Graham Usher

Graham Usher0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Graham, whereabouts do you come from?

Presenter0:10

Beverley, in East Yorkshire.

Presenter0:12

Now, as a child, did you s

Graham Usher0:13

Sea dancing a lot? No, none whatsoever,'cause it was the war was on and uh

Graham Usher0:19

No, I didn't ever see dancing until I was just about to come to London. When did you start?

Graham Usher0:24

When I fall.

Graham Usher0:27

According to my mother, yes, but. When did you start to take lessons? When I was four.

Graham Usher0:32

And uh

Graham Usher0:33

I went to babies' class, I suppose you called it. At school.

Graham Usher0:37

No, but that was a a proper professional.

Graham Usher0:40

School. Yes. Were there many other boys in the class? Uh, I think there were two of us when we first started and one cried off pretty quickly.

Presenter0:47

So you got all the fat at the annual display.

Graham Usher0:49

Yes, literally.

Presenter0:52

Whose idea was it that you should try for a place at the Saddles Wells Ballet School, or or the Royal Ballet School, as it is now?

Graham Usher0:58

Well, we took

Graham Usher0:59

uh examinations for the Royal Academy of Dancing at our local school.

Graham Usher1:04

and after grade three, which I passed with honours.

Presenter1:08

Profit.

Graham Usher1:09

Um the examiner suggested to my teacher that perhaps I should be sent to London.

Graham Usher1:15

to be looked at by Damon Ninette Devaloa, who had just newly formed

Graham Usher1:20

Both an educational and a dancing school.

Presenter1:23

Yes.

Graham Usher1:23

How old

Presenter1:24

What

Graham Usher1:24

Yeah.

Graham Usher1:25

Nine and a half.

Graham Usher1:26

What are the requirements of the school?

Graham Usher1:30

Um

Graham Usher1:31

Well, mainly in those days they wanted male dancers, they were very short. So, um

Presenter1:35

Yeah.

Graham Usher1:37

You had to conform to physical.

Graham Usher1:39

fitness and um

Graham Usher1:42

physical alignment. You you had to grow the right shape. You had your head hadn't been hadn't to be too big and your legs hadn't to be bowed.

Presenter1:50

Yeah.

Graham Usher1:50

so that one became neurotic at a very early age, watching oneself grow daily.

Presenter1:54

So if at any time you began to get too tall or the wrong shape you were likely to be eased out? Oh very very quickly so. Yeah.

Graham Usher2:01

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:02

How was the day's Split up.

Graham Usher2:04

We started with one hour's class, from about nine till ten o'clock.

Presenter2:08

Dancing club.

Graham Usher2:09

Dancing class.

Presenter2:10

Hmm.

Graham Usher2:10

And then we had a break.

Graham Usher2:12

And then the rest of the day were the usual academic subjects. Music as well, we all played the recorder.

Presenter2:19

Yeah.

Graham Usher2:19

I tried to.

Presenter2:19

Anyway. Yes. Were you taken to see performances at Goben Garden?

Graham Usher2:23

Yes, we usually got there about once a term'cause there were very few tickets available.

Presenter2:28

Yes.

Graham Usher2:28

and if they had to be shared out amongst the whole school.

Presenter2:31

Do the pupils appear in any of the productions?

Graham Usher2:34

We never did. I believe they do now.

Presenter2:36

Hmm.

Presenter2:37

Now you will leave the school at, say, sixteen or seventeen when you've passed your GCE and providing you haven't become the wrong shape, is there any guarantee that you're going into the company, that company's going to take you

Graham Usher2:49

No, none whatsoever.

Graham Usher2:51

Some years they'll take ten people, some years two.

Presenter2:54

Mhm. And you may have to wait?

Graham Usher2:57

Yes, indeed, if you're prepared to. Some people are not.

Graham Usher3:00

And leave, go elsewhere.

Presenter3:02

When did you move over to the company?

Graham Usher3:04

In nineteen fifty five.

Presenter3:05

That must have been a very big day in your life.

Graham Usher3:08

It was indeed a big day, and was made even bigger by the fact that we went straight off to New York and across to the west coast of America.

Presenter3:15

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:16

I gram you were in the company.

Presenter3:18

A new boy in the Corder Valley, the lowest form of human life, I presume.

Graham Usher3:21

Certainly. Propping up the back cloth and sleeping beauty is a negro page. When did you dance your first solo, after how long?

Graham Usher3:28

Approximately eighteen months.

Graham Usher3:30

Dame Nynette de Vower gave me the great honour of dancing.

Graham Usher3:35

Certainly to me one of the most glamorous of the male roles, that of the bluebird in Act Three, The Sleeping Beauty.

Presenter3:42

Yes. And quite soon you were appointed a junior male soloist.

Graham Usher3:47

Yeah.

Presenter3:47

Yes. Which meant what? More money, better dressing room? Neither. So it's a nice title to have.

Graham Usher3:50

Neither. So it's a nice title to have.

Presenter3:56

Now it wasn't a question of playing at Cobb and Garden all the time, a lot of touring.

Graham Usher4:01

Great deal of touring.

Presenter4:02

Uh

Graham Usher4:02

Um, particularly America, which we did about eight times.

Presenter4:07

And to Russia too. Yeah.

Graham Usher4:07

Yes, that was, to me, the height.

Graham Usher4:10

that we rose to ever. I think the company was undoubtedly at its high standard.

Presenter4:15

Mm. You dance at the Mariinsky in Leningrad.

Graham Usher4:17

Oh yes, never to be forgotten.

Presenter4:19

The birthplace of of ballet, really.

Graham Usher4:21

Yes, indeed, one actually danced on the same stage that all the famous Kasavinas, Nijinskis, Pavlovas, all those people came from.

Presenter4:31

That must have been a great day for Dame Nynette, who had virtually started the whole concept of British ballet. To see

Presenter4:39

the the royal ballet dancing on that stage on equal terms with the greatest companies in the world.

Graham Usher4:44

Yes, I think it was one of her most moving experiences. I s literally saw her shed a tear.

Graham Usher4:52

And to think that after only thirty years her company was receiving an accolade at the Morinski, that thirty years before no one would have been considered good enough to be in the quarter ballet, let alone Starling, and I think both sh she and Sir Frederick Ashton between them had b done a great job in making the Royal Ballet.

Graham Usher5:15

One of the finest companies in the world to day.

Presenter5:17

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:19

Now, there's this old thing, this prejudice against male dancers as being effete. In fact,

Presenter5:27

Ballet dancing must be one of the toughest jobs you could undertake.

Presenter5:31

I think it is really physically very, very um exacting. There's several hours class every model.

Graham Usher5:37

Uh yes, an hour and a half followed by rehearsals.

Presenter5:40

Mm.

Graham Usher5:40

And then of course when everyone's coming home to watch television, you're usually heading for the most important part of your day which is the performance.

Presenter5:47

Yes, this is indeed a growing day.

Presenter5:50

You were telling me you were thinking of giving up dancing altogether. Um

Graham Usher5:54

Uh

Graham Usher5:54

Shall I say that it has been suggested that as I got off to a very early start, that um perhaps I might equally get off to a slightly earlier finish than most people do. But I think that a male dance is life um

Graham Usher6:10

averages about you finish about forty. So that really when you've turned thirty or round Tattenham Corner and heading for the home stretch and I think it's just that I seem to have been very fortunate in heading along the home stretch for a long time and it's time that I perhaps do something else.

Presenter6:30

You've been in the nest of the company, really, since you were nine years old. You've been shielded altogether from the rough and tumble of commercial life, which you're

Graham Usher6:38

Now about to fix? Well, I've got to try somehow, but it's a little late at thirty one to suddenly find yourself out fighting for a job like a teenager would at sixteen.

Presenter6:47

Yeah.

Graham Usher6:47

Uh

Presenter6:47

So you propose to give up dancing altogether. You you don't think of going into musicals or cardio

Graham Usher6:47

Yeah.

Graham Usher6:51

No, I think once you've danced at the the Opera House and supposedly been a success, the Metropolitan Opera House and the Marinsky, which is the greatest of all to me, and have been a success, I don't think there's anywhere else really one can go.

Presenter7:04

Hm, I can quite understand that feeling. Well, whatever you do decide to do, may it be an equal success to your ballet career.

Graham Usher7:10

Thank you very much indeed.