James Bolam

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty 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 seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Speaker 30:32

Yeah.

Presenter0:32

This week, our castaway is the actor James Bolam.

Presenter0:35

We know you're from the northeast, Jimmy. Whereabouts? Uh I was born in Sunderland.

Presenter0:40

Long time ago.

Presenter0:41

But you left there quite early. Yes, I left there when I was a boy, about uh thirteen or fourteen.

James Bolam0:42

Yeah.

Presenter0:46

How important is music to you?

James Bolam0:46

Yeah.

Presenter0:48

Uh, well I think like it's important to everyone. It's uh one has one's sort of favourites which can be nice and relaxing. I hate listening to it all the time. I hate it when when music's playing continually in the background. But I'm not particularly musical. I don't uh I have no pretensions that way myself. Do you sing? I I've tried on a couple of occasions. Successfully? Uh no, I'm afraid not. I was in a I was in a couple of musicals. One of them was at The Mermaid a long time ago, which didn't do very well and

James Bolam1:06

Successfully? Uh no.

Presenter1:15

and one at the University of Sussex which did even worse.

Presenter1:18

Did you have any plan in choosing your eight records?

Presenter1:22

One or two records remind me of various

Presenter1:25

times in my life, but m most of it is just for my own pleasure really. Where do we start? I'd like to start with Beethoven. It's it was my first introduction to um to serious music as it as it were. As I went to to um drama school and people said, Well, don't you know about Beethoven? Don't you know about this a lot?

Presenter1:43

I'll try. So I tried, and this is the first one I tried with, which is the Beethoven Violin Concerto, which I'm absolutely in love with now.

Presenter2:46

Yeah.

Presenter2:53

The closing passage of the Beethoven violin concerto, David Oistrack, with the French National Radio Orchestra.

Presenter3:00

When you left the North East, did you come to London? No, I went to Derby first. Um I finished off my uh so-called education in Derby and then uh for a very brief period I was an article clerk to a chartered accountant and then I thought well I don't really like this and I'm not very good at it um and I would really rather like to try and be an actor. I thought well if I don't try I'll probably spend the rest of the rest of my life regretting it. So I tried and went to a drama school and came to London. The Central School in London. That's right. Could you manage on your grant?

Presenter3:31

No, no, at first I didn't have a grant at all. I had to borrow the money for fees for the first year and uh to sort of keep myself

Presenter3:37

Alive, I I worked uh the first year at Lyons Corner House and then the next two years in a in a rather smart restaurant in Kensington washing dishes and uh eventually I was promoted preparing first courses, but I was never let loose on the customers.

James Bolam3:51

I've never let

Presenter3:53

So you studied by day and worked in the restaurants by night. That's right.

Presenter3:57

Well, you did all right at the Central. You got the gold medal, didn't you? Yes. I I also won the Margaret Rawlins Cup, and uh I I remember once I was being interviewed with John Junkin, um the two of us were on on a tour together, and the interviewer said, uh you won the Margaret Rawlins Cup, I believe, mister Bolin. What was that for?

James Bolam4:00

Put it up.

Presenter4:14

And John Junkins said that was for the actor who looked most like Margaret Rawlins. That tonight. What was your first professional engagement? I achieved the ambition I always had when I was at drama school, which was to go to the Royal Court Theatre. In 56, the court had the great revolution with Look Back and Anger, and I don't think the theatre's ever been the same since then. Thank heaven, as far as I'm concerned.

Presenter4:38

And uh I just thought it was a it was a wonderful theatre and I I really wanted to work there. And what was the play? I I went there as a walk on an understudy in a play called Platinoff.

Presenter4:49

Uh Chekhov play and I was understudying Monnie Barker. Well that seems unlikely because drawing, thank God I never had to go on for it.

Presenter4:57

Right, record number two. Uh well, to sort of remind me of those days, uh of of the sort of um the late fifties. As I say, the the revolution in the theater was also revolution in music. I think pop music anyway, and I think

Presenter5:09

Elvis is the daddy of them all, and I'd like to hear him singing Heartbreak Hotel.

Presenter5:14

It's a no

Speaker 35:14

Yeah.

Presenter5:15

Me. But it's a lonely.

Presenter5:18

But they're so lonely and they could die.

Speaker 35:22

Well gentlemen, if your fair believes you, and you've got a tale to tell, we'll just take a walk down the street too.

Speaker 25:24

Believe

Presenter5:24

Yeah.

Presenter5:31

How many football you will be comfortable because Lordly baby

Speaker 35:35

We're able to be lonely.

Speaker 35:38

You'll be so lonely, you could die.

Presenter5:42

Elvis Presley.

Presenter5:44

After Platinoff, what other jobs, the early jobs, do you remember?

Presenter5:49

Well, I worked a lot at the court and then I did a season at uh at the Mermaid Theatre. I went there um and did um one or two plays there, one of which was the Wakefield Mystery Plays and I played Jesus and I thought, Well,

Presenter6:02

Where do I go from here?

James Bolam6:03

Yeah, it's

Presenter6:04

At the Royal Court, you played the Arnold Wesker play The Kitchen. That's right. That must have made you feel the tone. Well, yes, I suppose I had a certain knowledge about it all, but of course, there we had.

James Bolam6:07

That's right.

Presenter6:13

Uh we we had plates and we had pots and pans and spoons, we had no food. One was miming the food all the time.

Presenter6:19

And you did a couple of films very early on. Yes, I did uh I did A Kind of Loving uh and then and I did um The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Well, yes, I was sort of in a sort of mould in those days, a sort of being Hero's friend, always at his shoulder, but never there at the kill, you know.

Presenter6:37

What was your first West End appearance? Well, that was about 62 or 63 in David Turner's play Semi-Detached.

Presenter6:43

Uh when I played uh Sir Lawrence's son in that. Sir Lawrence Olivier. Yes, yes.

James Bolam6:47

Yeah.

Presenter6:48

You went to New York with one play. Yes, I did. Uh it was a bit unfortunate in so far as the play was not successful. But I I did have a chance to see some theatre in New York too, which is really quite nice.

Presenter6:59

And I know that leads you into your next direction. Yes, yes. I had a marvellous experience of seeing Ethel Merman on stage. I don't know it was 1966, and perhaps she was, I'm sure she'll agree, she was a bit old for the part, but she was doing Annie, Get You've Gone, and was absolutely wonderful. Which she played, of course, originally twenty years before. That's right, that's right. But a wonderful singing voice and a marvellous stage presence.

James Bolam7:17

That's right.

Presenter7:23

Only know they tell me that the love is right.

Presenter7:32

The thing that's known as romance is wonderful.

Presenter7:39

Wonderful.

Presenter7:43

In every way.

Presenter7:48

So they say

Presenter7:53

Effelmerman in Anigato Gun.

Presenter7:56

What was your first television? It was a play called The Weekenders. I remember Jennifer Wilson and Brian Pringle were in it, and the billing read um Brian Pringle or Jennifer Wilson, and then another separate Campsion and James Bolemy in and Brian was furious because he thought I'd got a better billing than he had.

Presenter8:12

Then you began being a sort of um general television chap in Zedcars, popping up in all the series and serials. That's right, playing the general northern young man who's usually gone wrong in some way or another. And then the big one, the series The Likely Lads. How did that job come about?

James Bolam8:20

That's right.

Presenter8:31

Well, I I was called to an interview at the BBC and and

Presenter8:35

I thought the scripts are beautifully written by Dick Clement and Ian Frenay.

Presenter8:39

And apparently after I'd left, um, Ian said to Dick, Well, yes, he's read all right and I

Speaker 28:44

Yeah.

Presenter8:46

I think he's quite a good actor, he said, but has he got a sense of humour? Look, he's on this programme to night, Sergeant Clough. Let's watch it and see how he comes over.

Presenter8:55

So looking for my sense of humour they watched this programme and during which my father, my wife and my young baby were all murdered. So what that says about their sense of humour or how I got the part I shall never know. You played Terry, the likely lad, the the cocky one, the the bird chatter up. That's right, yes, yes. How many episodes did you do? We did over a period of two years from sixty four to sixty six we did twenty episodes in all.

Presenter9:22

And by the end of 1966, I thought, well, I think that's just about run its course, really. There weren't many more.

Presenter9:29

Stories you could get out of that given situation with those two characters, keeping the basic reality alive, which I thought was very important for the series. It had been a great help in establishing you. You were still only in your early twenties. Well, that's right, yes. I'd only been in the business really four years when I first did The Likely Lad, so it was a tremendous break for me, and a very lucky one, of course. Record number four. I'd like some Mozart, please. I'd like the clarinet concerto.

Presenter10:57

The Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major, Alfred Prince as the soloist, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Munschinger.

Presenter11:06

After the likely deaths, you were out of work quite a bit. Yes, I was. I was. I think it was twofold, really. One had this.

Presenter11:13

very strong image of of not only being in in the likely lads, but also as

Presenter11:18

one of uh of a double act, which of course we never were.

Presenter11:22

And added to that, of course, I was getting older and the sort of young man image was r rapidly disappearing. And I think the combination of the two did rather put me out of work for some time. You did a television serial, a a rather more serious affair. Yes, I did, called Inheritance from from a book, and uh we went to great lengths to really get a a proper Yorkshire accent. The series was about the Luddites and it was set o in in the nineteenth century in in the vales of Yorkshire, so we went off and studied the real strong Yorkshire dialect, which I think most of us got really rather well. In fact, too well, because nobody

Speaker 311:37

Yeah.

Speaker 211:47

Uh

Presenter11:59

I don't understand the word he was saying.

James Bolam12:00

Yeah.

Speaker 212:00

Yeah.

James Bolam12:01

Yeah.

Presenter12:02

And particularly in the South. I don't think they was ever shown in the South for that reason.

Presenter12:07

And there was a play you propped up in which a celebration.

Presenter12:11

Oh yes, in celebration, yes, and that was nineteen sixty nine. That was um

Presenter12:15

That was a marvellous experience. And again I was working with Alan Bates. I'd worked with him before in a kind of loving and uh this was a a beautiful David story play and directed by Lindsay Anderson who I think must probably be the best there is around. You did the film version of the film. Yes and Lind Lindsay did the film later in nineteen seventy four and I was in that. All the original cast were in it again and that was

James Bolam12:29

Yeah.

Presenter12:36

Up until then I'd never really liked filming very much. I didn't really understand it and uh

Presenter12:40

And Lindsay rather, um

Presenter12:43

Of this one one of these things, and said, You know, after someone has moved away, will you move in there? And I'm giving him all this nonsense about what what is my motivation? He said, Oh, never mind, just move He said, Well, All right, I'll do it, I'll do it, so I just did it. And then he said, Now you come to the Rushes tomorrow. I said, I don't want to go to the Rushes. He said, You ought to come to the Rushes, so I went.

Presenter13:00

And I saw this particular piece, and I just suddenly saw exactly why he wanted me to move while he was making the picture. He taught me so much about filming.

Speaker 213:05

Listen.

Presenter13:09

And after, what, three or four years, suddenly the likely lads cropped up again. Whatever happened to the likely lads? Was that completely unexpected? Well, it was rather. I just suddenly got this phone call from Dick Clement, I think, one one of the writers, and said, you know, why didn't we?

James Bolam13:13

Yeah.

Presenter13:24

Um

Presenter13:25

Pick up the story five years from now, because at the end of the first series my character, Terry, had gone into the army.

Presenter13:31

So I said, Well, we'll pick it up as it were five years later with him coming out of the army and and and um Bob, the other character, being on the verge of getting married and there therefore the there was a whole new situation was created.

Presenter13:45

And we did two more lots of thirteen.

Presenter13:48

On that particular theme. Plus a feature film. Plus a feature film, yes, yeah.

Presenter13:52

Record number five. Well, obviously being on an island, I think I must have something to make me laugh. And one record that had me in hysterics when I first heard it and still makes me laugh.

Presenter14:02

is um Gerard Hoffner and the bricklayer. Oh, yes. Now wh what's happening here? This is this is when the bricklayer's been repairing the top of a high building and has some bricks left over. So he makes a little beam and and and has a barrel

James Bolam14:08

This is

Presenter14:17

up on the top of the building, puts the bricks in.

Presenter14:19

Loads the barley up, goes down and takes hold of the line to bring the bricks down to the ground again. And we'll let Hofnung take it from there.

Speaker 314:28

Unfortunately.

Presenter14:36

It's a barrel of bricks.

Presenter14:38

was heavier than I was.

Speaker 314:49

And before I knew what was happening

Speaker 314:53

The barrel started down.

Presenter14:55

Uh

Speaker 314:56

Jack

Presenter14:57

Kicking me off the ground.

Presenter14:59

Dragon me off the ground.

Presenter15:03

I decided to hang on.

Speaker 315:10

And halfway up I met the barrel coming down.

Presenter15:23

Gerard Hofnung at the Oxford Union. He takes a long time about that story. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. It gets funnier and funnier.

James Bolam15:28

Yeah.

Presenter15:30

All all through your career the the Royal Court Theatre keeps popping up again, doesn't it? Yes, yes. You went back there to do a Charles Wood play. Yes, I did, called Veterans. And it was Charles Wood's play of

James Bolam15:35

Yes, yes.

Presenter15:43

A day's filming, really, I think taken from he he was involved in the filming of the charge of the light brigade and he wrote this play which was simply one day's filming. And it was in that I think I achieved one of my great ambitions really, which was to work with Sir John Gilgood. His timing in his comedy is something to be believed. And you have been back again in Geordieland. Yes, in another television series. When the boat comes in, it's very different from the likely land. Oh, yes, yes.

James Bolam16:14

Yeah.

James Bolam16:16

Oh, yes.

Presenter16:17

Uh lot of problems here, recreating the twenties.

Presenter16:22

Bit difficult on on the exterior one. Oh, yes, yes, one has got to be so careful about. Um, of course, you don't get.

James Bolam16:24

Oh yes.

Presenter16:28

hardly anymore any cobbled streets anymore. Uh there are television aerials everywhere you go.

Presenter16:34

There still are some little back streets up in the north east which we seem to use again and again.

Presenter16:40

And we do go back up there to film all the time because the the atmosphere up there is something you cannot capture anywhere else but there. And apart from that, the people who work on the crowd scenes, the extras, and also play the small parts

Presenter16:52

Are so marvellous and so enthusiastic, and lend so much atmosphere to the series, and also help.

Presenter17:00

Um are sort of exiled actors when we go back up there and they they put you right into the swing of the whole not just the dialect but the mood, the feel, the way that people think and the humour and it's it's the only place to do it. You couldn't do it anywhere else. Does it worry you that you're typecast so much in in in the Geordie role? Well, yes, I suppose if I do anything else now on television, suppose I can get the chance, it's got to be away from the northeast. What would you like to do if the telephone were to ring tonight with an offer? Oh, I want to go and make a Western.

Presenter17:29

A Western? Yes, I've always had an ambition to be in a Western. Even if it's only just the opening shot, the dot on the horizon gets nearer and nearer as all the credits go up and as I come into close-up I get a shot. I don't care, I just want to be in a Western. Well I I hope you get your wish. Record number six. Uh well, apropos of Westerns I'd like the theme music from Shane, which I think is one of the finest Westerns ever made.

Presenter18:51

The theme from Shane, The Call of the Far Away Hills. How's your writing?

Presenter18:56

Oh, not as good as it used to be. I used to ride quite a lot, but and then as I as I got better, so they give you better horses, and I'm afraid my nerve went, and I thought, Oh, don't

James Bolam18:58

But that

Presenter19:04

Some years ago you were on the sports pages as a racehorse owner. Do does this still go on? Well well, I still am, really, except that the racehorse that we own is is now um she's now at start and she's hopefully going to fold in June.

Presenter19:18

How has she done? Is she unfortunate?

James Bolam19:19

She removed.

Presenter19:24

What are your other relaxations? Of course you're a family man now. Well, yes, yes. Which is hardly a relaxation, I will tell you. Yes, little little baby girl, seven months.

James Bolam19:26

What do you

Presenter19:33

Um and uh

Presenter19:36

My

Presenter19:37

Weekly or twice weekly or sometimes three weekly, if I'm lucky, forays at Hack and Search. I try and play golf. Hack and Search, that is. Yes, yes.

James Bolam19:44

Yeah.

Presenter19:46

Are you a resourceful man with your hands? Could you look after yourself? Well, I think I think I'm going to be in a bit of trouble, really. I'll have hopefully have to find a cave, I think. Uh I don't think I could build anywhere. What about food? Well, this too would be a problem. I suppose I'm I I could try and winkle some fish out of the sea. But I'm not a fisherman. I've never fished as such. Would you try to escape?

James Bolam19:48

Well now

Presenter20:08

Well, I there'd be no I there'd be no way I could, really. All I could do was to build a beacon and wait for a passing sail or puff of smoke, really. I don't know. I might quite like it if I can find enough to eat. I might just decide to stay there.

Presenter20:20

Record number seven. Apropos of Credo's daughter, our mare, our racehorse, I'd like first track from Guys and Dolls. Oh, the fugue for tin horns. Yes, please.

Speaker 320:39

I got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere, and here's a guy that says if the weather's clear, can do...

Speaker 320:47

Can do.

Speaker 320:49

This guy says the horse can do

Speaker 320:52

If he says the horse can do

Speaker 320:56

Can do

Speaker 320:57

Tam

Presenter20:59

Fugue for Tinhorns by the original New York cast of Guys and Dolls, which brings us now to your last record.

Presenter21:05

Yes, uh I think for the my last record I would like uh Simon Garfunkel. I'm a great great fan of Simon Garfunkel, but I think this record would be particularly pertinent on a desert island if I got

Presenter21:17

maudlin or sentimental.

Presenter21:20

And I could play this and it would remind me of the awful world that I've left behind. And it's uh the seven o'clock news silent night.

James Bolam21:28

In Chicago, Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment. The nurses were found stabbed and strangled in their Chicago apartment. In Washington, the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities continued its probe into anti-Vietnam War protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted.

Presenter21:52

The Simon and Garfunkel version of Silent Night.

Presenter21:56

Jem, if you could take just one disc of your aid, which would it be? I think it would have to be the Beethoven. The Beethoven violin concerto. Yes. And one luxury to take with you. Well, I've thought a great deal about this. Uh and I think if I've got to be washed ashore, it might be nice to be washed ashore with a few selected cases of French wine, I think.

James Bolam22:15

Right. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Presenter22:19

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. There are very few books I've read more than once. I've read that three times. I think I could probably read it three more times. It shall be there. Thank you. And thank you, James Bellham, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc. Thank you very much indeed. Goodbye. Goodbye, everyone.

James Bolam22:22

Yeah.

Speaker 222:43

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

Presenter23:13

Yeah.