Robert Webb

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. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the writer, actor and comedian Robert Webb. He's the co-star of Channel 4's longest-running sitcom, The BAFTA Award-winning Peep Show, along with his on-screen other half, David Mitchell. They also created That Mitchell and Webb sound here on Radio 4, which transferred to TV as, what else? That Mitchell and Webb look. It won a BAFTA 2. He first met David Mitchell in the Cambridge Footlights, and together they trod the path from student comedy to TV fame. But success also brought with it a brush with mortality, a certain amount of dancing, and an examination of modern masculinity. In his hit memoir, How Not to Be a Boy, he aimed to prompt others to interrogate their upbringing and attitudes by sharing his own. He says, all comedians secretly want to make themselves useful, because we don't really believe that making people laugh is any kind of noble calling. Robert Webb, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Robert Webb1:39

Hello, thank you for having me. I'm ludicrously happy to be here.

Presenter1:42

Well, it's a pleasure. So I'm going to start with your ability to make people laugh. When did you first realise, Rob, that people found you funny?

Robert Webb1:50

Do they though? I mean, I suppose that I was a classic sort of class clown. I was sort of doing impressions of teachers quite early on. And then by the time I was sort of thirteen, there was this fateful day when a friend of mine, Paul, he'd written this ten-minute sort of comedy thing called Class Reunion, and it was set in the improbable future of the year 2000. This was 1985. And he got appendicitis. He survived. Everything's fine. No classmates were harmed during the making of this comedy actor. But I took the main part that he'd written for himself. And yeah, I started to get laughs. And I started to time the lines. And I started to inflect things at the end of lines. And I started to do all the things that I've been watching.

Presenter2:10

Dwarf

Robert Webb2:31

Ryan Atkinson and Rick Mail and Hugh Laurie doing. And yeah, I had this strange effect on people and people sort of looked at me in a different way and I thought, Whew, I quite like this'cause I had been painfully shy when I was little, so this was quite a sort of big deal.

Presenter2:47

Was that the moment that you thought, this might be what I want to do?

Robert Webb2:50

Yeah, I mean it was freakishly early really, age 13 or 14. I remember going home after this performance and watching BBC One had this sitcom called Home Sweet Home with William Gaunt and a very young Martin Clunes and I remember watching Martin Clunes thinking, What is he doing that I didn't do? Why does he make it look easy? Is it easy or does he just make it look easy? And so I was sort of interested in that from then on and writing became a sort of natural part of that because I'd write these sort of things for myself and then get my mates to play all the straight parts and we would put on sort of end of term shows in the school hall and charge 10p and

Speaker 13:04

What's it

Presenter3:28

So everybody knew about it. Did you talk about your your ambitions with your parents back then?

Robert Webb3:32

No, because it was just ludicrous. With no one in the family had been to university, no one was in the business. It would just be too embarrassing to talk about that. I think the cover story was something to do with computers because if you if you're

Presenter3:44

So the cover service, so this is what you officially were planning to do.

Robert Webb3:46

That's right, that's right. Because Generation X, ZX Spectrum at home, and if you could so much as load a video game, then you were sort of seen as some kind of computer scientist by your parent from your parents' generation upwards.

Presenter3:56

Bye.

Presenter3:58

It's time for the first of your eight discs today, Robert. What have you chosen?

Robert Webb4:02

This is Do I Move You by Nina Simone. I became aware of this wonderful voice when I was a student, and suddenly I was surrounded by people who just referred to her as Nina, like their mate Nina, was about to pop round for a cup of tea at any moment. And the first time somebody offered me laps down souchon, I thought somebody had stubbed a fag out in the teapot. But I loved this song, and it has this kind of slouching, sexy kind of feel to it. It's a very sexy song. I don't know how sexy I'm going to be feeling on my desert island, but anyway, a boy can dream. I just love her voice.

Speaker 14:22

Uh

Robert Webb4:35

Do I move you?

Robert Webb4:40

Are you who?

Speaker 14:41

Yeah.

Robert Webb4:41

Uh

Speaker 14:46

Do I prove you?

Speaker 14:50

Is it thrilling?

Speaker 14:52

Uh

Speaker 14:56

Do I soothe you?

Speaker 14:59

Tell the truth now.

Speaker 15:03

Do I move here?

Presenter5:06

Nina Simone and Do I Move You? So Robert, you've actually got quite a big family, including a much younger half sister, but you grew up in Woodall Spa, Lincolnshire, with two older brothers.

Robert Webb5:17

Yeah.

Presenter5:17

How did you get on with them?

Robert Webb5:18

Generally, really well, I think. I mean, they were quite a bit older than me, so they're five and six years older. So my memories of my childhood were are fairly solitary. Not lonely, but I I spent a lot of time playing on my own. And um

Robert Webb5:35

My nan and my granddad and my great auntie Trudy, the three of them shared this house because they worked in the kitchen of the golf club. And I basically spent a lot of time, the weekends and summer holidays, there because I had the run of the place, really. Not on the actual golf course, heaven forbid, but in the sort of grounds and the gardens and the fields. I'll be on my bike, and my bike was a horse because I was Zorro or I was Dick Turpin, or it was a motorbike because I was, you know, John and Ponch off of chips. And I'd just go around there fighting crime, or in the case of Dick Turpin, causing crime. I was sort of in this world of the land of make-believe, as Buck Spheres would have it.

Presenter6:11

So you had a a rich imagination from from the word go and and you wanted to be in that imagination playing and

Robert Webb6:17

Yeah, I was very happy in that world. I was in charge in that world basically. I you can sort of see a a movement from there to being a writer where you're in charge of your imaginary world and you're sort of king of God of that of that universe and um nothing's really changed.

Presenter6:31

You've written about your father, Paul, who you had quite a complex relationship with. He was quite a complex character outsize in lots of ways. And is it fair to say you were pretty intimidated by him when you were little?

Robert Webb6:39

Yeah.

Robert Webb6:43

Well, so my mum and dad divorced when I was five, possibly four. He was quite a scary presence in that house. I mean, he wasn't doing anything that was out of place for that time. You would get smacked for reasons that you didn't understand. And, you know, I delivered a eulogy at his funeral and I said he didn't so much as live in this village as host it. I mean, he was just a very popular, but not in a sort of loudmouth kind of way. He was a very modest guy. But yeah, when a man of a certain age, you know, looks into the middle distance and says of their father, we had a complicated relationship. You always kind of know what they're talking about. I was scared of him early doors, but we came to a sort of understanding by the time I was older.

Speaker 16:51

Yeah.

Presenter6:51

Yeah.

Speaker 17:02

Yeah.

Presenter7:12

Yeah.

Presenter7:20

Time for your second disc, Robert. What are we going to hear?

Robert Webb7:22

This is The Old Fashioned Way by that old smoothie, Charles Asnavour, my great-auntie Trudy, who lived with my nan and granddad, and they had in this little house in Woodhall, they had a gramophone in the living room. Trudy would put on records, and this is when I was really little, and she'd pick me up and we'd sort of dance in the mirror. And this was my favourite at the time. And then, inevitably, when I became a dad, I would do the same with the girls when they were very little, and indeed, when they were not so little. In fact, during the first lockdown, we tried to keep fit with Joe Wicks. I couldn't face more than a week of that. Thank you for your service, Joe. But after that, I made Daddy's morning disco playlist. And so we would sort of dance around, or I would dance around, and the girls would actually just start hitting each other with cushions. But we would always have the old-fashioned way as the sort of warm down at the end of the morning disco. So I'd like this because it will remind me of my beloved great auntie Trudy, but also a surprisingly special time with the girls.

Robert Webb8:25

Dance.

Robert Webb8:28

In the old-fashioned way.

Robert Webb8:31

Won't you stay in my arms?

Speaker 18:33

Uh

Robert Webb8:38

Just melt against my skin And let me feel your heart

Robert Webb8:45

Don't let the music

Presenter8:47

Music wing, bar dancing for ball.

Presenter8:54

The Old Fashioned Way, Charles Aznavaux. So, Robert, we've heard about your your brothers and your dad. Tell me about your mum, Pat. It sounds like she had quite a lot to deal with when you were growing up. How do you remember her?

Robert Webb9:06

She didn't half-pick him. She was lovely, and she was my mum, and she was pretty much my.

Robert Webb9:12

Well, favourite person really and uh I just remember those years after when she she met up with Derek and we moved to uh this bungalow in Coningsby. She had this very quiet, almost mischievous sense of humour, quite a modest person, very kind, very loyal, very fierce on your behalf, just on your team, basically.

Presenter9:35

You must have got her to yourself quite a bit, with there being a gap between you and your brothers.

Robert Webb9:39

Yeah, I think we were close.

Presenter9:41

Your parents had actually lost a son before you were born, Martin.

Robert Webb9:45

Mm.

Presenter9:45

Did you know that when you were growing up? Did did they talk to you about it?

Robert Webb9:48

My mum told me that she thought that we were close for that reason, that I came along a while after after they'd lost Martin. I mean, I just can't imagine what they went through, and it explains a lot of some of the pressure and the terrible sadness that was in that house when I was very little.

Robert Webb10:06

I mean, wow.

Presenter10:07

Yeah, what a thing to go through.

Robert Webb10:09

Yeah.

Presenter10:09

I know you've got a huge love of reading. I mean, this year you're you're judging the Booker Prize, you're one of the judges. I think that started with your mum, didn't it? That was special time for you.

Robert Webb10:18

Yeah, she would read to me and I started going through her bookshelf. I think my love of reading and also her encouraging me to read was quite a big deal.

Presenter10:29

You were only seventeen when your mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she died very shortly afterwards. It must have just been devastating.

Robert Webb10:37

Blue.

Presenter10:37

How did you cope without her? She was your best friend?

Robert Webb10:41

It was about as hard as it sounds. It was really tough because, like I say, she was my kind of my favourite person, really, and she just kind of disappeared. And it was... When you lose someone that you live with, their absence is almost this presence. It's really weird. They're kind of everywhere. It's like living with a black hole. I just couldn't believe that she'd gone. And then eventually you accept that this is what's happened. What I did do, I remember, was I made a mixtape of her favourite songs. She had an excellent record collection from the 60s and 70s of singles that she would play at night. But while she was sort of cooking or whatever in the kitchen, she would put on various favourites. And those songs basically were her in a way. And I would sort of play this tape, almost daring myself to get upset. And of course, I did get upset.

Speaker 110:57

Everywhere.

Presenter11:28

You were writing a diary. I wonder how helpful that was.

Robert Webb11:30

Yeah.

Robert Webb11:33

You know what, I look at the diary and there's a lot less in it than you'd have thought. I wasn't talking about my feelings to anyone, including the diary, which is odd because that's what a diary is for.

Presenter11:43

But also I m I mean, some experiences are beyond words, aren't they? And

Robert Webb11:46

I say that I was like listening to this music, but in other ways I just didn't want to engage with it at all. I just wanted to forget about it. I mean it was it was horrifying, it was terrible.

Presenter11:57

Looking at your diary of that time, it's such a short gap between you worried that she's not well.

Robert Webb12:02

Yeah.

Presenter12:04

And then she's just gone.

Robert Webb12:06

It was about five weeks.

Robert Webb12:08

So it was like the the world just turned upside down just very quickly. And I'm left with Derek, who's nice but I never really had a close relationship with, and of course lovely Annabeth, who is only two at this point.

Presenter12:13

Mm.

Robert Webb12:22

My little sister, and so Derek is now trying to bring up a two-year-old on his own. It was not ideal.

Presenter12:29

Robert, let's take a minute for some music. Tell us about your third choice.

Robert Webb12:33

So I said I made this mixtape of my mum's favourite songs, and this one would always get me, and not particularly because it was extra sad, but because it was very hopeful. This is Elkie Brooks' version of Fool If You Think It's Over. And I loved it because when you lose someone, suddenly you notice that a lot of pop songs which are written about romantic breakups actually work quite well for grief because it's the same separation and it's the same missing people. And in my adult and heartbroken teenage brain, this song was it was like Elkie Stroke Mum was telling me to sort of get some perspective because the singer is basically saying, okay, this bad thing has happened, but you're still young.

Robert Webb13:17

But you're still young and you have years and years and um and it felt like I think I love this song because it felt like she was still looking after me.

Presenter13:27

I

Robert Webb13:27

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 213:27

Uh Uh

Robert Webb13:27

Uh

Presenter13:27

Seventeen

Presenter13:31

Unreal their own

Speaker 213:35

Save your Christ.

Speaker 213:38

For the day.

Robert Webb13:44

Your drink is over

Robert Webb13:48

Cause she said goodbye

Robert Webb13:52

Who do you think it's over? Tell you why.

Presenter13:59

Elkie Brooks and Fool if you think it's over, Robert Webb. So as you mentioned, Rob, you were doing your A levels when your mum died. I think you actually went to an open day for universities on the day of her funeral.

Robert Webb14:12

Yeah, which didn't strike me as an unusual choice at the time. I thought, yeah, no, fair enough, so I'm busy in the morning. And then in the afternoon, it was this sort of university's open day fair thing where representatives from loads of unis were in this big hall. Mark took me to school, and then there was a I got on the coach, and it seemed like the obvious thing to do. I didn't want to miss it. But I remember I didn't have anything to wear for the funeral, so in the sixth form of that school, the blazer happened to be black. So I'd unpicked the gold badge so that I had what looked like a black suit. And then in the car on the way back to school, I sewed it back on. And I was sort of hell-bent on Cambridge because of comedy, basically. There are lots of people that I'd really enjoyed watching.

Presenter14:58

So this is Fry and Laurie and

Robert Webb15:00

This is Fry Laurie and Emma Thompson and Blimey Sandy Toxford. I mean just Clive Jones, Clive Anderson, Grifferies Jones, just all of the goodies, half of Python. I mean just so many people. And I thought, oh, well, it looks like if you go there, then you might find out whether you're any good. And I didn't want to do stand-up. I'd never been interested in it. I wanted to do comedy, acting, and writing. And I thought you need other people to do that if you can't do it on your own. And I thought, I can't be the only one thinking this. I might find other people there who are thinking that they want to do it. The only trouble with this university was it was quite difficult to get into and you had to have quite impressive exam results. I wasn't a sort of straight A's kind of person. I'd done all right in my GCSEs, but it was nothing to write home about. And at this university's place, I went over to the shyly over to the desk where the woman from Cambridge was. And we had a good chat, and she said,

Speaker 115:43

Hmm.

Robert Webb15:53

your GCSE is nothing to be ashamed of and your right to think about us and what are you hoping to get and what do you want to do and it was all pretty straightforward and it wasn't as terrifying as I thought it might be. So well done her.

Presenter16:06

So, this is a pivotal moment in your life. I mean, looking back on that day.

Presenter16:11

How do you think you you did that? Do you think you were just in shock still at that point?

Robert Webb16:16

I told her that I'd been having a bit of trouble finishing essays or starting essays lately, what with my mum being ill and then of course this morning I was at her funeral and she was like, sorry, you were at your mother's funeral this morning. I went, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's been a bit tricky. So I was out of my mind in various ways. I think it really helped. You know, something like that happens, you can't help looking for the silver lining. I can't help. thinking that it kind of emboldened me. There was a sort of that feeling around it that, you know, one of the worst things that I could possibly imagine happening has just happened. And so why am I scared of some posh university or some exams? Or why am I scared of going into this profession that looks like it's ridiculously precarious and competitive and difficult to be successful in? Because there was a kind of what have you got to lose kind of thing going on.

Speaker 116:49

Esther.

Presenter17:08

Going on. It's time for your next piece of music, Robert. Disc number four. What have you got?

Robert Webb17:13

Well now, I'm gonna need something to dance to. Going back to 1990, I mean it was a terrible time, but also it was a really brilliant time because you know I was 17 and I had an after-school job and I had some money and I passed my driving test and I got my first girlfriend and I applied to Cambridge and it was a very exciting time. And this is Get a Life by Soul to Soul. I have very happy memories of basically every weekend it was someone's 18th and I just remember standing around in various fields getting pre-loaded on Thunderbird before going to some community center or dancing some barn.

Speaker 117:45

Yeah.

Speaker 217:45

Oh god.

Speaker 217:51

Come on, be a fun feeling, get your body takes troll.

Speaker 217:55

Uh

Robert Webb17:55

Well don't be afraid to experiment, you know Go ahead, you know and implement your ideas, your notions, put them in motion Like the way we funky treads have spoken to you So listen up loud and clear This is a word you must be aware of What you're gonna do, put it in your life too Now that's the meaning of the line

Presenter18:20

Soul to soul and get a life. Rob, you ended up retaking your A levels and you got into Cambridge to study English. How did your dad react?

Robert Webb18:28

Oh, massive pub crawl. We really did that properly that night. He was absolutely delighted. I hadn't really realized how much I wanted him to be proud of me and he really was. And it was a big deal.

Presenter18:40

When you were in your second year at Cambridge, you met your long-standing comedy partner, David Mitchell. What were your first impressions of him?

Robert Webb18:47

So quiet and so shy and so polite. And then he put on this show with some friends, and I went to see that, and that was sort of the turning point. It was a thing called Go to Work on an Egg, and it was just their little sketch show. And I remember just, I didn't take my eyes off him for an hour. He just had this combination of ease and focus, which this will sound conceited because it is. He reminded me of me, and I just thought this guy looks like he lives there on that stage. And I asked him basically if he wanted to do a show with me. I've only had to be smart in my career once, and that was the decision not to compete with David Mitchell, but instead to capture him and take some of his goodness for myself.

Presenter19:32

Make him a powerful ally.

Robert Webb19:33

Exactly. He had absolutely no choice but to say yes, because I was Footlight's vice president. And we started writing together and we really, really got on really well writing because we just laughed at the same things and there was a sort of chemistry between us.

Presenter19:50

And obviously, it wasn't just this incredible kind of creative partnership then, it's endured. You've been writing together and working together for almost thirty years. Obviously, you also both work as solo performers and on different projects. But that kind of double success has continued. What's the secret, do you think?

Robert Webb20:07

We've never had the row. I think a lot of double acts, they make the mistake of having the row and we never got around to it. I mean, for two people who are not in love, we saw a hell of a lot of each other in those early days when we'd left university and we were trying to make it and we were like working in rooms above pubs and we were part-time ushers at Lyric Hammersmith. And then when it started to go well, it was even more intensive and you put sort of career pressure on top of that. Whenever we were not getting along brilliantly, there were a lot of tethy silences and there was a lot of courtesy and we just managed never to blow up at each other and we treated each other respectfully basically and I work with him much less intensively now and when I see him it's a pleasure and we were each other's best man and we managed to keep that friendship going. It still feels like a luxury that I get to miss him and we are working on something at the moment and it's brilliant.

Presenter21:05

It's time for your next piece of music, Roberts. What have you got?

Robert Webb21:08

This is Metal Mickey by Swade. Swade is my favourite band, and Metal Mickey is one of their very exciting early singles. Talking of David, we actually used this at the end of one of our two-man shows. So we finished the show, Blackout, lights come up, we come on, hopefully the audience applauds and we use the introduction to Metal Mickey as our sort of barring noise. I just love them. I saw them at the junction early in 1993 and it was great to be in that audience and to be young in that audience. It was one of the very few times in my life I felt like I was in the right place at the right time and I love them.

Speaker 222:03

Shake, shake, shake to the trumpet

Robert Webb22:08

Straight from me is setting with bar

Presenter22:17

Suede and Metal Mickey. So, Robert Webb, you first came to T V prominence when you starred with David in Channel Four's Peep Show. It followed the lives of two dysfunctional flatmates, Mark and Jeremy, written for you by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. You played Jeremy, jazz. How big a stretch was it to get into character?

Robert Webb22:36

They were sufficiently like us that it would be weird if we played them the other way around. Let's put it that way. Although I like to think I was doing more acting than David was, because Jeremy, on paper, is not a very nice man. You know, he's petulant and very stupid and a really bad liar and selfish and talentless. And it was such a pleasure to play him because he's so awful and it was just a lot of fun. I mean, so much of it is luck. We were like one of those old variety acts spinning plates on the generation game. We had like six plates spinning and Peep Show was just one of those things and not necessarily one of the more promising ones. We loved the scripts. The scripts were brilliant. Sam Bane and Jesse Armstrong had written these fantastic scripts. Channel 4 commissioned one half of a pilot and then we made that and then they commissioned the second half of a pilot. So we made the second 12 and a half minutes six months later. It was all very gradual and by the time suddenly Peep Show gets commissioned for a full series, we'd been on camera a fair bit by then. So everything was very gradual, which was really good for us in the end.

Speaker 123:25

In twelve and a half minutes.

Presenter23:39

It's time for some more music, Robert. Your sixth choice. What have you gone for?

Robert Webb23:43

This is Being Alive from Stephen Sondheim's Company. When I had been going out with Abigail Burdess for a couple of weeks, I started humming this song and I was going, Somebody did be did it. What is that? Somebody sit in my chair. And she said, I don't know. And then after I left, she looked it up and she says at that moment, she thought, Okay, this chap is quite into me, it turns out. I think this is an absolutely beautiful song about it. I think it's just achingly romantic, but in a really grown-up way, because the character singing at Bobby, of course, he's a song about being afraid of being lonely, but it's also an acknowledgement of and almost a longing for the sort of nitty-gritty, messy give-and-take-ness of being in love with someone or sharing your life with someone. And that sort of pooling of sovereignty, if you like, that sort of blurring around the edges where you don't know, don't care anymore where you stop and the other person starts. I find all of that about marriage profoundly beautiful. And my marriage with Abby is the foundation of whatever happiness and sanity I can lay claim to in this world. And I'm really glad I bumped into her. I'm not going to get over it.

Robert Webb24:59

Some want to need you too much?

Robert Webb25:03

Someone to know you too well Someone to pull you up short To put you through hell

Speaker 125:13

Well, you gotta give up to get, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 225:16

I'm saying

Speaker 125:16

Uh Uh

Speaker 225:17

Unlike my father, I'm a very happy man. Oh, I just heard a door open that's been stuck a long time.

Robert Webb25:25

Just see what you look for, you know. Someone you have

Presenter25:29

Being Alive from Company, written by Stephen Sondheim and performed by Adrian Lester in the 1996 London cast recording.

Presenter25:37

Robert Webb, you had major heart surgery in autumn 2019. You'd gone for what you had thought was a pretty routine medical check-up prior to filming the second series of Back with David Mitchell for Channel 4. You were diagnosed with a mitral valve prolapse. That's a congenital heart defect. Did you suspect there was something wrong? Were there any symptoms that were niggling?

Robert Webb25:57

There were symptoms, but I was too much of an idiot to notice. At the time, I was drinking and smoking quite heavily. I was 47. I thought, oh, this is just what it feels like to be 47 when you still treat your body like a skip. So I would get out of breath walking up hills, but I thought, well, that's just what happens. And then I went for this medical, and the doctor put his stethoscope on my heart and pulled this alarming face. He said, What are you doing about the heart murmur? And I said, What heart murmur? And then, to cut a long story short, I was basically sent for a CT scan and an echocardiogram. And I had a cardiologist basically saying, You're not going to have a heart attack in the next fortnight, but in the next two or four months, this heart will fail. And it's not something we can fix with pills. Unfortunately, you are going to need surgery, but we do this all the time and it's going to be fine. So that was quite a roller coaster. I mean, that wasn't the scary bit. The scary bit was while I was having the echo, so you're facing the wall, and someone's basically giving you this heart ultrasound. And then the consultant came in, and then you hear the consultant going, Oh, right.

Speaker 226:50

So that was quite a bit.

Speaker 127:00

Mm.

Robert Webb27:05

Oh, yeah, that is severe. It was quite instructive, actually, because my thoughts, more or less in this order, went Abby, the children, the rest of my family, my friends. That was what I was thinking about. I wasn't thinking about work or money or fame or concerns about status or where I fit in in the great Lego Cathedral of British comedy. It was about love, basically. And for what it's worth, my report from another country of you think you're about to die, it's about love, basically.

Speaker 127:21

Sure.

Presenter27:34

Uh

Robert Webb27:35

The operation was a complete success and I have normal heart function and normal life expectancy.

Presenter27:39

So you said in in the run-up though to all of this

Robert Webb27:43

Dia.

Presenter27:43

you'd been smoking but also drinking excessively. So that sense of kind of clarity about your priorities, that instant, okay, here these are the only things that I care about, the list is actually not that long.

Robert Webb27:43

Me

Robert Webb27:50

Okay.

Robert Webb27:54

Yeah.

Presenter27:54

Was that needed? Do you think? Had your priorities got out of the way? Oh, it was.

Robert Webb27:58

Oh, it was such a, I mean, it was just such a gift in so many ways that basically I came out of hospital and finally I was sort of on my own side. It was like, okay, these internal organs, these are my guys now. I need to look after them. And I've been trying to stop smoking for 10 years and I knew that my drinking was now out of control. This was a sort of, it provided this gap in the domino topple, if you like, these seven days in hospital. And when I came out, I would have to have gone to quite some trouble to start again. I mean, I could have done if I was a real idiot, but even I'm not that stupid. So I managed to stop. I don't think about cigarettes from week to week, and I don't think about drinking very often. If non-alcoholic beers were on draft, you could just point at something and say, I'd like a pint of that, please. There's just this extra bit of admin that you have to do.

Presenter28:43

It's

Presenter28:47

It's time for more music, Rob. What's disc number seven?

Robert Webb28:51

Well, you don't always want to be cheered up. Sometimes I think on my island I might be feeling a bit glum and I might want to just sit with my glumness and almost enjoy feeling glum and that's why God invented Radio Head and I adore this band and this is how to disappear completely and I think there'll be times on the island when having Tom York saying I'm not here this isn't happening well I could really get behind that sentiment. I mean the joke about them is that they're miserable. That's not my experience. I think misery is certainly one of their subjects but their music has never made me feel miserable. It's a bit like when you go and see a Shakespearean tragedy and at the end the stage is littered with dead bodies but you don't walk out of there depressed. The experience is always one of uplift because you know you've been in the presence of a fully achieved work of art and that's what I think this is.

Speaker 129:35

Uh

Robert Webb29:43

I'm not here.

Speaker 229:51

This isn't happening

Speaker 230:01

I'm not

Presenter30:12

Radiohead How to Disappear Completely

Presenter30:15

It's almost time for you to disappear. Not completely, though, Rob. We're going to cast you away to your island. Will you be able to fend for yourself?

Robert Webb30:22

No, but I think I'll do incredibly badly on the

Presenter30:24

That was instant. No thought required.

Robert Webb30:25

I'll do very badly on a name.

Presenter30:27

Thank you.

Robert Webb30:28

On a number of levels, I'm not handy. I really like. Abby's the handy one at home.

Presenter30:30

I agree.

Presenter30:32

Right.

Robert Webb30:32

Yeah.

Presenter30:32

What about the solitude? I I do note that you had not one but twelve imaginary friends when you were a young boy.

Robert Webb30:37

Like the Apostles. Yeah. Did you resurrect them? The Guybys. How tall are the Guybys now? Because they were my imaginary gang when I was.

Presenter30:39

And resurrect them?

Robert Webb30:44

Six or seven

Presenter30:45

I think they'd be adults.

Robert Webb30:45

Yeah.

Robert Webb30:46

Okay,'cause it'd be odd to be surrounded by imaginary ch

Presenter30:47

Behold.

Presenter30:49

What's your map?

Robert Webb30:49

Would that be weird now? Yeah, I might have to have the guy buy his back.

Presenter30:53

What sort of island are you hoping for?

Robert Webb30:55

Not too big, otherwise I'll get lost. I can get lost on trains. But certainly bigger than um the sort of cartoon with one palm tree. I I wouldn't want many uh dangerous creatures or snakes and scorpions. And I mean, this is just going to be a nightmare.

Presenter31:08

So middle-sized and benign.

Robert Webb31:10

That's right. Temperate.

Presenter31:11

Temporary.

Presenter31:12

Alright, well one more piece of music before you go. Disc number eight.

Robert Webb31:16

This is called It's Corn, and it will strike fear into the hearts of any parents who are listening. So, it takes a bit of explaining. Basically, there's this kid called Tariq, and he's seven years old, and he lives in New York. There was a viral video clip of him holding this massive corn on the cob and talking very passionately about how much he loves corn, and saying things like, I mean, just look at this thing. I can't imagine a more beautiful thing. And this clip was remixed and turned into a dementedly catchy pop song. And it was one of the first songs that my children introduced me to. Now, they will thank me to say that they're not crazy about it, like it's from the internet, and so they hold it with a default Zoomer, ironic regard. Distain. Exactly. But I have noticed them singing along to it in the back of the car. And so it'll remind me of them. I also find it weirdly moving. And I think it's because it's a real boy and it's already out of date. He might have changed his mind about corn for all I know. It's just this snapshot. And it's going to remind me of this particular time when the girls were exactly the age they are, and I was 50, and I still had some hair, and my children still lived at home. And it will remind me that you don't always have to go rummaging around the past to find the good old days. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the good old days are happening right now. And as Tariq says, just look at this thing.

Speaker 232:03

Yeah.

Robert Webb32:47

Where does soft clone is just that?

Robert Webb32:49

Even James.

Robert Webb32:52

It's called

Speaker 232:52

Uh

Robert Webb32:53

Right.

Speaker 232:54

And fortunate lost and has to choose.

Robert Webb32:58

Uh

Speaker 232:58

I can't run the most beautiful thing!

Speaker 233:01

It's called

Speaker 233:03

I can tell you all about

Speaker 233:05

I mean look at this sleeping You're on a tripod with battle paving killing

Speaker 133:13

Thartastic

Presenter33:17

It's Corn, featuring Tariq, the Gregory Brothers, and recess therapy. So Robert Webb, I'm going to send you away to the islands, giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to keep you company, obviously. You can also take another book. What would you like?

Robert Webb33:31

I would like a book called Cultural Amnesia by Clive James, which is a whopping 800-page collection of essays. His non-fiction essays about cultural figures in the 20th century. I just love the way he writes. Like all good teachers, he makes you feel much smarter than you actually are. I just love Clive James, and so I'd have that, please.

Presenter33:53

You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Robert Webb33:56

I'd like some formal evening wear because if I'm on my own and it's sunny, knowing me, this is going to be a broadly nudist experience and I think it'd be nice to be able to dress for dinner. So I it gets to six o'clock and to feel the swish of trousers and civilization as I eat my mushrooms or whatever I've managed to scavenge.

Speaker 134:08

Yeah.

Presenter34:08

See,

Presenter34:16

Cummabund, Full Tales, Top Hat.

Robert Webb34:18

Oh, yeah, dinner jacket and a bow tie. Top hat? I hadn't thought of that. Why not? Let's do it. I don't have throwing a cake. Why don't we do it? So I'm just sitting there, I'm eating my lobster, and I'm reading 12th Night and listening to Charles Asnavour. And where do I go? This sounds great.

Presenter34:24

Why don't I throw in a cane?

Presenter34:32

Perfect. I want you to have that. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us, which you rushed to save from the waves?

Robert Webb34:38

I think it's got to be the Asnavore just for the bargain basement two for one I get my childhood and my children's childhoods all in one all in one smooth wrapped up song that's got a spoken bit and I love a spoken bit.

Presenter34:52

Robert Webb, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Robert Webb34:55

Thank you so much. I've been honored to be here.

Presenter35:10

Hello, it was lovely to chat to Robert and I'm very much enjoying imagining him on his island smartly dressed for dinner.

Presenter35:18

There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to. They include Robert's comedy partner David Mitchell. You can also find Stephen Sondheim's Desert Island Discs there, along with Tom York from Radiohead and the musician whose track Robert chose to save from the waves, Charles Aznavour. You can find all of those programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my castaway is the businesswoman Amanda Blanc.

Robert Webb36:18

My name is Jonathan Meyerson, and two years ago we produced Nuremberg, a dramatized reconstruction of the trial of the major Nazi war criminals.

Robert Webb36:27

Their crimes were indisputable, but one mystery remained. How did this group of unremarkable men come to rule all of Germany?

Robert Webb36:36

Our new podcast, Nazis, The Road to Power, unravels this improbable story in 16 episodes, starring Tom Mothersdale, Derek Jacobi, Alexander Vlahos, Toby Stevens and Laura Donnelly.

Robert Webb36:51

It remains a lesson for us all.

Robert Webb36:54

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.