Rex Harrison

Speaker 10:00

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 nine, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is the stage and screen star Rex Harrison.

Presenter0:37

Rex, do you have any musical skill yourself? I I'm excluding your delightful but rather specialized style of singing. Do you play an instrument?

Rex Harrison0:46

No. I've tried, because clarinet was my favorite instrument in the world, and uh and I've got a lot of records to play on the subject,'cause I love it very much. I once tried to learn the clarinet. Sid Phillips, who was a friend of mine, used to play for you during the war.

Rex Harrison1:02

And I bought a clarinet and Sid gave me a couple of lessons, and I did try, but the noises that came out were really horrendous, and it's a very difficult one to master with a reed, and I never really had time to

Speaker 11:07

End.

Rex Harrison1:12

play properly. Do you play discs a lot?

Rex Harrison1:15

A lot, yes. What's the first one you've got there on your list? Well, it's Barney Biggard, who was a clarinetist who played with Ellington. And it's uh it's called Lal at Dawn.

Presenter1:59

La La Dawn by Barnik Biggard in his orchestra recorded in 1940. You were born in the north of England, weren't you?

Rex Harrison2:06

Yes, I was born outside Liverpool. In a place called Hayton, which is a village when I was born there, but is now Famous for being mister Wilson's constituency, and has been built up. Consider

Presenter2:17

I was born. And you had two sisters, and my information is that you fell in love for the first time at the age of six. Well, I suppose that was roughly correct, yes.

Presenter2:27

You're obviously a romantic. When did you first get hooked by the theatre?

Rex Harrison2:32

Well, I was sixteen. I've been acting since I was sixteen. I went as a student to the Liverpool Rep. Yes. Well, because my family moved from Hyton.

Rex Harrison2:43

To Liverpool and uh Sefton Park outside Liverpool, and I acted at school. I went to school at the Liverpool College and I was

Presenter2:53

Did plays there. Your performance of the flute in Midsummer Night's Dream is i is still talked of.

Rex Harrison2:58

Yes, yes. I did it with a lisp, I remember. So to the Playhouse? To the Playhouse. And uh I was very happy that my family didn't turn against it. No none of my family had ever been connected with the theatre at all. But my mother and father were

Presenter3:05

To the playhouse

Rex Harrison3:14

Very supportive about it, and uh he went and talked to somebody on the committee of the Liverpool Rep, and then I went and had an interview with uh William Armstrong.

Rex Harrison3:25

And uh they took me on as a student. What was the very first time that you trod the boards at the Playhouse? Nineteen twenty five. Yes. What what was the play? Do you remember?

Presenter3:35

Uh

Rex Harrison3:36

Yes, it was a it was a curtain raiser called Thirty Minutes in a Street and in other words it was it was the events that took place in a street for thirty minutes and I was a supposed to play a young distraught husband who had to run on and just saying, Fetch a doctor, baby That's all I had to do. Well of course I was terrified, petrified, stood in the wing shaking.

Rex Harrison4:01

And when the moment to come on, I came on and I said, Fetch a baby, doctor, and ran off the other side. And I thought that was the end of my career. That's it. Finished. Gone.

Presenter4:11

Your first real put.

Presenter4:13

was in a desert island play.

Rex Harrison4:16

Yes, that's right. I paid I know I paid Jimmy Kanaka.

Rex Harrison4:20

In a play of O'Neill's called

Rex Harrison4:24

Gold. Yes, yes. It's called gold.

Rex Harrison4:28

It was a triad. It was a very uh little known play of O'Neill's, and I think it's the only time it's ever been done. But I had a misfortune because I was blacked up all over, or browned up at least, with a lot of bones.

Presenter4:36

Yellow ochre and guinness.

Rex Harrison4:38

Yeah, that's what it is. Anyway, I had to climb a tree. And nobody had told me the tree had been fireproof just five minutes before the curtain went up, so I went up brown and came down white, which is very unfortunate'cause my family was in front. Yes. Well, let's have uh your second record. Ah now this is Goodman, another great favourite of mine, great clarinetist, and he is playing

Presenter4:38

Yeah, that's what I think.

Rex Harrison5:02

Carronade

Presenter5:34

Clarinade recorded by the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1945.

Presenter5:39

How long were you at the Liverpool Playhouse?

Rex Harrison5:42

I was there from nineteen twenty five to

Presenter5:46

Uh twenty And then you decided to join in the rough and tumble of of the business in London.

Rex Harrison5:52

Yes, William Armstrong begged me with tears in his eyes to give it up and not to go on. And uh I thought, well to hell with it, I might as well. I was very bad, but I might as well try, so I came to London on twenty seven. I used to go round all the agents with a card which said Rex Harrison, Liverpool Repertory Company and of course it was the Liverpool rep was rather famous then they didn't know I'd done practically nothing so I went round with this card.

Rex Harrison6:15

Trasked round London, all the Asians.

Rex Harrison6:17

and was sent up to Jevon Brandon Thomas finally.

Rex Harrison6:21

whose father wrote Charlie's Aunt Mhm and uh Jevon took a good view of me and thought I would be all right as one of the boys and I went out playing Jack, twenty seven. And Charlie's Aunt.

Presenter6:32

They knew did quite a number of tours of

Rex Harrison6:33

Yes, I did. I think I played every town uh practically in in England. I mean, really Dewsbury, Rochdale, Halifax, Wigan, uh all those ones. Yes. And a lot of lovely South Coast towns and a lot of Scottish towns. And you played Shakespeare on one occasion. One occasion I did, yes. I appeared in Richard the Third at the Prince of Wales Theatre of Orphe it was then a legitimate house and I had a few little parts in it. Balliel Holloway was playing Richard.

Rex Harrison7:01

And uh I had two little bits. I came on and somebody said, What is the clock?

Rex Harrison7:09

And I had to say upon the stroke of nine. And I I was standing next to Bernard Miles at the time, who was as unknown as I was, and he was given the line, because I said it in such an intimate manner, they said, that it wasn't correct. And some people said, quite wrongly, that as I was asked the time, I I rolled up my armour.

Rex Harrison7:29

And looked at an imaginary wristwatch, which is total rubbish. I'm sure it was.

Presenter7:34

You also made a a a very tentative appearance i in a few films.

Rex Harrison7:39

Yeah.

Presenter7:39

Yeah.

Rex Harrison7:39

A few years, a few ten to different pieces, yes. Which one would you like?

Presenter7:43

Yeah.

Rex Harrison7:43

Uh Huh.

Presenter7:43

Which one have you got?

Rex Harrison7:45

Yeah.

Presenter7:45

Well, nothing at the moment.

Rex Harrison7:45

Well, nothing at the moment.

Presenter7:46

And your first appearance in the West End, apart from that Shakespearean bit.

Rex Harrison7:52

Ah, well, uh it was a play called The Ninth Man.

Rex Harrison7:56

And it was also strangely enough at the same theatre, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, it was in the days of the Thrillers.

Rex Harrison8:03

And uh I play the young reporter.

Rex Harrison8:06

And I put in a lot of business, which I thought was quite funny. I was as I do to this day, always forget my hat or forget something. I mean, I'm a great loser of things.

Rex Harrison8:15

And I made use of it in those early days by playing this reporter who never uh got his hat right.

Rex Harrison8:21

And had to go back into the Chinese lair to get it. Yes, which was quite fun.

Presenter8:26

Let's have another echo. What have we got next?

Rex Harrison8:29

Ah, now I think we have another'cause the Tarinade was good, when we now go back again to Barney Biggard.

Rex Harrison8:37

In a marvellous piece, one of my favourite carinet sellers in the world

Rex Harrison8:42

Called Clarionet Lament.

Presenter9:15

Barney Biggard with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Clarinet Lament, recorded in nineteen thirty six. Now, you were a West End actor. Quite soon a lucrative film contract came along.

Rex Harrison9:27

Yes, I first of all went to New York in uh very early on, in about nineteen thirty-six.

Rex Harrison9:33

And I d I did a play.

Rex Harrison9:36

Which was not a success, called Sweet Aloes.

Rex Harrison9:40

Written by Joyce Carey. Then

Rex Harrison9:42

I came back to London and the success that I personally had in New York sort of came it does get around even in those days when there weren't aeroplanes. So I was asked to do a play at the St Martins called Heroes Don't Care. It was a comedy about polar exploration. And from that I got a quarter contract. And then from the quarter contract, when I started to make films with London films, I went to the Criterion In French Without Tears.

Presenter10:11

Uh

Rex Harrison10:11

Block

Presenter10:11

Part of the time you were filming by day and playing in the theatre at night.

Rex Harrison10:15

Yes. I was I was very young, thank God, and I was strong enough to do it. Cause it's long days.

Presenter10:21

A French without tears, of course, was en enormous.

Rex Harrison10:23

Yeah, so a couple of years, well.

Presenter10:23

No, it's a long, long run.

Rex Harrison10:27

And then the war, and you were. No, then I did a string of plays at the Haymarket. You see, before I went into the Air Force, I did two plays.

Presenter10:29

Man

Rex Harrison10:34

at the Haymarket with Diana Winyard. One was called Design for Living by Card, and the other was No Time for Comedy by Sam Berman. So I had a marvellous spell at the Haymarket.

Rex Harrison10:44

Before I went into the Air Force. But I was uh I was fire watching at the Haymarket. It was we were being bombed continually then. But I I all my friends were getting into uniform and I they were coming back and Olivier and Richardson had gone to Fleet Air Arm and things like that and I c couldn't uh I I was reserved, but I didn't want to be reserved. I said, I know I'm reserved, but if you won't publish the reserved actors' names, which they wouldn't, then I must go. And I got aboard and I went into the Air Force. Hm. That's the annoyance of mister Beaumont who we were paying to capacity business at the Haymarket. Yes, of course.

Presenter11:16

And then afterwards some very successful films when you came out of uniform, Blythe's Spirit and Rake's Progress.

Presenter11:23

And then to Hollywood because they were looking for a Siamese actor.

Rex Harrison11:27

Yeah. Uh

Presenter11:28

Uh

Rex Harrison11:29

Yes. I was um signed up on a long contract with this one particular film, Anna and the King of Siam, uh as the first one. And um

Rex Harrison11:40

Yes, I it was rather curious uh casting, but nevertheless I enjoyed doing it, and of course it still lives in the shape of Julbrunner at the moment at the Palladium in the King and the King and I.

Presenter11:51

Yes, same story.

Rex Harrison11:52

No, exactly that, yeah.

Rex Harrison11:55

Players at that time. Elliot's The Cocktail Party. Yes, I did Christopher Fry's The Venus Observed with Olivier directing it in New York.

Presenter11:56

So

Rex Harrison12:05

And uh then Dewton's uh Web and Candle.

Presenter12:08

Well, then came a musical which shall have a piece to itself. Let's have another record first.

Rex Harrison12:14

Oh, slipped disc, which Goodman made in nineteen forty-five, which has always appealed to me very much.

Speaker 212:27

Uh

Presenter12:53

Slipped Disc by The Benny Goodman Sextet.

Presenter12:56

Now, that musical.

Presenter12:58

My fair lady, the project of of making a musical out of Pygmalion had been kicking around for some time. What was the first you heard?

Presenter13:07

Yeah.

Rex Harrison13:08

Well, I the first I heard about it was when they appeared I was at playing at the Phoenix in Belleburg and Candle, and uh they appeared at carriages in the shape of uh Alan Lerner and Fritz Lowe. the lyricist and composer, with the producer.

Presenter13:24

Had you ever sung on the stage before?

Rex Harrison13:26

No. No. I knew that I could pay Higgins. That wasn't the problem. The problem was whether I could handle the musical material.

Rex Harrison13:34

And so I worked quite hard.

Presenter13:36

How much of the score was written when you were first?

Rex Harrison13:39

Not all of it. In fact, it was not even called My Fair Lady then. It was called Lady Liza. And uh there was a sort of show tune called Lady Liza, one of those, uh, which which went into a waltz finally in the ballroom scene. It had some rather

Rex Harrison13:55

Chinumbers, I thought, originally, and I very nearly didn't do it. I mean, I demurred for about six weeks, and then I went to try to sing.

Rex Harrison14:03

uh or see if I could sing to a man in uh in Wimpole Street or in a Warder Street. I don't know where. Anyway, he was trying to teach me to to sing Bel Canto, and I obviously wasn't going to be able to do that.

Rex Harrison14:17

So I said to Adam, look, I don't think I can do it.

Rex Harrison14:19

So then he said, Well, I'll give you another man, if you like, who's ma called Lowe Bill Lowe, no relation to Fritz, who was a conductor in the pit at the Coliseum.

Rex Harrison14:31

And he came round to see me and he wasn't a teacher of singing at all, but he had been conducting a lot, and he he said, Why don't you try talking on pitch?

Rex Harrison14:40

And I said, What exactly is that? and he said, Well, you just use the notes with the words. And then if you're on pitch,

Rex Harrison14:47

Uh you can extend the note of the pitched word into a note if you want to, and you can pick your notes.

Rex Harrison14:54

And and that's what I do. I I use notes and I can change the the whole pattern of a song by using a note where I feel like it, you know, talking through part of it. How long did you play it in New York? Two years. I could have played it, of course, forever if I wanted to. And then I had a break and uh made a film and then I went back to Drury Lane and uh did it for a year in Drury Lane. So I did it for three years in all. And as a matter of fact, strange as it may seem, I'm planning to do it again next year in in five major cities and on Broadway.

Presenter15:26

You're looking forward to it?

Rex Harrison15:27

Very much. My goodness, I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. Let's have another record.

Rex Harrison15:31

Yes, now the next one is uh another old favorite of mine called My Melancholy Baby, which was recorded in nineteen thirty six by the famous quartet. It was Goodman, Teddy Wilson on the piano, Cruper on the drums and Lionel Hampton on the vibes.

Presenter16:18

My Melancholy Baby by The Benny Goodman Quartet.

Presenter16:22

Now, three rewarding years of of My Fair Lady, what did you turn to as a contrast?

Rex Harrison16:27

Uh

Presenter16:27

Yeah. I went

Rex Harrison16:27

to the Royal Court Theatre, which had had a new vogue of the angry young men, and had twisted the tale of the London Theatre very successfully and uh did a Chekhov play called Platonoff. It was little known and the first play he ever wrote when he was still living in Moscow as a comic writer for the newspapers. And um it was for his centenary and uh George Devine directed it, whom I was very, very fond of. It was a great experience. It was a marvellous change from the lane

Speaker 216:57

Uh

Rex Harrison17:02

Playing at uh the Royal Court Theatre in Sloan Square is is almost like being in the country. It's a very different feeling, it's a great feeling of relaxation in the theatre. I love the Royal Court and I did two plays there, but uh Patanov was a great success uh and uh I was lucky enough to win the Evening Standard A Acting Award for it. And uh I think in conjunction with Guinness, I think we jointly won it that year for his performance in Ross. They knew did a a great big film that war.

Presenter17:32

went on and on, Caesar and Cleopatra.

Rex Harrison17:34

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. My goodness I did. That was about a year of my life again. I suppose you'd resigned yourself to the fact that the film of Of My Fair Lady was coming up.

Rex Harrison17:43

Well, I knew I didn't know when the film was going to be made.

Rex Harrison17:46

But I did, of course, finally get it offered to me. I think they played around with quite a lot of other people.

Rex Harrison17:52

And Sydney, I think so. I think they were yes, I think they went around a bit, were quite right. I was in Portofino enjoying myself.

Rex Harrison18:00

And uh waiting.

Presenter18:01

Yeah.

Rex Harrison18:01

Did you find it very hard?

Presenter18:03

To adjust a performance you'd played so often on the stage to bring it down for a film studio.

Rex Harrison18:08

Yes, that was uh one thing that did worry me, that it might be a s uh a performance that could possibly be um a little overboard, because in the projection of a stage performance is very different to the thought of a film performance. However, I it was George Kukor's help, his mother's director, and I was very fond of George. He he watched me very carefully, and I watched myself very carefully, and it turned out I hope it's a film performance, not a stage performance. Yes, and in fact, you won your

Presenter18:34

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And then, uh, Doctor Doolittle, are you really such an animal lover as that?

Rex Harrison18:40

Yeah.

Presenter18:41

Yeah.

Rex Harrison18:42

Yes, I am. I damn nearly put off them by the end of Doolittle, of course, because I've been a year with some of them, was rather much. Especially I had a little chimp, you know, Chee Chi, the chimp, who I met when she was very small, and she became very devoted to me. Used to kiss my hand and go along hand in hand. We used to walk along.

Speaker 118:51

Who had

Rex Harrison18:59

Terribly sweet. But towards the end of the year she was as bored with the film as I was, and she'd been sort of rather slightly ill treated by some of the keepers, and so I it she became um rather difficult to handle.

Speaker 219:11

Mm-hmm.

Rex Harrison19:12

Mhm. It was a shame,'cause well, if she g she was getting elder too, that's another thing. Yes. So was I.

Presenter19:20

Now, all sorts of jobs here, and a fascinating one, your one-man show as Shaw the drama critic. Yes.

Rex Harrison19:27

City Edinburgh.

Presenter19:28

Mm.

Rex Harrison19:29

Yes, that I did with Patrick Garland. W Patrick and I worked on it together. And Patrick's going to direct the new My Fair Lady, incidentally. Yes. Um, yes, we worked on it together, we had a lot of fun, we went to all his uh dramatic criticisms of the nineties, marvellous stuff, wonderful, witty stuff, and and uh I loved doing it. I haven't done it again, I did it at the uh Saint Cecilia Hall in Edinburgh.

Presenter19:43

Yes, they are fair.

Presenter19:52

Yeah. How well did you

Rex Harrison19:53

No short.

Presenter19:54

Of course you you were in um

Rex Harrison19:55

Uh

Rex Harrison19:56

Major Barbara. Lady Yes. Major Barbara was going back a bit, that was in thirty nine, just the beginning of the very beginning of the war. Uh I loved Shaw. He frightened the life out of me, of course. He was a very imposing personality. But he took a fancy to me happily and uh

Presenter19:56

Yeah.

Rex Harrison20:12

Uh he used to come down sometimes to the studios and watch work and I be not went out to Ayrt St. Lawrence. And I thought he was a marvellous man.

Speaker 120:17

And I

Rex Harrison20:19

He didn't like fools too much. He was very intolerant of the man, as a matter of fact, and of course Higgins in My Fair Lady is very largely based on Shaw.

Rex Harrison20:29

Another record. Number six we got two and a half. Ah, now we're going towards the classical. I've met some people may be delighted to hear this, but it's a creeping into the classical work of Benny Goodman, and it's one he played called Bach Goes to Town.

Presenter21:14

Benny Goodman in his orchestra, Alec Templeton's Bach Goes to Town.

Presenter21:19

Now, you're into the literary life. You published your autobiography, Rex, a few years ago, and now you brought out an anthology. Tell me about that.

Rex Harrison21:29

Well, it was WH Allen asked me if I would like to do an anthology of love poems, and I thought

Rex Harrison21:35

It would be rather a nice idea.

Rex Harrison21:37

Especially as I dislike my own autobiography so intensely that I would like to have it withdrawn from the market.

Presenter21:43

Oh yes, I know.

Rex Harrison21:44

Well, eb I don't think anybody should be allowed to write their biographies and flow on their deathbed.

Rex Harrison21:49

I mean, so much has happened to me since I finished that. I mean, it's just madness. Oh, well, you should have to redo it. Well, I have.

Speaker 121:53

Well, I have.

Rex Harrison21:55

Well, to leave at the Boston Museum, yes, because uh if anybody wants to to study my life after I'm dead, I don't want that to be around. Anyway, the point was that

Rex Harrison22:05

If Love Be Love, which is the title of my book.

Rex Harrison22:10

and I thought it would be very nice to do it for my wife, Mircea, and I dedicated this anthology to my beloved wife, from whom I have learnt the art of living and loving at long last.

Rex Harrison22:22

And one of the reasons that I wanted to do it was very much for her.

Presenter22:23

And one of the

Presenter22:27

Would you like to give us a sample? One of the

Rex Harrison22:29

one or two things that you've got in it. Yes, yes I would. The first chapter is

Rex Harrison22:34

What is love?

Rex Harrison22:37

And I took a lot of researching on that to try and define this d very difficult emotion.

Rex Harrison22:44

I found two prose sayings, one by Rochefoucault.

Rex Harrison22:51

when he said it is difficult to define love.

Rex Harrison22:54

But we may say that in the soul it is a ruling passion in the mind it is a close sympathy and affinity.

Rex Harrison23:03

In the body, a wholly secret and delicate longing to possess what we love.

Rex Harrison23:08

And this after much mystery.

Presenter23:11

Did it?

Rex Harrison23:11

Drugs is a nice service to it.

Presenter23:11

Yeah.

Rex Harrison23:13

And Descartes was the other one, which I think is also terribly incisive. We may, it seems to me, find differences in love according to the esteem which we bear to the object loved as compared with oneself.

Rex Harrison23:29

For when we esteem the object of love less than ourselves,

Rex Harrison23:33

We have only a simple affection for it.

Rex Harrison23:36

When we esteem it equally with ourselves, that is called friendship,

Rex Harrison23:40

and when we esteem it more, the passion which we have may be called devotion.

Rex Harrison23:46

Which I think is lovely. Yes, the French are awfully good at this. Aren't they good? Well, I mean, if you want to go on to some English ones over here, it's not nearly so good.

Speaker 223:49

Yeah.

Presenter23:55

And some poems devoted to the amours of of moths and birds and shrimps and all sorts of things. Yes, quite right, yes. Well, let's get back to music. We're we are now turning to more serious matters.

Rex Harrison24:05

Yes.

Rex Harrison24:07

Yes, we are. And also strange enough, my love for McGoodman continues, but in a more classical style, because he played Weber concerto number one in F minor, and here he is.

Presenter25:17

The beginning of the last movement of Weber's first concerto for the clarinet in F minor.

Presenter25:23

Benny Goodman with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter25:27

Rex, you like fishing, don't you?

Presenter25:29

Yes. And you like messing about in small boats.

Rex Harrison25:33

I like uh yes, I don't I like messing about in big boats now, actually I'm getting old for small boats.

Presenter25:39

Sounds as if you're an ideal castaway. Could you run up a shelter to live in?

Rex Harrison25:44

I suppose I could if I had to, yes. Would you try to escape?

Rex Harrison25:50

Now that depends.

Rex Harrison25:52

You see, I like to paint and I would take all my painting equipment with me as the luxury. I would have I would have oils, watercolours, canvases, uh lots of blocks for watercolours, I would take uh pastels, I would take uh all methods of doing various impressions of the place I was landed on. And I think the more you paint the object,

Speaker 125:58

I will have

Rex Harrison26:15

the uh more intriguing it becomes. And that's, I think, how you get into abstractions. Yes. I could go on painting skies and and seas and and if there was any vegetation on the island until they became so mad that they wouldn't be anything to do with the sea or the sky or the or the foliage. So you would become really absorbed in your artistic creations and life wouldn't be too bad. And n not if I had my painting equipment with me.

Presenter26:35

Yeah.

Presenter26:39

Well we'll see that you get it.

Rex Harrison26:40

Thank you. Your last record. Oh, yes. Well now this is this is indeed uh Goodman. This is the Benny Goodman practice. Yes, it is. Yes it is. But now he's playing Mozart, which is uh rather interesting to people.

Presenter26:49

Yes, it is.

Presenter26:51

Yeah, sir.

Speaker 126:52

Uh

Rex Harrison26:53

who think that Eddie Goodman is really the king of swing, king of jazz, but he actually was rather serious. He loved classical music, and he here he is playing Mozart's clarinet concerto in A major, the beginning of the last movement.

Presenter28:05

An excerpt from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, Benny Goodman, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munsch.

Presenter28:13

If you could only take one disk of your eight, which would it be?

Rex Harrison28:17

Well, I think it would be

Presenter28:20

Yeah.

Rex Harrison28:20

Lull at Dawn. Barney Biggard. Hi, Barney Biggard. It's it's strange since I played Goodman all through the programme.

Rex Harrison28:27

I'm also very fond of Big Un, very fond of Lal at Dawn, and I feel that would fit in to the scene rather nicely.

Presenter28:31

The C.

Presenter28:33

Now we know about your luxury. You're going to take all your art equipment.

Presenter28:36

Choose one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already on the island and uh we don't permit enormous encyclopedias. No.

Rex Harrison28:44

Oh.

Rex Harrison28:45

But I've given this a little thought. I think that as it might be a longish stay

Rex Harrison28:52

And

Rex Harrison28:54

Having regard to my life spare,

Rex Harrison28:58

I would take Bertrand Russell's Philosophers of the Western.

Presenter29:03

The Hemisphere. Bertrand Russell's Philosophers of the Western Hemisphere. Write.

Presenter29:09

And thank you, Rex Harrison, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much, Roy. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Rex Harrison29:16

Yeah.

Speaker 129:23

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