Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
An actor, best known for his stage and screen work.
Eight records
The first piece of music of which I became conscious, I suppose, when I was three or four years old.
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
I first became aware of this as a student, and I actually fell in love for the first time in my life to this.
Paco Aguilera and Antonio Gonzalez
This reminded me of the difficult days in restaurants... it saved my soul from the crushing part of loneliness.
This record was a hit when I first met Kara, my wife, so I'll always like it for that reason.
Gigue from Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825
Glenn Gould is someone who's immensely courageous... absolute clarity.
Requiem: Dies iraeFavourite
Everything that Verdi had learned crashed together... a kind of nuclear explosion.
It will remind me of this country and so much that I love about it.
He really has been part of my life. I think I go crackers without the sound of his voice.
The keepsakes
The book
A. S. Neill
I might take Summerhill by A. S. Neal because he's so loving and understanding about children.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Have you ever daydreamed about being a Robinson Crusoe?
Perhaps the odd nightmare has flashed across my screen, but it's not something that I that I lust after.
Presenter asks
Did you find it very difficult to choose just eight records?
I found it easier to play King Lear than choose these. It's the most monumental task I've ever been asked to do. I'm up late at night thinking about this dreadful thing.
Presenter asks
So you're in London, Tom. What was your first break, really?
Well, Breaks always started at an unexpected point. … I said, I can't come here and work for fourteen pounds a week. And he said, Well, I can only tell you that Nigel Hawthorne said exactly the same thing. … I took the chance and exactly the same thing happened. I haven't stopped working since.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
Speaker 1
For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
This week, our castaway is the actor Tom Conte. Tom, have you ever daydreamed about being a Robinson Crusoe?
Presenter
Perhaps the odd nightmare has flashed across my screen, but it's not something that I that I lust after.
Presenter
I know that music means a great deal to you. How many instruments do you play, by the way? Oh, I play a number extremely badly. Um I don't know. I d I
Presenter
was always able to sort of knock a tune out of of an instrument if it was handed to me. But that's as far as it goes, really. And we've recently discovered that you can sing.
Presenter
Did you find it very difficult to choose just eight records? I found it easier to play King Lear than choose these. It's the most monumental task I've ever been asked to do. I'm up late at night thinking about this dreadful thing. Well, we have a list here, a final list. Yes. What's the first one on it? The first one is the first piece of music of which I became conscious, I suppose, when I was three or four years old. And it's Where You Walk from the Handle of Rose Semine. Yes. And we sorted through all sorts of people singing it. And I was delighted to choose Kenneth McKellar singing it, because he's also part of my past. We all sat around Scottish Firesides listening to our Kenneth, who had gone to Italy and become a tenor and all of that. And all of Scotland was terribly, terribly proud of him. And he gave us all a great deal of pleasure all through my childhood.
Presenter
The other connection with Where Are You Walk is that my daughter, who's now seven years old, sings it and I I accompany her badly on the on the piano. So the whole thing is tied up from the past to the present.
Tom Conti
Oh, cool girls have found
Tom Conti
His values shall crowd into a share.
Tom Conti
Is where you'll sit, shall crowd it.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Tom Conti
Girls have fun the glaze.
Tom Conti
Praise where you sit.
Tom Conti
I'll come into worship.
Presenter
Kenneth McKellar, Where'er You Walk
Presenter
Now, of course, you were born in Scotland, weren't you, Tom? Yes. Whereabouts? In a little town called Paisley, which is famous for its patterns, as you know. Conti is not, of course, a a Scottish name. No, it's not. No, it's it's an Italian name. My father came to Paisley because he knew someone who lived nearby. Yes. I think he thought he'd been taken to America, but he was actually landed at Leith Docks and told you'll find the Empire State Building somewhere up there. Oh no. Up near Grassmarket. And he married a Scottish girl. He did indeed, yes. Yes.
Presenter
You were at school in Glasgow, any school theatricals?
Presenter
One. Yes, one. Which I suppose is largely responsible for for setting me here. What did you play? A Lancastrian Lord in a Besieged Castle. I can't remember what the play was called, though. It was quite funny, I remember.
Presenter
I hope you got out all right.
Presenter
At school, what was your ambition?
Presenter
To be an opera singer. Was it? Mm-hmm. Yes. Hasn't been realized'cause God gave me a croak, but there we are.
Presenter
Did you see much opera?
Presenter
Yes, yes, a lot. Um and many, many concerts. Those were the days when people toured and people like uh Gilly and and Infantino and
Presenter
Joan Hammond, you know, the the huge names of the bus, they all came doing one night stand things round the country, and huge European tours, they they would do terribly hard work.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
And the place was always filled, Saint Andrew's Halls in Glasgow were always filled with Italians, and there were always wonderful, happy occasions.
Presenter
In fact, what did you do when you when you left school?
Presenter
I went into my father's shop. He was a ladies' hairdresser and he had a couple of of of shops. And uh I went I just went in there to spend some time to decide what on earth I'd like to do.
Presenter
I found it difficult to make up my mind. And then one day I d happened to be buying a shirt and uh and it meant that I had to walk down Buchanan Street in Glasgow to go to the shirt shop. And I passed Music College and I thought perhaps I should go here. The windows were all open and people were playing trumpets and fiddles and singing scales. Great cacophony. A very exciting cacophony of course. And I thought maybe I should go and take the dust sheet off the piano.
Presenter
And um and have a go. And next to that building, part of the building wa was uh the College of Drama.
Presenter
And I went in and said, How do you join this place?
Presenter
And they said, Well, you do this and that and this and that and um talk to your parents and
Presenter
A week later I started. So this was a snap decision, drama rather than music? It sort of was, yes. It was taken out of my hands at the last minute. It was very weird. How long did you study there? Three years.
Presenter
And what was your very first professional job? It was at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow as an acting ASM. That's a hard job. That's almost as hard as choosing eight gramophone records.
Presenter
We'll talk about it in detail in a minute. Let's have another of these difficult choices.
Presenter
Well, this is this is from my my college days. I first became aware of this as a student, and so that'll help to remind me of all the people that I loved in those days. I actually fell in love for the first time in my life to this, so that's quite nice. I remember that. And this is played by Annie Fischer. The bit that we're going to play stops, I think, just as Annie Fisher opens the piano lid, but it seemed unfair to come in in the middle, and so with our apologies to Annie Fisher. So this is Mozart's piano concerto in A major.
Presenter
Alas the pianoless opening of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. twenty three in A, Koekel four eight eight, Sir Adrian Bolt, and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Presenter
The Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, in The Gaubles.
Presenter
An adventurous theatre.
Presenter
It's adventurous in that it stayed in the gaubles'cause it was not a good place to be. People were being carved up right and left, you know, outside the the front door of the theater. Um but it it was an empty theater. Was it? Uh yes, it was filled with actors uh but no audience. Oh dear. Um so from that point of view it was a bit dull, but um it was dull because the things that were going on the stage really were, I think
Speaker 3
It'd be so good.
Presenter
Probably fairly dull. My memory of it is, you know, just empty seats and dark nights. One night there were thirteen people in the theater and I think there were about fifteen of us on the stage. But the the management made us play unfortunately'cause we couldn't get the night off. ASM of course and uh performing sixteen hours a day, just about. Oh yes, you never left the theater. It was extraordinary. You went in on a on a Monday morning at uh half past nine and uh sometimes you didn't come out till the next Monday morning.
Speaker 1
Uh
Speaker 3
Mm.
Presenter
Um, if it was a working weekend, you know, if you were taking down one show and and setting up another. And all for the glorious sum of eight pounds a week. How long were you at The Citizens? A year. After that? I just messed around from rep to rep and doing some television and and uh it was just
Presenter
The beginning of a sort of um twelve year spate in the wilderness. You did some bits of radio. Uh I read that you met your wife, Kara, in in a radio studio. That's right. Yes, I d I had met her before once, briefly. But then, as luck would have it, we met again doing a play. When did you come south?
Presenter
About a year after we married, I I think, we happened to be coming through London on the way back from Italy, and we were offered a play, a television play together. And we did it, and uh she said, We really ought to stay and I said, No, no, we must go back to Scotland. I've tried it in London, it's hopeless, and we know we'll never get work.
Presenter
And she said, No, come on, we'll
Presenter
Sit it out.
Presenter
And thanks to uh a man called Paul Fletcher and his wife Jay we we were able to sit out in some comfort. How did you g get by? What sort of jobs did you do between theatrical engagements, as it were? I did all sorts of things. Um I played the guitar in restaurants and I I was a tour guide in in London for a bit. Oh, what fun. Did you know London that well? Well I did by the time I yes, um I'd taken a few people around. You had to sit a little test, you know, make sure that you knew that Westminster Abbey was built by
Presenter
Actually, if I'd said Paul's I'd be able to say Wren, but I can't remember who started Westminster Abbey. A bunch of monks somewhere. Any particular embarrassing moment do you remember with anyone? Oh yes, there was one view. Yes, um w it was a very sunny summer day and I was with a a family of Americans. I took them round in my car and um we were walking down the left-hand side of St Paul's inside the building and there was shafts of light coming through and it was hitting a crucifix on a wall and uh they like to keep talking, you know, get the money's worth and so I said, Oh, you'll observe how the sunlight shafts through and hits the the cross. Wren stipulated that there should be a window in this position that there should always be a cross hung on that wall and at certain times of the day, at certain times of the year, the sun would come through and
Presenter
And we w walked down, and of course we all turned as one to see the sun coming through this beautiful leaded window. There were three spotlights behind a piece of wood. There was no window there at all.
Presenter
I didn't have a good get out either, I just turned red.
Presenter
What's your third record?
Presenter
Some flamenco. This this reminded me of the of the difficult days in restaurants and things where people used to put their hands over their ears when I started playing. But this was a large part of my life. It actually kept me sane in the years before I got married and had a chum. You quite enjoyed the restaurant bit, didn't you? Oh, yes, some of it was great fun, particularly in Glasgow. The restaurant that I played in the chef was also the owner, and he would come out of the
Speaker 3
What?
Speaker 1
It enjoyed the rest.
Presenter
when most of the cooking was done and sing Neapolitan songs and things, and I played the guitar for him. So it all it was a party every night. And he was a generous sort of chap. At any rate you ate well. Yes, I did. I ate ex extremely well. But Fromenko, um, it saved my soul uh because I could play the guitar from well, from the time I got up in the morning till when I went to bed at night and it just saved me from the the crushing part of loneliness.
Presenter
In places like London, when I came first. And this is the Sigiriges and Bulerias. There's two dances stuck together. And it's very exciting when the rhythms change from one to the other. It's a bit like when a Strathspey turns into a reel in Scottish folk music, a surge of rhythm that makes the spine tingle a bit. So listen for that.
Presenter
Some flamenco music by Paco Aguilera and Antonio Gonzalez.
Presenter
So you're in London, Tom. What was your first break, really?
Presenter
Well, Breaks always started at an unexpected point. You know, there's a run up to some kind of success and and and it started with me uh a man called Michael Rudman, who now runs the the it's either the Littleton or the Cottesloe Theatre, I can never remember which, my apologies.
Presenter
The National, and he was then running the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. It was a tiny theatre that held about 50 people.
Presenter
Michael asked me to come do a play by Cecil Taylor called The Black and White Minstrels, which was a wonderful play.
Speaker 1
Which one
Presenter
The thing about it which stopped it being commercial was that it in those days was that it had four letter words all the way through it. So that crushed it a bit. But it was a sensational play, a great statement. And and uh I said, I can't come here and work for fourteen pounds a week.
Presenter
And he said, Well, I can only tell you that Nigel Hawthorne said exactly the same thing.
Presenter
But I talked him into it and he came here and he hasn't stopped working since. It's absolutely right and he still hasn't stopped. But he's a wonderfully talented man, so it's not surprising. So you took the chance. I took the chance and exactly the same thing happened. I haven't stopped working since. In fact, the play did transfer. It came to Hampstead. He came to Hampstead and didn't do terribly well. Mm-hmm. But um critics have never been known really for their insight.
Presenter
There was a play you did with Paul Schofield which did good things for your career savages.
Presenter
By Christopher Hampton, yes. Playing opposite him must have been Oh, t terrific fun. And it was fun every night. And i if the theater isn't fun, then really it's a shame if you if you have to do it. Um
Presenter
But he he was uh a a great colleague and and a good chum. I'm sure you learned a lot. Oh, enormous amount. You can't go to the theatre every night with with someone like Hauland and not learn. You were back at Hampstead in a rather rare Mollière play. Oh, no wonder it's rare.
Presenter
It's ghastly. It was Don Juan, which is a terrific story, but something went terribly wrong with this.
Presenter
The first thing was that the it was anonymous, an anonymous, I'm an actor, that's why I speak so well, translation.
Presenter
And it didn't make any sense at all. It was just words, thousands and thousands of words all strung together.
Presenter
And uh
Presenter
I could make her a ten.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Have you worked in the subsidized companies at all, the National, the Royal Shakespeare? Uh I worked in the Royal Shakespeare once. I did one play there. Um a an actor fell ill at the last moment and and I stepped in and did The Devil's Disciple, which was enormous fun. Oh yes, Dick Dutcher. Yes, yes.
Presenter
But in the main you prefer the hurly burley of the commercial theatre. I suppose I do.
Presenter
Yes, yes, you have to sing for your supper and and if you don't sing loud enough or sweetly enough then go home.
Presenter
Record number four.
Presenter
This record was a hit when I first met Kara, my wife, so I'll always like it for that reason, um, because we fell in love to it. And it's Alfie sung by Scylla Black.
Tom Conti
What's it all about?
Tom Conti
Alpha is it just for the moment we live? What's it all about?
Tom Conti
When you sort it out, I'll be
Tom Conti
Oh, big.
Tom Conti
Today
Tom Conti
Then we give. Or are we meant to be God?
Presenter
Cella Black singing Alfie. I suppose the play that gave the biggest boost to your career was one in which you spent the whole evening in bed.
Presenter
Yes. Yes. Whose life is it anyway? Yes. That was quite the most exhausting play I've ever done. That wasn't a new play, I gather. No, it was originally a television play. And Brian Clark, the author, he had enlarged it, you know, and couldn't get it underway. And then finally a woman called Anne Roshorne read it and liked it and sent it to me and we went from there. So you had just your face and your voice to act with, that was all. Yes.
Presenter
It it's easier than people think, actually, because you have things to help you, like your centre stage, uh, dressed in a white gown in a white bed with a light bang on you, and everybody else moving around. But you know, it's not too hard to to hold the attention when you have all those aids. In bed, with the warmth of the lights, doing scenes in which you aren't concerned, isn't there sometimes a danger of dozing off anywhere? Oh, I doze off all the time. Really? Oh, yes, endlessly. Yes, it was very difficult sometimes to keep awake. If I didn't have my nap, I always have a nap at five o'clock, five to half past. And uh and if I if I didn't for some reason have a nap, then it was very, very hard to stay awake throughout the the play. And I often fell asleep. I I fell asleep in the middle of a line once.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Presenter
And the girl.
Presenter
It was playing the nurse Phoebe Nichols and she had to wake me up. How many times did you play that part?
Presenter
Oh gosh, I don't know, about 800, I suppose. Yes. You had a great success with it in New York. Yes, it went down well in in New York.
Presenter
While you were in New York, you did your first directing. Yes, I I enjoyed that en enormously. It was a wonderful play, completely misunderstood by the critics. I mean, it's just astonishing how a whole group of people can be so incredibly wrong about something. They missed the the premise, which is as clear as day. Any idiot could see that. What's it called? It was called Last Licks by Frank Gilroy, who was a very eminent writer in America. He's a Tony Award winner and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 1
What is
Presenter
Pull at surprise.
Presenter
And it closed after about three weeks. You've directed a play in London. Yes, by Rodney Ackland from a story by Somerset Maugham called Before the Party.
Presenter
Which is also great fun. It had Jane Asher and uh and Michael Gough for the scarlet.
Presenter
Now let's talk about your current occupation, the musical They're playing our song. Now that's a hard evening's work.
Presenter
It's much, much easier than than lying in bed, strangely enough, because there isn't a huge emotional content in in in the playing. Yes, it's very frothy stuff, very funny. Yes, very funny. I I've never come across a script which had so many jokes in it. It's just amazing to have so many funny lines within two hours. Well, two and three quarter hours.
Speaker 1
See from
Speaker 1
It's all right.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
And uh
Presenter
Well, it's it's a two-character play except for a b a a small chorus. Yes.
Presenter
Yes, it's great fun to do. Um I've I've never had so much fun on a stage in my life, except maybe w playing with Paul, Schofield, mm-hmm, and Savages. Is this your debut as a singer?
Presenter
Oh yes. Um I'm not really a singer in it. I can have croaked my way through a uh a few songs. But Jemma Craven has the the vocal weight of the story to carry and I have the jokes.
Presenter
But it looks as if you're in for a long run there.
Presenter
Well, we're packed at the moment.
Speaker 1
Hello.
Presenter
Record number five. Glenn Gould is is someone who's workouts.
Presenter
Just been astonished by he's immensely courageous.
Presenter
he he understands music and I think he understands life and what what people are about. Otherwise I don't think he could play the way the way he does. And it would be nice to be doing on a stage what what this chap could do with a piano. It's absolute clarity.
Presenter
And this is the Gig from the first Batita by Bach.
Presenter
Glenn Gould playing Bach's first Batita in B-flat major, and that was The Gig.
Presenter
Television, of course, has played a big part in your career. What was the...
Presenter
Very first appearance.
Presenter
Oh, it was a play called
Presenter
Who fought alone?
Presenter
Many, many years ago, gosh, it must have been about nineteen fifty-eight.
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Live television, of course, because trams going past the studio in in Glasgow, this was.
Speaker 3
Yes.
Presenter
Um
Presenter
And it it it wasn't
Presenter
A very, very exciting thing, television, then. There was a monitor on the on the studio floor, you know, and you watch the programme before coming to a close and then your own programme starting. It's so different now because, you know, you can fall down dead in the middle and they'll just do a retake, but but then all life depended on it. Live television sorted out the men from the boys, didn't it? Gosh, yes. It was fun though. I suppose it was the the glittering prizes which really established you on the box.
Presenter
Yes, yes, uh as well. So that that was just it was a a a wonderful piece of writing. I've been very lucky really with authors.
Presenter
And Freddie Raphael is.
Presenter
one of the greatest people with with words and and again understanding of the society in which he lived.
Presenter
And the Norman conquests, of course, that must have been great fun. Yes, enormous fun. Eggbonn, again, is the same thing, a terrific understanding of people.
Presenter
He knows why people are the way they are and
Presenter
Can show that in a very entertaining way. But when you scratch beneath the surface, um w with Eggborne.
Presenter
You find human tragedy. There's a play called Just Between Ourselves, which had an unsuccessful run in in in the West End, which was a sensationally good play.
Presenter
And the Norman conquests again is about six very sad people. Mhm. But they make you laugh.
Presenter
I gather you're writing a a television play at the moment.
Presenter
A a movie. A movie. Yes, yes. It's taking a rather long time and interviews now spread over about three years have have brought off this movie. It's not finished yet. Oh, well. Keep at it. And in the meantime, your sixth record. My sixth record.
Speaker 3
But
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Presenter
is the Verdi Requiem. I've chosen this because I've always loved Italian opera. This is not an opera, of course, but it it's written by Verdi and he used everything that he knew about opera in the writing of of this Mass. And uh everything that Verdi had learned, I think, about about music and writing suddenly crashed together. It was one of those I I think
Presenter
enormous moments in life and in history when when so many things come together and and create a a a kind of nuclear explosion.
Presenter
An excerpt from the Die's Ere from Veridi's Requiem Mass.
Presenter
Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra.
Presenter
Ah, you told us you are writing a movie at the moment, Tom. You haven't done very many feature films, have you?
Presenter
No, five, I think. Which ones do you like to remember particularly? Well, I li um I liked Galileo um because Joe Lossi directed that and I I like Joe a lot. Um it was a lot of fun. That was my first movie and it was a nice big part. There was another one which I did which was um a nice story. I think there were great flaws in it, um called Eclipse by Nicholas Wollaston.
Speaker 1
Well I don't
Presenter
Uh yes, set in the in the north of Scotland. And you've been making a film in Poland. What's that? Yes, that's uh an adaptation um of a book called The Wall, which is about the rising in the Warsaw Ghetto during the war. It's a wonderful story. Um I have grave doubts uh about how it's gonna turn out. Is it a Polish film?
Speaker 3
Is it a Polish film?
Presenter
No, it's a it's an American film. It it's a co-production. Um but just uh amazing things happened during the filming o of it. Uh
Presenter
Things that y you'd hardly believe, the crushing effects of of the regime which comes from the Soviet side is evident everywhere.
Presenter
Food is in extremely short supply, and the Polish spirit is just.
Presenter
It's uncrackable. They're remarkable. They've been occupied for centuries. And they know that one day they'll get their country back, and by God they will. They're plucky people. And there was full cooperation in the story of the Getter.
Presenter
It wasn't quite as simple as that because where politics come in it gets difficult and they didn't want the polls to be shown in a bad light. And there were moments in the filming where suddenly people will come in and say, No, no, you can't say that. You you we have to change this.
Presenter
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see it. And we've got to record number seven.
Presenter
Record number seven will remind me of this country and so much that I love about it and
Presenter
It will remind me also of doing glittering prizes and and of Cambridge and someone that I met there that'll always be dear to me. And it's sung by Janet Baker and
Presenter
If anybody can ever sing better than this, then
Presenter
By Jove, we're in a lovely world. You haven't told us what the song is. Um, it's C slumber song from Sea Pictures, Elgar, an intensely English composer.
Tom Conti
See men's on a swing.
Tom Conti
Sing murmurs her soft song her song.
Tom Conti
The shrine is a
Presenter
Sea Slumber song from Elgar's Sea Pictures, sung by Janet Baker. Tom, were you ever a Boy Scout?
Presenter
How are you going to manage on this island? Have you any domestic skills that would be useful? I have some domestic skills, but I don't know if they'll be of any use on the on the on the island.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Presenter
I can't think what I'm going to do. Could you rig up some form of hut shelter? Yes, yes, I could probably do that. Do I get a knife or anything? No.
Presenter
God, I've got a fashioner knife. Well, you've got sharp shells and flints and whatever.
Presenter
You haven't softened at all in all the years you've been doing this program, have you? Still as softened.
Speaker 3
Love.
Speaker 1
A little harder, I think.
Presenter
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Would you try to escape?
Presenter
I don't think so, no. I mean, I miss things terribly, but it might be nice to be away from the telephone for a little while and all all of that. And, um, I've never liked lying around in the sun, getting suntanned, so I've never ever had a suntan that I can remember. And maybe it'll be a nic a new experience for me. And you can work on your film.
Presenter
Gosh, what a marvellous idea. I'll go tomorrow.
Presenter
We got your last record.
Presenter
The last record is maybe the most important one to me, it's Gil Yi.
Presenter
And uh he really has been part of my life. I d I I think I go crackers without the sound of his voice. I saw him in Glasgow years ago, n uh a couple of times. And the thing apart from his voice, which was wonderful, was that he seemed to like singing for people and like the people that he was singing for. He would sing encore after encore just because everybody was having a good time, and he was too. And that's very, very important in theatre, that everybody should have a good time. What's he singing? He's singing Caro Mio Ben.
Tom Conti
God eternal
Tom Conti
Ahung we shall
Tom Conti
Ah home your birth.
Tom Conti
Uh
Presenter
Benjamin Ogili singing Caro Mio Ben
Presenter
By Giuseppe Giordani.
Presenter
If you could take only one disc out of the age you've chosen, Tom, which would it be? Um well I'd have to be practical here. I think probably I'd take the Verdi Requim because there's more music squeezed onto the two sides of a disc. I'm s I'm astonished that you're not letting me take the entire work, but only one disc out of the table. Only one disc from it, I'm afraid.
Presenter
And one luxury.
Presenter
A piano, please. Do I have a piano?
Presenter
For obvious reasons. No, I don't want all of it. I want the longest, blackest Steinway that you can And Mr Conte, you could live under that, couldn't you?
Speaker 1
So we know all those little wires, maybe has to be an upright.
Presenter
But we'll give you some music in the piano stool to make up. Thank you. And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.
Presenter
That was terribly difficult, the the the decision. I was gonna take Cartier Bresso. I thought I'll take pictures instead of words, but
Presenter
I might take Summerhill by A. S. Neal because he's so loving and understanding about children. Summer Hill by A. S. Neal.
Presenter
And thank you, Tom Conte, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It's been hard work, but great fun. Thank you for asking. Thank you, Tom. Goodbye, everyone.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.
Presenter asks
And you've been making a film in Poland. What's that?
Yes, that's an adaptation of a book called The Wall, which is about the rising in the Warsaw Ghetto during the war. … Food is in extremely short supply, and the Polish spirit is just uncrackable. … there were moments in the filming where suddenly people will come in and say, No, no, you can't say that.
Presenter asks
How are you going to manage on this island? Have you any domestic skills that would be useful?
I have some domestic skills, but I don't know if they'll be of any use on the island. … Could I rig up some form of hut shelter? Yes, yes, I could probably do that.
Presenter asks
If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?
Um well I'd have to be practical here. I think probably I'd take the Verdi Requiem because there's more music squeezed onto the two sides of a disc. I'm astonished that you're not letting me take the entire work, but only one disc out of the eight.
“Perhaps the odd nightmare has flashed across my screen, but it's not something that I that I lust after.”
“A Lancastrian Lord in a Besieged Castle. I can't remember what the play was called, though. It was quite funny, I remember.”
“I went in and said, How do you join this place? And they said, Well, you do this and that and this and that and talk to your parents and … A week later I started.”
“it saved my soul because I could play the guitar from well, from the time I got up in the morning till when I went to bed at night and it just saved me from the the crushing part of loneliness.”
“I think I go crackers without the sound of his voice.”
“That was terribly difficult, the the the decision. I was gonna take Cartier Bresso … I might take Summerhill by A. S. Neal.”