Emlyn Williams

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen fifty five.

Presenter0:24

The BDC presents Desert Island Discs.

Presenter1:03

In this program, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

Presenter1:14

Assuming of course that you also had a grammar phone and an inexhaustible supply of needles.

Presenter1:21

The programme's introduced by Roy Plum.

Presenter1:26

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter1:27

Onar Desadarin is one of our most gifted actors, both in the theatre and on films.

Presenter1:32

and he's also one of our foremost playwrights.

Presenter1:35

Em Lynn Williams.

Presenter1:37

His performances in the theatre have ranged from Shakespeare to Edgar Wallace and his own plays include Night Must Fall, The Corn is Green, The Light of Heart, Accolade and Someone Waiting.

Presenter1:49

Well, Mr. Williams, does the gramophone mean a lot to you? Do you play it a lot at home? Yes, it used to mean a great deal to me. Then it sort of meant a little bit less. Now it's come to mean more because I have two sons who play it pretty well all the time. So I'm back where I was. What are the general principles you've worked on in choosing these records for the island? For the island.

Presenter2:11

Well, I suppose memories really, because as one gets a bit older the memories become more important and

Presenter2:17

I would like to be with memories of

Presenter2:19

the people I've liked and known very well on

Presenter2:23

experiences in the theatre, whether my own or other people's, and

Presenter2:27

Just things connected with

Presenter2:29

Things in the past generally, yes. Which memory are we going to look back to first?

Presenter2:33

Well, I suppose logically the first one would be one of early childhood, which was spent in my case in a little Welsh village.

Presenter2:41

And it's uh the memory of a little boy who sat near me in school, who was a few years younger than I was, very serious my little boy with a very childish treble. He used to sing with us all in the songs we were taught, Welsh songs. And I can see by your look on your face you're wondering how I'm going to get him onto the record. Well as a matter of fact he he became.

Presenter3:03

A well-known singer, tenor called David Lloyd. Oh, yes, indeed. And the song is a song which we used to sing in school.

Presenter3:11

And you can imagine that this would developing memories. It's called in Welsh David the Garreguen, which is David of the White Rock.

Emlyn Williams3:37

One is one body to one.

Emlyn Williams3:50

Or what?

Emlyn Williams4:07

I hold the heart of the house.

Presenter4:22

Have you any musical talent yourself? Do you sing or play an instrument? Absolutely no musical talent of any sort. I can't sing and I can't play. What gave you the urge to write and act? Can you remember? And and which came first?

Presenter4:34

Were they both sort of come together, really?

Speaker 14:36

Are there really?

Presenter4:37

Uh I think m hearing music again helped. It gave me a sort of feeling of of the drama before I ever saw the inside of a theatre. And I used to try and um act and write plays before I ever saw any.

Presenter4:52

When did you get your first chance to see the theatre? When was the first chance? When I went to Oxford and saw plays there and um used to go to London and see them when I

Speaker 14:55

Fox in there.

Presenter5:00

suddenly realized that I was

Presenter5:03

That was the life for me. What were you going to do before that, before you realized that? Oh, I think I was.

Presenter5:08

destined really to be going to the scholastic.

Presenter5:11

professional, mm, or even the church, or the chapel as it would be in my case. Which of your plays, the plays you've written, do you look back on as the most satisfying?

Presenter5:21

Uh I suppose the corn is green, really. And um but there's another player too which I'm I have an affection for, if you can have an affection for something which is

Presenter5:30

A little bit of a monster. It's a play which is.

Presenter5:35

which did a great deal for me, which naturally I was grateful for. And we had to have um

Presenter5:41

An introductory bars of music, and the producer, Miles Mallison, said, What do you think it should be? And I said, Well, it must have wonderful dramatic thrill in it, the music. These opening, it must be opening chords of some extraordinary, eerie, challenging dramatic music. And he said, Well, I think I've got the record for you. And I particularly love this record because on the first night when I was very nervous, I knew that a great deal hung on this play, which I'd written a part for myself in. And if the play failed, I would be really sort of sunk for the time being, anyway. What was the music? And it was The Perfect Fool by Holst, the opening chords. And the lights went down, and the music started, and I had a feeling, well.

Presenter6:21

It was gonna be all right. What was the play? Uh Nightmare's Fall.

Emlyn Williams6:32

I'm sorry.

Presenter7:07

And my next record would be a song where a very great star who is i i indirectly connected with the player we were talking about, Night was fall, because she was the first big star whom was to me was

Presenter7:19

extremely glamorous who came round to see me.

Presenter7:22

having seen the plan, which was a great thrill for me.

Presenter7:26

And uh she had played the year before.

Presenter7:28

About eighteen months before, I think, in a musical show where I'd loved one song she'd sung.

Presenter7:34

And I think because of that I'd have this song, which is to me the perfection of of light point singing.

Presenter7:43

And their star of course is Gertrude Lawrence. It's a song called Experiment from Nympherent.

Emlyn Williams7:50

Hallelujah.

Emlyn Williams7:53

Make it your motto day and night, Experiment.

Emlyn Williams8:01

And it will lead you to the light. The apple on the top of the tree is never too high to achieve. Just take an example, the Meve Experiment.

Presenter8:19

There's a double reason for my next choice is to do with another Welsh boy.

Presenter8:23

I was casting a play about eleven years ago and we advertised for people in Wales for these parts and I went and interviewed a lot of people and there was one boy, rather a scruffy school boy about sixty or seventeen with

Presenter8:37

Very extraordinary green eyes and a rather disarming manner, who read, and as soon as he'd read, I knew there was something there very definitely. What is it? Richard Jenkins, and he went into the play, then he did a film of mine called Last Days of Darling, then he went to Hollywood and has since done remarkably well. Jenkins?

Speaker 18:46

What is it him?

Presenter8:56

Well, he became Richard Burton when he went on the stage. Indeed, he had changed his name. Almost forgot to mention it. Yes. And the record is of Undermilk Wood.

Speaker 18:59

Changes

Speaker 19:01

Yes.

Presenter9:05

Which is of course by Dylan Thomas. Yeah, so there's a double reason for my playing this, which would remind me of

Presenter9:12

of uh my play with Richard Burton and um of Under Milkwood when we did it in the theatre, Richard Burton and I and Simple Thorndyke. That was at the Dylan Thomas Memorial Programme, wasn't it? And this is Richard Burton in an excerpt from Oh, the opening passage.

Speaker 29:26

Cool.

Presenter9:26

Begin

Speaker 29:27

Mm.

Speaker 29:27

At the beginning.

Speaker 29:30

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible black, the cobbled streets silent and the hunched, quarters and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the slow black.

Speaker 29:42

Slow

Speaker 29:44

Black

Speaker 29:45

Crow black fishing boat bobbing sea

Speaker 29:49

The houses are blind as moles, though moles see fine to night in the snouting velvet dingles, or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the welfare hall in widows' weeds, and all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town.

Speaker 210:07

are sleeping now.

Speaker 210:11

Hush.

Speaker 210:12

The babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot, cockle women, and the tidy wife.

Presenter10:27

My next is a great woman star whom I first saw in the halls, Victoria Palace 1929, and who's been a great idol of mine ever since and always will be. I'm of the school that admires her more even when she's being serious and when she's being funny. And this is a serious record. It's a very sentimental record, but it's sentimental in what I think is exactly the right way. It's done with tremendous simplicity and, I think, poignancy. It's Gracie Fields singing Three Green Bonnets.

Emlyn Williams11:04

Perch one day

Emlyn Williams11:07

Dorothy and Daisy and Dorothy Ray.

Emlyn Williams11:13

Wingering bombing

Emlyn Williams11:17

There's nothing I'm wrong.

Emlyn Williams11:20

Each one tied with a green ribbon ball.

Presenter11:30

Like so many people in the straight theater, would you call yourself a music hall fan? Yes, very definitely. Um I think we're fascinated by the people in the music hall who uh who are absolutely 100% real, like Gracie Field. And I think my next would be um a comedian.

Presenter11:46

who is not only a comedian, but a a very, very charming singer and and who who's, again, like Gracie, absolutely himself and completely real, both as a an actor and as a person. And that is Max Bygraves. What's it called then? Tomorrow.

Emlyn Williams12:10

Things will turn out fine tomorrow.

Emlyn Williams12:18

All along the line tomorrow

Emlyn Williams12:24

Though it's cloudy everywhere, Just dry your tears and don't despair, There's happiness for all to share Tomorrow.

Presenter12:34

Now what sort of castaway do you think you'd be on this island? Uh first of all, would the solitude worry you very much? N not greatly, no. It would at moments, of course, but not as I it is.

Presenter12:45

No, I wouldn't um be appalled by it. And what about in a practical sense? Could you build somewhere to live? No, absolutely, definitely not. Oh, but you must. No, I well, I d I'm I was terrible at woodwork at school and I don't see why I should be

Speaker 112:54

That's yeah.

Presenter13:00

Yeah.

Presenter13:02

I think I would just have to lie on the sand and hope for the best.

Presenter13:06

I'm a little bit worried about you on this island, Mr. Williams. I think you're going to have a very uncomfortable time.

Presenter13:12

Don't seem equipped for it awfully well. I wouldn't mind as long as I had something to eat, you know, but it wouldn't have to be anything very special.

Presenter13:20

Now what about another record? Yes, and there's a double reason for this one too, I suppose, because it's a record I played and it was given me and I loved when I was first um in London and I had about five records on this tiny portable gramophone. And when uh some years later I wrote a play called The Wind of Heaven which was a play about religion which required very atmospheric

Presenter13:42

soft and yet not depressing opening music with great um lyrical quality behind it, suggesting a sort of m wonderful moonlight night over

Presenter13:52

in in the country, an idyllic atmosphere. I suddenly remembered this and we played it and it was tremendously effective as an opening to that particular play. It's the um Shropshire Lad by Butterworth.

Presenter15:08

Now number eight. What's the last one going to be? Well the last is a frankly personal and sentimental one to do with family life.

Presenter15:16

And it's so um personal I suppose that I don't think I would play it until the very last night when I knew the ship was arriving next year'cause I get rather depressed if I did.

Presenter15:25

when I knew it wasn't coming and

Presenter15:28

ship picking me off this awful bit of sand where I'm lying without any roof, no food. Yes, it'll get there pretty quickly, I think. You think so? Uh it's uh a record of the uh musical play

Presenter15:41

that my wife and I saw at His Majesty's the year we got married, nineteen thirty four, and we played the record of and like most people who start family life and go on with it.

Presenter15:53

The record has become sort of tied up in our minds with that time, certainly in mine.

Presenter15:58

It's um Neil Card and and Yvonne Plantin.

Presenter16:03

In I'll Follow My Secret Heart, Vimon Pratt on Singh. From Conversation Peace, Conversation Piece.

Emlyn Williams16:14

I see for you all to see the Lord.

Presenter16:44

You have one more choice to make, as well as your eight records. That's your luxury object. Oh, really? You're allowed to take with you one small or it needn't be small one luxury, but nothing useful. Nothing just purely for pleasure. That's it.

Speaker 116:53

Uh

Presenter16:57

Not even any chisel or something to help me build this at all. Helped me out, no.

Speaker 117:00

Enough

Presenter17:03

Uh, books you allow? That's all right. Ah, well that makes it absolutely simple,'cause I would obviously have a book and then the biggest and longest book that um

Presenter17:12

is in existence. I think the encyclopedia

Presenter17:15

An anonymous read it on on and on and on until the um ship came.

Emlyn Williams17:17

From the best in time.

Presenter17:21

And probably arrive back with

Presenter17:23

Tons of useless information and perhaps two or three rather dull plays based on that information. Well, I hope you'll write some plays in the margins while you're on the island and certainly they won't be dull ones, I'm sure.

Presenter17:33

Thank you very much, Emlin Williams, for letting us hear your choice of desert islands. I've enjoyed it very much.

Speaker 117:37

And died.

Presenter17:38

Goodbye everyone. Goodbye.

Presenter18:10

That programme, Desert Island Discs, was devised by Roy Plumley and introduced by him in the London studios of the BBC.

Speaker 118:20

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4.