Russell T Davies

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:46

My castaway this week is the writer Russell T. Davis, one of the most celebrated screenwriters of his generation. He's kept audiences glued to their TV sets for 30 years. All TV writers hope for water cooler moments, and he's had plenty, though his shows have also been the talk of the school playground. He learned his craft with a BAFTA-winning stint at ITV's Granada Studios on Kids' Drama Children's Ward, before expanding his remit to prime time series and soaps. He once took Coronation Street to Las Vegas. However, it was the groundbreaking queer as folk about the lives of three gay friends in contemporary Manchester that made his name in 1999. It was the first TV drama to put young British gay lives in the spotlight. Its success was followed by the realisation of his childhood dream, the big budget regeneration of beloved TV Time Lord Doctor Who, and three successful spin-offs. In recent years he's done some time travel himself with multi-BAFTA and Emmy winning period piece A Very English Scandal and BBC One's Years and Years telling the story of an ordinary English family living in a dystopian near future, though on a brighter note, the likelihood of its inclusion in next year's awards list is something to look forward to. He says, A sentence that has sustained me through all my writing is, A moment's imagination is worth a lifetime's experience. Russell T. Davies welcome to Desert Island Disc.

Russell T Davies2:08

Thank you. Nice to be here. Thank you very much.

Presenter2:10

So let's start then with that boundless imagination of yours. Seemingly it can take you anywhere across time, space, tragedy to comedy within just a few frames. Is it something that you have to feed?

Russell T Davies2:20

I think it's always being fed by the world around you. You meet someone interesting, there's a drama. I hope it never dries up. You've introduced a terrible thought into my mind now. That it's quantifiable. Please don't do that.

Presenter2:30

No, sorry. In that case, what are dream days writing look like?

Russell T Davies2:33

Dream Day's writing is not writing. Actually, if you can just mill about and potter about it. Do you know it's like sketches are better than paintings sometimes? That's what writing is like. You see sketches sometimes and they're gorgeous and lively and full of life, and then the finished painting is kind of fixed and solid and

Presenter2:39

Mm.

Russell T Davies2:47

immutable. And writings like that, I think you've honestly my head is full of fireworks and lines and spirals and noise and colour, and then you have to hammer that down on the page into letters and sentences and full stops, and it becomes so dull. Something is lost every single time. Writing is an act of loss every time.

Presenter3:07

Tell us a little bit about Years and Years and its wonderful cast. Anne Reid, Emma Thompson, Russell Tovey, Rory Kinnear. It told a story that wasn't just contemporary, it was current. Did you have to work quite quickly to tap into something so timely? Yes.

Russell T Davies3:20

Yes, that was the plan with that really, because I think there's a big gap between drama and real life. Because if you think of a drama, it can take a year to write, it can take a year to get made. Actually, I'm filming something at the moment now that won't be shown for a year's time. And there's a lag in there somehow. There's the and tele and drama should be talking about right now. So we worked very hard on that to literally edit it and get it transmitted as close as we could because the world itself is getting madder and faster and stranger and I wanted to capture that on screen.

Presenter3:48

So, you wanted to close the gap with years and years and make it quite quickly, but the gestation period for that show had been quite substantial. Is that typical for you? Like 20 years?

Russell T Davies3:54

But yes.

Russell T Davies3:56

Well, yes, twenty years ago I or more. I I I'd always had that in mind to capture the world and the way we're affected by it and and to put that on screen. I'm kind of glad it waited because I ended up writing it during possibly the maddest time of my adult life, certainly. And it's not getting any less mad, let's be honest.

Presenter4:10

I just

Presenter4:12

That's big

Presenter4:13

I described years and years as dystopian. Is that representative of your world view at the moment? You know where your head's at?

Russell T Davies4:19

I hope my motive is a bit more interesting than that. I think there's always hope.

Russell T Davies4:22

I think what gets forgotten in the noise of online particularly is is that people are good and people are nice and people are kind and most of us live in a family or an invented family of some sort and we care for each other and I have to hope that's got a triumph in the end.

Presenter4:35

We've got to go to the music now, Russell. Tell us about your first disc to day.

Russell T Davies4:38

My first is from Rock Follies, a television series Rock Follies is a track called Sugar Mountain.

Presenter4:44

And this is your favorite T V show ever, am I right?

Russell T Davies4:46

It's amongst many. There's a time in the 70s, 76, 77 when television drama was rock follies, it was Pennies from Heaven, it was I Claudius. These were astonishing days. They were pungent dramas, which don't fit any genre. You can't quite describe what these shows are at all. And this was women being bold and brilliant and strong. Julie Covent, Runa Lenska, Charlotte Cornwell, an amazing cast, an amazing script by Michael Howard Schumann.

Presenter5:12

Don't copy

Speaker 15:14

Uh

Presenter5:15

Had to lay down where the flat rats had lain. Wherever I've lived, I have lived there in pain. But I'm gonna live on Chica.

Speaker 15:25

I'm out in from now on. I'm gonna live on Sugar Mountain. I've stolen eggs and then I swallow them all.

Speaker 15:35

They for a week called

Speaker 15:38

I was saying

Presenter5:41

Sugar Mountain, sung by Julie Covington, Charlotte Cornwell, and Rula Lenska from the TV show Rock Follies. Russell T. Davies, you're recently back from LA for the Emmys. You had an Emmy nomination for outstanding writing for a very English scandal. In that show, Hugh Grant played the former leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe, who was accused of instigating a murder plot against his ex-lover, Norman Scott, played by Ben Wishaw. And again, it was a story that you wanted to tell for quite a long time. What were the biggest challenges in bringing it to our screens?

Russell T Davies6:11

It was fascinating because Norman Scott's still alive, and the children of Jeremy Thorpe are still alive, so there were real people involved in this. I've never done that before, and lives were ruined. I mean, only a dog was shot, no one else was killed, and no governments toppled. It was such a marvellously small story. That's what I loved about it. It's small but vital. But you did feel a proper responsibility to be fair. And I did love coming to it because that story has been told very often. It was not the first time. Many, many books have been published about it. And then a very brilliant book by a man called John Preston, called A Very English Scandal, really summed it up. But the story had always been told by straight men. And it was always a very mysterious story. People would read it thinking, why did Jeremy do this? Why did Norman do this? How odd? What strange behaviour? I came along, read it, and I met Norman Scott. And I mean, I just, oh, I get this completely.

Presenter6:58

Hmm.

Russell T Davies6:59

These are gay men. This is how they live.

Presenter7:00

So, what was it that you got that previous writers didn't?

Russell T Davies7:04

I think the passions of them and the secrets, the closetedness, I get that. And literally, when I met Norman Scott, I loved him, and his actions in the story can be puzzling at times. I literally walked into his house, shook his hand, and I went, Oh, I've met you a hundred times. You're my friend Peter. You're my friend Phil. You're my friend Frank. I just know gay men like that. I just get the temperament of it. They can get overexcited. They can focus on the wrong thing sometimes because of the closet, because of being other, because of being different. Their passions and their extremities come out in different ways. Sometimes it gets distorted and sometimes it's too loud. I know that. I know that myself. So it's recognising that, actually, why they do what they do. I love those two men. I ended up really.

Presenter7:08

I think

Speaker 17:17

See your microphone.

Russell T Davies7:44

They might have done the wrong things. Jeremy Thorpe certainly did the wrong things sometimes, but I ended I hope I ended up respecting them. I hope it was a I hope it was a kind piece of work in the end.

Presenter7:52

You asked about the category of gay drama and whether you were happy to be described as a gay writer, and you seem very content with that prefix. Why is it important to you to take pride in that particular distinction and not just say, Well, I'm a writer, these are dramas?

Russell T Davies8:05

Since I left Doctor Who, I kind of said then I'm going to write gay stories from now on, and it's what I've done. I did it called Cucuba, I did the gayest version of A Midsummer Night's Dream for BBC One that you could ever see, and years and years, and now I'm working on a story about AIDS in the 1980s, so it's my joy, it's what I think about. I don't even need to analyze this. These are the ideas that I have without thinking about it.

Speaker 18:14

Uh

Presenter8:26

And apart from your own identity and connection with that, as a writer, why?

Russell T Davies8:30

Well, it's unexplored territory, and it is still any sense of queerness, any sense of otherness is still very, very new as a society. We've always been there behind the scenes, making the sensible decisions for thousands of years. Just say, if you built that on the left, it would all be so much better. Adrian, just moved that wall a little bit. There was undoubtedly a gay man there saying, just don't go all the way. But now, as an out society, we're less than 50 years old, really, and that's nothing. Again, that's tiny little babies. And there are things that we've felt, things that we've said, emotions in our hearts that have not been put on screen yet or on the page or into fiction. And also, there are things that we feel and say and do that are identical to other people. And that needs saying as well, that we're exactly the same. So it's all there to be celebrated. It's wonderful. It's rich, open territory.

Presenter9:15

Do you listen to music when you're writing?

Russell T Davies9:17

All the time. Yes, yes, yes. It takes me a long time to find the right track. And and once I find the right track, I'm afraid I repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until I drive myself mad. And once I finish the script, I'll probably never listen to that music again because I've heard it a thousand times.

Presenter9:32

Well, with that in mind, I think we might hear a piece of music that's inspired your writing now. It's your second disc today. What is it?

Russell T Davies9:37

This is Horus Daccata, which

Russell T Davies9:40

I know nothing about except I was looking for music that fitted a very English scandal before it had a score when I was writing it, and I thought it needs to be some sort of duet, it needs to be on the piano. Jeremy Thorpe used to play duets with his mother. He used to play the violin and his mother would play the piano. I thought I need something like that, something that sums them up. Found this on YouTube, adored it. I think if you listen to it, it sums up the whole spirit of our English scandal. It kind of gallops. It is like the show gallops along, it's got a real rhythm to it. And again, I think at the end of writing all three hours, I looked on my little computer and it told me I'd played this well over 10,000 times. Drove me mad.

Presenter10:15

So let's hear it. Ten thousand in first spin for this one.

Speaker 110:19

Uh

Speaker 310:56

Uh

Speaker 110:57

Uh

Presenter11:22

Horace Daccato by Daniku, performed by Jasha Heiferts and Emmanuel Bay. Russell T. Davies, what kind of stories did you grow up with then in Swansea?

Russell T Davies11:33

I was brought up in a house full of books. My parents were teachers. They were both classics teachers and French teachers. And I often look at my work now, especially the Doctor Who work, and think that it comes from all those Greek and Roman myths. Great big encyclopedias are there. My parents had the full Encyclopedia Britannica as well.

Presenter11:49

Oh wow.

Russell T Davies11:50

Wow.

Presenter11:50

That's all m

Presenter11:52

And did you avail yourself of it?

Russell T Davies11:54

Oh, you would. Paper as thin as rice paper cr I can hear it crinkling, all crispy. And you just end up looking at nuclear physics and then the gods of Rome and then Amoeba. Up is on the A, obviously. And

Presenter12:09

How far did you get?

Russell T Davies12:09

Perfect.

Russell T Davies12:10

And my mother. I think my mother had every Agatha Christie book as well. But the marvelous thing about my parents was for such bookish people.

Presenter12:13

It was it was

Russell T Davies12:17

They had an enormous respect for television. I think they were slightly in a whore of television somehow.

Presenter12:19

Okay.

Presenter12:21

Because it was sometimes looked down on.

Russell T Davies12:23

Not in our house and it was never switched off if a visitor came.

Presenter12:24

I was

Russell T Davies12:27

It would be left on. I think visitors were interrupting. Stop interrupting my television. And strangely, I was allowed to watch anything. They weren't particularly liberal parents, but they were lovely. But in the 70s and maybe even early 60s, late 60s, I was watching all sorts of nine o'clock play for todays and things like that. I was allowed to watch iClaudius, for example. Yes, I was 13 then, and that's there were people in school saying, Oh, I'm not allowed to watch that. And I would go, Whoa, what you're missing? Wow. Brilliant piece of work. Amazing stuff.

Presenter12:47

Switching then and that's the one.

Presenter12:56

When did you start writing?

Russell T Davies12:58

I was I was always writing, I used to draw a lot and I'm going to draw, I'm going to bring back drawing into my life. I've I've put that to one side and I used to churn out cartoons if you cartoon strips. If you met someone who's in school with me, they'd say now, they'd say, Oh yeah, that boy used to draw all the time. I just used to draw constantly, which kind of in my twenties I realized was writing. I kind of swapped one for the other.

Presenter13:18

What were they about your street?

Russell T Davies13:19

Yeah. Oh, I draw Doctor Who strips and things like that, but I draw my own comic strips. I love peanuts. I draw my own stuff for that. I try to do Marvel-type comic strips, except and then at a pivotal age, when I was sort of 16, a careers teacher told me that I'd never work in graphics or design because I'm colourblind, which turns out to be wrong, but that actually kind of changed the whole path of my life. I was heading towards drawing art. I was literally beginning to think of going to art foundation courses and do a very kind of commercial art. I thought I really would like to get into Marvel comics or something. And one little conversation just changes your life. And thank God, because I ended up here, so I'm very happy. But fun, isn't it?

Presenter13:55

And how about tr traditionally Welsh pursuits? You're six foot six, I think. Did you ever play rugby?

Russell T Davies13:59

Did you have to play rugby? No, and my father was marvellous about that. My father was a huge rugby man. He was president of Swansea, chairman of Swansea Rugby Club, and my childhood was on Saturday afternoons was sitting in the rugby club putting monies into the slot machines while all the men gathered round the bar and hoping that they'd put Doctor Who on the club television.

Russell T Davies14:19

I remember watching this. All I wanted to do was watch the TV. My father was marvellous by that, because the PE teachers in school were very insistent on me playing rugby. And I was because I was a little wimpish gay boy. I had no interest in it whatsoever. See, there was kind of bullying of like we have to get you into this. And my father was very brilliant and sat me down, drove me home one day, and pulled up the car halfway home and said, I'm going to have a word with you. And he said, You don't have to do what other people want you to do. You just do your own thing. Just because I played rugby does not mean you have to play rugby. He said, I've seen sons of other men forced into rugby and be unhappy and not enjoying it. You do what you want to do. I think he had no idea I took it so far.

Russell T Davies14:58

But what great advice? What a what a great man

Presenter15:00

Fantastic advice. It's time for your next piece. What are we going to hear?

Russell T Davies15:03

Growing up in that Swansea house, I can remember a little record player and I can remember I think this is the very first record I ever owned, which is Three Wheels on My Wagon.

Russell T Davies15:18

Three wheels on my wagon.

Russell T Davies15:21

I'm still rolling along.

Russell T Davies15:24

The Cherokees are chasing me. Arrows fly right on by. But I'm singing a happy song. I'm singing a hickity hackgetty.

Russell T Davies15:43

It's wonderful, isn't it? I did love songs with stories. That's what it was all about.

Presenter15:47

Three Wheels on My Wagon by the New Christie Minstrels. So Russell T. Davies, you said about school I was tall and clever and that's how I got through it, which isn't really a ringing endorsement.

Russell T Davies15:58

It was a big school, two thousand three hundred pupils. That was a big, modern, comprehensive, built in the seventies. And um I did all right. Look, I was clever. I kind of sailed through it. I had some great teachers, but I was actually living for the Wescomorgan New Theatre.

Presenter16:00

That was a

Presenter16:11

Why did you love the theme?

Russell T Davies16:12

Oh gosh, it was just such a proper creative space. It got me writing. It didn't just put on plays. It was run by a man called Godfrey Evans, who's still alive, still wonderful. And it taught me punctuality. It taught me discipline. It taught me endeavour. It taught me how to work hard. It got me writing for the first time. Putting on a play teaches you teamwork like nothing else. I always think that every school gets praised when it has a football team. And yeah, if a school puts on a midsummer night stream, that's seen as a little hobby. It's a bit frivolous. And putting on a midsummer night stream is every bit as important. And I did a version of midsummer night stream with a brilliant teacher called Cecily Hughes.

Presenter16:47

I believe you were bottom.

Russell T Davies16:48

Yes, I was. I gave my bottom to Swansea. I was magnificent, frankly. What a glorious thing! We did it in the gym, in the school gym. So there was no Briscania March airy fairiness about it. It was all kids swinging on the ropes and jump vaulting over the horses and climbing up the parallel bars. And she got everyone into this production. And Cecily then put me in for this Weskamorgan Youth Theatre, where I spent my entire teenage years. Actually, I stayed in it till I was 21. And my friends to this day are friends that I made there.

Presenter17:16

But what did it give you that was useful and valid?

Russell T Davies17:18

It made me feel drama that I think if I'd just written I might have been a bit more removed from it. But I well you put these things on put on the Crucible. We did a fantastic production of the Crucible. To have been on stage, to have

Russell T Davies17:30

Been acting in something and to have felt that touching an audience. I have to believe that that carries over into my writing in some way. I think I write big stuff. I think I write dramatic stuff. I think it does make you laugh and I think it does make you cry. And I'm sure that was part of that training in youth theatre. But the whole county was Wesley Morgan spent money on it, had a youth theatre, it had a huge youth orchestra, it had a youth dance company, it had a youth jazz band, it spent vast sums on the arts for kids. And of course, now that's grown less and less and less over the years. This year, the money for the youth theatre has finally closed down. It's very sad, and something really vital has been lost.

Speaker 117:45

Hmm.

Presenter18:08

It's time for your fourth disc today. What's it gonna be?

Russell T Davies18:10

Next is, well, at the pinnacle of the Weskamorgan Youth Theatre, in one year, I think is in 1978 or something, they brought together the whole choir, the whole orchestra, the dance company and the youth theatre on one massive residential course and staged Leonard Bernstein's Mass, which is an incredible piece of work. It's very rarely performed because it's so huge, it needs about 250 performers. And I was lucky enough to be part of this. We went to London, we put it on in Wembley Conference Centre.

Presenter18:38

What was your role?

Russell T Davies18:38

I was in a few dances, I was in a few choruses. Basically my role was to come on at the very end and say

Russell T Davies18:44

The mass is ended.

Russell T Davies18:45

Go in peace.

Presenter18:46

Oh, that was a good idea.

Russell T Davies18:47

People didn't laugh like you did.

Presenter18:48

It was well delivered.

Russell T Davies18:49

Your laughter ruined me.

Presenter18:50

It was the look in your eye. I'm so sour. Take it again. Let's take it again.

Russell T Davies18:51

It's sour now.

Russell T Davies18:54

The mass is ended.

Presenter18:56

CFL at that time.

Russell T Davies18:58

But imagine I was actually I was more important at the time I was but the masses ended going peacelet, little Welsh boy that I was. But what an honor to be part of that and that I can remember the rehearsals with all the oh, it was just amazing. To be putting on something with two hundred and fifty kids was astonishing.

Speaker 319:13

Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will.

Russell T Davies19:18

Yeah.

Russell T Davies19:20

Oh yeah, mini chooses there, like a terra box of mini balls, ponyball and top teas.

Russell T Davies19:27

I'm a romantic baby. She must take glory if I must take

Speaker 119:32

Uh

Speaker 319:40

Dominate!

Russell T Davies19:47

One who's made with me is funny.

Speaker 119:54

Holy spent heart of multi

Speaker 120:02

Please and that's a

Russell T Davies20:04

Thanks for both.

Speaker 120:05

Yeah.

Speaker 120:07

There you go.

Presenter20:17

Gloria Inex Chelsis from Leonard Bernstein's Mass sung by the Norman Scribner Choir conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter20:25

Russell T. Davies, at eighteen, you went to Oxford to study English. How did you fit in there?

Russell T Davies20:29

Great, it was fine, to be absolutely honest. I kinda look back and think I could have just skipped those three years. That sounds mean, doesn't it? I did have a nice time, but should you go straight from school, straight to university? I don't know. Trouble is, we kinda covered the novel in the first year. That's really the only thing I like. Then it was like two years of poetry. Not into poetry? No, to be honest, no.

Speaker 120:44

Uh

Presenter20:44

That is

Presenter20:49

So what were you planning to do after university?

Russell T Davies20:51

I didn't really have a concept that you could be a television writer. That path didn't seem open to me, so I wasn't sitting there yearning to do it. I realize now that it was cooking, it was baking inside me for all that time. But I kind of presumed I'd work in advertising. In fact, no, I kind of presumed I'd work in television, but behind the scenes, three years running, I applied to this building for the trainee scheme. Three years running, I was turned down.

Presenter21:12

Mm

Russell T Davies21:13

Yeah.

Presenter21:14

I mean David.

Russell T Davies21:17

Eventually, I was so cross. I like got hold of the BBC head of personnel. You're cheeky when you're young, aren't you? And I got an interview here in Broadcasting House to say, why am I not on your training scheme? And she went, Well, this is all very good. It's very good of you to.

Russell T Davies21:32

Present yourself in this way. Well done. So apply again next year. I applied again next year. Didn't get in.

Presenter21:36

Honestly. But interesting that you were cross enough to ring up. Some people would have slunk away dejected.

Russell T Davies21:41

Aren't you cheeky when you aren't? Now I think twice. Now I think, oh, I can't do that. I don't know. I knew I belonged here, actually. The alternatives were.

Presenter21:42

Now I think twice.

Russell T Davies21:50

What am I looking at? I can draw and I can write. So people would say, oh, a career in advertising. What I'm leaving out of that equation is the fact that everyone is saying you never make money as a writer. You'll never make a living as a writer. It's impossible to make money as a writer. You know, when everyone says it, you listen, you believe that. And it is hard. It's still hard now. Not for me, fortunately, but it's a very hard ideal to aim for. So I started working television behind the scenes in production.

Presenter22:11

How did you get your first break?

Russell T Davies22:13

Pure luck, I was working in the theater in Cardiff, in the Sherman Theatre. Some I put on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that echoes throughout my entire life. The woman who played Peter Quince, Mistress Quince in that, had a friend who was a BBC producer who was looking for someone to work with children. £50 a day. And I went along for that and got that job for like seven days and then that led to another seven days and then that rolled on and I've not stopped working since actually.

Presenter22:37

So you're working in kids' TV, why don't you? For a while was one of the shows that you worked on.

Russell T Davies22:37

Uh

Russell T Davies22:37

Funny.

Russell T Davies22:39

Yeah.

Russell T Davies22:40

The shows that you worked on? I was a multi-camera studio director. I did OBs on location. I've done all that.

Presenter22:47

So you understand the entire

Russell T Davies22:48

Yeah, I loved it. I was greedy for it. I loved all that.

Presenter22:51

After that you got a gig at Granada T V alongside some very talented people. Paul Abbott, Kane Meller, Sally Wainwright, they're all there, same time as you. Canteen must have been good.

Russell T Davies22:59

Can't see

Russell T Davies23:00

My first day's work, I think there was uh Paul and Kay in the office and Sally Bainwright was down the corridor. I mean, astonishing, those are still the people ruling television to this day.

Presenter23:08

And everybody was kind of cheek by jowl and saying hi to each other and

Russell T Davies23:12

What was lovely about it was that it was run by Michael David Lidimant and Carolyn Reynolds and Tony Wood, and they ran a department that wasn't snotty about drama. You'd have the street and children's drama next to in the same department, the entertainment department, next to You've Being Framed, next to Stars in Their Eyes. So actually the stuff you'd learn off those other programmes. You'd stand there having a coffee with your mates working on You've Being Framed who were putting together a package of Spanish women falling through doors. And you'd actually...

Presenter23:39

It's already funny.

Russell T Davies23:40

It's already funny. It's like I remember my friend Garrett saying, more funny things happen in Spain. He said.

Russell T Davies23:46

I kind of said, no, that's just because you're editing Spanish clips. It looks like. And really, that's a great perspective on life, really.

Presenter23:54

Right now, time for some more music. What are we going to hear and why?

Russell T Davies23:58

Next is a woman who's kept me company my entire life. I must have been about 14 when Wuthering Heights entered the charts. It's Kate Bush. And I've got a good Kate Bush story. Do you want to hear my Kate Bush story? Of course, I'll show you. She once, I'm ashamed to tell the story, she once wrote to me and invited me around for tea. And I was so terrified I didn't go. I didn't even reply, Lauren. I know. This is my public apology if she listens. Can you imagine? I was so scared. What do you do? What do you say? I literally worship her. What I love about Kate Bush is her mystery. I don't understand half those songs. I've sung them all my life. I could put on any of her albums and know every single word. And I don't quite know what I'm singing about a lot of the time. It's so...

Speaker 124:07

She won't.

Speaker 124:19

This is my

Russell T Davies24:38

Brilliantly.

Russell T Davies24:39

And how could you sit and have a cup of tea with someone like that? Perhaps you could.

Presenter24:46

I'd write to her and ask her to come and have a cup of tea.

Russell T Davies24:49

The card with the number and the address on. I know actually. I left it on on a shelf for about six months, and one day I came home and my friend was staying with me. She said, I've chucked my mouse cards out on the mantelpiece and I was like, Oh, gosh So, in honor of that, of my miserable failure, Kate Bush.

Presenter24:50

Hello.

Presenter24:52

Oh yeah.

Speaker 124:52

Top.

Presenter25:05

She made me a cup of tea once, she was lovely. You massive. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 125:11

On the windy windy moors We'd roll and fall in green.

Speaker 125:19

You had a temper, like my jealousy, too hard, too greedy.

Speaker 125:27

How could you leave me when I needed to possess? Yeah.

Presenter25:32

Uh Uh

Speaker 125:32

I hate it. You

Presenter25:34

I'm gonna Yeah.

Russell T Davies25:35

Uh

Speaker 125:37

Bad tweets and the band.

Speaker 125:40

Uh

Speaker 125:40

He told me I was going to lose the play.

Presenter25:44

Uh

Speaker 125:44

Beep beep hot.

Presenter25:46

Kate Bush and Wuthering Heights. Russell T. Davies, twenty years ago, nineteen ninety nine, your landmark series Queer's Volk came out on Channel Four. Did it feel like a particularly personal piece of work?

Russell T Davies25:57

It did. It was right from the heart. Whether anyone would watch it was unknown to us, but I feel so lucky to have been the one to write that show because it's kind of obvious. There was a street full of gay men and women escaping their lives and going on a Friday and Saturday night to Canal Street, Canal Street in Manchester, going there to be someone else. What a drama. If I hadn't gone in first, someone else would have written it. And I'd been living in Manchester. I'd seen that street begin to grow. There was a couple of gay pubs and venues, but that became what is now Canal Street. And I watched that happen. And the watching is important, isn't it? Yeah, I used to love going out on my own. And if I'd bump into friends sometimes, I'd be quite peeved that I'd bumped into friends. And I'd go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just busy. I go and move clubs. And I was that strange tall man standing on the edge of the dance floor, not dancing, just watching, smoking and watching it all happen. Just the lights and the smoke. It's a stage, a dance floor. And you'd watch these people who are bank clerks or unemployed or teachers or nurses and a lot of them with a completely different life at home, maybe a closeted life, just standing in those lights and that smoke, just dancing and kissing and just.

Presenter26:13

Canal Street.

Presenter26:32

The watching is important, isn't it?

Russell T Davies27:06

Being themselves for a couple of golden hours, it was wonderful.

Presenter27:10

And it was, to say the least, sexually frank, queer as folk. Were you nervous about how it would be received, those elements of it?

Russell T Davies27:16

No, we loved it. I mean, it was about sex. It was about the sexual urge. It was about men, sometimes at their best, but sometimes at their lowest as well. That was actually, it wasn't set dressing that. It was actually about that impulse in men. That's what was driving it. That was driving those characters. A need for sex and a need for expression via sex. Never dreamt we'd get away with what we got away with. It went much further than I imagined we would, and I'm delighted. I was really delighted.

Presenter27:39

And people did want to watch it. I mean, it was a huge hit.

Russell T Davies27:41

Yeah.

Russell T Davies27:42

Yeah.

Presenter27:42

That must have been your first time handling the press.

Russell T Davies27:45

It was, yes, that was a baptism of fire. That press launch was astonishing. It was like 250 people.

Presenter27:45

Yeah.

Russell T Davies27:52

250 journalists, all of them, deciding en masse to set themselves against the show, to attack it, except for one journalist, which was Boyd Hilton from Heat magazine. And I'm glad I went through that. It was a baptism affected. I remember one more. I learned to never back down, actually, that the show did have integrity. And I learned that if you believe in your show, absolutely, you can defend to anyone. You could defend it in front of the Prime Minister or a dictator or an Archbishop. If it's true, then it's true. And you can never back down from that.

Presenter28:06

What did you learn?

Presenter28:20

One of the characters was fifteen and that caused a lot of controversy.

Russell T Davies28:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, that was what I was starting to see on Canal Street, was the arrival of, to me, the first 15-year-olds, the first gay teenagers. Here's the thing. When I wrote that, an out-gay teenager was a miracle. They barely existed. Now, I gave a talk at a Manchester school the other week. The out-boys in their sixth form are so numerous that they are putting together a float for the Pride March next summer. That's how many out-gay boys there are in the sixth form. That's a different world. That's a completely different world. Not because of queer as folk. I just showed what was going on, the change in expression and freedom that was happening. What a different world. That's got to be brilliant, isn't it?

Presenter29:01

Time for your next piece of music, what's it gonna be?

Russell T Davies29:03

This is when I was out there in those clubs breathing in that smoke and the light and the fumes and the heat and the desire. This is the greatest club track of all, I think. It's Hold That Sucker Down by O T Quartet. This is in Queerest Folk. This is like being out clubbing.

Presenter29:52

O T Quartet, hold that sucker down that builds like a skyscraper mix And doesn't it just?

Russell T Davies29:57

Doesn't adjust Russell T T V.

Presenter29:58

Steps in it just wrestle T T V's.

Presenter30:01

You've been a lifelong Doctor Who fan, then you can famously mark your childhood by the episodes that you would have been watching when specific incidents occurred. So it was literally a dream come true to be the person in charge of bringing it back to BBC One. How much did that take over your life?

Russell T Davies30:16

It was my whole life for a good five or six years. I mean every weekend we used to transmit on Christmas Day so you can't relax when you're transmitting so even Christmas Day was kind of loaded with transmission fever. But it was like giving an alcoholic a free bar. All of this was self-willed upon myself because we could have just made Doctor Hooper

Presenter30:33

Well

Presenter30:35

It's an interesting simile though, because that's not not necessarily a good thing.

Russell T Davies30:39

No, not no indeed. It was too much hard work in a way. I still think I'm tired in some ways. After all these years, I still think, gosh, I haven't quite recovered from that. And we wanted to build a base in Cardiff. If you've got one programme in Cardiff, that's no good because if you shoot for nine months of the year, then on the ninth month, everyone leaves and goes. You need more programmes, you need a proper base. And so they brought casualty there, but we invented Torchwood, we invented the Sarah Jane adventures, and we had vast website spin-offs. And we're Totally Doctor Who and Doctor Who confidential. I was executive producer on six shows at once at one point. I would sit there watching episodes of Totally Doctor Who at four in the morning just to sign off every last second. And it's a very funny thing, Doctor Who. As our producer Phil Collinson always used to say, it's a programme ruined by a hat. If one man walks through the door in a silly outer space hat, you've lost the audience. It's true. And you had to watch every single hat. And we had great hat people. In the end, only you can be the judge of which hat's going to ruin the show and which one isn't. And then when you extrapolate that beyond hats into 27,000 design and visual and script decisions, gosh, it was busy.

Presenter31:43

Why did you want to bring it back?

Russell T Davies31:45

I think it's brilliant and I think it earns a place in the national hearth and that's where we shifted it to. I love the BBC putting it on on a seven o'clock on a Saturday night and also we shifted it onto Christmas. It's put on a Christmas Day. We moved it into the family, into the family home to get mum, dad and kids watching, which at the time wasn't being done at all. Indeed, it's faded slightly now, I think. And in our second year, we were contacted by a divorce lawyer who phoned up to say, I'm just phoning to tell you that I get awful warring couples coming in to see me. I get lives in distress. I get kids who are trapped between mum and dad. And he said, so often these days, they come in and the one hour of peace they have is sitting down and all watching Doctor Who together. He just phoned up to tell us that. It's doing good. It is bringing people together. When it works, it's amazing. Tell us about your next piece of music. This is Neil Hannan from a Doctor Who Christmas episode. Song for 10, it's called, when David Tennant arrived. And I often say about Doctor Who, I never had a chance to enjoy it.

Russell T Davies32:47

'Cause it was so mad and so busy. But actually, one time I did enjoy, we put on a children's lead concert in Cardiff in the Millennium Hall, and we got an orchestra and a choir and a huge Welsh choir sang this song, and I was standing in the wings and they hit the desk cant on this song.

Russell T Davies33:03

And it was so beautiful and so enormous, and it was Doctor Who, and I remember standing in the wings, shivering, just thinking, This is bliss.

Speaker 333:10

Well I woke up today

Speaker 333:13

And the world was a restless place.

Speaker 333:18

It could have been that way for me.

Speaker 333:25

And I wandered around

Russell T Davies33:29

Uh

Speaker 333:29

And I thought of your face That Christmas looking back at me

Presenter33:44

Song for Ten by Murray Gold, sung by Neil Hannan. Russell T. Davies, after leaving Doctor Who, you moved with your partner Andrew to America, but your plans there were put on hold when he became ill. Yes. What happened?

Russell T Davies33:54

Yes, he started having a lot of headaches. He'd always had a lot of headaches, actually. And here's the funny thing: he started having hallucinations of an Edwardian lady smiling at him sarcastically. That's a bit strange, isn't it? It's like, you're what? No, he wouldn't see her in front of him. He'd see her in his mind's eye. And I did internet searches for hallucinations and for images and eidetic images and things like that. If I'd searched for the word seizure, I would have got to his diagnosis in seconds, straight away. I think it delayed the whole thing by a couple of months just because that turns out to be an epileptic seizure. You and I think of epilepsy as the full toniconic fit and stuff like that, but actually it's just seeing someone in your head, an Edwardian lady smiling sarcastically. You have to wonder what.

Speaker 134:24

Straightaway.

Speaker 134:32

And stuff like that, but I just

Russell T Davies34:39

fold of the brain opened that up. And he went for a scan and they said that's glioblastoma multiform, which is very, very bad. That's a grade four cancer. That's that's and they gave him

Russell T Davies34:49

Eighteen months to live, and he lived for the next eight years.

Presenter34:52

Mm-hmm.

Russell T Davies34:52

He was extraordinary, truly extraordinary.

Presenter34:55

You moved home and you killed

Russell T Davies34:56

Yes, I gave up work for a few years and I became his carer. I mean, he had seven craniotomies, seven operations on his head. The whole thing affected his motor function. So he was slightly disabled. He was all right. But I did become his carer, in effect. And I was lucky enough to be able to do that. Actually, I mean, I could talk about the roles of carers forever. And I certainly had it lucky in many senses in that he was composmentists and he could walk. So he was, you know, perfectly capable in many ways. He just needed that extra care. It was hard. And also, it was an honor to be the person doing that. And thinking about man, I think about this interview today. And I kind of, for the first time, I realized to myself that actually those eight years that I cared for him were our happiest years. Actually, they were the 12 years before that were lovely, but we were just a normal couple. But in those eight years, well, they were so intimate and so honest, and everything else just falls away, and there's no nonsense, and it's just you and him. And I wish I could tell you we had the most profound conversations. And more often than not, you just find us watching the chase or something. But just that care, that love. I'm talking about love here. That's the word, love. And to be able to be like that, he was properly cared for, he was properly cherished, and that made me feel good as well. I actually missed that. I'm sure I wasn't a saint at the time. If you'd asked me at the time, like, what's it like to be a carer?

Speaker 135:37

Hmm.

Speaker 135:39

Why would they have?

Russell T Davies36:11

I think in year four I would have been going, Oh, it's driving me a bit mad and I wouldn't mind a bit of freedom. Now I've got the freedom, I would chuck that freedom away in an instant. Just have five more minutes sitting watching the television with him.

Presenter36:19

To stuff.

Presenter36:22

People often find it very difficult to decompress from that role as well.

Russell T Davies36:25

Yeah, that's taking a while. Actually, I've been busy and two weeks after he died, I had to write the last episode of Years and Years, and then I was contracted to go straight into this new show for Channel 4. And I like my work, so I've been working flat out. I finished the last script about six weeks ago, and literally I came downstairs and sat down, and the silence, the silence, Lauren, was just astonishing, because all those scripts are like a voice in your head. There's all those characters lining up and talking, and scenes playing out in your head night and day, 24 hours of the day.

Russell T Davies36:55

Suddenly that was gone. And I sat there and went, Oh, I'm on my own. Literally I'm just on my own. And the SETI he's gone. It took that long for it to register. So that's been hard and sad and but I was lucky. I do honestly the nicest man in the world. I gave a

Russell T Davies37:09

And nice sounds like such a bland word, such an easy and simple word. And I gave the eulogy at his funeral. I just said, you know, the world actually turns under the march of the feet of all those nice people. So I'm saying most people are nice, and it's a very fine quality in life to have. And he had it in spades. He was so polite and so kind and so loving towards people. He was extraordinary. How lucky was I? He would be in every good man I'll ever write now. Yeah. And one night on Canal Street, there I was out clubbing, playing OT quartet in the background, and I literally looked across a club. If I had a TARDIS, people always say to me, Where would you go if you were a TARDIS? And I would literally go up and I'd be a bystander in that club. On April 12th, 1998, in Cruise 101 in Manchester, as I was standing at that railing.

Speaker 137:34

Yeah.

Russell T Davies37:53

And he was standing with his friend Martin at another railing, and we caught eyes. What magic moment

Russell T Davies37:58

But he died at home, with me at his side, with enormously brilliant palliative care from the NHS, which is the great wonder of Britain that's never sung about that. Palliative care is absolutely astonishing and beautiful. So it was a not a bad way to go, if you have to go, but I'd rather you hadn't.

Presenter38:14

It's time to hear some more music. What's next?

Russell T Davies38:16

This is Yellow. I love Yellow. This was played at our wedding. He'd asked me to marry him a hundred times, and I don't see the point. I don't know why anyone gets married. I was just thinking, no, no, I don't want to marry you. No, I love you. We're not getting married. And then he pulled the ultimate trick of having a fatal disease, which was like, now will you marry me? I was like, oh, you've really trapped me now. I can't say no to this. And we eventually got to this wedding. It was cancelled in 2012. He was so ill in that year. That's when he had three, four, five operations. We cancelled it four times. Every time we cancel a wedding, you have to pay. On the fourth time of cancelling it, the woman was so sad on the phone, she cried and said, I won't make you pay for this. She gave it to us for nothing. We kept it very small. It was just four friends of ours. And we chose this music as the play-in trackers. We walked in together into the register office, and this would be playing as we walked down the aisle. So as we did it, as we walked down the aisle, the music cut out. Mr. Blue Sky stopped. I'll tell you why it stopped, which is because there's an automatic cutout in a register office whenever noise in the room gets too great. The noise in the room gets too great because our friends were laughing so much out loud because he'd finally trapped me into this marriage. And I think it was the look on his face, which was the biggest smile in the world, and the look on my face, which was grim.

Russell T Davies39:30

Absolutely. They literally laughed so loudly that the music had to stop. Who needs 100 people when four people can laugh you all the way through it like that? It's great. Beautiful day.

Presenter39:40

The sun is shining in the sky.

Presenter39:44

There ain't no

Russell T Davies39:44

The crowd inside, it's stopping, everybody's in the lake.

Speaker 339:51

Yeah.

Russell T Davies39:51

Don't you know? It's a new

Speaker 339:53

Simple to say Uh

Presenter39:55

Hey!

Speaker 339:56

Uh

Presenter39:57

Running down E Avenue

Presenter40:00

See how the sun shines brightly in the city.

Russell T Davies40:05

Yeah.

Presenter40:05

How is true?

Russell T Davies40:06

It's where once was Betty, Mr. Blue Sky is living in

Speaker 140:12

Uh

Presenter40:14

ELO and Mr. Blue Sky taking you back to your wedding day, Russell T. Davis.

Presenter40:20

It's time to cast you away. I started with your imagination, so why don't we close there? How do you imagine your island?

Russell T Davies40:26

Whenever I listen to this, I imagine like a cartoon island. Like, literally, you know those cartoons in in punch and things? The mound and the tree. That's my island. It's a bit small.

Presenter40:32

That was

Presenter40:34

Almost like an emoji.

Russell T Davies40:35

It is it's a cartoonist island, that's where I am.

Presenter40:37

Have you got any practical skills that might come in useful?

Russell T Davies40:39

Oh, none Oh, my goodness Imagine how useful it'll be to sit there and type on this island useless

Presenter40:45

It's time for the books. I'll give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. Now, I'm assuming that will be especially welcome for you.

Russell T Davies40:51

Nikes.

Presenter40:52

You can also take another. What would you like?

Russell T Davies40:54

I will take with me the finest book ever made, which is Asteriques and the Roman Agent. Or in French, it's called La Zizanie. My mum used to buy Asterique's books in French, and she didn't translate them for me. I love Asterique's books. I think this is literally one of the cleverest and greatest stories ever written. I read this every year. I get such pleasure from it. It's very Doctor Who finale. This, you know, a Roman camp attacks in every book. This is the only book in which all four camps attack at once. It's a huge epic, and it ends with this massive battle, which is also hilarious. You can see everything I've ever written in this book. I love it.

Presenter41:31

What about your luxury item?

Russell T Davies41:32

That artist in me wants to take a box of ball pentel pens, black. My hand fits a ball pentel. They were launched when I was in school and it was like it was the pen to have. It was quite expensive then. And I just love them. I'm never without one. There's one in my pockets. I will just draw and draw and draw with those.

Presenter41:38

Absolutely.

Presenter41:48

Perfect, it's yours. Finally, if you could only save one disk from the waves, which would you choose?

Russell T Davies41:54

Actually, listening to these, I'm quite astonished by Bernstein's Mass, actually, which I haven't heard myself in quite a long while. And instantly, every single word in it has leaped into my brain. And I remember being 16 or whatever I was when I was in that. So, that, and I think it's not well known enough. It's a beautiful piece of work. I think there might be a lot of people who've never heard it. Go and listen to it. It's about two hours long, it's enormous, it's epic, it's beautiful.

Presenter42:15

Rest of everybody's afternoon sorted.

Russell T Davies42:16

Yeah.

Presenter42:17

Russell T. Davies, thank you very much for sharing your desert animal.

Russell T Davies42:19

Thank you.

Speaker 142:27

Yeah.

Presenter42:33

As we leave Russell on the island drawing, there's time for me to tell you that we have more than 2,000 programs available to listen to in our archive. One of them is the actor David Tennant, who so memorably played Doctor Who when Russell was the executive producer and writer of the show. Kirsty Young spoke to David back in 2009.

Speaker 142:53

The walking down the street stuff, I mean, I said Premiership footballers and rock stars, it's true, isn't it? You do inhabit that very particular area of fame. Do you walk down the street on your own? I certainly do.

Presenter43:02

Yeah.

Speaker 143:03

On your own? Yes.

Presenter43:05

Yes, but I often with a hat and keeping moving. Yes.

Speaker 143:08

Right, so it's not making eye contact and it's not a good idea.

Presenter43:10

That helps, yes. But you can't pick and choose the elements that you would like to experience and I wouldn't have given up.

Speaker 143:15

From that

Presenter43:17

The experience of doing this show and being involved in this show for anything in the world. It's been the most wonderful four years I could imagine. And to an extent I was doing it for my eight-year-old self, you know, who who had loved this show and had grown up a huge avid fan.

Speaker 143:30

People

Speaker 143:32

Yeah.

Presenter43:33

And that eight-year-old self is still a a huge part of who I am now. So I think I felt the responsibility not to break it. I certainly feel very proud and relieved that that it didn't go wrong on my watch.

Speaker 143:46

When you come into contact I'm sure this must happen to you all the time with those beaming little eight, nine, ten year old faces just staring at you are you sort of looking back at yourself when you see their eyes and see what it means to them?

Presenter43:59

Yeah, it's quite overwhelming actually. The the sort of things that that kids sometimes say to you and you think, oh, that's me. That's exactly how I felt.

Speaker 143:59

Yeah.

Presenter44:06

And then of course you think, well, I don't want to ruin this moment. I want to fulfil this moment for this.

Speaker 144:09

Fulfill this moment.

Presenter44:11

for this little kid and and and I remember meeting Tom Baker, you see.

Presenter44:15

So why would

Speaker 144:16

Why what?

Presenter44:17

In John Mingus in Glasgow, he was signing some books.

Presenter44:22

And I waited in line. Did you have any sign my book? I've still got it somewhere.

Speaker 144:26

Did you talk to him or where did you get?

Presenter44:28

Yes, I did. I asked him about his scarf, because I was wearing the scarf that my granny had knitted me. Right. And I think I asked him who knitted his. He came up with some suitably surreal answer, but to be honest, I was just so gobsmacked that he was sitting there in front of me that it was a very important life moment for little me. So you you always try and remember that and uh try and recreate that for any young faces that might be staring up at you.

Speaker 144:32

Right.

Speaker 144:54

Uh

Presenter44:54

What a perfect piece of symmetry!

Presenter44:57

You can find David Tennant's program on BBC Sounds and the Desert Island Disc's website. Next time, I'll be talking to the US lawyer Kimberly Motley. She's spent the last few years as a litigator in Afghanistan, and her story is fascinating. So do join us then.

Speaker 345:26

Brexit, Brexit, Brexit.

Speaker 345:29

We asked the British people if they wanted to leave or remain. And every man, woman and child voted to leave. Yes, a referendum has united this country like never before.

Speaker 345:44

Everyone loves Brexit.

Speaker 345:46

But how will Brexit affect the ordinary people of Britain?

Speaker 345:51

To find out, subscribe to the Comedy of the Week podcast on BBC Sounds and relax as Matt Lucas and David Walliams present Little Brexit.