Paul Eddington

Paul Eddington0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Disc's archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

Paul Eddington0:14

The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wright's reasons we've had to shorten the music.

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Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

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The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one.

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And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:52

On our desert island this week is the actor Paul Eddington. Paul, could you endure loneliness?

Presenter0:58

Yes, I don't think it'd be too difficult for me. I quite like my own company. I've got a little cottage in the country, and sometimes I shoot off down there by myself. Of course-

Presenter1:07

One always knows that one can get away and one can have company if one wants it. I don't know what it'd be like on a desert island. But I'm hopeful.

Paul Eddington1:14

But I'm Hoke.

Presenter1:15

Now, apart from being away from family and friends, what will be the worst thing about it?

Presenter1:21

I think it would be the knowledge that I couldn't go and have a nice curry when I wanted one.

Presenter1:26

Unless you cared to cook one. Yes. How important in your life is music?

Presenter1:31

Very important indeed. Have you any skill yourself to do it? No, unfortunately I haven't. No. I've been in musicals, but I don't think that quite qualifies me. Did you hear a lot of music as a child?

Paul Eddington1:34

No, unfortunately.

Presenter1:44

Quite a lot. As a small child not very much.

Presenter1:49

Those were the days when one didn't necessarily have a a a record player or a gramophone.

Presenter1:54

Ah, and we didn't.

Presenter1:56

But when I went to school

Presenter1:58

My headmaster's uh in my view redeeming.

Presenter2:02

Quality was that he had a love of music and was able to communicate it, and that he did.

Presenter2:07

And for that I shall always be grateful. Did you have any difficulty in choosing just eight records to take with you? Oh, yes, immense difficulty. Just eight. Because it should have been eighty-eight. I mean, my list makes me blush when I look at it. When I think of the emissions, you know, no Beethoven, no Brahms, no Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn. You know, the list is endless. What's the first one you've chosen? The first one and the one that sprang to the top of my list was a small section of.

Presenter2:34

Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew. It's a little bit where Peter

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Denies knowing Christ.

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And this seems to me to be

Presenter2:45

the point at which divinity and humanity meets in a most remarkable way. The greatest saint of the Church reveals himself as being just an ordinary man like you.

Presenter2:57

Like me.

Speaker 32:58

Itus Abas astronausen imper last und estromazo ibe lemacht und spura.

Speaker 33:08

Two of ourselves between years was coming in!

Speaker 33:13

Eloy the job before in an island on spalah.

Speaker 23:18

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 33:18

Yeah.

Speaker 23:18

Ice gift pass to Sargest.

Speaker 33:20

August

Speaker 33:30

Is a one o'clock Jesus?

Speaker 33:34

Und ir loignite ara mal und schmur datzu.

Speaker 23:42

His tandless mention is

Speaker 33:46

Undebeine Kleine Weiner Trat in So Didashtanden.

Presenter3:59

A short section from Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, with Peter Schreier as the Evangelist, Anton Diakov as Peter, and Herbert von Karian conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus. Let's go straight into your next record, Paul.

Presenter4:14

This next record would be to remind me of the English countryside, of which I am very fond indeed, and a particular part of it.

Presenter4:22

In East Anglia.

Presenter4:24

And it's one of Britain's sea interludes. Presumably I'd have a lot of sea around me already if I were on a desert island, but I think it wouldn't be the same sort of sea, and I'd like to remember this.

Presenter5:37

One of the C interludes dawn from Peter Grimes conducted by the composer Benjamin Britton.

Presenter5:45

Which part of the country do you come from? From East Anglia? No, no, I'm a Londoner. Are you? Yes, I was born.

Presenter5:52

In Saint John's Wood.

Presenter5:54

Sounds rather grand. I think bits of it are called Kilburn now.

Presenter5:58

One of a large family?

Presenter6:00

No, I have a sister. Yes. That's all. Where did you go to school?

Presenter6:04

I went to various schools, and then domestic mishaps overtook us, unfortunately it became necessary to find a boarding school to send me to.

Presenter6:14

And because of family connections, I found myself at a Quaker school eventually. Where? In Oxfordshire. It's called Sibford.

Paul Eddington6:21

Yeah.

Presenter6:23

Yes, in fact, the oldest coeducational school in the country, I believe. It was founded in eighteen forty three, if you can believe it.

Paul Eddington6:27

Yeah.

Presenter6:30

And this was during the war years, of course.

Presenter6:32

Well, I have to confess, just before the war I think thirty seven.

Presenter6:37

Uh it was very interesting because we got uh the Quakers being what they are, we had a succession of refugees, and the first lot of refugees I can remember coming to us were from the Spanish Civil War.

Presenter6:47

What were you best at at school? Oh, well, what would you expect? Art, of course, and English and all those sissy subjects. But those were what I liked and what I felt best at. Um a distant relative of mine was uh Sir Arthur Eddington, the astronomer, and uh this proved a great burden to me because I was always expected to know about physics and algebra and things like that, and I never did. What was your ambition? Right, art vaguely, but what kind of art?

Paul Eddington7:03

Yeah.

Presenter7:13

Well, of course, uh, when you're very young you tend to be idealistic and puritanical, do you not? And I wanted

Presenter7:21

The best and purest sort of art, and I thought that actually.

Presenter7:27

would probably be music.

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I didn't ever consider music as a career because

Presenter7:33

It is a very mathematical subject.

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I think it's probably necessary to know something about mathematics and

Presenter7:39

Being so totally non-mathematical as I thought, I thought that was not for me. Had you been to the theatre frequently as a child?

Presenter7:46

Not a great deal as a small child. Uh oddly enough, being in the part of country that we were in, in North Oxfordshire,

Presenter7:54

Our nearest theatre, and my first theatre going, was done at uh Stratford on Avon.

Presenter7:58

What was your first job when you left school?

Presenter8:01

My very first job, um I tried to combine art with commerce. It was a rather naïve uh thing to try, and I didn't want to starve in a garret, you see. That held no attraction for me at all. And I found myself a job in the display department, and that's a rather grand way of saying I was a window dresser, in Lewis's, in Birmingham. Commercial art. Commercial art, yes. How long did that last? Uh not very long.

Paul Eddington8:27

How long did that

Presenter8:30

Because scales fell from my eyes almost immediately. It's hard on the feet, I should think, window dressing. That's right, yes. I I heard that um a girl I'd been at school with and and had acted with occasionally I heard in a quite casual way that she'd gone to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Presenter8:47

And I suddenly thought, What an extraordinary idea to act for a living and that was in fact what I was best at at school, but as it was an extracurricular activity, it never occurred to me to try it as a career. What did you play at school? Oh, let me see. I played

Presenter9:03

Oh, an adaptation of uh Pride and Prejudice.

Presenter9:07

I can't remember oh, other odd little bits and pieces here and there, but I I raised a few laughs and managed to make people watch me and uh showed off no end and I seemed to be doing that quite well. So what did you do? Um, did you go to Rada straight away? No, I didn't know anything about uh formal education for the stage. I thought one just went on to it. And uh luckily enough it was the only occasion in the history of the British theatre when there's been a shortage of actors,'cause they were all away at the war.

Presenter9:36

And um I was advised by friends to try at Drury Lane, the headquarters of ENSA. Entertainment's National Service Association. Or Every Night Something Awful, yeah. Uh this was the drama division.

Paul Eddington9:45

Yeah.

Paul Eddington9:46

Yeah.

Presenter9:48

And um

Presenter9:50

I asked if I could please be an actor, and they gave me a little bit to read, and I read it, and they said, Yes, all right, yes, go down to Colchester and start work next week. This was the floated off, as you may imagine. It's Garrison Theatre, was it? Well, I joined the company who happened to be playing at the Garrison Theatre in Colchester that night, I think, and then the next night they were somewhere else, and the next night somewhere else, and so on. I went all around the country doing that for a year. What was the play?

Paul Eddington10:00

Yeah.

Paul Eddington10:03

Well

Paul Eddington10:11

And all

Paul Eddington10:12

Pretty.

Presenter10:14

The play was Genie by Amy Stewart. Oh, yes. The play that Barbara Mullen first made her name in. And what did you play?

Presenter10:20

I played a waiter on a trade Well, nevertheless, it had to be done. And everything else, too. I mean, I packed the scenery up and the props and moved the stuff about and did everything.

Paul Eddington10:25

And everything else

Presenter10:31

Let's have your next record. What's that? The next one is again on this rather nostalgic countryside theme.

Presenter10:38

for no particular connections, but just because I very much like the sound of it.

Presenter10:42

It's um Butterworths.

Presenter10:44

Adaptation of the Banks of Green Willow.

Presenter11:46

Butterworth's The Banks of Green Willow, the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Belt. What other plays did you do with Ensor apart from Jeannie? Oh, only that one. Only that one? Yes. How long did it take you? I mean, you you toured with it for a long time. For about a year. Did you? Yes, up and down the country, Scotland, Scarperflow, Wales, Anglesey, all over the place. Still serving this meal? Still serving the meal, yes, yes, yes. And had a party every night, every mess we went to. It was most disastrous. I was in quite a state by the end of the year. Well, never mind, you're an actor. How long did you stay with Ensor?

Paul Eddington12:09

Still serving the meal, yes, yes.

Speaker 212:15

Yeah.

Presenter12:19

Bahia, yes.

Presenter12:22

Then I was out of work for a while, and uh having got a bit hungry and kicked my heels a bit,

Presenter12:28

I found work at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which was an enormous piece of luck. Yes, a very prestigious rep. Oh, vastly. Al although I must say I was somewhat below the bottom rung of the ladder, because my part in the organisation was again the same sort of job.

Presenter12:46

but this time with a a tour that Spaddy Jackson, who was running the theatre, put out consisting in every case except that of my own, um ex students of the then Birmingham Repertory School. Yes. Then I marched all round the repertory theatres, I think starting with Worthing,

Presenter13:05

Sheffield. I was at Sheffield rep on and off the old playhouse. You were getting a a thorough grounding. Absolutely. Now, you had already been an actor for six or seven years and you suddenly decided, I I suppose, in a in a kind of fit of humility, that you wanted to go to Radha, that you wanted to take a an academic training.

Presenter13:22

Yes, several things really. Um partly I did feel the need of some formal training, and and partly I wanted to get a little bit nearer to where the action was, which was at that time in London, and Yorkshire's an awful long way away.

Presenter13:36

and I thought I must get to London somehow. I cannot afford in any way to go to London.

Presenter13:41

Except in this way, I managed to get a grant from the local education authority.

Presenter13:46

And

Presenter13:47

The only time I've ever done an audition and and got anything from it, I did an audition for Ardo and I I ought to have got something from it, oughtn't I, with all that experience behind me.

Presenter13:56

And so I found myself rather on about three pounds a week. How long did you stay there? A year. The normal course was two years, but I was such a little show off, they got rid of me in one.

Speaker 314:06

One

Presenter14:07

Now the next mention of your name that I've come across is in The Adventures of Robin Hood on Television. Ah.

Presenter14:14

Yes, well, that was an extraordinary stroke of luck. When eventually, having gone back and done more work in repertory theatres, I thought I really must go to London and stay there until I can get some

Presenter14:28

Rather more important and better paying work. Not necessarily important artistically, but from the point of view of

Presenter14:34

one's career

Presenter14:35

And I managed to get myself a job in this television series, which I believe was the first of all the television series. And although people smile, you know, when you talk about this nowadays, it was in fact a remarkably good training. They were made like films, uh, each episode, in a film studio with film technicians and so on. Every day one saw rushes of the previous day's work. It didn't matter tremendously what you did if you made mistakes. You did it as well as you could, and you had to try out different things because you were in episode after episode and I was a different person in each episode. And I had limps and Lancashire accents and Cornish accents and goodness knows what, you know.

Presenter15:21

And uh I spent oh t two or three years doing that on and off. I think it was uh very valuable training. How many episodes?

Paul Eddington15:23

Yeah.

Presenter15:29

Altogether Ew had never counted them an immense number, though, and shown all over the world millions and millions, most extraordinary.

Presenter15:37

I still get people sending me little tape recordings they've made from Chicago only last year and things like that. Awful. Oh, yes, yes. On walls. Yes, yes. Needless to say, we don't get any money for it. You know, we sold our World Rights forever for one day's work a week.

Paul Eddington15:43

Yeah.

Paul Eddington15:47

We said yeah.

Presenter15:53

Right, let's move on. What's your fourth record?

Presenter15:57

The fourth record will, I hope, remind me of a place that I've come to like immensely, and that's Venice. It's by Vivaldi, who was a Venetian composer, I believe, and he he wrote a piece called The Four Seasons, and this one is winter, and I love to think of myself skating up and down the canals.

Presenter17:17

Winter from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Henrik Scherink with the English Chamber Orchestra. What was your first West End appearance, Paul?

Presenter17:26

That was in a play called The Tenth Man. It was all about an exorcism in a synagogue, a girl who was possessed of a devil. I think it was based on a much older Jewish play called The Debuk. Oh, yes, yes, I know about that. We did that at the comedy theatre. Doesn't sound like much of a comedy.

Speaker 217:35

Pathy.

Presenter17:45

Oh, it it was it was actually very funny. There's a lot of very wry Jewish humour in it. We were all supposed to be Jews, not all of us were, but we passed ourselves off. People weren't quite so conscious of

Paul Eddington17:47

I is what it

Presenter17:55

Racial divisions then. It was about then that you began a long association with the Bristol old Vic.

Presenter18:01

Yes, that's true. I think my first visit to Bristol was as an actor was immediately after I'd been to Rada, and that would be in the early fifties.

Presenter18:11

And I did three plays there, and then I had a long period away.

Presenter18:17

back to other theatres. And then I came back again, and I've been back and back and back ever since and

Presenter18:23

Ever glad to do so. You were in the ambitious production of War and Peace. Yes, yes, that was most exciting. That took you to London, that came to the middle of the morning. Yes, that's right. We we played it for a short season at the Old Vic and then at the Phoenix Theatre. And there was one Bristol production which took you not only to London but also New York. Yes, that's right. Only ostensibly was it a Bristol production, really. I think it was always intended for the West End, but uh you know, I'm not sure of the financial arrangements. But it was tried out at the Bristol Old Vic, certainly.

Paul Eddington18:32

And yes, that's right.

Presenter18:53

and we played it for quite a long time.

Presenter18:56

In London? That was the severed head. A severed head by Iris Murdoch and J. B. Priestley, that's right.

Presenter19:01

And then we took it to New York. It was very exciting because I remember sitting in a in a restaurant in Bristol one night after the show, and Heather Chasen, who was playing one of the leading parts,

Presenter19:12

I wonder if it'll ever go anywhere this play.

Presenter19:16

Somebody said this to her, and she said, Well, dear, we've certainly come a long way to do it meaning Bristol. And you know, about uh a year or eighteen months later, the the pilot of the plane passed back a note to Heather

Paul Eddington19:22

Meaning Bristol.

Presenter19:32

and me we were sitting together, which said um

Presenter19:35

Our estimate of time of arrival in New York is such and such, and we're now thirty five thousand feet over Bristol. And I nudged Heather in the nose and said, You remember so we'd come a long way to do it. Yes. That wasn't the only Bristol production with which you came into the West End.

Paul Eddington19:40

Well, I nudged Heather in the nose and said, You remember, so we'd come a long way to do it.

Presenter19:50

You played Disraeli? That's right, yes, with Dorothy Teuton. That's another Jewish part. Yes, that's true, yes, yes. It's funny, the rather blinkered way I think that the people who employ one are inclined to look. You know, if you play villains all the time, you you get to play more villains, and if you play nice guys, you get more nice guys. Jews, Gentiles, and so on. You tend to get bracketed. That was in Portrait of a Queen. Portrait of Queen, yeah.

Paul Eddington19:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:11

Well, by now, of course, you were a West End actor. I remember you were in a musical. What was that? Ah, yes, uh Jorrox. That's the one, I think. Captain Doleful. Captain Dolefull, yes. A rather uh strange man, who was sort of a town manager, as it were, of this nineteenth century spa.

Presenter20:29

There was nothing much on on the page, and I one had to do a lot with it, and I couldn't think what to do. And I thought, well, now what about his first entrance? It better be something very spectacular. And I remember seeing Roger Livesey in Twelfth Night once falling all the way down a staircase. I had to come down a big staircase on my first entrance, so I said, I know what I'll do. I'll I'll fall down it. So I did a spectacular sort of stumble all the way down. Very funny, I thought.

Presenter20:52

My daughter, who was very small at the time, came to see it, and I asked her afterwards, as actors do, Come on, what do you think of it? What do you think of it?

Presenter21:00

And uh she said, Oh, it was all right, it's very good

Presenter21:04

What bit did you like best'? I said.

Presenter21:06

Oh, the bit where you fell down the stairs, she said. And I thought, Well, that's all right, but that was my very first appearance. The whole of the rest of it must have been rather a disappointment. How many children do you have?

Paul Eddington21:09

That's all.

Presenter21:16

Four.

Presenter21:18

I've got three sons and a daughter. Any of them showing any aptitude for the theatre? Most of them can take it or leave it, and have left it. It's not particularly glamorous for them. It's just what daddy does in the evenings. Yes. But my youngest son

Presenter21:32

uh suddenly announced when on the verge of going to university that he didn't want to do that, he wanted to go into the theatre.

Presenter21:38

And not as an actor, but as a technician. And that's what he does. Splendid. I'm very pleased. It's nice to have him with me.

Presenter21:46

Good, let's have

Presenter21:48

Record number five we got to now.

Presenter21:50

This one I'd like to be El Gar's cello concerto, and the recording by Casals. I think this is a very endearing recording, because he he grumbles and mutters away to himself while he's playing.

Presenter23:02

Casals with the B B C Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Belt, and the opening of the Elgar Cello Concerto. Let's bring your stage career up to date, Paul. Two plays by Alan Bennett. Yes, forty years on.

Presenter23:18

Which I had the great privilege of doing with Alan Bennett himself and Sir John Gilgood.

Presenter23:23

And um

Presenter23:25

The other play wasn't in the West End. We did it in in in Watford. This was Getting On. That's right. And A Couple by Ellen Aigbourne. Yes. The first one I I took over Michael Aldridge's part in Absurd Person Singular.

Presenter23:39

And the next one was Ten Times Table. You had a very good run in in In Donkey's years. Who was that by? Michael Frayne. And Middle-Aid Spread, another comedy. Yes. And then, of course, you played Ibsen's Brand. That must have really have been a torturing play. I didn't play that in the West End, of course. It's never been done in the West End. I played that about eight years ago, I think, at Bristol.

Paul Eddington23:57

I didn't play that in the

Presenter24:03

Yes, that is a terrific play. Relatively unknown.

Presenter24:08

I think um

Presenter24:10

Uh i in a version

Presenter24:12

By Michael Mayer.

Presenter24:13

Which um is the best one I I know. It is.

Presenter24:17

And it it really is a

Presenter24:20

Oh, well, I'm not a critic, either literary or theatrical, but

Presenter24:25

I think it's an immense play. It's on a a Lear like scale. Did you play the full version? It's a very long play. No. Michael Meyer's translation is also an adaptation. Ibsen wrote it largely, I think, for the study. And he included a lot of

Presenter24:42

Political

Presenter24:43

Matter at the climax of the play.

Presenter24:46

Which didn't really work on the stage, was never intended to. And that was trimmed out in it.

Paul Eddington24:51

Mate

Presenter24:54

And now you're at the National in in in another play which one can say is is full of pain, but on the other hand is is a very funny play. Who's the play of Virginia Woolfe? Yes, I'll be the author. thinks that as well. And it hasn't really been funny in productions that have been done up to now, I believe. It is an immensely funny play.

Presenter25:17

I think my wife described it very accurately as a black private lives. Yes, yes, that's fair enough.

Presenter25:24

Um that's in the repertoire for quite a few months now.

Presenter25:27

Yes, that's right. I I I'm not sure how long. It depends how long people want it, I suppose.

Paul Eddington25:29

Uh

Presenter25:33

Record number six.

Presenter25:35

This is one of Chopin's nocturnes, and it's one I particularly like, just for no other reason except that I like it.

Presenter25:43

In fact, it's the one I've always thought.

Presenter25:46

If I had any music played at my funeral, this is the one I should like.

Presenter26:52

Rubenstein playing the opening of Chopin's nocturne in F minor, opus fifty five, number one.

Presenter26:58

Now, from the theatre to the box, recently of course you had a splendid success when you played that sadly hen-pecked husband and the good life.

Paul Eddington27:05

Black.

Presenter27:07

How many series of that did you do? I think we did, uh

Presenter27:12

Four. We could have done many, many, many more, of course, but we felt it was best.

Presenter27:18

quit while we were winning. You even had a royal performance of that. Yes, we did. Her Majesty demanded commanded, I should say, that we did a performance for her, and we did, of course, without much hesitation.

Paul Eddington27:21

Did it?

Presenter27:29

And then you moved on to another success as Her Majesty's Minister for Administrative Affairs in Yes, Minister. Yes, you had difficulty saying it too, didn't you? Yes, thank you. Now you say it. Oh, the Minister for Administrative Affairs. I've got used to it. Well done, yes. Yes, Minister was was was another uh great fun piece. Gorgeous send-up.

Paul Eddington27:43

Yeah.

Presenter27:51

I don't know whether it was a send-up or not. A documentary. Something more of a documentary, yes.

Paul Eddington27:53

What documentary

Presenter27:58

Are there going to be some more?

Presenter27:59

Yes, there are. Uh not until next year, because it takes rather a long time to research it and

Presenter28:05

And get the facts absolutely right. Facts and notice.

Presenter28:08

Not fiction. What about feature films in in the days when we used to make films in this country? Ah, yes. Well, of course I'd hardly arrived on that scene before films departed. We sort of passed by ships in the night, films and I. I did do one or two very bad, awful, terrible creaking films. I remember one.

Presenter28:30

It's one that the film industry used to do every two or three years about the plane that gets halfway across the Atlantic and some disaster strikes it, you know, at the point of their return. Yes.

Paul Eddington28:37

Oh, a disaster at the bottom there it

Presenter28:41

Unfortunately, I was playing a part, actually Lana Morris's husband, um

Presenter28:46

It was the days when people also went by boat across the Atlantic, you know

Presenter28:50

And I said to her as the player was crashing in frame, we should have gone by boat. And of course that was the one thing the critics all quoted. He thought we all should have gone by boat.

Paul Eddington28:53

And of course that was the one

Paul Eddington28:56

Help we all sort of

Presenter28:58

Yeah.

Presenter29:00

Now you're very busy for the time being and who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. What happens next? Well, the repertoire system, which is rather frightening in prospect, I haven't really encountered it before. You do a play for two or three weeks and then you have two or three weeks' gap and then you do a few performances, then you have another couple of weeks' gap and so on. Uh this does allow one of course to do other things. And I'm going to do a new series for television, something for Thames television, something a little bit different this time. Yes. A romantic comedy.

Presenter29:28

Haven't been romantic before. Don't know whether I can do it. We'll see. A situation comedy. Yes.

Presenter29:34

Record number seven. I chose a little bit of grand opera because it seems to me to combine everything. It's.

Presenter29:41

the very sort of pinnacle of

Presenter29:43

Theatrical endeavour, it seems to me, and commands music, acting, singing, the human voice, everything.

Presenter29:49

And

Presenter29:50

The bet I thought I'd like to have would be

Presenter29:53

Lady Macbeth's Sleep Walking Scene from Verde's Opera.

Speaker 330:08

Um,

Speaker 330:28

Yeah.

Speaker 330:38

Keep wishing

Speaker 330:53

Pause the internet.

Presenter30:56

Madea Callas in the sleepwalking scene from Verdi's Scottish Opera.

Presenter31:01

How efficient would you be, Paul, at looking after yourself on this desert island?

Paul Eddington31:04

Yeah.

Presenter31:06

Not too bad. You're good with your heads. You can make things. Oh, I put up shelves and make cupboards. I did.

Presenter31:12

Too lazy now. You could build a shelter of some sort.

Paul Eddington31:15

Okay.

Presenter31:16

What about food? Cultivate?

Presenter31:18

Mm, mm. Greenish fingers. Cook? Yes, I like cooking. Yes, I wouldn't be a bad cast to add anything. Try to escape.

Presenter31:27

Well, I don't know. I think probably not really. I'd be like AA Milnes.

Presenter31:33

Old sailor.

Presenter31:34

Wrapped himself up in a shawl and waited till he was rescued. Yes, I think that makes good sense. Now we got to your last record.

Paul Eddington31:37

Yes, I think

Presenter31:42

Oh, this is just sheer joy.

Presenter31:45

And it's a piano concerto by Mozart.

Presenter31:48

His last, I believe.

Presenter32:54

Mozart Piano Concerto number twenty seven in B flat major.

Presenter32:58

Played by Daniel Barenboim with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter33:02

If you could only take one disc, Paul, of the eight that you have played us, which would it be? The Bach.

Presenter33:08

Means something very, very special to me. Yes, you'd give me the whole thing, wouldn't you?

Paul Eddington33:11

Mm-hmm.

Presenter33:13

No, you would have one record. I think that's a third of it.

Presenter33:16

I'm sorry, we we have rules.

Paul Eddington33:16

I'm sorry.

Presenter33:19

And one luxury to take to the island, will you? Yes, of course I racked my brains for years about all this sort of thing.

Presenter33:24

I've decided to take a picture with me, and I want Ivan Hitchens's Boathouse at Dawn. And if anybody doesn't know it, I recommend them to go along to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and have a look. They'd give it me on permanent loan, I think, wouldn't they? Right. And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already on the island. Well, I thought, would it be Pepys? Would it be Mrs. Beaton? All that sort of. But I've decided eventually to take with me Somerville and Ross's Experiences of an Irish RM, which is one of the most delightful series of stories I have ever read, a minor classic. Experiences of an Irish RM.

Paul Eddington33:42

Well

Presenter34:01

And thank you, Paul Eddington, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Paul Eddington34:14

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