Julia Trevelyan Oman

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:00

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

Presenter0:08

Miss Ehrman, are you a Londoner?

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:10

Yes, I am. I was born in Kensington, and apart from the War Years, I spent the whole of my life in London.

Presenter0:17

and you were brought up in an atmosphere of the art.

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:20

Yes, I was, my father.

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:22

was at the Victorian Albert Museum until he retired a couple of years ago.

Presenter0:26

What was his department?

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:27

He was the in the Department of Metalwork, which dealt with all silver, jewellery, and everything of that sort. And of course I've now just married into the Museum world to doctor Royce Strong, who's the director of the National Portrait Gallery.

Presenter0:41

You've recently done a book together.

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:43

Yes, Elizabeth R, which was extremely interesting to do.

Julia Trevelyan Oman0:50

I have designed it, and my husband has done the text at the beginning, and selected all the various pieces that are within the illustrations from original sources. So the arts are my life.

Presenter1:06

What was your first ambition? Was it designing?

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:09

Oh, yes, always to be a designer. I knew from a very early age that I wished to enter that particular field.

Presenter1:16

Where did you study?

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:17

I was at the Royal College of Art, where I studied under Sir Hugh Castle, and I was extremely happy there.

Presenter1:23

Was it the theatre you were aiming at from the start?

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:26

I had always been tremendously interested in the theatre, but I find it very difficult to say that I am specifically more interested in

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:33

The theatre than I am in films or in books, or you see, I'm interested in life in general and how.

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:41

Designing relates to life, and so therefore I am interested in any project that is given to me.

Speaker 11:48

Yes.

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:48

But of course the theatre is terribly, terribly important.

Speaker 11:52

What happened when you left the Royal College of Art?

Julia Trevelyan Oman1:54

I went straight to the BBC and became first a television assistant designer and later on worked up to being

Presenter2:00

Mm.

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:03

a designer and then a senior designer.

Presenter2:05

Yes. How long were you there altogether?

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:06

I was there for eleven and a half years.

Presenter2:09

What was the very first job they gave you to do? Do you remember that?

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:12

Oh gracious. Um

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:14

No, I I simply can't remember. I mean, as an assistant I did a load of painted back cloths for all the sort of Charlie Chester shows and goodness knows what that were happening in the uh late fifties.

Presenter2:26

Yes. What was the most rewarding job you did?

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:29

or I suppose really Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland, which was a tremendously happy period in my life.

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:36

And also Patrick Garland's famous Gossips.

Presenter2:39

How do you look back on that eleven and a half years? Was it a sort of salt mines period, or was it um

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:46

I was very happy at times. I was very unhappy at times. But that's inevitable. I look back at it. The

Julia Trevelyan Oman2:52

uh very gratefully because I think it taught one a discipline which one always will have with one. It taught one the value of paperwork which so many people in the arts uh think can be

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:05

Forgotten, but it's something which I know one's got to

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:08

work with. I designing today is a business. Designing you've got to be as much concerned with the money that you're spending that belongs to somebody else because that's all part of the final

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:19

product. You can't just forget about the cash, and therefore paperwork which one learnt through the B B C taught one a great deal of

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:28

things which one will never forget.

Presenter3:30

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:31

Now, what inspired you to venture out of the BBC after eleven and a half years?

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:37

I was very fortunate. I won the Designer of the Year award.

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:42

for the design of Alice in Wonderland. And from that I got film offers and I went to

Julia Trevelyan Oman3:51

The Charge of the Light Brigade, which was an extremely happy experience, working all over England with this film, also visiting Turkey.

Presenter3:59

All this was only four years ago. A lot has happened in four years.

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:03

I've gotten through an incredible amount of work during that period.

Presenter4:07

It is.

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:08

It's been very rewarding.

Presenter4:09

And of course, in designing a film, the number of sketches and unfinished drawings you must do must be enormous.

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:16

Oh, they're phenomenal, though quite often with an opera you have to do even more. I know my Onyegin drawings for Covent Garden must have involved me in the region of about eight thousand drawings altogether.

Presenter4:30

As many as that.

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:31

Yes, it's phenomenal.

Presenter4:32

Of course in a film the the detail must be minute sometimes.

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:35

Oh yes, it is. But then I like to carry detail into all my work because I think that observation is important. I think it's terribly important to make

Julia Trevelyan Oman4:43

people look more closely. I don't see why one should try to kid people with using uh bad materials or using something that's not absolutely true. I think truth is important.

Presenter4:56

Yes. You worked with Jonathan Miller again. You designed his Merchant of Venice in the theatre. Did you research Venice in the same way?

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:04

Oh yes, certainly I did. There I wandered, wandered, wandered with my camera everywhere, and I shot in the region of uh thirty films in about two days, just in order to get how the bricks look in Venice, to see the shape of them, to see the colour of them, the texture of them, something to give to the people who were not so fortunate as myself to work from when they were painting the set up. I shot the stonework, how it crumbled, how the drips ran down off the Ledgers

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:33

where the pigeons were

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:35

The dirty awnings, the sun coming through, the tattered material, all this builds up the atmosphere, brings up the colour. My camera is like a a constant diary. Probably somebody who's writing

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:47

Uh

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:48

descriptive books would write endless little notes, whereas I take endless photographs from which I can reconstruct and then rebuild up my picture. I I

Julia Trevelyan Oman5:59

Then

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:00

assemble or material, and build up what I require and

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:04

take out the essence. I get so involved that the essence comes through from

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:10

All my material put together.

Presenter6:13

Yes.

Presenter6:14

What other work have you done in the theatre?

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:17

I've of course done uh Alan Bennett's play, Getting On, which is now running in.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:23

London, and also I did forty years on.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:26

which was Allan's as well.

Presenter6:28

Yes.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:28

both of which I have found tremendously enjoyable to work on.

Presenter6:31

and brief lives

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:33

and brief lives which was at the criterion a couple of years ago. It was one man's world in one room.

Presenter6:40

A wonderful bachelor cluttered.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:42

Precisely. And

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:44

It was the strange details, like suddenly finding uh chicken bones down by the fire, how the man had thrown them.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:51

out from his pots and pans. It was building up that type of thing which I found important.

Presenter6:57

Yeah.

Julia Trevelyan Oman6:57

and gave me pleasure to do.

Presenter7:00

There's a a Shakespeare play at Stratford upon Avon which you've designed in in the past season.

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:06

Yes, I designed uh Othello, which we've set in the eighteen fifties. Uh

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:14

It was an extremely interesting

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:16

exercise because I had to research all the costumes at that time and go through many books from both the Austrian

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:26

uh embassy and from the London Library, which is a constant joy to me. I just feel I could never live without the London Library. I think it's one of the most important institutions in London.

Presenter7:41

To what extent does a designer innovate?

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:45

Uh

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:46

I think a designer.

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:47

It should work.

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:49

as part of a team and I think a designer suggests things and it's teamwork. I think that always one must realize that

Julia Trevelyan Oman7:59

You can't do everything on your own, therefore you've got to discuss things around it and

Julia Trevelyan Oman8:04

Take the best from every place that you can.

Presenter8:07

There is a great field for design. I mean, there are so many things hideous that don't have to be.

Julia Trevelyan Oman8:12

Everything is designed just looking around the room. That appalling speaker over there with an awful black hole in the middle. That I suppose somebody thought they were designing, but uh

Julia Trevelyan Oman8:24

But, frankly, something much better could have been made of it.

Presenter8:26

Indeed, indeed.