John Hurt

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is an actor who's done some exceptionally good work on television and in films and in the theatre, John Hurt.

Presenter0:38

John, how well could you adapt yourself mentally to a desert island existence? I I can't imagine uh the idea of going there and wanting to get off it, so therefore I think I would have to adapt pretty quickly, I think. Would a modest supply of music help you?

Presenter0:52

I'm not by nature a tremendously musical person, but I suppose, yes, a molecule of music would help. Have you any musical talent? Do you sing or play an instrument?

Presenter1:01

I like to think that I sing, but nobody else agrees. Have you sung in public?

Presenter1:06

In a performance? I've only sung in one performance and it took me twenty two years to get to that, and that was The Fool in Lear that I did with Sir Lawrence. And they're very, very simple little songs, but it took me th a full month to get those right.

John Hurt1:06

I have evidence.

Presenter1:19

Did you have any plan in choosing your eight records? Yes, I did. I I thought, well, there are many ways of looking at this, and uh I decided that the way I'd approach it was to pinpoint parts of my life that's all, things that remind me of a particular area of my life. Where do we start?

Presenter1:33

Well, we start at Saint Martin's School of Art, really, circa nineteen fifty nine.

Presenter1:40

With Lead Belly.

Presenter1:42

What's he singing? Backwater Blues.

John Hurt1:51

Leonard.

John Hurt2:05

And it rained five days in the sky, turned dark at night.

John Hurt2:12

And it rained five days and the skies turned dark as night.

John Hurt2:20

And the trouble taking place in the lowland that

Presenter2:26

Hiddy Ledbetter Backwater Blues.

Presenter2:29

By ancestry, John, you're a Celt. Is that right? Basically, yes. Where were you born? I was born in Derbyshire. And your father is a person? My father is a Church of England clergyman. And you have a brother who became a monk? Yes, I have a brother who was a convert to Catholicism when he was at Cambridge University, and he later became a monk, was at Downside for some dozen years, I think.

Presenter2:51

And as far as I can remember, he jumped over the wall and married someone who was, I think, about to become a nun, but obviously didn't. That didn't work out too well, so there was a divorce somehow, and he is now married extremely happily, I'm delighted to say, with three children. What else can we talk about in your early days? You were a leader of the Wolf Cubs.

Presenter3:11

Where did you dig that out? Yes, I um for my father, yes, he was uh pretty short-staffed. When I was sixteen years old, I ran a cub pack in Cleethorpes, or New Clee, which is between Grimsby and Cleethorpe's, sort of no man's land. And I had a very considerable size pack. I had thirty boys in it. Real rough lads they were as well. Terrific. Covered with badges. No badges at all. That's the interesting thing. I had thirty boys, and we all had a terrific time. But on St George's Day parade in Grimsby, for instance, there'd been several packs there of all the various different churches and boys' organisations and so on. And they were covered in badges, but they only had about six boys in each pack. Whereas I had thirty boys strong mine, but I'm afraid I didn't get round to doing many badges. Where did you go to school? I was at a prep school in Kent, called St Michael's School, Otford Court, near Seven Oaks in Kent.

Presenter4:04

And uh having failed my common entrance to go to the public school that I was supposed to go to I don't know whether that was intentional or not to follow my brother to St John's Leatherhead. I anyway, I failed it three times because I couldn't pass mathematics.

Presenter4:17

much to my father's chagrin, who was a double first in math at the age of twenty.

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Unfortunately, I never made more than fifteen per cent. In fact, I was rather delighted when I made fifteen per cent, because at least I got into double figures, but it didn't please him very much.

Presenter4:29

However, they managed to get me into a school called Lincoln School at the time. I think it's now a comprehensive, but it was a grammar school with a boarding house of forty boys, which was bad at maths. What were you good at?

Presenter4:40

English, always very high percentage in English. At school, what did you want to be? I wanted well, from the age of nine, I wanted to be an actor. Really, from the first time that I went onto a stage. I I don't think I ever thought there was such a thing as a professional actor, or if I did, I didn't know what it meant. There was a good repertory theatre in Lincoln. Did you get to see it? Yes, indeed, when I was at Lincoln School, and it was at Lincoln Rep that I applied before I'd got the result from the Royal Academy as to whether I'd got in or not.

Presenter5:07

And I applied to them because I'd been at Lincoln School and asked them if they got any kind of a job. And they very kindly gave me a a dog's body job as a sort of assistant, assistant stage manager and paid me six pounds a week. When was this? Was this immediately after you left school? No. I left school in 1957, I think it was. I was at Grimsby School of Art for two years, and then in 1959 I went to St. Martin's School of Art. So really, acting was a second choice. You you wanted to paint?

John Hurt5:28

So

Presenter5:32

No, acting was the first choice, but my parents strongly believed that I should have something to fall back on, as it were, and those were the days when one was obliged to take notice of your parents.

Presenter5:42

And the other thing that I was particularly interested in was painting, as I was not interested in an academic career. Did you start to paint at that time? I had always enjoyed painting, through the always inadequate art classes that one had at that time in the various schools that I was at, and also Stephen Shepherd, who used to teach me when I was at my prep school.

Presenter5:59

had remained a friend. He interested me and got me extremely interested in painting itself, though I'd never really taken it seriously until I went to art school, and and in many ways I'm very glad I did it, because it created an interest which I never lost.

Presenter6:13

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

Presenter6:16

This was uh Grimsley School of Art period, s slightly later than the Lead Belly one, through a girl who was um at that time training to be a concert pianist.

Presenter6:26

Called Priscilla Jessup, I remember.

Presenter6:28

She put me onto this, and I've loved it ever since, and it's the Brand's second piano concerto, with Sviataslaf Richter playing.

Presenter7:34

An excerpt from the Brahms second piano concerto, with Sviatoslav Richter as soloist.

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and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

Presenter7:45

After Lincoln you went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. That's right, yes, I did. Nineteen sixty. What was your first job when you left? I did actually do a television for Herbert Wise right in the middle of the training period. That's against the rules, isn't it? Well, no, it was allowed. It was allowed, yeah, so applications were made and I was allowed to do it in the vacation.

Presenter8:04

It's the fourth lead in the television, and I got sixty five pounds for it. And when you left? When I left, I tested for a film and got the part.

Presenter8:12

It was called The Wild and the Willing, and nobody ever came up with any reasonable explanation as to who was wild and who was willing. But it was based on a play called The Tinker, which is about a Redbrick University. And it was directed by Rafe Thomas, whose son I have worked with twice, who is now a well known producer, as we all know.

Presenter8:33

You went into Chips with Everything that RAF played that had a lot of parts for young actors. I did. I took over in Chips with Everything in nineteen sixty two. It was during that time actually that I got married between a matinee and an evening performance.

Presenter8:44

Well, you don't want to waste any time, do you? No, not really.

Presenter8:49

The marriage, I'm afraid, finished almost as quickly.

Presenter8:53

Never mind, w we had a crack at it. I remember seeing you in a flop at the Garrick. It only lasted two or three weeks, but I was very impressed. It it was about an art school. That's right. It's written by David Halliwell called Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs, which is now actually a very well-known play, and a wonderful play it is, too. Yes, you had a very good part in that. Well, Little Malcolm, yes. They were all wonderful parts in that.

John Hurt9:07

That is night.

Presenter9:16

It's very sad, actually, that, because um, as I remember, the house full notices were up for the last three performances, but by that time the notices had gone up and we were finishing anyway. You were learning the hard way. Yes, indeed.

Presenter9:28

Your th third record, please.

Presenter9:31

Well, the third record actually comes from about that period,'cause uh we did Little Malcolm in Dublin to begin with, before we came to the Garrick, at the Dublin Festival.

Presenter9:41

And it was there that I met my friend Gareth Brown, who introduced me to Irish music, which I've

Presenter9:46

Been very fond of ever since.

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And I met.

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A certain Dolly McMahon.

Presenter9:51

And this is one of her songs from her, as far as I know, her only LP, called Dolly. What's the song called?

Presenter9:59

The song is called Love Is Teasing.

Speaker 410:02

We wish I wish I wish in vain

Speaker 410:10

I wish I were a maid again But a maid again I can never be Until appears grow on an ivy tree

Speaker 410:39

For love is pleasant, And love is teason And love is a treasure when first it's new.

Presenter10:57

Dolly McMahon, Love is Teasing. When did you do the film version of A Man for All Seasons? That must have been a a rewarding job. It was very rewarding. It wasn't very re rewarding for David Warner, as unfortunately he couldn't get out of Hamlet, otherwise he would have played the part. But uh fortunately during that three and a half weeks of Little Malcolm, Fred Zinniman saw the play.

Presenter11:18

and asked to see me and uh gave me the job.

Presenter11:21

That was the first international film that I'd been in, and that was in 1966. A film part which won you a lot of praise in Kudos was Ten Rillington Place. Well, that was a wonderful part. I thought that was the ultimate in victims that I was ever going to play, I thought. This was about the celebrated murder. Well, it was about the wrongful hanging of Timothy Evans, in fact. And you played The Unfortunate Evans. I did, yeah.

Presenter11:45

And uh Richard Attenborough played Christie, You had a distinguished technical adviser.

Presenter11:50

Yes, we did indeed have a very distinguished technical advisor who came under a pseudonym. I can't remember what his pseudonym was.

Presenter11:56

But he did turn out to be in fact Albert Pierpoint, who was, uh for those who don't know, the last.

Presenter12:03

The Hangman of England.

Presenter12:05

He had some interesting observations to make when asked. I remember Richard Flasher, who directed it, when we'd done the hanging scene, which is the first time that it had ever been shown as it was, because until that time it had been under the Official Secrets Act. That must have been an awful sequence to do. It really was. A very, very creepy sequence to do indeed, Mr. D. I remember a couple of secretaries had to leave the floor in order to.

Presenter12:26

Well, to be sick, really. It was it was a very creepy sequence indeed, I must say. But I mean, uh when Fleischer said to him, Well, thank you very much, he said, for all your technical help and so on, he said, uh Oh, no, not at all, he said, It's it's been years.

Presenter12:42

Oh, no. She didn't add, you know. And to think of the other remarks he'd said, I remember that the noose was hanging tied by a little piece of cotton with three loops in it.

Presenter12:52

And at that particular angle, it was slightly in the way of the shot that Flash went lane. He said, Will it be in the way?

Presenter12:57

When we come to do the shot, and he said, Oh, no, no, no, no, he said, I just want the lads to get the hang of it.

Presenter13:03

So there's some very um

Presenter13:05

Not too good puns flying around that day. You had this technical advisor on that film, but you're not, I'm told, an actor who worries very much about historical accuracy and authenticity. You like to build up a character from your own impression, is that right? Well, I wouldn't say that exactly. I like to work from the script. Generally speaking, the writer has done a great deal of research. And if he is a good dramatic writer, he's written in such a way that it is intended for the imagination to take over.

Presenter13:35

I don't personally find that by reading a lot of books about a character

Presenter13:40

that it it in fact helps to make the imagination fly.

Presenter13:44

I th this is entirely my way of working and um

Presenter13:48

I find it works for me. Leave all that sort of stuff to the writer. Indeed, I do. Yes. And uh and if it isn't well written, well I wouldn't do the part anyway, so.

John Hurt13:52

Yeah.

Presenter13:56

Your fourth record. This is um

Presenter13:59

My attempt to get to know opera really, which wasn't very successful, because being as I I like the storyline and I like the lyrics and so on, uh the the big trouble I find with opera is that they're so utterly ludicrous. However,

Presenter14:13

In this effort I did come across one piece that I adore, and I've chosen the final area.

Presenter14:20

It was Joan Sutherland singing from La Traviata.

Presenter15:17

Joan Sutherland singing Violetta's last aria from La Traviata, Adio del Posato.

Presenter15:24

Let's pick out a few more highlights from your career, Don. A challenging part was the television portrayal of Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. Did you meet Mr Crisp?

Presenter15:35

Yes, I did, indeed. I asked Mr. Crisp if you'd like to have.

Presenter15:40

Lunch on Sunday, one particular Sunday, which he accepted.

Presenter15:45

I remember offering him a a Guinness, which I knew the drink that he drank, which he indeed took.

Presenter15:52

I offered him another, and he had that I offered him a third, later in the afternoon.

Presenter15:56

And he said, No, I couldn't any more would be a debauch.

Presenter16:00

But again, having met him and talked.

Presenter16:06

About anything, really. I mean nothing nothing specific.

Presenter16:09

I didn't see a great deal more of him. You didn't attempt an accurate impersonation? Not an accurate impersonation, no. People think that it is. I mean, many people have been kind enough to say that it's exactly the same. It isn't at all exactly the same.

Presenter16:21

as Quentin will quite readily tell you. But I hope it is evocative of him. I mean, I hope it has the feeling that I wanted to make of him. And and being as we were doing a a rough look alike, at any rate we were taking the hair the same way, the costume the same way,

Presenter16:35

and uh the walk much the same kind of way because it was too rich not to use. But the secret really with with Quentin

Presenter16:43

On that Sunday I discovered is that

Presenter16:46

He knows what he's going to say, when he's going to say it, and how he's going to say it.

Presenter16:52

which is an absolute gift in terms of drama, because it means you don't have to pause at all, because you're thinking all the time the other person is speaking. So you come straight in, because he knows exactly how he's going to say, what he's going to say, and when.

Presenter17:04

Playing a homosexual can be dangerous for an actor. Did you find that people thought this must be for real?

Presenter17:10

I've been asked, yes, they said, you know, John, are you in fact you know one of them? And I say, well, God, if I was one of them, I would have had a lot less trouble in my life, I can tell you. But I don't think so, really, because I remember Robert Bolt wrote me a letter afterwards saying that after the the initial shock of the subject matter in the first five minutes

Presenter17:32

It became a story about the tenderness of the individual versus the cruelty of the crowd, and I think that's basically what people got from it, rather than an essay on homosexuality, which I don't think it was anyway.

Presenter17:43

Right, number five.

Presenter17:46

Fifth record. Well, I mean, this is an inevitability in a way. And I chose this one.

Presenter17:51

Because I mean it it was the period of the Beatles. Had to be I mean uh th th the whole of the sixties was an extraordinary decade, and even though I I stood somewhat outside of it,

Presenter18:03

in terms of the psychedelic experience of the sixties was not really my scene. But there was a a lot that went with it, so I have to include a Beatles. But I'm delighted to choose this one because actually I was there when it was being part of it was being made. In Abbey Road? Yeah.

Presenter18:17

And the one I've chosen is Heiju.

Speaker 418:20

Hey June.

Speaker 418:23

Don't be afraid.

Speaker 418:27

What made you go out and get her?

Speaker 418:33

The minute

Speaker 418:35

You let her run to your skin.

Speaker 418:38

Then you begin to make it better.

Presenter18:44

Hey Jude.

Presenter18:45

By The Beatles

Presenter18:47

Now The Alien, I think, was the next of your successful films, wasn't it? Alien came by mistake, as a matter of fact. Did it? Yes, rather pleasant mistake. I was supposed to go to South Africa to make a film called Zulu Dawn.

Presenter19:01

And five minutes before I was getting into the taxi to go to London Airport, the telephone went and said, You better not get into the taxi because you're not going to be able to get into South Africa when you get there anyway. They're not going to let you in. Oh So I said, Well, that's very odd, why not? And uh nobody ever knows, being as it is a totalitarian state, virtually. They they're not obliged to tell us why not.

John Hurt19:10

Uh

Presenter19:19

But through I think it's Janet Sussman's aunt, who has something of a thorn in the side of the South African Government, and she is an MP there, I believe.

Presenter19:28

did do quite a lot to try and find out what it was, and we think it was probably a mistaken identity of some sort, and uh I got a letter back eventually saying that if I ever applied to go there again it would be viewed in a different light.

Presenter19:40

Well that's encouraging, but you're not going to be able to do that. I can't say that I particularly want to go there. But the thing is, by losing that job, the next week Ridley Scott came round to my house because an actor was unable to take the part.

John Hurt19:41

You'll have to go back down.

Presenter19:51

And he left my house, I think, at twelve thirty, half an hour past midnight, and I was on set at seven o'clock in the morning. In what sort of make up? Well, hair was quickly cut. I was quickly briefed as to what the gang was about, met them, and um

Presenter20:04

Started that morning. And then we get to the elephant then. That must have been a very uncomfortable make up with all that gear all over you. Make it made up as that.

Presenter20:14

Hideously deformed man. Yes, it was. There's there's no question of that. It was a long and and tedious makeup was a seven-hour make-up in actual fact. I think we did twenty-two all told. Started at five o'clock in the morning and we finished at noon and we shot through to ten thirty at night. Could you eat and drink when you're going to be a little bit more?

John Hurt20:30

No no I couldn't

Presenter20:38

Gum

Presenter20:39

Record number six.

Presenter20:42

Well, I'm going to go back to Ireland again, as I frequently go back to Ireland.

Presenter20:46

And this is a record actually that I recently given for my birthday.

Presenter20:51

And it's off an album called Tin Whistles, and the whistles are played by my friend Paddy Maloney.

Presenter20:59

Of the Chieftains, and Sean Potts is also of the Chieftains and is their main whistler. And it's a love song.

Presenter22:05

PADY MALONY playing an Irish love song.

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Now this is very much John Hurt year, isn't it?

Presenter22:11

Four of your films are being released and you've got married. Now that's quite a lot to happen within twelve months. It is indeed. I'm just hoping that it's not going to be too spassy next year.

Presenter22:20

Well let's talk about the films.

Presenter22:21

Champions. You played Bob Champion, the the jockey who, despite being seriously ill with cancer, won the Grand National. In this case, you had Bob Champion with you on the set most of the time, didn't you? We did quite a lot of the time, yes. Bob was a technical adviser on the film. But I

Presenter22:37

Managed not to be with him too much because rather in the same sense as when I was playing Quentin Crisp, I prefer to work out of the imagination than I do to work.

Presenter22:46

As a kind of imitation. And of course you're a horseman, so you did a lot of the riding yourself. Wouldn't say that I was a horseman. Not to anybody in the horse world. I do ride a horse, but there's a slight difference there.

Presenter22:58

But I did train to ride as a jockey for that, with Terry Biddlecombe, and it's very exciting. In fact, I can't think of a better way of riding a horse now. Not that I have done since.

Presenter23:07

Now the hit, which has had exceedingly good notices,

Presenter23:11

That's a a rather serious, tough film, isn't it? Well, I wouldn't say that it's entire I mean, it is a serious film, but it is not a serious film without jokes.

Presenter23:21

I don't like the word black comedy because it always puts me off and I think it puts a lot of other people off, but it is comedy that comes out of the humanity.

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of the four people on their journey through Spain.

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Basically it's about a w what is now called a supergrass.

Presenter23:35

who managed to get himself uh to Spain.

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So long as he gave away certain names, which he did, then the major part of the film starts ten years later.

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And uh my character arrives.

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To collect Terence Stamp who is playing the other character, with my sidekick Tim Roth.

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And basically, the story is a journey of extracting him from Cordoba, or near Cordoba, where he's staying.

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And they go right up through the middle of Spain, through Madrid, where they have another encounter with a another criminal and and so on. And finally they get up to the Basque country and the whole thing is is gone wrong many times.

Presenter24:12

Further than that I'm not really going to say.

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And Osterman Weekend. Osterman Weekend is a film that I made just before Champions in America with The Dangerous Sam Peckenpower.

Presenter24:21

Who actually wasn't being as dangerous as he has been in the past at any rate.

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But uh

Presenter24:26

A chaotic film in a way.

Presenter24:28

That's a pure entertainment, in a sense. But I think somebody got a bit lost with a storyline in it. What do you play? A rather deranged CIA man who's getting his own back at the CIA.

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And goes off the rails somewhat.

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And of course 1984, which we haven't seen yet, which is

Presenter24:47

Well, we know the story. It it it's a great story.

Presenter24:50

And of course it's a film that we shall see with a certain amount of sadness.

Presenter24:55

Well that's true in regards what's happened to Richard, Richard Burton is I think it's one of his best film performances.

Presenter25:01

I was making a film, in fact, in Geneva when he died.

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And uh he lives in Seligny, which is a small village about twenty-five minutes outside there, and I had dinner with him on Friday night.

Presenter25:11

and stayed over in his little guest chalet. It's a very modest house it was, too. He said it was a modest house when he was working on nineteen eighty four, but I didn't believe it. But it was, actually, a very modest house.

Presenter25:21

And uh

Presenter25:23

As indeed Richard was not the sort of person that everybody thinks he was. He wasn't the great s swashbuckler. He was a very sensitive, extremely well read, interesting man.

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Who obviously during his life had his moments, I don't mean

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But uh

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I yes, we we we at on the Friday night and I stayed over and was talking to him all Saturday morning and on the Sunday

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Sally Button rang me up and said could you come over immediately?

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'Cause Richard is dead.

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And uh

Presenter25:51

Yeah, it came as a a terrific shock to everyone, I think it was a very good thing.

Presenter25:57

It would seem so.

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And he was a very new friend to me.

Presenter26:02

Which parts do you and Richard Burton play? Who plays Winston Smith? I play Winston Smith and Richard played O'Brien.

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Who is his capital, really?

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Nineteen eighty four was very much a quick idea, wasn't it, that the idea of remaking it.

Presenter26:18

You w went more or less straight in? Well, the idea was casual, you might say, because Simon Perry was talking to Michael Radford, the director.

Presenter26:26

in a wine bar, wondering what they were going to do next after another time in another place. And Radford said, Well, I've always wanted to make nineteen eighty four, but I suppose somebody's made it and Simon said, Well, I actually I don't think anybody has, you know.

Presenter26:39

So he said, I'll look into it. He looked into it and found out that nobody was making it. Then he found out where the rights were and then introduced themselves by letter to Marvin Rosenblum, who was in in Chicago. And he loved the film that they'd already made, and he said, I'll come into the production with the rights free and so on if you can find the money and write the script by Christmas. Now this was only October of last year.

Presenter27:04

And by Christmas they'd found the money, they'd written the script, which I might say was eminently shootable in its first draft. And uh we were shooting the end of February. Yes. And it was on october the twelfth it opens. What was your shooting schedule? Was it a long film?

Presenter27:21

It was in all fourteen weeks, I think it was. But I mean, you have to remember that when you're making nineteen eighty four you're making two films because so much of it is constantly in the background on the tele screens that all that has to be shot first before you start the actual story. Yeah. So it's really it's two films in one. Where was most of it done? The studio work was all done at Twickenham Studios and a little bit at Chapperton.

Presenter27:43

And uh the Golden Country was shot in Wiltshire.

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Well, let's have your seventh record on. What's that? This is a record by a friend of mine. I hate to leave him out.

Presenter27:52

And it'd be very annoying if I did, anyway.

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And it's by Eric Clapton.

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And I'd like to dedicate this to my wife. It's wonderful tonight.

Speaker 428:02

He puts on her maker.

Speaker 428:06

And brushes her long blonde hair with

Speaker 428:15

And then she loves me.

Speaker 428:20

Do I look all right And I say yes.

Presenter28:33

Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight.

Presenter28:36

John, you're on this desert island. You've got some ideas on how you're going to manage. Could you look after yourself? Could you rig up a shelter? You were a leader of the Wolf Cubs. I was an Arkela of the Wolf Cubs, but I mean, like many of my generation, I was a Boy Scout before that, and, you know, my father's very keen.

John Hurt28:45

A Kala of the Wood

Presenter28:52

The scouting map.

Presenter28:54

Sure, I could uh I could make clay ovens and cook in those and I could make fire from twigs and things. I mean, as long as there's a couple of trees on this here.

Presenter29:02

Island. What are you going to cook? Can you fish? I can fish. You can fish to a certain extent. Yeah, depending on what I'm fishing for. I've done a bit of fishing. How are you in a small boat?

John Hurt29:08

McDonald's.

Presenter29:11

And could you build one? I think if I grew my fingernails and clawed at a log for long enough, I could make some sort of a coracle. Can you navigate a coracle? I've never tried. I mean, you know which is north and which is south. Oh, I know which is east and which is west as well. You do? Oh, yes, that's the end of Heaven's Gate. How does it go? They taught you to navigate in Heaven's Gate. The sun will continue to the sun can will continue to set in the west, the majority of us considered it best.

John Hurt29:28

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter29:33

So, um you've obviously given some thought to the subject, even if if scriptwriter's mind was working on it. Uh well, uh yes, I'd I'd prefer to go there with a script, I must say. In the meantime, let's have your eighth and last record.

Presenter29:49

Well, I'm going to finish on Mozart, because I rather suspect that that is one record that uh you could probably never tire of.

Presenter29:58

And it's the piano concerto number twenty one.

Presenter30:01

By Mozart, and it is played by Vladimir Rashkenazi.

Presenter31:02

Part of the third movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. twenty one and C major, Vladimir Ashkenazi with the Philharmonia Orchestra. John, if you could take only one disc out of the eight that you've chosen and played us, which would it be? I think that's a very unfair question.

Presenter31:17

However.

Presenter31:19

If I could only take one.

Presenter31:22

I would take

Presenter31:24

The whistle music, the Irish whistle music. And one luxury to take with you, any one object that would give you pleasure to have, but is of no practical use. I thought of taking a high heeled shoe, just to remind me of certain things that I wasn't going to be able to have.

Presenter31:40

But then I thought that might be a very frustrating thing to take. So in the end I thought, well, let's go for total selfishness and I I thought well of all the things I'm not a luxury-minded person, but the one thing I think I probably would miss would be a pillow. Mm-hmm. So I take a pillow. And one book you already have with the complete works of Shakespeare and the Holy Bible.

Presenter32:00

You may have one other volume. Now this is a tricky one. This is a tricky one.

Presenter32:05

I thought of taking Fowler's English usage because it's an immensely witty book.

Presenter32:10

On the other hand I thought, well

Presenter32:12

Perhaps, if I'm going to be on Desert Island, you really need something which is going to feed the imagination more than anything else. And the books that I've had more joy from than anything else have been in that area, Lewis Carroll. So I'd probably take the complete works of Lewis Carroll, if I'm allowed to do that. It's all in one volume. Yes, indeed, you may have that. And thank you, John Hurt, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you for letting me play them. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 332:41

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