Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
A man who hated office work and studied to pursue a writing dream.
Eight records
No disc selection or music is explicitly given in the transcript. This field is listed only because the transcript mentions 'The Critic and the Heart' as a play, not a piece of music. Per instructions, only supported discs are included; no actual music is recorded here.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
What was your ambition as a boy?
All I can really remember is this, that I desperately did not want to grow up because I felt that I was incapable of looking after myself, let alone anybody else. Uh my dream was to be a writer, but that seemed rather like wanting to be, oh, an Arctic explorer or to have wings. It didn't seem anything that could happen.
Presenter asks
What did you do when you left school?
Uh I made a complete mess of my uh school certificate examination. I had two goes at it and did worse the second time. And my father, who was really scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep me at school, said, Well, that's it, you made your bed, you must lie on it, and I got a job as a, uh, ooh, uh, officially a junior clerk, but actually an errand boy and stoker of boilers at a large insurance office in Manchester.
Presenter asks
What got you out of there [the insurance office]?
I remember this very clearly. I was walking home through Saint Peter's Square in Manchester one night, and I met the uh sixth form master who had taught my brother who was an exceedingly successful schoolboy, and was at that time at Cambridge. And this chap met me and said, How do you like working in the office? And I said, I hate it. I would rather sweep streets and he said, Good. Sounds as though your pat's beginning to grow up. and in the kindness of his heart he went to the university, and found that if I got a certain examination in two months' time I could just be wangled in. and I studied at home. and I covered a year's syllabus in two months. which doesn't show how right I was, but it shows something that all teachers ought to know. But if a child wants to learn, it will learn easily. If it doesn't want to learn, you can forget it. Yes. I wanted to learn for the ignoble reason that I wanted to escape from the office, that's all.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Robert Bolt
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
My parents, although they had very little time to cultivate the art, they were too busy earning a living,
Presenter
Um
Presenter
always had a great respect for the arts.
Presenter
But there was no artistic activity in the family. What was your ambition as a boy?
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
All I can really remember is this, that I desperately did not want to grow up because I felt
Presenter
that I was incapable of looking after myself, let alone anybody else.
Presenter
Uh my dream was to be a writer, but that seemed rather like wanting to be, oh, an Arctic explorer or to have wings. It didn't seem anything that could happen. What did you do when you left school?
Presenter
Uh I made a complete mess of my uh school certificate examination. I had two goes at it and did worse the second time.
Presenter
And my father, who was really scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep me at school, said, Well, that's it, you made your bed, you must lie on it, and I got a job as a
Presenter
Uh, ooh, uh, officially a junior clerk, but actually an errand boy and stoker of boilers at a large insurance office in Manchester. What got you out of there?
Presenter
Um
Presenter
I remember this very clearly. I was walking home through Saint Peter's Square in Manchester one night, and I met
Presenter
the uh sixth form master who had taught my brother
Presenter
who was an exceedingly successful schoolboy, and was at that time at Cambridge.
Presenter
And this chap met me and said, How do you like working in the office? And I said, I hate it. I would rather sweep streets and he said, Good.
Presenter
Sounds as though your pat's beginning to grow up.
Presenter
and in the kindness of his heart he went to the university,
Presenter
and found that if I got a certain examination in two months' time I could just be wangled in.
Presenter
and I studied at home.
Presenter
and I covered a year's syllabus in two months.
Presenter
which doesn't show how right I was, but it shows something that all teachers ought to know.
Presenter
But if a child wants to learn, it will learn easily. If it doesn't want to learn, you can forget it. Yes. I wanted to learn for the ignoble reason that I wanted to escape from the office, that's all.
Robert Bolt
Your time at the university was interrupted.
Presenter
Corrupted by War Service. Tell me
Robert Bolt
Yeah.
Presenter
Uh Yes.
Robert Bolt
Yeah.
Presenter
What did you do?
Presenter
Uh I first went into the Royal Air Force to train as a pilot.
Presenter
Uh I passed the preliminary stages, but flanked the advanced part of the course. I was then in South Africa.
Presenter
When I came back to this country,
Presenter
and spent what seems in retrospect between about twenty years uh cleaning lavatories and various
Presenter
bleak aerodromes in the north of England. And then uh I transferred to the army because in a half baked sort of way I felt I ought to be doing something a little more active.
Presenter
But there too I uh I was shunted off to the Gold Coast and and I was commissioned in the West African Frontier Force, which sounds a lot more glamorous than it was.
Robert Bolt
And when you order mobile
Presenter
But
Robert Bolt
Uh
Presenter
Uh Republic. Back to math. Yeah. The vested.
Presenter
And then?
Presenter
Well, I took a degree in history. I'd been studying economics before.
Presenter
Uh and then I decided I wanted to be a teacher.
Presenter
I wanted to be a teacher in a village school. I had a
Robert Bolt
Wire Village School
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
I had up till that point been uh
Presenter
a Communist, a member of the Communist Party and extremely interested in politics and
Presenter
I sought a public solution for all life's difficulties.
Presenter
Um after the war I gradually became more and more uncomfortable.
Presenter
uh to the uh to the part uh in the party and hostile to its philosophy and I could get no sense out of the people I revered in the party, I could get from them no
Presenter
sensible, honest answers to the questions I was asking.
Presenter
So I left the party, and I suppose I flew to the opposite extreme.
Presenter
I wanted a very private life in which I could do a limited amount of good. I was still very interested in doing good. And uh so I went to a village school. Had you started writing?
Presenter
No, I started writing at the village school.
Presenter
Come Christmas I was asked to mount an Tivity play.
Presenter
for the children, the seven and eight year old children. And I couldn't find any in print which I like.
Presenter
And so I wrote one.
Presenter
and I had a very extraordinary experience, which has never happened to me before or since.
Presenter
within writing four lines of dialogue and they were simply the three wise men meeting in the desert and greeting one another.
Presenter
I knew with absolute certainty that this was what I wanted to do, write plays.
Presenter
When did you tackle your first stage play?
Presenter
Oh, after I'd been writing for the radio for
Presenter
four or five years. I had
Presenter
A barely legible letter.
Presenter
From a lady who was setting up
Presenter
as an agent.
Presenter
a a playwright agent in London, who had heard my work and thought I ought to write for the theatre.
Presenter
Um
Presenter
for the West End Theatre, and that seemed
Presenter
Oh, almost inviting fate.
Presenter
or tempting Providence even to think of it, it seemed such a magical thing. In those days you see it was before Osborne and the breakthrough.
Presenter
And new playwrights just didn't happen. You were either uh Terence Rattigan or Christopher Fry, or you weren't. Um.
Presenter
However I I put myself under the care of this lady, thank God.
Presenter
who is still my agent and has looked after my career such as it is.
Presenter
Like a mother.
Presenter
And uh
Presenter
I wrote several stage plays for her, which she turned down.
Presenter
Every one that I wrote, I said to myself, This is my last. There are easier ways of killing yourself and staying up all night. They weren't even submitted to management. No, she wouldn't submit them. She said that she wanted the first one she submitted to be taken. Yes. What was the first one to be staged?
Robert Bolt
Uh
Presenter
The first one to be staged was a play called The Critic and the Heart.
Presenter
which was um staged at the Oxford Playhouse.
Presenter
and was moderately well received by the critics.
Presenter
had tiny audiences and the management thought that it wasn't quite worth risking bringing into London with all the expense of that.
Robert Bolt
It entailed.
Robert Bolt
Now, this time we were talking about the middle fifties was the time of the angry young man. Did you consider yourself part of this iconoclastic movement?
Presenter
Yeah.
Robert Bolt
Uh
Presenter
No, but then I don't know any playwright who did.
Presenter
It was um uh a journalistic category for the convenience of the journalists rather than for the convenience of the playwrights themselves.
Presenter
There's a great deal more in John Osborne than anger.
Presenter
I had uh i i in that first play, the uh Critic and the Heart, I had an angry young man who I suppose slightly predated Osborne's Jimmy Porter, but he wasn't so good. Um
Presenter
No, I I never felt of myself as an angry young man.
Presenter
Of course there was a great deal to be angry about, but on the whole I think we were anxious young men rather than angry.
Presenter
Well, that play didn't come into London. What was your next play?
Presenter
Uh the next play did get into London, and that was uh Flowering Cherry with Sir Rope Richardson, Celia Johnson, and the Haymarket Theatre. It was the full dream come true. Were you confident about this play?
Robert Bolt
Yeah.
Presenter
Yes, I was, from the moment that Sir Ralph and Celia said that they would do it.
Presenter
Um
Presenter
I thought that uh it was open and shut then, it was bound to be a success. I was very ignorant of the hazards of the West End and I uh as an act of faith I handed in my resignation as a teacher just before we opened, to the alarm of mister Beaumont, the management, who was very much more aware than I was of the chances.
Robert Bolt
It ran for over a year at the Haymarket, and you won the rather patronizingly worded award of the most promising playwright of 1957.
Robert Bolt
Uh now let's skip to nineteen sixty, when you had two new plays open in the same week at practically adjoining theatres in Shaftsbury Avenue.
Robert Bolt
What were those?
Presenter
Uh
Robert Bolt
Um
Presenter
The first one was The Tiger and the Horse.
Presenter
uh in which I was lucky enough to have uh Sir Michael Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave and Katherine Lacey.
Presenter
And then uh the other one, which I had written while I was waiting for Sir Michael to become available, was A Man for All Seasons in which I had uh
Presenter
The Porsche Field and Leo McCarns are as very
Robert Bolt
Very lucky. Superb cards once again.
Robert Bolt
With twin successes to your credit, it was hardly surprising that the film people got after you.
Robert Bolt
You wrote um Lawrence of Arabia. Yes, that was my baptism of fire. After the succession of successes
Presenter
You had a flop.
Robert Bolt
Uh
Presenter
Oh yes. Uh
Presenter
Uh I I think you mean um Gentle Jack here in London.
Presenter
I'd already had one very savage beating in New York with Flowering Cherry, which ran for three days.
Robert Bolt
Did it? I didn't really
Presenter
Oh d a a really resounding, majestic flop. The critics there.
Presenter
laid about me in in no uncertain tone. So you went to work?
Robert Bolt
With David Lean again on a film script. I then wrote Doctor Giivago for David Lean. And then back to your beginnings with the children's play. That's right, the that
Presenter
It was um the thwarting of Baron Bollygrove of the Royal Shakespeare Company. And then?
Presenter
Um, let me see. Then I think I scripted uh my own play Memphis Seasons for a film. Yeah.
Robert Bolt
This was a film that won I don't know how many Oscars.
Robert Bolt
A film of yours has opened recently with your first original screenplay from your own story. Yes, uh, Ryan's.
Presenter
Yes. Uh which I wrote
Presenter
I suppose really, if I'm to be honest, the jumping off place was that I wanted to write a corking good part in a big film for my wife, Sarah Miles. But, you know, it doesn't much matter what your starting place is. As soon as you started
Presenter
The the play has become the thing. and all other considerations.
Robert Bolt
Go overboard. And Sarah Miles is now in your current play in London, the one that's running so successfully by that regina. Tell us about that.
Presenter
Well
Robert Bolt
Blip.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
I like writing historical plays. The interesting technical problem there was how to make one story.
Presenter
out of two protagonists, Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor, who
Presenter
in fact never met without uh taking a great deal of historical license and inventing a secret meeting.
Presenter
Uh and that was technically interesting.
Robert Bolt
Now you're a playwright in the old-fashioned sense of being a craftsman. Your plays are are conscientiously constructed.
Presenter
Yes, indeed.
Presenter
It is not my job.
Presenter
to uplift or improve anybody, it is my job to entertain them. If I do any more than that
Presenter
Well, that's splendid. If they feel that they have had their money's worth of entertainment, that it has been worth the effort of a tired man and woman, after a hard day's work, to drag themselves from the suburbs into the West End, pay the price of a ticket, sit there, and they feel that it has been worth it in entertainment, then I consider that I have done my job.
Presenter asks
Your time at the university was interrupted [by war service]. What did you do?
Uh I first went into the Royal Air Force to train as a pilot. Uh I passed the preliminary stages, but flanked the advanced part of the course. I was then in South Africa. When I came back to this country, and spent what seems in retrospect between about twenty years uh cleaning lavatories and various bleak aerodromes in the north of England. And then uh I transferred to the army because in a half baked sort of way I felt I ought to be doing something a little more active. But there too I uh I was shunted off to the Gold Coast and and I was commissioned in the West African Frontier Force, which sounds a lot more glamorous than it was.
Presenter asks
Did you consider yourself part of this iconoclastic movement [the angry young men]?
No, but then I don't know any playwright who did. It was um uh a journalistic category for the convenience of the journalists rather than for the convenience of the playwrights themselves. There's a great deal more in John Osborne than anger. I had uh i i in that first play, the uh Critic and the Heart, I had an angry young man who I suppose slightly predated Osborne's Jimmy Porter, but he wasn't so good. Um No, I I never felt of myself as an angry young man. Of course there was a great deal to be angry about, but on the whole I think we were anxious young men rather than angry.
Presenter asks
Were you confident about this play [Flowering Cherry]?
Yes, I was, from the moment that Sir Ralph and Celia said that they would do it. Um I thought that uh it was open and shut then, it was bound to be a success. I was very ignorant of the hazards of the West End and I uh as an act of faith I handed in my resignation as a teacher just before we opened, to the alarm of mister Beaumont, the management, who was very much more aware than I was of the chances.
“All I can really remember is this, that I desperately did not want to grow up because I felt that I was incapable of looking after myself, let alone anybody else.”
“I wanted to learn for the ignoble reason that I wanted to escape from the office, that's all.”
“within writing four lines of dialogue and they were simply the three wise men meeting in the desert and greeting one another. I knew with absolute certainty that this was what I wanted to do, write plays.”
“It is not my job to uplift or improve anybody, it is my job to entertain them. If I do any more than that Well, that's splendid. If they feel that they have had their money's worth of entertainment, that it has been worth the effort of a tired man and woman, after a hard day's work, to drag themselves from the suburbs into the West End, pay the price of a ticket, sit there, and they feel that it has been worth it in entertainment, then I consider that I have done my job.”