Emlyn Williams

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy five, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is the actor and author Emlyn Williams. Emlyn, could you endure loneliness for a long time?

Presenter0:38

Not for a long time. No, I I can be alone for a whole day, quite happily working. But I'm much happier if I think I'm going to meet some friends in the evening.

Presenter0:46

Is music important to you?

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I've no understanding of music and I can't sing, but I love music, and I've always used it in my plays.

Presenter0:57

sometimes even dragged it in because I I think it illuminates a play. Certainly to me it does. What was your plan to musically illuminate your desert island? Are you looking back? Yes, I think so. What's your first record? It's going back. It's um and will always thrill me, you know, even in the on the bad days when it's pouring with rain and the sand is soggy. Is uh when I was at Oxford, I had the first play I was ever had a part in, and it was at the new theatre, Oxford, the first theatre I'd ever acted in, and we did Piergint. And I'd never thought of music I didn't really know about Grieg. And when we got to the dress rehearsal, all the thrill of the lights and everything, and suddenly this orchestra started to play between the scenes, ready for for I was walking on doing all sort of six or seven parts. The thrill of being on that stage and I knew that I thought nothing's going to stop me staying here on this stage only with bigger parts. And that's the th it would always thrill me on the on the island. I would feel that creepy thing at the back of your neck, you know, when you hear this marvellous dramatic music. Darrell Dipson must have been thrilled when you first heard it.

Emlyn Williams1:40

Yeah.

Speaker 31:40

Yeah, there's

Speaker 32:04

Uh

Presenter3:05

In the Hall of the Mountain King, from Grieg's music to pyr gint, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter3:13

Let's go on to your second record now.

Presenter3:15

Mhm. Well, I'm afraid it's unashamedly egocentric because it's it's a a a tune, an old Welsh folk tune, which I used in a play of mine called The Corn is Green. I'd heard this music as a child sung in my village and I had the feeling I can say it now. I I couldn't have said it then because I was so superstitious, I felt this is going to be a success. It was the music that told me, not my words in the in the dialogue. And that's why I would always I'd love to have this with me. And indeed, the play was a success. And what is this tune called? It's called Begaliar Gwyneth Gwyn.

Presenter3:53

Uh beguil is the Welsh for shepherd, so it really means shepherding the corn. And which choir shall sing it? Uh it's the uh Ponter de Lais male choir, one of the best.

Presenter4:58

Shepherding the corn sung by the Pontadilais choir,

Presenter5:03

Pontarte de l'Is. Pontard de Leis. Excuse me. I beg your pardon. I must brush up my Welsh. I've been saying that for years. Flintshire. Yes. Your first language, of course, was Welsh. Yes, until I was well, really, until I was about eight or nine, and I learnt English really on the side, and of course at school did it. But of course, talking Welsh at home, all my English was was out of out of books. It was the printed word.

Emlyn Williams5:16

Yeah.

Presenter5:31

There is, of course, in Wales no theatrical tradition. There was no theatre for Eurasie. Nope, none.

Presenter5:37

Except the the uh the preachers, of course, who would have died if they'd been called theatrical. But they were looking back. There were there were some of them were very, very fine and very crafty actors.

Presenter5:49

You were a bright boy. You won scholarships. You were sent abroad.

Presenter5:54

And you won a scholarship to Oxford. What did you read there? French and Italian. Because you see, I'd been sent when I was fifteen by my teacher, Miss Cook, which was very far-sighted, over to a little village school in Haute-Savoie to a friend of hers, and there was not one word of English spoken there. So I just had to speak French, however difficult it was for me, for three months, literally every day, all the time. Which was marvellous, of course, preparation for going for a scholarship in French. Yes. As an actor, what was your first major opportunity? Uh, on the spot, by Edgar Wallace. Yes, you played the The Italian gangster. Angelo, yes, marvellous part. But you could never have known it was a marvellous part to see it because it was so short.

Emlyn Williams6:35

Small

Presenter6:41

And gradually I realized it was one of those golden parts that uh

Presenter6:44

You every line tells and it's uh terribly effective. Yes. And then you followed it with another Edgar Walters. Yes, the case of the frightened lady.

Emlyn Williams6:51

Yeah.

Presenter6:53

I have to play an Indian Army officer, which I uh

Presenter6:57

I tried to convey that I was not the ordinary run of Indian Army officer, that I was a slightly round peg in a square hole and just took

Presenter7:09

Just so that people wouldn't say, Well, I've never seen an

Presenter7:11

Uh

Presenter7:13

an Indian officer like that. I mean, I didn't I don't think I looked freakish, but I wasn't the the Pakasaab, you see. Yes. What sort of man was Edgar Wallace? Oh, he was a fascinating larger than life man. Larger than life. Yes.

Presenter7:27

And my father of course was thrilled with it because my father was slightly a racing man, you know, with the the pools and the pennies and uh he was thrilled and really much more by him as a as a racing man and an owner of horses than as a playwright. Let's have another record. What's number three? It's called The Entrance of the Little Fawns. And it's tremendously merry tune. I love it.

Presenter8:51

The Entrance of the Little Fawns by Piernet.

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The Pro Arty Orchestra conducted by Gilbert Vinter.

Presenter8:58

Now you told us that your first acting successes were in The Two Thrillers by Edgar Wallace. As a playwright, your first two successes were thrillers.

Presenter9:07

Yes, one was called A Murder Has Been Arranged. It was it had an extraordinary sort of uh success on a Sunday night, which wasn't absolutely carried out in the week. It was it had been slightly overpraised. I mean it had it and it's been done tremendously by amateurs and and uh

Emlyn Williams9:24

How

Presenter9:25

repertory companies. But the the the uh next one was the one that that really was uh l very lucky to me, night was four. Yes. And both both murder plays indeed. It was that murderous boy with the head and the hat box. Mhm.

Presenter9:40

Well now came a long and very satisfying period for you during which you starred in your own plays. The one in particular which you mentioned, The Corn is Green, was autobiographical. Yes, it was really biographical almost more because it was about my teacher, Miss Cook, who'd taught me, and of course I placed it much earlier. I placed it in 1890. I was at school, you see, I was ten in 1915, sixteen, and of course education in Wales was by then much less picturesquely undeveloped. So I had to throw it back to 1890 to make the boys whom she was trying to teach they were minors already at the age of thirteen, which of course wasn't happening in 1916. But it was very much her character completely. Yes. She was played by Sybil Thorndike and then Ethel Barrimore in New York and then Betty Davis played the film.

Presenter10:34

Now what other plays shall we talk about of of those years? The Light of Heart was a great success. Yes, that was done in the war, that Langela Badley and Godfretell. Yes, and The Morning Star about the Blitz. It might be interesting to see it now, because it was such a period piece. And The Wind of Heaven? Yes, that was just at the end of the war. It was a play about uh well, about the if the new Messiah and well there was somebody who was supposed to be the new Messiah had arrived in a little Welsh village.

Presenter11:06

Time for another record, I think. Mm-hmm.

Presenter11:08

Uh well, I think I'd like to have, as I have always dealt in the spoken word, on the written word,

Presenter11:14

Um I'd like something funny. Peter Sellers and Irene Handel. I think I would

Presenter11:21

be laughing or at least smiling through the worst weather. Yes. This is the lady who meets the French gentleman.

Emlyn Williams11:27

Yeah.

Emlyn Williams11:31

I was just gonna ask you back to Dindens when the

Presenter11:34

Well, I would love to come, please ask me.

Emlyn Williams11:35

They keep a smashing table at the Royalson, you know. We nearly always have a second vegetable, and always croutons with a soup. And if you ever feel like having half a bottle of bourgeois, they practically fall over themselves backwards, bringing it in for you. I always say, as long as there's enough to see me out, what happens afterwards? It's Sanfer again.

Presenter11:57

Oh, you speak French.

Emlyn Williams11:58

Un peti per.

Presenter12:00

But you have got a very fine accent, you know.

Emlyn Williams12:01

Good hand.

Presenter12:03

Irene Handel and Peter Sellers in The Skit Shadows on the Grass, which was written by Irene Handel. I think I'd be smiling for quite a long time over that, don't you? I'm sure you would. Chuckling even.

Presenter12:16

In nineteen fifty one you had an idea for a one man show. You re enacted the readings which Charles Dickens gave in later life from his own works. What gave you that idea? Well, it was it happened out of the blue. It was extraordinary. Uh I was asked to be in a

Presenter12:32

One of those all-star things on Sunday, you know, it's something that's changed the whole course of my life. I was reading a biography of Dickens by Eunipope Penny, and she was talking about these marvelous success he had with these. They had readings of real performances, extraordinary solo performances, it seems. So I thought, well, as a lark I'll try getting myself up as him and coming on for eight minutes, ten minutes, and do a thing from Bleak House, not even dialogue, but description is because I knew his wonderful powers of description were really dramatic, you know, quite apart from the printed page. And

Presenter13:10

It had such an effect on the audience that I I thought I thought, well, I think I'm on to something and I worked on it for a year, finding the various um

Presenter13:19

Items for a whole evening. What gave me confidence was I knew that the one thing I had to have was variety. Ghost stories in between and satire and irony and fantasy and he's got absolutely everything. So I knew I was if I could live up to that I would be all right. Yes. In how many countries have you portrayed Charles Dickens? Oh, I think everyone now, except the moon, I think. You can call that a country. I don't think I'd get very good houses there, do you? No, it's a terrible theatre to. I want to get back to the desert island, actually.

Emlyn Williams13:46

No, it's a terrible theatre to be able to do it.

Presenter13:51

No, I've done everything. I did South America, which was the last uh no, I tell you where I haven't been, which uh I would love to go, and they it's always on the point of going, which is China. There was talk of Peking about two years ago, but it was couldn't be fitted in. I've been to Japan.

Presenter14:07

Any idea how many performances you've played? Oh, about uh I've played a few more than you've done of Desert Islanders. I think I beat you by about two or three hundred. I've I've done about well, no I've got Dylan Thomas as well, you see. So Dickens, I think, is a little over two thousand. On and off, you see, for twenty-three years. I was the last uh attraction, if you can call it that, at the Ambassadors when the mousetrap came on. It's true. But I haven't been in this ever since continuously, I hasten to tell you, because I'd have gone mad by now. I'd have been in a mousetrap of my own.

Speaker 314:23

Yeah.

Emlyn Williams14:23

Yeah.

Presenter14:42

I've always been able to get away from it and do it. I've never done it for more than three or four months at a time and done things in between, then I come back to it fresh. And you're playing Dickens again at the moment at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Yes, well of course I've never played before, the only theatre in the West End I I hadn't hadn't ever played. And then after that I go on a quite a long tour which I love doing in in England and Wales and uh to America in the fall, they say.

Presenter15:09

Dickens has in a way taken over your theatrical life. Since nineteen fifty one, a apart from a season at Stratford and you took over from John Gilgood in Forty Years On, you've done very little acting.

Presenter15:21

Uh not a great deal, no. I've d really somehow got into writing three books, and of course three substantial books. I mean, I'm I'm not uh saying that as a praise, but I mean that they're they're long, you know, they're they've taken an enormous amount of trouble to write, and they took about three years each. Well, that's nine years, you see.

Presenter15:40

Two very honest volumes of autobiography, George and Emlin. Then your third book about those appalling Moore's murders. You sat right through the trial and

Emlyn Williams15:48

Yeah.

Speaker 215:48

Yeah.

Emlyn Williams15:48

Yeah.

Presenter15:50

Mm-hmm. Yes, and uh there are moments when I wish I hadn't. You've always been fascinated by the macabre.

Emlyn Williams15:53

Can you hold?

Presenter15:55

Yes, uh but it's always been second hand until that. And of course when I got to that that was the real thing and um I I it's really made me feel I never want to go back to it. Cured me. Now recent events. You've turned the Corn is Green into a musical. Mm-hmm. Miss Moffat. Yes, and it was done in America in the autumn. And it and it did work too.

Presenter16:21

But of course we had to stop in the second week because pr Betty Davis, who was the main attraction of course, fell ill and uh we had to just fold. Yes, but it's coming back. I think next summer, yes. And you have ideas for another musical? Yes, I'm halfway through it. Um

Presenter16:39

It's a m musical of a play that I wrote about uh the Globe Theatre in Shakespeare's time, called Spring 1600. Yes. Uh John Gigal directed it originally and I s suddenly thought, Well, that I'd try my hand at this, because it to me lends itself about a girl who joins the company, dressed as a boy and then plays viola.

Emlyn Williams16:57

Uh

Presenter17:00

They all think she's a boy because all that is to me great fun for a musical and using uh

Presenter17:06

all the the costumes and the pageantry and

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Hope it will.

Presenter17:12

Both your sons have followed in a footstep, one as author and one as actor. One, yes, one and uh and uh needless to say they've never had any pushing, you know, from either their mother or me to go. They were

Emlyn Williams17:20

One, yes, one.

Presenter17:28

If they wanted wherever they wanted to go, that's where they should go. No, and but they went of their own accord. The Elders is um a novelist of of growing repute, I'm very proud to say, and um he's got a book out, just out now, which is fascinating, about Philby, called um

Presenter17:45

Gentleman Traitor and uh it's the sixth or seventh book. I'm allowed to publicize myself. Of course you are. And the other one is in films, an an actor and in films. He's in films at the moment and he's on the on the uh production side of films. Brooke Williams, he's a he's filming in Nice at the moment with a quiet, shy, retiring character called Richard Burton. Oh yes, yes, I've heard of him. Let's have record number five. It's London Pride by Noel Card, because I've I absolutely worshipped his his talent.

Presenter18:18

That's not too strong a word.

Presenter18:20

Gracie Fields is singing, marvellous, touching, singalek, funny, and everything a a star should be.

Speaker 318:28

Early rain and the pavement glistening All park lane in a shimmering gone

Speaker 318:40

Nothing ever could break or harm the charm of love.

Speaker 318:51

Done.

Presenter18:55

Gracie Fields. And straight into record number six. What's that? It's called A Shropshire Lad, and I and I I know I would love hearing it.

Presenter20:03

George Butterworth, a Shropshire Ladd, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. Now the practical side of being a castaway Emilyn, could you look after yourself?

Presenter20:13

No, I would be absolutely hopeless. I'd be just be mooning around on that sand, just listening to records. Have you done anything like fishing? No. Or cultivating?

Presenter20:22

I was a country boy, but I was a country boy who couldn't wait to get out. Would you get out of the island? Can you escape? Do you know anything about it? I can swim, but not that far. No, small boats. If there was a small boat? Could you make a small boat? Could you make a raft? You'd have to have a knife, wouldn't you? Shells? Oh, you would have to use it. Something is... Oh, I might, with that sort of ingenuity, I might

Emlyn Williams20:42

F

Speaker 320:44

Something like

Speaker 320:46

Oh I'm

Presenter20:50

get at, but I would be very, very uh bad uh craftsman. But I think you're getting quite excited at the project. Yes. You can still wait. Right, record number seven.

Presenter21:03

Uh this is um uh the music which I've only been introduced to in the last five or six years, having a little well, it's called a villa, but it's really a tiny little house by the sea in Cofu.

Presenter21:15

bouzooki music, you know, marvellous uh it's nostalgic music in itself, and yet with a wonderful rhythm and and and and deep-seated sort of gaiety in it, and a deep-seated sadness too, which is to me the best of that sort of music.

Presenter21:30

You haven't given us the title.

Presenter21:32

Well, it's uh you don't remember if I show off my Greek duo. It's called Horisame enadirino, which means we separated, we parted one evening.

Emlyn Williams21:34

Please

Presenter22:12

A Hajadaki's tune we parted one evening from the

Presenter22:17

Long player Lilax out of the dead lamb.

Presenter22:20

Which brings us now to your last record. Mm-hmm.

Presenter22:23

Well, it's Elizabethan serenade, and I think you'll get the the m the idea of him thrill of of pageantry and and drama and uh challenge. It's marvellous.

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Elizabethan Serenade played by Ron Goodwin and his orchestra. If you could take one disc out of your eight.

Presenter23:38

Now do it right done.

Presenter23:40

The Elizabethan Selenade. Right. And one luxury?

Presenter23:45

Well, I though would I be allowed a typewriter? And paper and pen, of course. And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Presenter23:55

Am I allowed a big dictionary? Yes. Ah, well that's what I take, because you see I've always been nothing concurrent fascinated by words. The com what you call computations, the permutations would um be endless.

Emlyn Williams23:57

Oh.

Emlyn Williams24:07

Then

Presenter24:11

And it would also help one to write, one would learn new words and

Presenter24:15

Improve oneself while waiting for that sail on the horizon.

Presenter24:21

Thank you, Emilyn Williams, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Oh, I've enjoyed it. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 224:34

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.