Freddie Jones

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it's the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced, they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

Speaker 10:26

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 10:30

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is the actor Freddie Jones.

Presenter0:37

How important to you is music?

Freddie Jones0:39

Yeah. Very important, but like many important things I tend to neglect it. It's awful, really, but I do love it desperately. My first love of music came from my mother, as many things indeed did.

Freddie Jones0:53

We lived in the Potteries. I was born in late twenties and lived through part of the Depression.

Freddie Jones1:00

But my mother was always a pianist. She was a

Freddie Jones1:03

Pianist to the old silent movies and later in pubs and indeed at eighty now still plays occasionally in a pub. Good, which I think is marvellous. But it was she she plays a piano like most people play rugger, I should say. So she got a grudge against it.

Freddie Jones1:21

But none the less, over the decades she's given a lot of people a lot of pleasure, and she introduced me to music. She used to play, as I recall.

Freddie Jones1:29

The Rachmaninoff.

Freddie Jones1:32

Prelude in C Sharp minor, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and the great favourite, which was Rhapsody in Blue, which she fainted when she played it, and pointed out their virtues, exactly as Dobson and Young did during the war even brilliantly, successfully, and uh by breaking down the music and showing little pieces explaining it. Right, and that's what she did for me and inculcated.

Speaker 11:44

Uh

Presenter1:44

Obstinate young, yeah.

Speaker 11:45

Brilliantly successful.

Presenter1:51

Explaining

Freddie Jones1:56

A great love of music, so I am indebted to her for that and many other things, of course.

Freddie Jones2:00

The Rhapsodine Blue um is interesting, since it I've chosen the Rhapsodine Blue it jumps also for decades, because I lived for uh ten years roughly in a little Surrey village, and into the village came Andrei Preven and Miafaro.

Freddie Jones2:20

and we got to know each other, and on one occasion he phoned me to be very nice about a piece of work he'd seen me do on television, and I in return, which is very beautiful an artist, to be I was able to

Freddie Jones2:32

truly enthused with great love about I had just been given the Rhapsody in Blue conducted by him, and I thought, and I told him so, that for the first time in my life I had really heard it as it should be. I'm not a musician, but that is for me the definitive performance. I said the word American world of which I'm not quite sure of its definition the word sassy came to my mind, and he said good.

Freddie Jones3:00

Great.

Freddie Jones3:01

He said, You're dead right, because I kept stopping the L S O and saying, Gentlemen,

Freddie Jones3:06

You're not being rude enough.

Presenter3:08

Hmm.

Freddie Jones3:09

And I think that the quality of rudeness, urbanity, that is

Freddie Jones3:14

Got in the peace.

Freddie Jones3:16

Makes it, for me, anyway, a great deal more move.

Presenter3:19

Pretty.

Freddie Jones3:19

Uh

Presenter3:19

Yeah.

Freddie Jones3:20

Conyan

Presenter3:21

Andre Preven not only conducting, but at the piano in Rhapsody and Blue.

Freddie Jones3:24

Piano.

Presenter3:28

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Andre Preven with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter3:33

Now, you were in the potteries. You had a a family connection actually with the the pottery business, didn't you?

Freddie Jones3:40

Well well, my father was dealing with very heavy pottery all his life. It broke his body in the end. I mean, his body just gave up in the end.

Presenter3:47

What do you mean by very heavy portrait?

Freddie Jones3:49

very large, heavy weight of clay to deal with.

Presenter3:53

And did you go to work in the potteries?

Freddie Jones3:55

I worked with the British Ceramic Research Institute.

Presenter3:58

Straight away, was that your first job?

Freddie Jones4:01

Well, I did a job here, a job there. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. At least I fundamentally felt what I wanted to do, but

Freddie Jones4:10

From my background.

Freddie Jones4:12

It wasn't possible to become a professional poet, or a traveller, or an explorer, or a writer, or an actor, which is what I wanted to do.

Presenter4:22

Yes, very bad.

Presenter4:24

So what happened to you? What side of of of the pottery business did you go into?

Presenter4:29

Uh

Freddie Jones4:29

uh heavy clays, uh unfo fortunate not very romantic, things like urinals and lavatories and things like that. Uh doing research on the glazes and bodies.

Presenter4:36

Yeah.

Presenter4:39

Now how did the theatre get at you? What pushed you in the right direction? What stimulated you?

Freddie Jones4:45

Well, it was a girl whom I met that uh suggested that we should do a drama course.

Freddie Jones4:52

At the workers' adult education centre, they called it, didn't they? They built a new one near Tamworth, which I I'd moved from the potteries.

Freddie Jones4:59

South to Tamworth, and they built this education center and uh

Freddie Jones5:04

I went along, and after a lecture

Freddie Jones5:07

One evening the lecturer, who was a producer and lecturer at the Birmingham Repertory School, which by then was a brilliant school, one of the best in the country,

Freddie Jones5:16

After I'd stay behind us, you can have a word and

Freddie Jones5:20

She said to me, to my total astonishment, Don't think me impertinent.

Freddie Jones5:26

But why is a man of your huge talent working in science? and I said to her, Please, misses Dealy.

Freddie Jones5:33

And he was. Would you say that again slowly so that I can carry each word in my head?

Freddie Jones5:40

This sounds all improbable, but we're conditioned, aren't we, in childhood? Uh out of things and into things. Yes. It was about survival when I was a child. You couldn't think in terms of

Freddie Jones5:50

something precarious or silly like.

Freddie Jones5:53

being a poet or an actor.

Freddie Jones5:56

and thereafter, I by a series of negative actions I was asked to resign my job.

Freddie Jones6:02

This girl started sending for prospectuses and uh

Freddie Jones6:06

I applied for one and got a scholarship instantly.

Presenter6:09

We're dramas.

Freddie Jones6:09

Yes, Rose Bruford College.

Presenter6:12

Did you arrange with the firm that they'd take you back if anything blew up, or did you cast adrift, quite adrift?

Freddie Jones6:15

Cast adrift, right adrift. I understand that the uh shares went up four point

Presenter6:23

When I left. So off to the Rose Bruford Drama School, near London. Yes, uh, Sid Cup in Kent. At this point, let's break off your second record. What shall that be?

Freddie Jones6:33

I don't know where this girl came from, but when I first heard it or met her, but Dubisi la fio cheveux de l'ang.

Freddie Jones6:41

Drove me mad. I loved it so much. I've always enjoyed a predilection for the mystical and the wayward and the strange.

Freddie Jones6:49

You get it in the French composers, don't you? Ravel's introduction allegro, things like that.

Freddie Jones6:54

and La Maire, which I love madly, but

Freddie Jones6:58

This, although it's not mystical, is faintly mystical, but anyway, I just fell desperately in love with her.

Freddie Jones7:04

Debussy laffie au je vau delante.

Presenter7:08

Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangelo.

Presenter7:14

Now, when you left the Rose Bruford College after what, three years? Yes, very hard work, yes. What was your first professional job?

Freddie Jones7:22

Yeah.

Freddie Jones7:23

Well, the college asked me to play Pierre Gynt, three hours twenty minutes of blank verse. That was a quite a piece. A as a show piece, we did one piece in town per annum, you see, uh and this was it for this year, and they gave it to me to play.

Freddie Jones7:40

I I had lots of inquiries from

Freddie Jones7:42

from all sorts of people. I was absolutely thrilled by the inquiries.

Freddie Jones7:47

I made a tactical error, I think, by accepting the first concrete offer, which was the six-month contract with the Arts Council touring Great Britain with Romoloff and Juliet and Romeo and Juliet.

Presenter7:59

Does the Peter Justin of player Tyler.

Freddie Jones8:01

And the Shakespeare plays. And when I got back after six months, I mean, I was dead as.

Presenter8:02

Yeah.

Freddie Jones8:07

Last year's Kip and Herring. You've just done twenty.

Presenter8:10

Twenty-six weeks around the provinces and that was that.

Presenter8:12

In those days we're talking of what?

Presenter8:15

Over twenty years ago. Yes. The the rep companies were still going. Oh, yes indeed. Did you work in in in rep?

Freddie Jones8:19

Yeah.

Freddie Jones8:20

I did, yes.

Freddie Jones8:22

Amongst them I worked for Harry Hanson, who at one time to had no less than forty eight companies over the country. His court players. That's right.

Freddie Jones8:31

Where did you play for Harry Hanson?

Freddie Jones8:37

Yeah.

Presenter8:38

Afternoon.

Freddie Jones8:39

Yeah.

Presenter8:39

Done it all, yeah. Where did you stay longest among the rap companies?

Freddie Jones8:44

I think

Presenter8:44

Yeah.

Freddie Jones8:44

The Theatre Royal Lincoln, yes, and which is a beautiful little theatre.

Freddie Jones8:50

Very, very hard work, but

Presenter8:52

But yeah

Freddie Jones8:52

Happy day.

Presenter8:53

What was the first time you trod the London board?

Freddie Jones8:56

I can remember that clearly. That was the Arts Theatre when it was annexed to the Royal Shakespeare Company as a tryout for new actors and directors and playwrights.

Presenter9:09

Oh, that was great. The lower depths.

Freddie Jones9:10

Yeah.

Presenter9:10

Yes, you were working at that time with the Royal Shakespeare Company, when Peter Brooke was directing.

Freddie Jones9:15

Yeah.

Presenter9:15

Yeah.

Freddie Jones9:16

Yes, uh I I moved from there to the Aldrich. Uh indeed we took the play. It was David Rudkin's first play, a Fortnite come, brilliant piece.

Freddie Jones9:24

one to watch, I think. And um

Freddie Jones9:27

Then Peter Brooke directed the Marasade. You went to America with that? Yes, I did, yes. Broadway broke.

Freddie Jones9:34

Yeah.

Presenter9:34

Two Broadway Records. You recently turned down another season.

Presenter9:38

At the Royal Shakespeare, you decided you didn't want to go back there. Is that true?

Freddie Jones9:42

Stratford. Yes. It isn't that I don't want to go back. Indeed, from where I live I could commute easily. It's just that in our profession one deals with equations, equations of time.

Freddie Jones9:52

money, artistic endeavour, all these things need equating, and I was offered Jaquez and Claudius in Hamlet and the lead in the Maid's Tragedy, and

Freddie Jones10:05

It's fourteen months' commitment when

Freddie Jones10:09

And indeed the mainspring of all actors, whatever age, is the fact that we are open to any possibility that anything can happen and therefore to commit to fourteen months of one's life at my age

Freddie Jones10:23

Uh you know, seemed a bit much for that sort of uh medium-range stuff.

Freddie Jones10:28

Record number three. What next, ready?

Freddie Jones10:30

Record number three is quite improbable for me. I've always, as I say, tended towards the mystical and the romantic. But I was absolutely enthralled by the Brandenburg concertos. I heard one, then I went through them and enjoyed them all.

Freddie Jones10:45

And I find in them

Freddie Jones10:48

A great deal of joy, pure, liquid joy.

Presenter10:52

Uh

Presenter10:55

Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Herbert von Karrion. Now we were talking about your your theatre career. I think you'll agree that i it's television which has given you your biggest opportunities so far.

Freddie Jones11:11

Yes, it is. You're absolutely right. I'm eternally grateful to television.

Presenter11:11

Yes it is.

Freddie Jones11:16

It's my home, really. What did you start in? What was your first television appearance? My first television was Ronald Ayer's production of Andrew Cleesand the Lion.

Freddie Jones11:25

I played one of the Christians, it was a walk-on.

Presenter11:28

Yes.

Freddie Jones11:28

None the less, he started giving us characters to play to make the thing live quite rightly, and in no time at all he'd built my part, and it was a little comic roll. I was very grateful to him, and he set me off on the road,

Freddie Jones11:43

Thereafter I seemed to go from strength to

Presenter11:46

Yes. Since then you've played hundreds of parts, big ones, little ones, masterpieces and rubbish. Now let's talk about the ones that have meant most to you. You've specialized really in in rather battered and bruised characters, haven't you?

Freddie Jones11:46

Yeah.

Freddie Jones11:50

What?

Freddie Jones12:00

Guess why? Look at my face. Yes, uh or or or or very eccentric roles. Yes. I can't account for it. Sword of honor, for example, the evil in war. That's a very weird character, yes. Corporal Major Ludovic.

Presenter12:10

Very weird cat.

Freddie Jones12:13

The greatest combo, if I may be modest enough to say so, is that a Don who knew Evelyn War very well.

Freddie Jones12:22

Up at Oxford, wasn't it, I think?

Freddie Jones12:24

Said to a friend of mine, I knew the man upon whom that character was based, and that was him precisely.

Freddie Jones12:31

That's

Freddie Jones12:33

I should say a matter of war rather than myself.

Freddie Jones12:36

since he described him well in the book, but a very odd character.

Presenter12:39

And then there was the Caesars, in which you played Claudius and won an international award at

Presenter12:46

Monte Carlo's best actor. Claudius walked with a limp, at any rate in your characterization. I believe you walked for three months with a stone in your shoe to make sure that he did.

Presenter12:57

Uh

Freddie Jones12:57

Uh

Presenter12:57

Well

Freddie Jones12:58

The actor has so many things to concentrate on that um

Freddie Jones13:02

It's just a trick. There's a lot made of it by the press, but it's just something you don't have to think about, isn't it?

Presenter13:09

And a recent success fairly recent success Secret Orchards.

Freddie Jones13:12

Yes, wonderful thing to do, brilliant director, brilliant lighting cameraman.

Freddie Jones13:18

And uh a joy to do. I suppose a joy because there was no great dramatic denouement, there was no heavy drama to be derived from it. It depended on

Freddie Jones13:29

absolute sincerity and very big close-ups and

Freddie Jones13:34

It just has been

Presenter13:35

demand on one's ability, I think.

Presenter13:37

A small selection from very many parts. Let's break now for your fourth record.

Freddie Jones13:44

Well, the war covered my adolescence, and unlike to day, it was replete with wonderful music a lot of them nostalgic.

Freddie Jones13:55

And I think in a way

Freddie Jones13:58

the quintessence of all the sadness and and so on, the feelings one had during the war and and and the loss of one's adolescence.

Freddie Jones14:09

For me might be summed up in that very beautiful song A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square.

Presenter14:17

The voice of Hutch

Presenter14:19

Well, we were talking about television, Freddie, and now we'll talk about the same job, but a sort of variation that brings much more money. Feature films of which we've done a lot, which have given you most scope.

Freddie Jones14:30

Yeah.

Freddie Jones14:31

Well, I did a film with Shirley MacLean and Richard Attenborough, a lovely comedy role I had, uh quite a large part in that. Sadly, alas, nothing much seemed to have come from it.

Freddie Jones14:44

But that was quite demanding, especially when I wanted to fall on my knees and worship Shawnee MacLean all the time. Very easy. What was that one called? It was called The Bliss of Mrs. Bossom seven years ago. About nineteen sixty eight, I think.

Presenter14:57

And you've done your share of horrors, of course. You've done a Frankenstein and a Dracula.

Freddie Jones14:59

Okay, so

Freddie Jones15:00

Yeah.

Freddie Jones15:02

Yeah.

Presenter15:03

Did you enjoy this? Yes, in a way.

Freddie Jones15:04

I I treated them very seriously, which I think was the same.

Presenter15:07

One has to, but

Freddie Jones15:09

We did one that um.

Freddie Jones15:11

Maxine Audley and I actually pulled a notice in the Times which I thought pretended they did they didn't exist but we did very well out of it, I remember.

Presenter15:21

And you've been working recently wi with the great Mel Brooks?

Freddie Jones15:25

Yes, well, for him. He asked to see me, came into my caravan, and was very funny and nice.

Freddie Jones15:31

And I said, w what's your function on the are you the producer? No, I'm the executive producer. You call me the owner. So he's the owner of it. That that that was a wonderful thing, brilliant cast.

Freddie Jones15:47

Who's in it? Well, Ann Baxter, Anthony Hopkins, John Hurts, and John Gilgood. And what's it called?

Freddie Jones15:53

The Elephant Man.

Freddie Jones15:56

It is about this hopelessly deformed creature of the last century.

Presenter16:00

Record number five we got to.

Freddie Jones16:04

Well, this is a very special I must have this record because.

Freddie Jones16:10

It's part of a very hard time of my life, but a very happy time. I lived in a house in Notting Hill off the Portobello Road with writers and actors. In the basement was Tom Stoppard typing his nights away on

Freddie Jones16:23

Nothing else but misses Dale's diary and promptly getting them rejected.

Freddie Jones16:27

On the ground floor was a man called Derek Marlow.

Freddie Jones16:31

He spent all his time leaning back on a chair looking out on this little street, all day, every day.

Freddie Jones16:39

Until dark.

Freddie Jones16:41

week after week, month after month, and said he was going to write. I never saw him write his name.

Freddie Jones16:48

One morning I went down, one sterile morning, knocked on his door, and he said, Come in, and we chatted, and he said, I have

Freddie Jones16:58

Formed a great love for Vaughan Williams. Do you know Vaughan Williams? I said, Oh, I love his work very much indeed.

Freddie Jones17:05

He said, Well, when I had last had a bit of money, I actually bought two or three of his records. Do you know the Wasps overture? And I said

Freddie Jones17:12

Not only do I know it,

Freddie Jones17:14

care to put it on I shall conduct it.

Freddie Jones17:17

Since I'm free at the moment.

Freddie Jones17:19

I couldn't conduct a bus, you know, because I don't know anything about I don't know a minim from a minute.

Freddie Jones17:25

Well, he put it on and I conducted was an actor's impersonation of a conductor. But if you know where the various parts of the orchestra come in and out, it can be very impressive, I'm sure you.

Freddie Jones17:35

And he sat open-mouthed at this and applauded at the end.

Freddie Jones17:41

A very beautiful thing happened. We were so poor.

Freddie Jones17:45

most of the time that a packet of cigarettes was an issue or pot of tea.

Freddie Jones17:50

You would need to go round the house and see if somebody'd have threatence or tubence to make up uh the the amount of money required. Literally that. Nobody took dole or anything. We'd never I don't know why.

Freddie Jones18:02

And it was into this sort of climate that the incident happened. He said a few days later, My girlfriend's coming round. I've got a pot of tea. I've just got a couple of quid from a telly I did.

Freddie Jones18:14

Walk on television.

Freddie Jones18:16

Repeated

Freddie Jones18:18

And he said, Will you come and conduct the Wasps overture for my girl I said, Certainly, yes. I'm open for engagements. So I went down and we had a cup of tea and I met his girlfriend, who was very sweet.

Freddie Jones18:31

I still felt a bit inhibited.

Freddie Jones18:34

Then he said, Before you conduct it, I've got a little present for you, and I thought he can't have a present for me, because nobody's got any money.

Freddie Jones18:41

and he handed me a brown paper bag.

Freddie Jones18:44

They opened it.

Freddie Jones18:45

And he'd bought a baton. Oh, lovely. And I was moved to tears, I have to confess. A bit like O'Henry's stories, isn't it? I mean, it's so beautiful.

Freddie Jones18:55

That the the moment was so important that that

Freddie Jones18:59

Nothing else mattered.

Freddie Jones19:00

and conducted it magnificently. I suppose that there's a payoff to the story, really.

Freddie Jones19:06

Many years late I hadn't heard from him or seen him.

Freddie Jones19:09

and I met a common friend of ours.

Freddie Jones19:12

somewhere in London, and was delighted to see them after all those years.

Freddie Jones19:18

And uh I said whatever were asking about people from the old days, uh poets, actors, sculptors all used to come in and chat.

Freddie Jones19:27

and asked about Derek Marlowe and said, But surely you've heard and I said no, I haven't.

Freddie Jones19:31

What happened to him? he said. Well, he's at the moment, I should think, swimming in Moet Chandon in Hollywood.

Freddie Jones19:38

In champagne, I should think.

Freddie Jones19:41

I said, my God, how delighted I was and uh

Freddie Jones19:44

Apparently came up suddenly with a novel, a dandy in aspic, and sold it the film rights for a fortune.

Freddie Jones19:52

Subsequently I saw in the Radio Times on one of the front pages this magnificent Tudor mansion, rolling lawns, with Derrick, his beautiful wife, children, dogs,

Freddie Jones20:06

in Veilavishen, which I Later visited.

Presenter20:09

Yeah.

Presenter20:09

That was beautiful, wasn't it? Oh, yes, so all that staring out into the street had produced some results. Yep, I hope so. And this means that you're now going to conduct for us the Wasps. Yes, I'll just move my chair. If you mind standing back a bit.

Presenter20:25

The opening of the Vaughan Williams Suite, The Wasps, The Overture, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted, I'm afraid, by Sir Adrian Bolt. Oh. Well, he's quite good, too. Now, Freddie, you've continued to work in the theatre whenever you can, and you've been prepared to take a chance. You've played in some of the fringe theatres, the little ones just out of town. You've played your hunches. People have sent you plays, and you've chosen the ones that you liked. Yes. Now, backing your fancy like that, you've had good notices at some of these fringe theatres, but you haven't really done much good financially. But you took a chance recently and decided to do a play at the Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Now, will you take it up from there and tell us about that? Yes, I was terrified.

Freddie Jones21:11

Uh

Freddie Jones21:13

Uh Yeah.

Freddie Jones21:14

Leo McKern was going to play it. It's incredibly courageous of him, because at the time he was playing Rollo, the French farce, which is demanding roll. At Manchester. At Manchester, with

Freddie Jones21:25

Two matinees.

Freddie Jones21:27

and was hoping to play the part which, given me without any other commitments, I found terrifying.

Freddie Jones21:34

And he started and did a week's rehearsal, but then he contracted influenza and the whole thing.

Freddie Jones21:41

Couldn't go on.

Freddie Jones21:42

monstrous. And so they hastily uh sought out an actor to play it and

Freddie Jones21:49

I'm told that both the Manchester Theatre and Michael Cauldron got a short list of

Freddie Jones21:54

possible actors and I was at the top of both, so

Freddie Jones21:58

They agreed that I should do it. They gave me twenty four hours, and I was petrified. I had

Freddie Jones22:03

Six very good television plays in the offering, which I could have accepted.

Freddie Jones22:08

but took it because it terrified me. Which is the obverse side of the coin, if I may point out, to why I didn't take the Stratford offer.

Presenter22:16

That was secure.

Freddie Jones22:16

Yeah.

Presenter22:17

Yes, and uh the demands weren't nearly enough. And this very demanding play which you accepted is The Dresser by Ronald Harwood, in which you play an old actor manager of the old school.

Freddie Jones22:31

Yes, it's uh it's a very interesting study and uh beautifully written with, I think, beautiful English.

Presenter22:38

So

Freddie Jones22:38

It got

Presenter22:39

Great joy to speak beautiful English. And the dresser, your dresser in the play is played by Tom Courtney. Yes. An equally excellent performance.

Freddie Jones22:45

Yes, an equally excellent.

Presenter22:48

Which brings us now to record number six.

Freddie Jones22:52

Yes, well I

Freddie Jones22:54

was almost asleep on a chair in a friend's house after a magnificent Sunday lunch.

Freddie Jones23:01

and a lot of Y and he put on some bronze. I didn't know what it was.

Freddie Jones23:07

And all at once came up the third movement.

Freddie Jones23:12

and I was stung into wakefulness and fell in love with it on the instant. Asked what it was, and it was a Brahm symphony. I subsequently got to love them all equally.

Presenter23:25

And which piece of bronze are we going to hear now?

Freddie Jones23:26

Uh

Presenter23:27

Uh

Freddie Jones23:27

Well, the third movement, please, from the Fourth symphony.

Presenter23:33

The third movement of the Brahms' Fourth Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrier. You're married to an actress, of course, Freddy.

Freddie Jones23:42

Yes, yes, she comes from an unbroken line of actors and actresses whom somebody recently traced went back to the time of Napoleon. Her great grandmother was Sarah Thorne, who now haunts the old Margot Theatre. She was the last actress manageress.

Presenter24:01

The Margit Circuit.

Freddie Jones24:02

Yeah.

Presenter24:02

Yeah.

Freddie Jones24:02

Yes. No.

Presenter24:03

Uh

Freddie Jones24:03

Yeah.

Freddie Jones24:04

Uh

Presenter24:04

How many children do you have? Three boys.

Freddie Jones24:07

Yes, great fellows.

Presenter24:08

And you live in the country? Oxfordshire, yes, at the beginning of the Cotswolds. How do you spend your time? I mean, when you're not acting and

Presenter24:15

pretending to garden really, or drinking.

Freddie Jones24:18

or cooking. You enjoy all those things? And a bit of walking, yes, I do. I love being there. Your seventh record? Well, this is Overture to the Meistersinger.

Freddie Jones24:31

I have always loved Wagner because of the dark, mysterious quality he has, and I've always been into that, perhaps because I was born in the autumn.

Freddie Jones24:41

But it's also got a very interesting connotation for me. When I was at the Theatre Royal Lincoln it became pantomime time, and they asked me if I'd play a dame in pantomime. We did Jack and the Beanstalk, I remember.

Freddie Jones24:54

And there were two musicians, one a pianist, and the other a percussionist from Bradford, an older chap.

Freddie Jones25:01

who had all the things, including the funny whistles for when you fell down or somebody threw a pie at you.

Freddie Jones25:07

and the man on the piano,

Freddie Jones25:10

to our total disbelief, had been assistant conductor at La Scala Milan and the Munich Opera House, and we couldn't believe this, but none the less this genial, lovely, lovable Scotsman, said he was just that.

Freddie Jones25:26

One afternoon between shows.

Freddie Jones25:29

I've always had a great passion for drums, and they fascinate me, drums of all sorts, and I've never played on on the timbani, you see.

Freddie Jones25:37

So one afternoon between shows I said to this chap from Bradford,

Freddie Jones25:41

Look, if I promised to take great care of them, would you help me realize a lifetime's ambition? He said, How do you mean? As well.

Freddie Jones25:50

Do you think I could just have a bit of a go of them with James on the piano? Oh, he said, Oh, LPCF you're all you're you're all right, don't worry.

Freddie Jones25:59

So I said to James, James, would you do me a great service?

Freddie Jones26:04

He said, What uh what? I said, I know you should be resting, but would you mind if I play the introduction to

Freddie Jones26:14

Grieg's piano concerto, would you come in with the opening bars? That's all I ask. If I open on the Timps, you see. You know it opens on this magnificent

Freddie Jones26:23

So he said, Oh, certainly, certainly

Freddie Jones26:26

and was very enthusiastic about it.

Freddie Jones26:29

I gave this magnificent.

Freddie Jones26:32

Mind chattering.

Freddie Jones26:35

play on the tips.

Freddie Jones26:37

And in came these glorious chords, exactly right, you see, beautifully played.

Freddie Jones26:42

At the opening I nearly fainted with delight.

Freddie Jones26:45

And he said,

Freddie Jones26:46

At just a moment.

Freddie Jones26:48

What about...

Freddie Jones26:49

over to the Meister singer, and I said

Freddie Jones26:53

I love the Pichumini, the maestoso, he said, right. So

Freddie Jones26:57

We started to do that.

Freddie Jones26:59

And I was delirious with happiness, playing these and he stopped and broke the whole thing up, and he said

Freddie Jones27:05

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, listen, listen, listen, listen to me. What you have to do is to

Freddie Jones27:11

Put a drag on the oxen, you've got to hold the oxen back here.

Freddie Jones27:15

If I play Pam, Pa Pa Pam, you and the Timps go Palm, Pa Pa Pom. You drag the orchestra back. This gives it breadth and maestoso, and it's much more magnificent. Let's try it again.

Freddie Jones27:28

And so we did it again.

Freddie Jones27:30

and the payoft story.

Freddie Jones27:33

is uh after this piece of lunacy, delightful lunacy that went on.

Freddie Jones27:37

First of all, he won the Young British Conductors competition in front of the greatest conductors on earth.

Freddie Jones27:44

and now currently is the resident conductor of the Halley Orchestra in Manchester.

Freddie Jones27:49

But I was in my dressing room in the Bristol old Vic, and got a note saying

Freddie Jones27:55

Do not miss the lunchtime concert of the BBC Scottish Orchestra

Freddie Jones28:00

Because the overture has been chosen with you in mind. I grabbed a Radio Times, looked it up, and it was the B B C Scott Shawks of conductor James Lochran.

Freddie Jones28:11

And over

Presenter28:13

Tour to the Meistersinger. And as I see from the list, that's your next record. Inevitably. We haven't got James Locheran conducting, I'm afraid, but we have got the Halle conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. Will you settle for that? Indeed I will. The Meistersinger Overture.

Presenter28:35

Wagner's overture the Master Singers of Nuremberg. Sir John Barbaroli conducting the Halley Orchestra. Well, now, Fredie, we've got the the Desert Island bit. Could you run up a shed? Oh, no

Freddie Jones28:47

Oh no, no.

Freddie Jones28:49

I firmly believe, empirically, that the whole of mechanics and the physical world is is dedicated to my destruction. I mean if I if I try to put a screw in, it goes through my hand and measurements jump of their own free will, it's I'm hopeless.

Presenter29:06

Yet to get away from confusion would you try to escape.

Freddie Jones29:09

I think one might have a go at a raft, really, wouldn't one, w uh if there was a possibility of

Freddie Jones29:15

getting some fallen logs together and uh if they weren't too rotten and lashing them together. Maybe I'd have a go at that.

Presenter29:21

Russia

Freddie Jones29:21

Curtis's hail.

Presenter29:22

A cautious go at a run.

Presenter29:25

Which brings us now to your last tragor.

Freddie Jones29:29

Uh, I can't remember which anniversary, but uh, we had a wedding anniversary and I I I brought my m my wife loves musicals and I I thought, Well, we haven't got Showboat and I've always loved it very much.

Freddie Jones29:40

And I said, You can come in in a minute. I have got you a a present.

Freddie Jones29:45

and put it on at only make believe. I don't really know why, except that I do love her very much.

Freddie Jones29:52

And um

Freddie Jones29:54

For some reason, not in any

Freddie Jones29:57

Dramatic.

Freddie Jones29:58

way, but it's rather joined us together over

Freddie Jones30:02

Few years.

Freddie Jones30:04

I always think of her when I hear it. So I would have to take that, wouldn't I?

Freddie Jones30:08

I love her and admire her and

Freddie Jones30:12

To quote the play The Dresser that I'm currently in, she's been my splendid spur.

Presenter30:18

Uh

Presenter30:20

Make believe from the soundtrack of one of the film versions of Showboat with Catherine Grayson and Howard Keel. If you could take only one disc of the eight that you played us, which would it be?

Presenter30:33

Well, if I could cheat

Freddie Jones30:35

I think I would like to take a record that I don't know, which may sound odd, but from all accounts, from all one's read, the greatest pieces of music ever written were the posthumous quartets of Beethoven. Now since I'm congenitally idle, I haven't afforded time or energy to finding out about them, but I'm sure that with that amount of time I could get to love it and discover it and explore its implications.

Presenter31:06

So you'll reject the eight records you've chosen and and just take one to explore. One of the late Beethoven Quartets? Yes. Right. That can be done. And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island. What would you like?

Freddie Jones31:14

Quartet.

Presenter31:21

Yeah.

Freddie Jones31:21

I don't think you're going to believe this. I'd like to take a Lee Big condenser. A what?

Freddie Jones31:27

A leap big condenser, if you cast your mind back to school days.

Freddie Jones31:31

is a glass tube which has a covering

Freddie Jones31:35

cooling water jacket. I'm sure I could build up a head of water through a series of bamboo.

Freddie Jones31:41

Lynx and get the cooling jacket fed. Now, by doing that, I could.

Freddie Jones31:46

distill and I think by judicious use of cocoanuts or fruits or roots I could work very happily over many years on a very fine tropic gin or rum.

Presenter31:49

Uh

Speaker 131:49

Right.

Presenter32:02

All right, yes, that's your luxury. One book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and Big Encyclopedia.

Freddie Jones32:10

Yep.

Presenter32:10

Uh

Freddie Jones32:10

Uh

Presenter32:10

Ta-da.

Freddie Jones32:10

I'm torn between two.

Freddie Jones32:13

They're quite different, but they mean the same thing to me. It's hard to explain.

Speaker 132:17

How to explain

Freddie Jones32:19

the collected poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins or The Wind in the Willows because both present me with

Freddie Jones32:31

The only reality.

Freddie Jones32:33

that I have in half a century found valid.

Presenter32:37

A snap decision, which one?

Presenter32:41

The Wind in the Willows. Right. And we'll assume that you've got a solo-powered videotape machine on the island. Would you like to choose one videotape either of a feature film or a television production that means a lot to you? Any one entertainment for the long desert island evenings?

Speaker 132:52

Uh

Freddie Jones33:01

Hundreds of things I've seen.

Freddie Jones33:05

Well, I have been a passionate

Freddie Jones33:09

Passionate admirer.

Freddie Jones33:11

of that great maestro of acting, Charles Lawton.

Freddie Jones33:16

So I'd certainly take one of his films, maybe

Freddie Jones33:21

Yeah.

Presenter33:21

The MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

Freddie Jones33:22

Yeah.

Presenter33:22

Yes, why not? And thank you, Freddie Jones, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc. It was a joy. Goodbye, everyone.