John Osborne

John Osborne0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

John Osborne0:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

This week, our castaway is the playwright and actor John Osborne.

Presenter0:35

How important in your life is music, John?

Presenter0:38

Oh, absolutely, vitally important. I mean, I c really can't think of my life without it. But I was very lucky because uh my father was very musical, being Welsh, I suppose, and uh it always figured very, very largely in my life.

Presenter0:52

Have you any musical skill yourself? No, I wish I had. I mean, I'd love to play the piano in a bar or something like that. I mean, I wouldn't want to play it well, because I wouldn't be good enough. No, I'd love to play any instrument.

Speaker 41:00

That would

Presenter1:04

Did you have any plan in choosing your eight records?

Presenter1:08

Well, no,'cause it's a jo I mean, as we all know, it's a hopeless sadistic task to make somebody choose eight things and of course some of it must relate to your life, and some of the ones I've chosen have, and some have nothing to do with it at all, except that they have to do with uh oh, I suppose my feelings about life generally, which haven't changed very much in forty odd years. Where do we start? What's the first one? I mean, a lot of people in my generation I mean a certain minority at any rate were very influenced by jazz.

John Osborne1:28

Where is

Presenter1:37

and the generation before, I think, because it was exotic and it was powerful and it was completely different from the kind of voice that we knew at the time. It's of quite impossible to choose a representative voice, but I think Jellyroll Morton at his most oh, light-hearted in Doctor Jazz, it's a very good example of what I mean.

Speaker 41:59

I'll have a sentence, give me Dr. James He's got what I need, I say have when the world goes round and God goes through

Speaker 42:14

He's the man that made me get out of both my dance. Ah, the more I get, the more I wanna see. I paid those doctors at my dream.

Presenter2:29

Jerry Roll Morton and his red hot peppers Doctor Jazz.

Presenter2:33

Were you born in London?

Presenter2:35

Yes, I was born in Fulham. You lost your father when you were very young. Yes, I was ten. And this led to a great deal of moving about and changing home. Oh, yes. I mean, I think we we moved house oh, probably several dozen times a year.

Presenter2:50

Your father was a writer, o of a special kind, but nevertheless a writer. Well, he was actually an advertising copywriter. But uh he wrote short stories and poems and things like that. I think I was almost probably the only person who ever read them. I mean, failed writing, yes. Were either of your parents interested in the theatre? Not really. I mean my father I suppose I mean he used to take me to the music hall.

Presenter3:13

more or less every week when he was well enough. And my mother did, yes. But I mean no particular interest I mean, no more interest than probably most people had at that time. No.

John Osborne3:21

Yeah.

Presenter3:22

Well, your mother, of course, had to bring you up after your father died. You've just published a first volume autobiography, A Better Class of Person, in which you quite bitterly attack your mother, who's still living, for what you consider the inadequacies of your upbringing.

Presenter3:37

I don't think it's really a bit of a tag. It's simply a record of my feelings really at the time rather than later on. I haven't gilded it at all or uh

Presenter3:48

In any particular way. Has she commented on the book? Oh no, exactly. I mean, she wouldn't read it, I mean, anyway.

Presenter3:54

Had you any plans about what you wanted to be as a youngster?

Presenter3:58

No, not really. I thought I'd be newspaper editor, opera singer, or priest. But I mean, I thought whatever I did do, I'd do it better than anyone else could do it. You did start as a journalist.

John Osborne4:04

I've

Presenter4:12

Yes, I did. Why? Well, well, because it seemed to be the only way of making a living, because the only thing I could do was to write and I had no qualifications, and work was hard to find at that time, and particularly very difficult getting into journalism. And I just got a job on a series of trade papers, which was very dull and not very rewarding. Gas World, was it? The Gas World. I was the eighth reporter of the Gas World. I thought that I didn't really have the kind of cheek and drive to be a journalist. And I thought, well, I can't knock on people's doors and ask them intimate questions and that sort of thing. So I really th didn't have my heart into talk. I mean, I invert didn't have very little to do in those early journalistic days. I used to go down to the printers and they used to tell me what to do. And I had very little actual writing to do.

John Osborne4:33

The gas world.

John Osborne4:36

Yeah.

Speaker 44:37

That's it.

John Osborne4:48

Thank you.

Presenter5:02

But it was quite enjoyable.

Presenter5:04

Let's have your second record.

Presenter5:07

Well, my second record, uh

Presenter5:10

Hearing it again really is rather disappointment in a way, but

Presenter5:14

When the the film of the sting came out.

Presenter5:17

I sat there and the credits came up and I heard this tune which I had heard, oh, I suppose, twenty, twenty five years before. And it was this Scott Joplin tune, The Entertainer. And when I first heard it, it was played by this old man, Bunk Johnson, who was an old trumpet player, and somebody had bought him some teeth to play it again. He'd been a truck driver for years. And I thought when I heard it, it seemed such a touching

Presenter5:43

and a very lonely and solitary and sweet tune.

Presenter5:47

And it caught my imagination at the time. And when I came to write that old play of mine, The Entertainer Which you named after the tune. I named after the tune, because it just seemed perfect and apt. Uh I mean, I probably would have used the same name anyway, but it just seemed absolutely perfectly right.

Presenter7:01

Scott Joplin's The Entertainer by Bunk Johnson and his band. So you decided to quit journalism, and you went into the theatre. Had you started in the usual way with amateur theatricals? Only very briefly.

John Osborne7:15

Early.

Presenter7:16

I only rehearsed, in fact, one play, which was uh Noel Coward's Blythe Spirit and I thought I was rather good. I was the only one who knew their knew their lines. Not an easy play, for that. No, not at all. No, absolutely impossible to play. I mean, I think all cowards plays.

John Osborne7:27

No, not at all.

Presenter7:31

No amateurs can really do. Uh but that was the only one and then obviously

Presenter7:35

launched into the theatre in a very fortuitous and unlikely way.

Presenter7:39

And I joined her.

Presenter7:41

What was then called a number three touring company as assistant stage manager and I was supposed to teach the children in the play. What was the play? It was a play called No Room at the Inn. I was very fortunate because you had to cope with things going wrong, with doing terrible plays and awful circumstances, bad audiences, scenery falling down, so all those sort of things, which you don't really have that kind of opportunity any longer. A number three tour, was that twice nightly? Oh, yes, nearly all of them were in Twice Nightly. A lot of them were music hall dates. We did 48 weeks and I saw England for the first time. Were you understudying as well? No, I'm understudying five men, all about 30 years older than me.

John Osborne8:22

No, I understand five.

John Osborne8:23

Well what about thirty

Presenter8:27

And you played for them? Only once, unfortunately.

Presenter8:30

Had you started thinking of yourself as a writer? Had you started Oh, yes, I had. I'd always thought of myself as a writer, really. I thought of myself as being a very tweedy novelist, doing a thousand words before lunch, and then taking the Spaniels for a walk after lunch, and then re doing what I had done at five o'clock, and leading a very

John Osborne8:33

Oh yes, I

Presenter8:49

Bourgeois Of a dull existence. No, I'd always thought of that. Now you did forty eight weeks.

Presenter8:56

What happened after that?

Presenter8:58

Well, I did the usual kind of round at that time that young actors did. I went into rep all over the provinces and I did other tours, did one night stands. When was your first play produced and where? Well, my first play was produced in uh Huddersfield, the Theatre Royal, for one week, and it was Easter week and we played to quite a lot of money on Easter Monday.

Presenter9:21

And nothing the rest of the week at all. And I think I got nine pounds ten out of it. And I was very thrilled too.

Presenter9:29

Afterwards you went into management.

Presenter9:31

Well, yes, if you can call it that. I mean, it was rather like sort of stepton son being in management, really. I mean, it was.

Presenter9:38

Rep on Haling Island. That's right, yes. There hasn't been any rep on Haling Island since. I shouldn't think anything's happened on Haling Island since I was there.

Presenter9:47

It was a the whole thing was a very dodgy enterprise. We had hardly any money, and I ran it with a friend, and the actors were all getting about, oh, a pound a week at the most. And none of us were very honest, and we were cheating the inland revenue, and we had a lot of fun, though. I learnt a lot out of it.

Presenter10:06

And then you moved around the country working for Harry Hanson and and such like characters. You were by now a married man, so you've got responsibilities.

Presenter10:16

Well, yes. I mean, it was an emotional responsibility rather than a a a real one, because my wife was an actress, and indeed we didn't see a great deal of each other. I mean, she was touring or in rep, and I was somewhere else, so it wasn't really a very um typical married life. Were you still writing?

Presenter10:34

Oh yes Oh, I never stopped. But before we talk any more about your writing, let's have another record.

Presenter10:40

My next record involves an extraordinary voice in my past, and again it makes me think of my father because it's the sort of thing that we shared, and that extraordinary, great, incredible voice of Paul Robeson.

Presenter10:54

It's very hard for people to understand what an

Presenter10:57

Incredible star he was before the war in this country. And that voice really was.

Presenter11:04

Quite unique.

Presenter11:06

And he was also and this may be an absolute delusion, but he seemed like a kind of Blakene figure of goodness.

Presenter11:14

And I in fact did meet him. I suppose it was about nineteen fifty nine when he was playing Othello in Stratford. And uh I took my mother to supper with him afterwards, and I could see her looking at him, and she was also in a different way.

Presenter11:29

intrigued by this aura about him.

Presenter11:33

And she didn't say anything to him for a long time, for about half an hour, and then she finally said to him, she said, Oh, mister Robinson, she said Oh, mister Robinson she said, My son, she said, has got such a lot of time for you, she said.

Presenter11:46

He's always been so sorry for you darkies.

Presenter11:53

I'm sure he appreciated it. Well, a beautiful smile came across his face. Right. Let's listen to Paul Rebson.

John Osborne11:55

Yeah.

Speaker 411:55

Well, a beautiful smile came across his face.

Speaker 412:21

Oh the timer.

Speaker 412:25

Wishing for you, wondering when you'll become home again.

Speaker 412:37

Restless don't know what to do

Speaker 412:43

Just a weird

Presenter13:01

Paul Robeson, Just a Wearying for You.

Presenter13:04

Now, John, you were going round the provinces in Frinton and Kidderminster and Derby and wherever, still writing

Presenter13:11

Hard in your spare time, what there was of it?

Presenter13:14

And you wrote a play called Look Back in Anger. How many plays had you written alone or in collaboration before that? I'd written uh two alone and two in collaboration.

Presenter13:26

of which one had been produced so far. That's right, yeah. Now financially things were bad, for heaven's sake but look back in anger, which is basically young people in the provinces moaning about the lack of opportunity, couldn't really have been looked upon by uh as a money spinner.

Presenter13:44

You weren't working for money? No, I certainly wasn't. I was working in absolute vacuum.

Presenter13:49

I was simply something.

Presenter13:51

I wrote for myself, I suppose. I I don't really think I seriously thought that anyone would put it on.

Presenter13:58

And in the uh climate of the time it was a pretty realistic assessment because, in fact, when I did send it to I sent it to everyone I could think of, every agent, and this is all well known history, I suppose, now, but

Presenter14:09

Every agent in management and

Presenter14:12

They were not only unenthusiastic, they were downright insulting, some of them. Wasn't anybody encouraging? No, nobody at all, until I sent it to the English Stage Company. That's the Royal Court Theatre. Absolutely.

Presenter14:23

And it simply was one of those rare cases of being in

Presenter14:26

In the right place at the right time, duh.

Presenter14:30

And I was.

Presenter14:31

Now, there were no stars in the cast. What were the press notices like? Well, they weren't very good. I mean, they tried to pretend now that they were better than they were. Oh, they were very depressing. What was the business like? Nothing.

Presenter14:43

It opened on a a Wednesday and we were due to close on Saturday'cause they'd only slipped it in for three nights and the daily paper notices were dismissive. They they were carping and they more or less said, Oh, one day he might write a good play sort of thing, which, you know, didn't sell any tickets of course. And then the the public relations people were

John Osborne14:51

Yeah.

Presenter15:07

desolate and they were saying, Well, you know, there are people like this in lunatic asylums and that sort of thing. And then of course sort of historic thing happened. Kenneth Tynan and Harold Harold Hobson came out on the Sundays and they said something quite different. And that did make a difference. Uh but not that much and it stumbled along for a few months and uh then television. They did an excerpt.

Presenter15:29

And at that time, what seemed like a huge amount of people, five million people, watched it. And it picked up from then on. It never went into the West End because they were still very cherry about it. It's now a required reading for every student of drama. What do you think it teaches them? I've no idea what it teaches them. I don't think they do get very much from it. Although, I'm the thing is, of course, it still goes on playing, and somewhere in the world, it's being played to an audience every night. Really? After 26 years. I know, well, exactly. I mean, it pays my rent and everything else. So it

John Osborne15:56

Really? After twenty-six years.

Presenter16:02

There must be some response to it. What it is, I don't know.

Presenter16:06

Record number four.

Presenter16:08

Handel is probably almost my favourite composer. A few months ago I was in Bath and there was a wonderful inscription on the house and it said I forget the man's name and he said Secretary to George Frederick Handel and Friend. But um I wanted to include some church music or a hymn but

John Osborne16:23

I thought it was

Presenter16:29

This, in a way, I think, bridges the gap, because it's it is like a secular hymn, I think, and it's got Dryden's wonderful words, and Handel's sublime music, and I can't think of anything more beautiful.

Speaker 417:04

But you have always had a ring.

Presenter17:33

An excerpt from Handel's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, But O What Art Can Teach, sung by Theresa Stitch Randall.

Presenter17:41

John, after look back in anger, you were very newsworthy.

Presenter17:46

There was all the nonsense of the angry young men. Who started that?

Presenter17:51

Well, I know exactly who started it. It's not a very interesting story, but when I was talking to you earlier about the press office at the Royal Court having fits because nobody was buying any tickets, the man who was the press officer suddenly coined this phrase, and he hated the play. I mean, he absolutely loathed it. And then he was a man called George Fearon, and he didn't know how to sell it. So he said to me, rather in desperation, in the pub one day, he said, Well, of course he said, Really, you're an angry young man, aren't you? and I said rather feebly, Well, yes, I suppose so, I don't know. And it caught on. I mean, for what reason? And of course, it's been an albatross ever since. Well, it was very handy. It worked awfully well at the time. Well, yes, except it obscured what it was all really about. Well, it brought Laurence Olivier into the theatre in a spirit of inquiry to see what was happening. And he gave you your next break. Oh, yes. I mean, I didn't expect it. I mean, because a lot of people, all these people who write books about you telling you what you did, and they don't know at all, and they never check up. And I think perhaps Olivier himself, I think they persuaded themselves that I wrote the play for Olivier, which I didn't. I mean

Presenter19:05

It had been in my mind a long time.

Presenter19:08

You're talking about the entertainer. The entertainer. I'm sorry, yes, the entertainer. And one day, I was about halfway through the second act. George Levine rang me up and he said, How's it going? and he was marvellously g he was terribly reticent and he treated writers wonderfully like nobody's ever done since and he didn't intrude on you because uh he had a wonderful circumspect instinct about not worrying you or getting you upset or and he said to me the play uh how's it going and i said oh all right and he said um tell me there's nothing in it for lawrence is there

John Osborne19:09

The entertainer, I'm sorry, yes.

Presenter19:41

Well, I think actors of that generation used to call Olivier Lawrence and not Larry like everybody else did.

Presenter19:48

And I said, Lawrence Lawrence, who? you know, and he said, Olivia. And I said, I don't know, I don't know. And I sort of got in a terrible state.

Presenter19:55

Anyway, so he said, Well, would you send the first two acts along? and I did, and Larry said yes, wanted to do it. But he wanted to play Billy Rice, the father.

Presenter20:04

Because at that time it wasn't certainly clear to him that uh you know Archie Rice was the part. So that's how that came about.

Presenter20:11

And it was a remarkable stroke of Olivier's because

Presenter20:14

Even at that time there was still a tremendous stir.

Presenter20:18

withdrawal within the theatrical profession against people like me, and they still didn't want to know, and all those big

Presenter20:25

Star reactors were turning things down and Larry did he was the only one who made that leap in the dark against a tremendous amount of opposition. Because a lot of people were saying, Oh, it won't last, or it's not real. But no, he did have the courage to go ahead when others certainly didn't. Another great success. And from now, from comparative poverty, you were rich. Did you alter your way of life immediately, or were you fairly cautious? Oh yeah, I think I was fairly cautious, yes. I was terrified of owing money to the England Revenue. And of course, ever since then I've never stopped, because when I was doing that play, the entertainer, with Larry, and he came up to me one day and at the Palace Theatre, and I was earning something like £900 a week, which is a vast amount of money at that time. It's a lot of money now, but then.

Presenter21:14

And he said, Oh, dear heart, don't get into trouble with the income tax, man, because I've been in trouble ever since. Oh, yes, I mean, I did.

Presenter21:21

But in a rather s I mean, I still am surprised when I can pay a taxi, and those sort of things. And then I travelled a lot, and yes, I did live in quite a different way.

Presenter21:32

Well, then came a play you had written in collaboration during your rep days, Epitaph for George Dillon, which did quite well, with a marvellous first act, I remember.

Presenter21:41

And after two successes and a successed steam, you had your first flop, a musical. Oh, yes, yes. There was a story that you were chased up Charing Cross Road by Angry First Night. Oh, yes, absolutely true. And there was an awful you probably remember, Rod, but there was a woman

John Osborne21:48

And when I

John Osborne21:52

No hit.

Presenter21:56

A gallery first night, I can't remember her name, and she was an awful sort of hairy sort of truck driver woman. And I mean, she used to lead them, and if she didn't like it by the end of Act Two, I mean, you'd had it. And they had very ugly scenes. All that's gone nowadays, and everyone's very polite and sort of well-mannered. But at that time, and when I came out of the Palace Theatre after the first night of World of Paul Slicky, there was this mob of about 80 people, and I had to run through them. And they chased me down Charing Cross Road, and I had to fight. Fortunately, I got a taxi. It was quite ugly. I don't think that's happened to many playwrights. No, no.

Presenter22:34

Yeah, I think it probably should. How long did it run? How long did it book? Six weeks. Six weeks.

Presenter22:41

Oh well, nevertheless.

John Osborne22:42

I thought that

Presenter22:43

Considering the opposition.

John Osborne22:44

Yeah.

Presenter22:47

Not bad at all. Let's have record number five. Well, record number five is another of my idols. I mean, I would have had Max Miller, but I thing is I can hear that smile in his voice for the rest of my life, just as I can hear, say, Sid Field. Um, w I w I went to a very, really, dreary, dreadful boarding school during the war, and it represented everything I disliked.

Presenter23:10

And when I was on holiday from school, I remember going to see Yankee Doodle Dandy and literally bursting into tears when Jimmy Cagney was the real, archetypal song and dance man, and he sang I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy, and that song haunted me for months and months after it's in the schoolroom.

Presenter23:30

I shall never forget it.

Speaker 323:33

A Yankee beauty of Dandy.

Speaker 323:36

Yankee Doodle Duart Die.

Speaker 323:39

A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July. I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart. She's my Yankee Doodle joy.

Speaker 323:53

Yankee Doodle came to London just to ride the ponies. I am that Yankee Doodle boy.

Presenter24:00

James Cagney singing Yankee Doodle Boy from the soundtrack of Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Presenter24:06

During the years, John, you've written thirty or forty plays and screenplays, inevitably with varying success. The Hotel in Amsterdam was a, I thought, a splendid place. Yes, well, I'm glad you've said that. I mean, b it was a you see, people all s have this kind of strange illusion that you've got to top the thing that you did last, which is absurd. But I mean, most people in fact do subscribe to it. And that was a rather

Presenter24:31

sort of chamber piece in a way. And it wasn't a large piece of theatre. I mean, I love the theatre to be grand and overwhelming and overpowering and dangerous. And that play wasn't. But it was something that I wanted to do at the time, and I was quite pleased with it.

Presenter24:45

But, you know, people say, Oh, isn't it advance on the last thing? Why should it be? One should be allowed to doodle and

Presenter24:52

Uh do the light-hearted things if you want to. To what extent do you think becoming a playwright has crippled your acting career?

Presenter25:01

That's very kind of you, Rob, but I don't think it was uh exactly uh something that was uh in danger of being damaged very much. I don't know, I d I when I was y

Presenter25:12

In my early twenties I saw myself as being a

Presenter25:16

I didn't think I was going to be a romantic leading man or anything, but I thought I'd be a rather rombustious character actor. I mean, I'd see myself playing

Presenter25:26

The false stuff in the argo rather than you know the big remains.

John Osborne25:29

What

Presenter25:31

Yeah, well I had them off the time I played Hamlet and I just went through it like a butcher's knife. Where did you play Hamlet? Well, at the Haling Island where nothing's happened there since.

John Osborne25:36

Uh

Presenter25:42

The only Hailing Island family. Absolutely. And the Korean War broke out immediately afterwards. How many of your players have you directed? Do you like directing? No, I think it's a great mistake. I think most writers should be kept away from their plays.

John Osborne25:51

No.

Presenter25:56

Let's have another record, wherever we got to. Number six.

Presenter26:00

Well, I couldn't possibly have a

Presenter26:02

Selection of records without having Elgar, and I know everything has been said about Edward and Twilight and all that, but he is just an absolutely unique composer as far as I'm concerned. I think this cello concerto is so unbearably moving. About a time which I never knew, and I think that is really the remarkable thing that he can bring that kind of focus to bear for somebody who didn't even know what happened at the time.

Presenter27:34

The adagio from the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor.

Presenter27:39

Pablo Casals with the B B C Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Bout.

Presenter27:44

The rate of playwriting has slowed up, John.

Presenter27:47

Well, I mean, as far as output's concerned, that's true. I mean, I've spent three years writing that book of mine. Yes, yes. But biography, uh, a better class of person. That takes you up to the acceptance of Look Back in Anger. Are you working on Volume Two? Oh yes, well I mean that was quite fortuitous really because I had no idea when I started off how long it was going to be or what I was going to do. And after about 135,000 words I thought well they're going to get a bit bored from now on and so I talking to my publishers we decided it seemed a rather logical place to finish. So yes I am doing that. But I mean I shall I've always got about six plays that I think oh, I could do that tomorrow or not.

Presenter28:25

When to put the horse in for the race, you know, uh it's there. Record number seven.

Presenter28:31

Well now, record number seven is Merzard.

Presenter28:35

I love this ari. I would love more than anything in the world to be able to sing it, because to me it represents the most marvellous Italian phrase d'Affagniente, of not caring, of style, of grandeur, of heroism, of romanticism.

Presenter29:49

Eberhard Wrechter singing The Champagne Aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Presenter29:55

What are your qualifications as a castaway, John? Could you look after yourself? Were you ever a Boy Scout? No, I wasn't. I wouldn't have gone along with that uh any other discipline at all. None at all, I think. You've never lived or spent nights under the mantle of heaven and

Presenter30:12

Pitch tents or anything of that sort. No, digs in Barnsley and that sort of thing. I think just as bad, I think.

John Osborne30:14

No.

John Osborne30:16

No.

Presenter30:19

Could you look after yourself?

Presenter30:22

No, I don't think so. I mean, in fact, I've I had to. I mean, I wouldn't be very good at, uh, making anything very much, I don't think. Would you try to escape? Build a craft of some sort? Well, no, I think I'd get through the Bible and Shakespeare at least once, so that would take me quite a long time. By then I suppose I'd be so bored I might make an effort. But I think I'd be too feeble really to try.

John Osborne30:32

What

Presenter30:43

What's your last record? Well, my last record is Thorne Williams, Lark Ascending.

Presenter30:50

I had a passion about Vaughan Williams. I don't know why when I was a schoolboy.

Presenter30:55

I think by the time I was fifteen I think I had everything.

Presenter30:58

He recorded pretty well. But I found that the few desert dines I've been to they're rather eerie, and they seem as if they'd been bombed by nature half the time. So I think listening to this music

Presenter31:11

I could imagine myself just looking up at the sky and thinking I was living in Kentish countryside or almost anywhere, and think of England, I suppose.

Speaker 431:53

Uh

Presenter32:20

The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams. The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt, with Hugh Bean as soloist. If you could take only wonders going to the eight you've played us, which would it be? I think it would be the Lark Ascending, because uh that's the most difficult to capture in your mind. The others I could somehow, in a fugitive way, retain.

John Osborne32:32

I think it was

Presenter32:41

And one luxury to have with you. I think I would like

Presenter32:46

An upright piano.

Presenter32:48

And some instructions on how to play it. And then I could accompany myself and sing the trampagnaria or some roogie roogie or something like that. Well, we could put some music in the in the stool. A few sheets, yes. Right, yes. And one book. Apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, you've already got. Yes. So many people I know have had a a teacher in their life who's made a

John Osborne33:03

Yeah.

Presenter33:09

Some sort of impact on them and set them on some kind of path. And I had one to a small extent when I was at school.

Presenter33:16

He set me off reading a lot of books I wouldn't have otherwise read, and one of them I think is a book that should be given to every politician, every MP, every bureaucrat, every member of the BBC, almost everyone you can think of, and certainly every clergyman, which is because it does demonstrate how the English language should be used beautifully and simply. And it's a book called Holy Living and Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor.

Presenter33:43

a rather obscure seventeenth-century divine, and it's very easy to read and

Presenter33:48

Pure pleasure. Holy Living and Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor. And thank you, John Osborne, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc. Oh, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

John Osborne34:07

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