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Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
British television presenter and satirist best known for 'That Was the Week That Was' and his transatlantic interview programmes.
Eight records
Let's Face the Music and Dance
(No reason given in transcript; disc is cued but not named explicitly as first disc — the transcript cuts in mid-interview. Disc not actually mentioned by the castaway in the provided excerpt.)
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Your chat programmes to start with had a lot of the fierceness of the satire programmes. They were referred to as public lynchings. You were inclined to pitch into people rather heavily for a start, were you not?
Uh very rarely really. When you look back, uh though people have a image and it's delightful they remember programmes from years ago so clearly of Doctor Savundra or Doctor Petro … or something like that. They were two programmes out of the first hundred and four, and there were also programmes with George Brown which drew out George Brown in a gentler but more revealing way than perhaps he'd been drawn out before, and indeed he was superb. … The truth of the matter is I hope that one has always treated the situation ad lib in the way it should be treated, you know, just as it would be difficult to be gener it would have been difficult to be generous … to all of the policies of Dr. Savundra, just as it would be impossible to attack Jack Benny.
Presenter asks
With this output of interviewing, obviously you have to rely on a staff of researchers and briefers and advisers. Are you happy? Do you feel you're doing really satisfactory interviews when someone else has to select the questions simply because you haven't the time to dig yourself?
Someone else has to select the research material, but I do the questions and I do the reading too, because that's the only way it can work. Someone else … finds the material, and I find some of it myself, of course, things I've read, things I find, but if you take a particular interview, then someone will have praised three or four things that it's not worth reading all of, but a great deal more I'll read at first hand. No one else could ever do the questions for you, because a talk show depends above all on reality … above all on seeing that the person is interested or bored by the person he's interviewing, you know, and that's a one-to-one thing. And most of the things that happen are Ad Live on the Air. You go into an interview knowing some of the questions you'd like to ask, some of the areas you'd like to get into, some of the quotes you'd like to quote. And after that, you wait for combustion, the Muse, the Holy Spirit, whatever you happen to believe in, to strike, and the thing can go off in almost any direction.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
David Frost
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Speaker 2
You did a spell of acting at that time, too, didn't you? A film, I remember.
David Frost
I wouldn't call it acting. It was a cameo appear and I'm sure nobody else would either. But I've always turned down films in general because television in terms of the personal pledging of my time, not necessarily uh
Speaker 2
Yeah.
David Frost
to to use your word, but in inverted commas, tycooning. But I mean in terms of use of my own time
David Frost
I believe in spending as much as possible in television. But I did make a.
Speaker 2
But
David Frost
Vignetti appearance in uh the VIP s. But if you blinked, you missed it. Now I I was luckily paid as a guest star
Speaker 2
Yeah.
David Frost
for a cameo rather than as an extra for a walk-on. And I had the nicest credit, I remember, in the film and it was the occasion that I met and started to know Richard and Elizabeth and also Orson Welles and we've later become fast friends, all of us, so that it was a very, very pleasant experience. But I don't think it added much to the lexicon of English acting. When did you start appearing on American television? The first thing was the American version of That Was the Week That Was, which followed the curtailing of the English That Was the Week That Was, which was taken off for the great compliment reason that it was going to affect the election result. Though, of course, an election year was the time when it was probably needed more than any other. And I went over and started doing American television then. And that started the transatlantic commuting. You been in the middle of the day. Yes, I commuted then, and then I stopped commuting for a bit and went over for a week or two and then back and so on. And then I've been doing a lot of commuting for the last two years.
Speaker 2
Yes, I commuted them.
Speaker 2
And after TW3, another satirical series, not so much a programme, more a way of life. That's right. People used to say...
David Frost
About that, it's quite a good show, but I wish they'd cut twenty minutes out of the title, that's what they used to say about that.
Speaker 2
You were beginning to be not quite so convincing in this particular satirical show, because you were attacking wealth and privilege while mopping up a great deal of lucca and reveling in the full rich life yourself.
Speaker 2
I was, however,
David Frost
I remember accorded the great uh compliment
David Frost
Uh
David Frost
by the late Robert Pittman, whom I later got to know and uh
David Frost
enjoyed his company indeed too, but he did a series I remember at that time called
David Frost
The Hate Makers. Hm. Number one, David Frost. And it said at the bottom of the article, Next, Bertrand Russell. And I thought that was a bizarre and absurd compliment. Uh and I always remembered it. The article mainly concerned itself with how many shirts I had, I remember.
Speaker 2
Your chat programmes to start with had a lot of the the fierceness uh of of the satire programmes. They were referred to as as public lynchings. You were inclined to to pitch into people rather heavily for a start, were you not?
David Frost
Uh
David Frost
Very rarely really. When you look back, uh though people have a image and it's delightful they remember programmes from years ago so clearly of Doctor Savundra or Doctor Petro.
David Frost
or something like that. They were two programmes out of the first hundred and four, and there were also programmes with George Brown which drew out George Brown in a gentler but more revealing way than perhaps he'd been drawn out before, and indeed he was superb.
David Frost
So that I mean I think that the trial by television, which was always a misnomer, was uh overplayed, you know. The truth of the matter is I hope that one has always treated the
David Frost
situation ad lib in the way it should be treated, you know, just as it would be difficult to be uh what's an example. It would be difficult to be gener it would have been difficult to be generous.
Speaker 2
Just as
David Frost
to all of the policies of Dr. Savundra, just as it would be impossible to attack Jack Benny.
Speaker 2
Some of your American shows have been seen here, and there seems a
Speaker 2
A change in your attitude to interviewing for the American market, a more fulsome approach. All right, nobody wants to be unkind to Jack Penny.
David Frost
Now I think that's really because of the selection of the interviews, in fact. It's a selection made by the BBC, but it's a selection with which I agreed, but uh in the sense that obviously if you're selecting a series of programmes from the past few months, you can't take the topical confrontation of this politician or that discussing his next act. You can't take
David Frost
uh the controversial discussion on bussing which will be out of date three or four you have to take the timeless greats one yes the timeless showbiz greats who naturally have the greatest ratings appeal in Britain. When you take the timeless show business greats you will find me a very enthusiastic and appreciative audience.
Speaker 2
The show next one.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
David Frost
And you don't dig.
David Frost
As much as
Speaker 2
Uh
David Frost
Well, I dig in my own way as much.
Speaker 2
Well I
Speaker 2
But you dig in a different way. Now you've been doing your interview programme here for a number of years, the Frost programme, Frost over England, Frost on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and a similar programme in the States. Now you do the American programme several times a week. Five times a week, ninety minutes a day. And syndicate it all over.
David Frost
Syndicated all over, coast to coast, as they say, and also this.
David Frost
Autumn or fall, depending on where you happen to be. Uh I've also been doing a show called The David Frost Review, which is a humor half hour, so I've had two shows on the air this uh fall or autumn, depending on where you're going. How many weeks in a year?
Speaker 2
How many we
David Frost
That the talk show is 48 weeks of fresh shows a year.
David Frost
Uh five a week. Although you can tape six obviously so you get a little more than four weeks off that. Many hours a week, isn't it? It is. And the David Frost review is 26 half hours. They will be completed.
David Frost
In fact, we've just completed the uh the last one of those and the response to those has been thrilling, as it's been indeed to the other show. And in January I start uh commuting again to do my talk show here at a weekend.
Speaker 2
With this output of interviewing, obviously you have to rely on a staff of researchers and briefers and advisers.
Speaker 2
Are you happy? Do you feel you're doing really satisfactory interviews when someone else has to select the questions simply because you haven't the time to dig yourself?
David Frost
Someone else has to select the research material, but I do the questions and I do the reading too, because that's the only way it can work. Someone else.
Speaker 2
Res
David Frost
finds the material, and I find some of it myself, of course, things I've read, things I find, but if you take a particular interview, then someone will have praised three or four things that it's not worth reading all of, but a great deal more I'll read at first hand. No one else could ever do the questions for you, because a talk show depends above all on reality.
David Frost
Above all on seeing that the person is interested or bored by the person he's interviewing, you know, and that's a one-to-one thing. And most of the things that happen are Ad Live on the Air. You go into an interview knowing some of the questions you'd like to ask, some of the areas you'd like to get into, some of the quotes you'd like to quote. And after that, you wait for combustion, the Muse, the Holy Spirit, whatever you happen to believe in, to strike, and the thing can go off in almost any direction. You radiate competence. Are you ever nervous before a show?
David Frost
I cannot really remember.
David Frost
being truly nervous before a programme never. I was slightly nervous at
David Frost
concert I gave at the White House last Christmas, I think.
David Frost
slightly tenser, maybe, than usual. I never get really nervous. I sometimes get
David Frost
An added tension, not in terms of being that's a strange word to use, tension is probably one an added concentration is probably better because I never get nervous really. Although Hollywood Farewell to Frank Sinatra was an incredible concert to be part of, appearing between Jack Benny and Barbara Streisand. Those sort of occasions, the concentration adrenaline is at its peak.
Speaker 2
David, it's estimated that you earn more money than anyone ever has in the history of show business, which has meant you've had to invest it and look after it and become a tycoon.
Speaker 2
Um you seem to have taken to the jungle war of the boardroom just as
Speaker 2
Successfully is the infighting
David Frost
of television. Do you enjoy the business side of it? I love it, yes. I'm sure not more money than anyone in the history of uh
David Frost
show business. I people write, I'm sure, excessive things about compared with other people in television and so on in Britain and so on, but I mean I'm sure not in history of
David Frost
Show business, for instance, uh anybody who was in show business in the thirties and bought real estate, you know, hasn't earning, is that you'll put it in the middle of the but I
Speaker 2
Oh yes,
Speaker 2
So you'll put any
David Frost
You're doing all right.
Speaker 2
You put London Weekend television together and you have interests in films, publishing, market research, nightclubs, property investment. How do you have time for all this?
Speaker 2
Well, I'm free Tuesday breakfast.
David Frost
I don't know how much I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2
What's going on with the
David Frost
Uh I guess I work uh
David Frost
I guess I sleep six bit more than six, six to seven hours and uh work work about fourteen, I guess. Do you never relax? Do you knock off the Christmas?
Speaker 2
Roller is
David Frost
Yes, I do. I knock off for Christmas, I knock off for New Year, and I actually had a two-week holiday last year. I'm ashamed to report. It'd destroy my image. But the.
Speaker 2
Shame.
David Frost
The basic thing is that the things I do as work I would do as pleasure if I didn't do them as work. If I'd been born with a silver spoon in my mouth instead of a Methodist minister's collar, then I would do them as pleasure.
Presenter asks
You radiate competence. Are you ever nervous before a show?
I cannot really remember … being truly nervous before a programme never. I was slightly nervous at concert I gave at the White House last Christmas, I think … slightly tenser, maybe, than usual. I never get really nervous. I sometimes get an added tension, not in terms of being that's a strange word to use, tension is probably one an added concentration is probably better because I never get nervous really. Although Hollywood Farewell to Frank Sinatra was an incredible concert to be part of, appearing between Jack Benny and Barbara Streisand. Those sort of occasions, the concentration adrenaline is at its peak.
Presenter asks
David, it's estimated that you earn more money than anyone ever has in the history of show business, which has meant you've had to invest it and look after it and become a tycoon. You seem to have taken to the jungle war of the boardroom just as successfully as the infighting of television. Do you enjoy the business side of it?
I love it, yes. I'm sure not more money than anyone in the history of uh show business. I people write, I'm sure, excessive things about compared with other people in television and so on in Britain and so on, but I mean I'm sure not in history of show business, for instance, uh anybody who was in show business in the thirties and bought real estate, you know, hasn't earning, is that you'll put it in the middle of the but I … You're doing all right.
Presenter asks
You put London Weekend Television together and you have interests in films, publishing, market research, property investment. How do you have time for all this?
Well, I'm free Tuesday breakfast. … I don't know how much I'm going to do it. … Uh I guess I work uh I guess I sleep six bit more than six, six to seven hours and uh work work about fourteen, I guess.
Presenter asks
Do you never relax? Do you knock off at Christmas?
Yes, I do. I knock off for Christmas, I knock off for New Year, and I actually had a two-week holiday last year. I'm ashamed to report. It'd destroy my image. But the basic thing is that the things I do as work I would do as pleasure if I didn't do them as work. If I'd been born with a silver spoon in my mouth instead of a Methodist minister's collar, then I would do them as pleasure.
“Someone else has to select the research material, but I do the questions and I do the reading too, because that's the only way it can work.”
“You go into an interview knowing some of the questions you'd like to ask, some of the areas you'd like to get into, some of the quotes you'd like to quote. And after that, you wait for combustion, the Muse, the Holy Spirit, whatever you happen to believe in, to strike, and the thing can go off in almost any direction.”
“I cannot really remember being truly nervous before a programme never. I was slightly nervous at concert I gave at the White House last Christmas, I think.”
“I love it, yes. I'm sure not more money than anyone in the history of uh show business.”
“The basic thing is that the things I do as work I would do as pleasure if I didn't do them as work. If I'd been born with a silver spoon in my mouth instead of a Methodist minister's collar, then I would do them as pleasure.”