Terry Hands

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 one.

Speaker 10:30

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:33

This week our Castaway is the theatre producer and director Teddy Hans.

Presenter0:38

Terry, I know you have a a musical background in your family. Have you any skill at music yourself?

Terry Hands0:43

Yeah.

Terry Hands0:43

Uh Just a little once upon a time I I played the cello, or at least I took lessons, and uh for a long time was destined to be a cellist. Fortunately for music I I didn't continue. But I still love the instrument. At what age did you give it up?

Terry Hands0:59

I think it was about seventeen. Uh I I played it from ten till seventeen, and started the violin at eight, and uh went on to the cello at ten, and then, I'm afraid, gave it up, because it was quite clear I wasn't anywhere near good enough.

Terry Hands1:14

Do you play discs a lot?

Terry Hands1:16

Yes, music of all kinds I do all the time at the moment. I mean, over the last five or six years. Um and when I can't do that I listen to radio three.

Presenter1:24

Was it a great wrench having to ditch your collection and just take eight

Terry Hands1:30

Yes, yes it was. And it could have been so many different ones. And I don't know. I mean, they are all I mean, all music I find so extraordinary and and and wonderful and

Terry Hands1:43

I think finally one has to choose memories sometimes and things that one knows temperamentally will be of use on a desert island.

Presenter1:52

Well, let's start with what's your first one?

Terry Hands1:56

This is the Dvojac cello concerto, I suppose simply because it's the first music I can remember. I heard it all day long. My father was a cellist, and he was endlessly playing this particular one, because perhaps it is the most beautiful.

Presenter2:15

The beginning of the second movement of the Four Chak cello concerto, Pierre Fournier with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by George Sell.

Presenter2:24

Uh you come from Aldershot. Your father was

Terry Hands2:27

Yes, for twenty-five years, I think, of his life. And he was a military bandmaster. Yes. Music all the time. Which regiment? The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. I think it's now been merged with something or whatever. But we we prefer not to talk about that. Are you one of a large family? No, just the two of us, myself and my brother.

Presenter2:38

Thank you.

Presenter2:49

You went to Birmingham University to read what? English. What had you in mind? How were you going to use it?

Terry Hands2:56

I thought I'd um go into the diplomatic corps.

Terry Hands2:59

should make my colleagues laugh. But that was my ambition and I very much wanted to do that. And then I was told that really I wasn't suitable material for that kind of a career. So I then thought, well, perhaps I could become a lecturer and teach in a university.

Speaker 13:03

Uh

Presenter3:03

That's uh

Terry Hands3:17

and very much wished to do that. And then my tutor said, Your temperament is really not right for libraries. So at the last minute, and as an afterthought, I applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Presenter3:31

Had you worked in the drama group at university?

Terry Hands3:33

Yes, I had. But then most people did, really. They either went up in the sort of the Presidency in the Social side of the Union, or they went into the theatre group, and I went into the theatre group.

Presenter3:43

As a child had you been to the theatre very much? There was a rep theatre in Aldershot.

Terry Hands3:47

Yes, I never went to that one. I used to travel up to the Old Vic. Um I used to go up on the milk train on Saturdays and do the art galleries during the day and the theatre in the evening and therefore all my early theatre memories are of the Old Vic, which I thought was wonderful, absolutely wonderful, and every show I thought was really superb and I saw many, many things there, the Frankie Howard bottom and the Paul Rogers Lear and treasured memories really.

Presenter4:14

Uh

Terry Hands4:14

Uh

Presenter4:14

So off you went to Rada. Did you take the actors' course?

Terry Hands4:18

Yes, that was the only one one could in those days. There wasn't a directing course. In any case, I had no idea whether I wanted to stay in the theatre or not. So it was the acting course. Did you do well?

Terry Hands4:28

I survived. Um I survived. I I won some prizes, I think, and then left to start the Liverpool Everyman.

Presenter4:39

Well, at that point we'll break for your second record, watch that to be.

Terry Hands4:42

Well, the second one is all to do with Liverpool.

Terry Hands4:45

At that time, when we're talking now about the early sixties, it was a city of tremendous excitement. The Beatles and the Beat groups in general were in full flood, and we felt that it was the right place to go because it was so alive, in order to begin a theatre, and therefore this record is Michelle by the Beatles, and again it brings back that whole period.

Presenter5:12

Michele by The Beatles. Now at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Presenter5:17

Did the building already exist, or did you have to create it?

Terry Hands5:20

Yes, it existed. It was um I think a Methodist uh church hall and therefore basically wood and uh a beautiful acoustic and quite right for a theatre. And it was situated on Hope Street. One end of the street was the Anglican Cathedral and the other end the new Catholic Cathedral. And uh the art school was on that street and a beautiful pub, at Orion Pub, and and the Philharmonic Orchestra. So it was very exciting. It w we had to convert it and people from the university helped us and the people of Liverpool helped us enormously.

Presenter5:31

Yeah.

Presenter5:51

There were already, I think, what, four theatres in Liverpool at that time? No, three. We were the fourth. Now, this took quite a lot of money to set up how to

Terry Hands6:00

What did we set about raising it? Well, we said about raising it by appealing to the council, which was in those days labour-run and very forward-looking and very generous. And we had a board of dignified people, because we weren't. I mean, we were scruffy and students and very ignorant. And they helped us to raise money, which kept us going for the first two years. I stayed two years.

Speaker 16:07

Very f

Presenter6:16

Bernard.

Terry Hands6:22

Directing?

Terry Hands6:23

I began by acting and then found myself directing.

Terry Hands6:30

really more by accident than by design, and found I couldn't do both, and therefore stayed directing.

Presenter6:38

Uh

Terry Hands6:38

What were the best things you did there, in your two years?

Terry Hands6:41

My best productions, I suppose, were Murder in the Cathedral, which was the first I ever did. Look Back in Anger, I remember fondly. Did you find any outstanding

Presenter6:51

talents among your players.

Terry Hands6:54

Well, at the time we thought they all were, but subsequently we discovered that the outstanding ones were Hildegard Neill, Susan Fleetwood, John McKennery, Bruce Myers, who now works with Peter Brooke, um Peter James, of course, who I worked with there and who now runs the Lerry Camerasmith.

Presenter7:12

Yes, well that was quite an impressive list. So after two years you you felt you'd exhausted the possibilities of Liverpool, you wanted to move on.

Terry Hands7:21

That's not quite the way to phrase it. I I desperately needed to learn. I'd used up everything I knew. Um in fact I used it up in one year, but I stayed for two. And I felt time had come that I had to go back to school and learn. So I applied to the National Theatre as an assistant and to the Royal Shakespeare Company. The two senior companies in the country.

Terry Hands7:43

Yes, to be an assistant director. I had a very polite refusal from the National Theatre, and Peter Hall said, come along and see me.

Presenter7:51

And what happened?

Terry Hands7:52

I was engaged to run Theatre Ground, which was a touring unit to schools and uh community centers. And uh I've stayed ever since. And how long did you run Theatre Ground?

Terry Hands8:06

Again, for a couple of years. Then Peter made me an associate director and I found I was more and more working in the main houses.

Presenter8:14

Well, this was wonderfully quick work. You'd only been in the theatre three or four years.

Presenter8:19

Yeah.

Terry Hands8:20

It was very lucky, and uh I was very lucky to work for Peter Hall, who had um he still has that kind of gambler's instinct and a preparedness to risk. What was your first production?

Presenter8:35

Uh

Terry Hands8:36

In the main theater of the RSC was at the Old Witch. It was by a Cuban writer, Jose Triana, called The Criminals. It was booed and heckled on its first night.

Presenter8:37

In the main theater.

Terry Hands8:46

And I thought that was the end of this very short and fast career. But Peter liked it, and so I survived.

Presenter8:53

So you you worked at both the RSC bases, the the Stratford on Avon, which was the home base, as it were.

Terry Hands9:00

Yes, the first production there was the Merryweis Windsor in sixty eight.

Presenter9:00

Yeah.

Presenter9:04

Record number?

Terry Hands9:05

Uh Pretty good.

Presenter9:05

Uh

Terry Hands9:05

Keep it.

Terry Hands9:07

Well, record number three is an odd one. It's the play of Daniel. I include it because it affected all my musical thinking as far as the drama was concerned, as far as Shakespeare was concerned, and

Terry Hands9:19

I used to bore composers like Guy Wolfenden and Ian Kellum to death by saying yes, but look, it's just like this bit on the play of Daniel. Um it's a wonderful piece. It's a twelfth century opera, they think perhaps the first ever. It has all the sounds that seem to me to link between the human voice speaking in a play and its musical support.

Presenter9:45

A section from The Play of Daniel, a twelfth century musical drama by the New York Pro Musica, directed by Noah Greenberg. From your first few years with The Royal Shakespeare, which was your favorite production?

Terry Hands9:58

I think perhaps my favourite production was.

Terry Hands10:02

PERICLES. A very good play, so seldom done. I think so. Very underrated, and yet it has a tremendous grip upon the public. It's one of those plays, and there are several by Shakespeare, which are not popular with critics, because they're not sophisticated and they're not satirical.

Presenter10:04

Food.

Terry Hands10:21

And if this play is full of optimism, of hope, of regeneration and great naivety. And I think that explains why it's popular with the public and not with the press. I love it. I've done it twice now. And uh could happily do it a third time.

Presenter10:40

There was a time, I think it was nineteen seventy four, when you thought of quitting the theatre altogether.

Terry Hands10:46

Yes, yes. What went wrong? What what was your thinking? Well, I suppose it wasn't so much quitting the theatre altogether. It it was quitting the theatre in England and emigrating and moving abroad and working in a different theatrical medium where I suppose

Speaker 110:58

Uh

Terry Hands11:03

Governments and subsidies and treasuries were more understanding of what theatre could do or might do.

Presenter11:10

An attack of frustration, in other words.

Terry Hands11:13

A kind of yes, yes, which I'm sure everybody in the theatre in England has from time to time. It's a kind of revolt which happens occasionally against Englishness, and one usually gets over it quite quickly.

Presenter11:26

One of the things that may have helped you get over it was the fact that the following year you directed all four productions in the centenary season at Stratford, which must have been very rewarding um Henry for both parts, Henry Fiber, and The Merry Wives.

Presenter11:40

Uh

Terry Hands11:40

Yes yes, it was our centenary year, and uh we had yet again run out of money totally, and so we had to find a new way of putting on Shakespeare's plays and

Terry Hands11:52

in doing them on completely bare stages I mean barer than they had ever been up till then.

Terry Hands11:57

We all discovered a sort of new energy and a new taste for what we were doing. It was a happy year.

Presenter12:03

One of those productions you you took all over the place.

Terry Hands12:06

Henry the Fifth.

Presenter12:07

Mm.

Terry Hands12:07

Yes, we took it to um Europe and we also took it to America, to uh New York.

Terry Hands12:14

It wasn't quite officially the British entry for the Bicentennial, but it became so because it it was thoroughly English and it was there. That show ran on for another three years. Again, um a very happy show, and uh also very much very key, I suppose, in

Terry Hands12:32

The relationship which I built up over the years with Alan Howard, and it was something that we both shared together.

Presenter12:37

The relationship that continued in in the three parts of Henry VI, which you did in full, I I believe they'd never been done in full.

Presenter12:46

Since they were first done. And so the scholars told us, yes. Robert Atkins had done them all three at the Vic.

Terry Hands12:53

But not the whole text.

Presenter12:53

Yeah. Stop the whole tech now.

Terry Hands12:54

No.

Presenter12:56

And you must have been the first, certainly, to present all three parts in a day. Now how much Shakespeare in acting time was that?

Terry Hands13:04

Um it was something like three hours and three six and nine something like it was like about eleven hours of Shakespeare acting, and when they did it on a whole day, I was amazed that they actually succeeded. But I mean, those actors got through eleven hours of Shakespeare.

Presenter13:18

I'm sorry.

Terry Hands13:19

Edit the audio

Presenter13:19

Nice.

Terry Hands13:19

That's right.

Presenter13:21

Ta-da!

Presenter13:21

Some concentrated theatre guy. Uh which of the current productions of yours are you particularly happy with?

Terry Hands13:31

Well, I have two at the moment, which is the Troyus and Cressida and the um As You Like It, and two more coming in in November, Richard the Second, Richard the Third, and a little programme, an anthology programme, Pleasure and Repentance, at the Fortune Theatre.

Terry Hands13:43

I think I'm happy with all of them when the actors are, and unhappy with all of them when the actors have an off night or have a problem, so that really you see, I don't think plays can exist outside their particular audiences, and a good house and a good night, almost any show, can be quite wonderful. And

Terry Hands14:02

Bad weather or a bad night or an uneasy audience, and any however good the show can be not so satisfying. So

Speaker 114:08

Satisfying.

Terry Hands14:11

I can only answer, I'm afraid, generally on that one. I'm fascinated by As You Like It because it's perhaps the happiest of the four.

Presenter14:17

Yes. How many Shakespeare plays have you directed now?

Terry Hands14:21

Sixteen, seventeen, I think.

Presenter14:23

Would you like to go ahead and do the whole cannon?

Terry Hands14:24

Uh

Terry Hands14:26

Yes, I would. I don't think I ever will, but I would like to try.

Presenter14:30

You're now joint artistic director of the company with Trevor Nunn. Does that work all right?

Terry Hands14:36

Works very well. We've been

Terry Hands14:38

Friends ever since we joined the company. We both joined as very young men. I was about twenty five, I think, and uh Trevor

Terry Hands14:47

Uh is about the same age, so we've been friends ever since then, and w when Trevor decided to do this, it seemed a logical uh development from that season where uh I had done all the plays, and the next season where Trevor did them and so on. Um yes, I think it seems to work. I don't think we even talk about it very much. I mean, there's so much work to do, we just do it.

Presenter15:09

Record number four.

Terry Hands15:11

Record number four is perhaps my favorite of all, which is Haydn, it's the string quartet, and I suppose the most calming music I know.

Terry Hands15:23

The job itself has its moments of uh tension, and I find this seventy year old composer seems to put together the kind of notes that would calm anybody or anything. Uh it certainly does me.

Presenter15:43

Part of the second movement of the Haydn string quartet, in C, opus fifty four, No. two, played by the Amadeus Quartet. Terry, let's talk about your French connection, or, as it's now become, your European connection.

Presenter15:59

In nineteen seventy two, I think it was, you were the first Englishman ever to direct at the Comedie française. How did that come about?

Terry Hands16:07

By chance, really, Pierre Dux was the new Administrateur Général, and he wished to open the doors, in fact, to foreigners who had never worked there. And he had Robert Hirsch, a brilliant leading actor, and felt that he ought to do a Richard the Third. And they then started looking for a director and went to Peter Daubeny, and after all the leading directors of that time had said no, it finally got down to me, and I said yes.

Presenter16:37

Peter Daubeny, of course, was the man who ran the international theatre season in London every year.

Terry Hands16:43

Um

Terry Hands16:45

How is your friend?

Terry Hands16:46

Oh, I didn't speak any, so I bought a teach yourself French and spent night after night struggling away with syntax and grammar, and then went off for a holiday in Corsica, and then went to the Comedie Francaise.

Presenter17:02

I read that you spent two or three weeks in a French army post to become fluent.

Terry Hands17:06

Yes, not

Terry Hands17:08

Not quite as clear as that. I bumped into a detachment of the French Foreign Legion in a very

Terry Hands17:16

down and out kind of wine cellar. In fact, nobody would talk to me. You see, the French aren't very friendly. And therefore I couldn't practise my newly acquired French. Where was this? This was in Corsica. In Corsica. In Bonifacio. So I thought, well, the the only people who will talk to you are, if you like, the working class, the the the labouring class. And I went therefore into this place looking for them and found it was full of soldiers.

Terry Hands17:41

And somebody thought I was German and then thought I was English, and then said they didn't like the English because of what had happened with Napoleon.

Terry Hands17:49

But we were in Corsica. And that was your fault. And that was my fault. And

Terry Hands17:53

We then, and it was very lucky, started to talk about the Battle of Waterloo, which it turned out I knew more about than they did.

Terry Hands17:59

And uh at the end of that, this group of soldiers said, Look,

Terry Hands18:03

Where are you staying? Are you in a hotel? and I said I was. And they said, Well, look, come out into the Maquis. We've got some tents and huts and so on, and uh stay with us and so for three weeks I stayed in the Maquis with with this platoon, really, of the French Foreign Legion. I I was able to practise my French, but

Terry Hands18:19

I came back with sort of Yugoslav and Russian and German and Spanish accents. And a kind of French which on the whole I wasn't able to use in the Comedie Française.

Presenter18:31

It's a rather explicit military term.

Terry Hands18:34

Very much so, I'm afraid. But I did learn a lot of things and.

Terry Hands18:39

Uh I mean, I learned how to make fires and how to make coffee and how to survive in uh extraordinary situations. A a little bit, anyway.

Presenter18:48

Now the company of the Compagnie Francaise is a very compartmented one, and you chose to cast the play with the comedians with the Phaedo expert.

Terry Hands18:56

That's right.

Terry Hands18:58

Well, I don't believe that there is any such thing as a tragic actor and a comic actor. I think uh all actors are simply actors, and Olivier always used to say he was a comic actor, not a tragic actor. And um Richard the Third is great black comedy. It's a tragic comedy. And therefore I chose only the comedians, and it was, I think, successful for that reason. Hierarch had never been given a serious part. Charon, who played Buckingham, had never played what they would regard as a tragic role.

Presenter19:29

Did the company accept you easily?

Terry Hands19:32

Oh yes, yes they did.

Presenter19:33

Yeah.

Terry Hands19:33

I

Presenter19:33

I believe you insisted on an in

Terry Hands19:35

English tea break

Terry Hands19:36

Yes, I did insist on an English tree brick. Right and proper. And and sort of democratic discussions, all very English, and they were very good and very open with me and helped a great deal, and certainly they improved my French, if nothing else.

Presenter19:51

And you had a wonderful success. You've directed several other plays with the Comedie Française.

Terry Hands19:56

Yes, uh four others.

Presenter19:57

And the French Government have decorated you?

Presenter20:01

So that's worked out very nicely. You've also worked in Vienna.

Terry Hands20:04

Yes, I've I've done two plays in Vienna. They were nearly all German actors there, even though it was the Vienna State Theatre. It's a very fine theatre, and again I moved there because there was a new intendant who wanted to open the doors to foreigners, and was very happy to help him with his plans for that theatre.

Presenter20:24

Another side to your activities is directing opera, which was the first.

Terry Hands20:28

The very first was Otello. Where? This was at the Paris Opera uh in nineteen seventy six and I just opened Twelfth Night and Rolf Lieberman, who was running the Paris Opera, had just lost his director for Otello, and I think he picked up his figaro and saw a review for Twelfth Night, and it was Shakespeare, and there was Verdi's Otto, and that was probably Shakespeare, and he phoned me up, and that was it.

Presenter20:56

So you directed in French an Italian opera in Paris.

Terry Hands21:01

Well, no, we sang it in Italian, but they talked in French to half the cast and in English to Placido Domingo and Margaret Price, of course, and tried bits of German with Horst Laubenthal and Courten Morrow and so on. It's the usual operatic setup. It's totally, totally mayhem and international. You really talk through the music.

Speaker 121:11

Cad

Presenter21:18

It's totally totally

Presenter21:22

And you've directed at uh Cotton Garden?

Terry Hands21:25

Yes, that was more recent. In seventy nine, uh Pasifa.

Presenter21:28

Somehow there seems a sort of sausage machine quality about opera seasons. The productions are churned up pretty quickly, aren't they? I mean, if you're not really on the scene, not part of the regular establishment, isn't it a bit confusing?

Terry Hands21:41

Yes, it's it's not a very good system and I think the opera houses are very aware of it. It's because the very greatest singers can only afford two and a half weeks for rehearsals, if that, between their recording contracts. Therefore you have to leap in, try to stage it in that time and it's given six performances and then two years later it will be revived with different set of singers, with less time, and if you've got any sense, without you the director.

Presenter22:09

Record number five.

Terry Hands22:12

Well, record number five is in fact Verdi Zotello. For me, I think, I believe, the greatest and most satisfying of of the operas. I find it an astonishing insight into the Shakespeare play, not so much by the librettis, Boito, but by Verdi himself. And uh this is with Placidot simply because uh I enjoyed working with him and uh it was a very, very happy time, and I would like to have his voice with me on any desert island.

Presenter22:43

Placido Domingo in the soliloquy from the third act of Verdi's Ottello. Something that's looming quite fast is the move of the London end of the Royal Shakespeare Company from the Old Witch to the new theatre in the Barbican down in the city. Do you think theatre girls will be

Terry Hands22:59

Able to find it?

Terry Hands23:00

I hope so. All we can gather at the moment about theatre going taste is that it tends to go where there are car parks. We intend, therefore, to heavily advertise the car parks in the Barbican.

Presenter23:14

Facilities at the Theatre.

Terry Hands23:16

Oh, wonderful, wonderful, in comparison with the Aldwich. Aldwich's has no wing space and an old wooden grid and a terrible acoustic whereby to reach the back of the theatre you have to blast the people in the front of the theater or play to the front of the theatre and nobody can hear you at the back. I mean it's going to be an enormous advance to move to

Terry Hands23:37

Something spacious, a theatre that is spacious and comfortable, and that has been built by theatre people.

Presenter23:44

So let's have another record.

Terry Hands23:46

Well the next one is a very simple choice really. It's the well known Concerto de Arangueth, and uh I suppose I've chosen it because over the last few years I have found it one of the most calming, the most lyrical pieces of music, and perhaps that needs some explanation. I know that very often in my work it is described as excessive or aggressive or provocative. I don't think so. But I do know that when I can go home and listen to something like this, one is immediately calmed, and in a profession which is not known for calm, you start to value very highly music that has that ability.

Presenter24:26

part of the second movement of the Rodrigo guitar concerto.

Presenter24:30

John Williams the soloist, with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barrenboy.

Presenter24:36

Now, Terry, you talked about your experience with the French Foreign Legion at lighting fires and finding fuel. This is going to be very useful to you on your island.

Terry Hands24:47

Yes. You see, I'm I'm looking forward immensely to going to a desert island. I certainly learnt from the Legion. They were they're amazing, for instance, just at making fires. I remember when they ever they cooked three kinds of wood that they would discover.

Presenter25:00

Really?

Terry Hands25:00

One for flaring and starting the fire, one for smouldering and holding the heat, and one to give perfume and scent to the meat we were cooking. This is very sophisticated. Well, they could get a coffee going quicker, I think, than I can do it with an electric kettle. I'm sure I'll never have their skills, but it was an eye-opener, and uh I would certainly hope to use some of that on a desert island.

Terry Hands25:24

Yeah.

Presenter25:24

Could you endure prolonged Lennon? Yeah.

Terry Hands25:28

At the moment I think I would love it. The only thing that worries me about the desert island is I think the first thing I would do is to dig a hole so that whenever a ship went by I could get inside it and hide, so that there would be no hope or chance of rescue of any kind.

Terry Hands25:42

I would take enormous pains to remain utterly hidden.

Terry Hands25:46

on it and not rescued in any way. I think I would be very, very cheerful on this island.

Presenter25:50

Well, we'll respect your wishes. We shall be sorry to see you again.

Terry Hands25:54

You're lovely. I can't wait.

Presenter25:57

Record number seven.

Terry Hands25:59

Well, record number seven is, I suppose, a sentimental record. It's uh Murder in the Cathedral by TS Eliot. It was the very first professional play that I ever did, and I did it at the Liverpool Everyman. Subsequently I've done it

Terry Hands26:12

with the RSC at the Aldwich in 1972 and again in Paris in 1978. Each time I've done it differently, I'm haunted by it. I think it's one of the great pieces of dramatic writing and one of the great pieces of poetry. And this particular version is the one done by the RSC and therefore of course it's got the voices of a great number of friends Richard Pascoe, Alan Howard, Norman Rodway, Tony Church, Brewster Mason, Susan Fleetwood, many, many friends. And I would like to have that with me so that I could be reminded of people with whom I have lived and worked over the last fifteen years.

Presenter26:49

Uh Who are we going to hear on this ex

Terry Hands26:49

Yeah.

Terry Hands26:51

This is uh Susan Fleetwood, who was the chorus leader, and it's um a chorus which she does on her own. It's uh just before the death of of Beckett. She has a control of language, of tone, of pitch, which is simply breathtaking, and I think this extract demonstrates it.

Presenter27:13

An excerpt from Murder in the Cathedral by TS Eliot With the voice of Susan Fleetwood.

Presenter27:19

Let's have your last record. What's that to be?

Terry Hands27:22

Well the last record is again a cello concerto.

Terry Hands27:25

this time the um the Elga. And

Terry Hands27:29

I don't think it is the most perfect of the cello concertos, but it is the most English, and I think on this desert island

Terry Hands27:37

Certainly as somebody who works a great deal abroad, as I do, there is always an astonishing pleasure in coming back to England and being reminded of it. It is still is a superbly and very beautiful island, and this piece reminds me of it probably more than any other piece of music.

Presenter27:55

the Elgar Cello Concerto, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, and the soloist Jacqueline Dupre. If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played us, which would it be?

Terry Hands28:09

I think it would have to be the Haydn.

Presenter28:11

the Haydn Quartet. And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to the island.

Presenter28:16

You're going to be there for a long time, you say, so I hope it's something that you're really going to enjoy.

Terry Hands28:23

I think I would take the one thing I couldn't make. I'd like to take a cello. I did study it once. Start all over again. And I think I'd like to start all over again.

Presenter28:28

To start.

Presenter28:32

Right. We'll give you all the fixings. We'll give you some music and a stool and supply of bows. And lots

Terry Hands28:38

The

Presenter28:38

Rosin. Right. And one book. You already have the Bible and Shakespeare. One book.

Terry Hands28:46

Yes, this is very difficult. I wondered perhaps if I might take the largest possible dictionary of the English language. Yes, indeed. It seems to me that all we know of peoples, their emotions, their feelings, their hopes, their aspirations, their thought processes, are all in the words. And if you look at a dictionary of the English language, it's like looking at a history of Europe. It's full of words from the Scandinavian, from the French, from the Latin, the Greek, the German, and so on, and the Celtic. I think I'd be very happy m poring around in that.

Presenter29:19

You choose your own Dictionary of the English Language, and thank you, Terry Hans, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Terry Hands29:26

Thank you, Roy, very much.

Presenter29:27

Goodbye, everyone.