collaboration with people around you, when you choose the right actors, then it can be so exciting because you're working together towards something that is just out of reach and possibly you might just grab it one day.

Presenter3:17

Well, you say collaborative, of course you are so reliant upon the skills, you know, artistic and technical, of all the people that are part of your team as a director. What specific skills do you need as a director to be good at the job?

Marianne Elliott3:30

From my point of view, I think you need to be able to manage people really well, because sometimes you'll have hundreds of people working for you. You need to have a great imagination, so you can be comfortable with visual statements. But you I think the high end of directing, which a lot of directors would negate, is the acting. It's a really skilful craft and it's very difficult to quantify as well. You know, a critic coming to a show might think an actor is a good actor because they're acting it really well, or they might think it because the writing's really good, and they rarely will think it's because of the director. But you know, the director does have a huge amount to do with the acting and should do, and empathically understand what that skill is and how to help guide it and help it blossom.

Presenter4:18

Tell me about your first disc today, Mariam Elliott. What are we gonna hear?

Marianne Elliott4:21

So this is Katrina in the waves walking on sunshine. I absolutely love a good boogie.

Marianne Elliott4:29

And if I ever hear this, I just have to get up and hurl myself around. I'll try not to do it in here. It's sort of an anthem, I suppose, for me. I always push on if I'm feeling like I need my heartbeat to race a little bit faster.

Presenter4:45

Do you love me? Now baby, I'm sure

Presenter4:53

I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door

Presenter5:01

Now every time I go for the mailbox, I gotta hold myself down.

Speaker 15:10

I just can't wait till you write me or come and line

Presenter5:18

Walking on the side

Presenter5:22

That was Katrina and the Waves and Walking on the Sunshine. So, Marianne Elliott, you were born in nineteen sixty six in London to Rosalind Knight and to Michael Elliott. Tell me if you would just a little bit about your dad.

Marianne Elliott5:34

So my father was a theatre director. He set up the Royal Exchange with a group of other directors and tried to find a space outside London and then eventually designed a new theatre. I mean, we had quite a bohemian lifestyle, I suppose, absolutely no money. But it it was just normal for me. That's how it was.

Presenter5:52

And how would you describe him? What was his personality like?

Marianne Elliott5:55

Uh he was very quiet, kind, gentle, very intellectual, really a deep thinker. He would talk to me about philosophy and spirituality and astronomy. He loved classical music. He had these huge speakers he was very proud of, great big brown, ugly things. And he would play it really loudly on a Sunday when we were having Sunday lunch and it would just blast

Presenter6:20

Across the whole house. How much were they in the house? How sort of domesticated a setup was it?

Marianne Elliott6:27

Yes, they they were around. I mean it was a slightly strange childhood I suppose because I didn't really speak much until I was maybe about five. I could speak but I didn't speak. I sat under the table a lot. We had a big uh table tennis table that was our dining table and I would sit at the very far end of it near the wall. I think I was a bit overwhelmed really because I was aware from a really early age that there were undercurrents going on. There were other layers and other atmospheres beyond what was projected on the surface and I found that tricky so I kept very quiet and very watchful. My father was very ill and both parents went to boarding school at the age of seven. They had formal relationships with their parents and possibly quite a formal relationship with each other, though full of love and respect. And I was picking up all of that.

Presenter7:20

It sounds like a Pinter play, you're up here.

Marianne Elliott7:24

It wasn't loveless. A lot of silences? There were quite a lot of silences. My father was quite a deep thinker and sometimes a depressive.

Presenter7:33

And you said he w he was also physically ill as well as having problems.

Marianne Elliott7:36

He was physically ill, yeah, because he had kidney malfunction, so he was on a kidney machine most of his life. And then that's eventually what he died of. But, you know, that's it totally has dictated how I work now. It's really interesting. And I hadn't really thought about it, Kirstie, until I knew I was doing this this programme. Not really. You know, I'm always about subtext. I'm always about what's going on underneath the words.

Presenter8:00

Tell me about your next piece of music, Marianne Elliott.

Marianne Elliott8:03

Okay, so this is Peterborough and Mary leaving on a jet plane.

Marianne Elliott8:08

I had an incredibly large woman in my life.

Marianne Elliott8:13

She was hugely colourful. She had a big, loud laugh. She worked in a pub, and I would go and stay with her. She was like a kind of child carer, I suppose. And we kind of adopted her as our godmother. She baked cakes and she loved flowers, and we would go on long walks with her, and she would tell us the names of all the wildflowers.

Marianne Elliott8:33

And she loved this song. I remember at quite an early age thinking, oh gosh, you like this song. You obviously are feeling some sort of desire or something that's outside of me. Howdy. What was her name? She was called Sally. Her first name was Sally Flowers, which is the most amazing name for her. But then she married again to a gorgeous man called Bert. So if Sally and I ever went on a little journey together, we'd go on adventures in her car for hours and hours and hours shopping or some stupid thing. And he'd always sort of give us a little wad of cash and go, enjoy yourself.

Marianne Elliott9:06

So kiss me a

Presenter9:08

Smile for me Tell me that you wait for me Hold me like

Speaker 19:16

You'll never let me go.

Speaker 19:21

I'm leaving on a jet plane. I don't

Presenter9:26

Go

Speaker 19:26

Oh when I'll be b

Presenter9:28

Back again.

Presenter9:30

Oh babe, I hate to go There's so many times I've let you down

Speaker 19:39

So many times

Presenter9:40

That was Peter Paul and Marian leaving on a jet plane and memories for you, Marianne Elliott. It sounds like very vivid ones of Sally and Bert and the fun that you would have with Sally. So the family life at times quite silent, quite complex. What was school like for you?

Marianne Elliott9:47

Sally.

Marianne Elliott9:54

We moved to Manchester when I was eight and I went to the local school and was bullied because of the way that I did speak because I had an RP accent. But once I worked out how to be properly Mancunian, I loved it. There was no expectation for me because I wasn't hugely bright. And I was told, Well, you know, just do your best, it's fine.

Presenter10:18

Quite good advice, though.

Marianne Elliott10:19

It was actually because I became very motivated, really conscientious.

Presenter10:26

Amid the difficulties at home, your father was somebody who had. I was going to say affairs. Can I, is it plural?

Marianne Elliott10:32

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter10:33

Right. And so he left the family home when you were how old.

Marianne Elliott10:35

He did. When you were how old? I think I was about fifteen. He was in lots of ways the person I was absolutely the closest to. But when he left I found that very difficult, so I did I just wouldn't speak to him for it for about a year. And I couldn't believe that he would leave.

Marianne Elliott10:55

Looking back on it, I think he should have left probably a lot earlier because I think maybe they weren't very happy. I don't know. But.

Marianne Elliott11:03

He had a very strong sense of duty, so he stayed until we were old enough to understand.

Presenter11:08

He died relatively soon after having left you were a year and a half later.

Marianne Elliott11:11

He was only 52.

Marianne Elliott11:15

I think people are s better now at dealing with death. But at the time I remember then going into my A level year, nobody really spoke to me about it. I remember not doing very well at my A levels. And my history teacher, who I was very close to, saying, Well, I don't know where you think you're going to go with those A levels, Marianne.

Marianne Elliott11:34

Um, and to be honest, it took me about ten years to get over that death because it was never metabolized or let it into the air. It was something that I just

Marianne Elliott11:47

repressed and gone on with it, you know, that's

Presenter11:49

But that's what people did. You've hardly referred to your mother in all of this. How much was she available to you?

Marianne Elliott11:55

She was available, yeah, she was there. I think she didn't have the language for it either, because she was brought up in the war and not really brought up by her parents.

Marianne Elliott12:06

I think that they were trying to protect me and I think that I wasn't very verbose and th so therefore they probably didn't know that that's what I needed, you know,'cause it it takes a lot to get it out of me. I mean even my friends nowadays have to sort of plunk a whole bottle of wine down and ask me questions until I'm really drunk and then I'll stop talking about myself.

Presenter12:10

Okay.

Presenter12:28

It's too late for you to have given me that, Tiff. I've just got water on the table here. Tell me about your next piece of music then. This is your third.

Marianne Elliott12:30

Yeah.

Marianne Elliott12:34

So actually this is appropriate because when I was doing my A levels

Marianne Elliott12:38

I was living in the house on my own because my dad had died, my sister had gone to university and my mother had to get work and she had been told by the Royal Exchange that she was not going to get any help or support. So she found work as an actress over in Sheffield, which was the making of her. And she then lived with these two guys, became uncles of ours and actually walked me down the aisle. But at the time I was living on my own and I was doing A-levels, I couldn't apply myself, so I'm sort of bordering on an eating disorder. But I had this record player.

Marianne Elliott13:17

And I would just play the style council cafe bleu again and again and again and again.

Marianne Elliott13:23

And

Marianne Elliott13:24

It was beautiful jazz, sort of a sense of yearning and a sense of sophistication and style.

Speaker 113:33

Cause you're the best thing that ever happened To me, you're my word

Speaker 113:43

Hey, you're the best thing I ever had done. So don't go.

Presenter13:51

Um wait

Presenter14:11

That was the style council and you're the best thing. Uh Marian Ennet, I'm so well, I'm sort of appalled that your teacher said to you, what are you gonna do with these results? You had been studying what?

Marianne Elliott14:20

You had been s

Marianne Elliott14:21

I mean I did do drama. I didn't really want to do it though and I thought it was incredibly boring. I used to complain to my parents all the time that they were talking shop. I was rebelling, you know, I didn't want anything to do with it. But I did drama at university because I couldn't really do anything else. You went to Hull? I went to Hull, yeah. I didn't have good enough grades for anything else and I thought I could do drama so I did it but I honestly never thought that I would go into it and I started directing then.

Presenter14:39

You went to Hull.

Marianne Elliott14:51

And I really enjoyed it. Again, I still didn't think that I would do it because I thought you had to be a man.

Speaker 114:53

Doesn't think

Speaker 114:54

Yeah.

Marianne Elliott14:56

I know. It's so awful, isn't it? I thought you had to be a man. Because they are all male, so therefore it's clearly not something I could do.

Presenter15:04

And when you were directing in those early days, you know, at Hull University, what was the sensation of it? Did you feel like a fish in water?

Marianne Elliott15:08

Yeah.

Marianne Elliott15:12

Yeah, I think I did. I felt an enormous sense of belonging and maybe power as well. And I've worked out as I've got older that what I probably love subconsciously about directing is the fact that the work speaks for me. I'm not very good at speaking for myself. And so to be really at the heart of imagining something that's creative with a group of other people, it's very much a family. And what you say is vital. And so I mean how glorious. People actually listen to what you have to say.

Presenter15:50

Let's hear your next bit of music, Marian Elliot. Tell me about your fourth.

Marianne Elliott15:53

So this is the Stone Roses. This is the one I did a production of Port by Simon Stevens, who I've worked with a huge amount. We are very close. He was brought up in Stockport, I was brought up in Stockport, and it is about a young girl and her brother who are brought up in Stockport. And this is absolutely what I mean about subtext because it's all about what isn't said or what's said between the lines, I suppose. And they're sat in this car overnight, and she's really there to ask permission if she can leave. And nobody says in the scene, I love you, nobody says, I forgive you, nothing like that is said. But actually, it's full of love. And the very last lines of the play are, The Sun's coming up. Look, up over hills, the sun's coming up. And we played this as the sun came up. We had a big bank of huge bank of lights, so that the lights would slowly rise up to the top of the ceiling of the hall outside and change colour as they did while the Stone Roses is playing. So basically, it's about the beginning of hope and the beginning of joy and understanding for both of them, even though she's leaving.

Presenter17:14

I'd like to leave the culture behind

Presenter17:23

Top

Speaker 117:23

Uh

Presenter17:31

Uh

Presenter17:42

Bless you all.

Presenter17:47

That was the Stone Roses and this is the one. So Marianne Elliott, when you were in those sort of the beginnings of your career, when I introduced you today I said, you know, you were really in your late twenties before you were directing proper. You you'd done a number of jobs after you graduated, you you worked at Granada T V in the drama department, you worked as an assistant director at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London, and then you went to the Royal Exchange in Manchester. What what was your sort of break for people to know that, oh yeah, she knows what she's doing?

Marianne Elliott18:16

I suppose it was going to the exchange, and there was a young director there called Greg Herzoff who saw that I was talented or so he thought, way, way before I had ever thought I was. And he gave me lots of uh opportunities. It was helpful, I suppose, that he wasn't part of my father's team.

Presenter18:36

You said, you know, you you more than alluded to the fact that it ended badly. The wounds had healed over?

Marianne Elliott18:41

They healed when I got there and the weirdest thing was the kind of complex morning or discombobulation of who I was just kind of dropped. And a couple of years later somebody said to me, Oh yeah, that office that you had when you arrived, I think that was your dad's. I thought, oh my gosh. So it was a weird just calming down of things. It was it all started to feel much more easy, I suppose. And and Greg just helped me a lot. I mean I did I did have a real confidence crisis that I never thought I could do. I still don't think I

Presenter19:20

But now, of course, you know you can do it, even though you may have sort of temporary m moments of crisis. But back then, in your early thirties, especially given that you were working at the Royal Exchange, where your father had been such a prominent and important figure, when you doubted yourself, how did you marshal your resources to think I can and I will?

Marianne Elliott19:39

I

Marianne Elliott19:40

Just put my head down and got on with the work. I mean, I'm a slow worker. I do a lot of prep and I spend a lot of time with the text. You know, sometimes you go into a rehearsal room and an actor has a completely different view of the character and you think, Oh gosh, that's so much better than mine But it you've at least you've got something up your sleeve. And you had never wanted to act? I did act at university I was terrified.

Marianne Elliott20:03

I had to do this terrible play, oh my goodness, it was a Lorca play, and I had to play this kind of sexy ingenue. And I remember the director saying to me,

Marianne Elliott20:13

Yeah, you could do that again, but do it sexy this time, Marianne.

Marianne Elliott20:17

And so I try and do it sexy and go, Yeah, yeah, that's great, but try and do it sexy.

Marianne Elliott20:21

And I learnt so much from that because of course I stood there in this ridiculous costume on this ridiculous stage thinking, What the hell am I doing? I hate it, I feel really exposed, I want to do what you're doing, sitting in the stools telling people what to do, that's what I want to do. And also I realized that you can't tell anybody what effect they should be giving off.

Marianne Elliott20:43

What you should be doing is getting the actor to concentrate on what they're trying to change in the person that they're speaking to. So they're not thinking about themselves, they're thinking about the other person. If sexiness is a subsidiary of that, well great.

Presenter20:56

Next piece of music, Mariana. You have to tell me about this.

Marianne Elliott20:59

I loved the Smiths and this is Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. This was played as I walked down the aisle getting married to my husband Nick Siddy. And he's also a Northerner also loves the Smiths and we thought it would be very funny.

Marianne Elliott21:15

But it also depicted exactly how I felt at the time I was getting married to this amazing man and yeah, I was getting what I wanted.

Speaker 121:22

Haven't had a dream in a long time

Speaker 421:28

See the life I can make a good man bad

Presenter21:36

So for once in my life let me get what I want

Presenter21:44

Lord knows it would be the first time.

Presenter21:52

Lord knows it would be the first time.

Presenter21:58

That was the Smithsonian, Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. Marianne Elliott, you moved to the National Theatre in London in 2005. Your job there was associate director, and soon after you arrived, you directed well, it was to become nothing short of a blockbuster war horse. That was adapted from the book by Michael Moore Pergo, and it's the story, of course, of Albert and his relationship with Joey, his horse, who ends up on the battlefields during the First World War. When you very first started out, what gave you the confidence to take it on?

Marianne Elliott22:29

Well, I just thought it sounded quite exciting. The book was first person written you know, The Voice of the Horse, which I thought, Well, that clearly can't happen. I met Tom Morris who said, you know, we're working with this incredible puppet company, and I thought, this just sounds mad, possibly not possible.

Presenter22:48

The potential for disaster would seem Huge, yeah, yeah.

Marianne Elliott22:50

Huge, yeah, yeah. When every time you try to do something big, the potential of it being awful, it's massive.

Marianne Elliott22:57

But, you know, at the time I just thought, let's go into a workshop, you know, we'll just explore it.

Presenter23:02

Explain to me the workshoppy thing, because for those of us who are not in the world of theatre, it can sound terribly indulgent. Why does it matter? What is it for?

Marianne Elliott23:07

You can sign up.

Marianne Elliott23:11

Well, if you're doing a huge project like that, which is it, you know, hundreds of people involved, you you start off with the book and you're thinking, well, how the hell are we going to do

Marianne Elliott23:20

A battle with hundreds, if not thousands, of horses. I mean, how are we going to portray that with one puppet horse? Or how are we going to tell the story that this foal Joey that you've spent a bit of time with then grows up into this big horse? How do we do that? So you can literally go into a room with actors and just throw out ideas and try things. And you don't have to worry about doing a production at the end of it. So it doesn't have to be polished. It doesn't have to be good. It can be terrible. In fact, sometimes if it's terrible, it's really helpful because you go, Cryke, let's not do that. Let's go to the other extreme. Tell me about you.

Presenter23:57

Your next piece of music, your sixth.

Marianne Elliott23:59

So this is The Dark Eyed Sailor, sung here by Olivia Chaney. This is a song that my sister taught my daughter at a really early age. My daughter loves singing, and my sister was the same. And they both are very talented. I am not at all musically talented. And I think watching people sing

Marianne Elliott24:19

is a bit like watching an alien fly to me. I just don't understand how they can do it. But anyway, every time they're together I'm always nagging them so, please, please, please sing that song and they will do it and they know the the lines and they just throw themselves into it with such abandon. It's beautiful.

Marianne Elliott24:37

He said fallid.

Presenter24:39

Will you run?

Presenter24:44

For the day is spent and the night is on.

Presenter24:52

She heaved a sigh while the tears did roll.

Presenter25:01

For my dark-eyed sailor

Presenter25:05

For my dark eyed sake

Presenter25:09

So young and stout and

Presenter25:14

That was Olivia Chaney and The Dark Eyed Sailor. Marianne Elliott, it's clear from talking about the productions that you are so well known for, and just from talking to you today, that an awful lot of thought and hard work goes into what you do. Have you suffered at any point in your creative life, a period of burnout?

Marianne Elliott25:34

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've often thought, you know, maybe it's a bit unhealthy the way that I work, because it's so addictive and it takes you over.

Marianne Elliott25:44

So you do reach burnout, yeah.

Presenter25:45

How does that manifest itself with you?

Marianne Elliott25:48

Um, well, I suppose nowadays I try and only do two shows a year.

Presenter25:52

But when you're burnt out, what does it look like? What does it feel like?

Marianne Elliott25:55

Oh oof Well, just like a dried up old husk, really. And then you need to need to be put somewhere where you can start absorbing and growing and getting moist again, like a spoon. Uh

Presenter26:06

And do you have a technique for that?

Marianne Elliott26:09

Uh I am very, very private and love spending time at home with the family. I love holidays and time away from the theatre is really important. Going to an art gallery that's got absolutely nothing to do with anything that you're working on or reading a book under a tree or something like that, you know, something very different.

Presenter26:29

Have you ever thought about chucking it in?

Marianne Elliott26:30

Yes, I have, yes, I have, yeah, many times.

Marianne Elliott26:35

Yeah. Because I don't find it easy, you know, it's not an easy thing. And I think maybe it costs me more than most because I was that quiet girl under the table. I don't find it easy to throw myself into a a big room full of people and say I know how to do this and then get hundreds of people to come and see it and then get critics to say publicly what they feel about it. But there's something in the process that I really enjoy and I think it's very important for me and I think the art form is very important. But it does it does cost. Yeah.

Presenter27:12

Your next piece of music, then. Tell me about this. It's your seventh.

Marianne Elliott27:15

So this is Nick Drake, Northern Sky, and I'm a fan of his beautiful music, but he was the brother of Gabrielle Drake, who was a great friend of our family. And I once plucked up the courage to ask her how she felt about his death, because he took his own life. And she said the most remarkable thing. She said, Well, it was his choice, so I have to accept that that's his choice. And I thought that's just the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard, and people are just

Marianne Elliott27:49

unendingly fascinating.

Marianne Elliott27:52

But I think that it also because I'm not very good at saying what I what I feel about myself or talking about myself, I think it says everything that I want to say to my husband.

Speaker 128:24

I never felt magic crazy

Speaker 128:29

I never saw my wounds knew the meaning of the sea.

Speaker 128:34

I never heard the motion in the palm of my hand

Speaker 128:40

I felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree, but now you're here.

Presenter28:52

That was Nick Drake and Northern Sky and dedicated, you said, Marianne Elliott, to your husband. Earlier you spoke about how you growing up you didn't think that women could be directors. I mean, you said it with a wry smile on your face, but at the time as a youngster in the eighties, that was really what you felt. What do you say? What would you say to any young woman listening?

Speaker 429:05

Ah.

Presenter29:11

Who dream about following in your footsteps?

Marianne Elliott29:14

I would say there's no one right way. You have to follow your own instinct. You have to get attuned to what your instinct is saying to you and follow that. If it's not what Joe Bloggs is doing, that's okay. Joe Bloggs can do his own production. You just get on with yours.

Presenter29:32

How much has your work throughout the last twenty odd years helped you understand more about your father and about who he was and why he was?

Marianne Elliott29:40

Wow, that's a good question, isn't it?

Marianne Elliott29:45

I think I empathise with who he was and what he was dealing with. And he got so much out of life that, I mean, for example, I wouldn't have gone into directing if he was still alive because he was too inspiring. I needed to find my own way. And, you know, as they say, the child is father to the man. The child feels always that they have to develop and move forward from their parents. It's quite hard if you're coming from famous parents doing really extraordinary work because you don't feel like you can be any better than them. And why would you even try?

Marianne Elliott30:20

So I sort of feel thankful to him for everything.

Presenter30:24

But would you say you have tried, and you have been?

Presenter30:27

That's an uncomfortable question, but I'm interested.

Marianne Elliott30:28

Uh tested.

Marianne Elliott30:30

Um mm. Di a di different, different life, different career I've had from him.

Presenter30:38

Diplomatic.

Presenter30:41

I'm about to cast you away. How are you? On your own?

Marianne Elliott30:43

Are you practical? Oh, I'd be terrible. I I might be able to bake a cake, but there wouldn't be an oven there, so that would be rubbish. I'm not very good at enforced isolation. Quite like it if I've chosen it. Yes. Um no, I'd be awful. The only thing I would be quite good at is the sun. I'm imagining it's going to be a very sunny desert island. Right. Please. So that'll be nice. But other than that, I don't hell that much hope.

Speaker 130:54

See ya.

Presenter31:07

Tell me about your final piece of music, Marianne.

Marianne Elliott31:08

Okay, so this is Bjork and this is Oh So Quiet. Now this reminds me of the Women in My Family because it's very witty, it's very irreverent and it's slightly mad and it's hedonistic and quite joyous and I love Bjork because she is the opposite of conventional and that's how I would say all the women that I've known in my life and all the women that I've heard about in my life from my family are.

Presenter31:40

It's oh so quiet.

Presenter31:45

Yeah.

Presenter31:47

Uh

Marianne Elliott31:47

It's oh so still

Marianne Elliott31:59

And so peaceful until

Marianne Elliott32:04

You fall in love, Safari, the sky up above, safe room is caving in Woof!

Marianne Elliott32:16

But face up.

Presenter32:18

That's Bjork and oh, so quiet. I'm going to give you some books now, Marianne. You get to take to this island the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and then one other book that you choose. What are you going to have?

Marianne Elliott32:28

I'd like an anthology of poetry written by women from the present and the last century. Find you the

Presenter32:34

Bye.

Marianne Elliott32:35

That's a luxury too? Yeah, it's a bit cheeky'cause I'd like a bath but with three taps. I love a bath. And so yeah, cold tap, hot tap and a wine tap.

Presenter32:42

I love a bath.

Marianne Elliott32:51

Uh

Presenter32:51

Uh

Marianne Elliott32:51

I

Presenter32:52

Who would I be if I denied you that?

Presenter32:55

Okay. Yeah, we'll see if we can find one. I'm sure somewhere in Hollywood somebody owns such a thing. We shall find it for you, Marianne. Um of these eight very carefully chosen discs, which one would you choose to save if you had to?

Marianne Elliott32:58

Somebody on such a thing.

Marianne Elliott33:07

Oh, probably nectarate northern sky.

Presenter33:10

It's yours, Marianne Elliott. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 133:21

I can't say

Presenter33:25

I hope you enjoyed my conversation there with Marianne. The Desert Island Disc's back catalogue is stuffed with luminaries from the theatre, directors Jude Kelly, Richard Ayer, Sir Peter Hall, playwrights Arnold Wesker, Lucy Gannon, Anthony Mingala and David Hare, and of course many, many wonderful actors, all just waiting for you to download them.

Presenter33:45

Next time in the last programme before our summer break my guest will be the poet Pam Ayers. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 434:01

This is the BBC.

Speaker 434:04

The Infinite Monkey Cage returns with the 100th episode. And we're going to be asking what do we know now that we didn't know during our first episode back in November 2009. Now the 100th episode is very ambitious. We have more guests than we've ever tried to control before. Eric Heidel, Katie Brown, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Alice Roberts, Dave Gorman, Andy Hamilton, the Reverend Richard Coles. And Brian!

Speaker 434:27

Who will be discussing gravitational waves and whether he causes more of them?

Speaker 434:32

Mm, I think he does.

Speaker 434:33

To find the podcast, just search for the Infinite Monkey Cage wherever in the universe that you're listening right now, and hit subscribe.