Alan Parker

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 40:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 30:28

The castaway who was to have been the late Roy Plumley's first guest when his series returned to the air last June is introduced now by Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:37

Our castaway today is the British film director Alan Parker, who's made such fine films as Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, Fame, and most recently, Birdie.

Presenter0:46

Alan, you grew up in the 40s in London and were a sort of teenager in the fifties. That's sort of the tail end of the cinema generation. Was the cinema much of an influence on you as a child? I think so, yeah. There's very little else that we could do there. I grew up in Islington, and there wasn't a lot of things that we could go to anyway. The thing I loved most of all was Saturday morning pictures, which became sort of institution with us. And I think that was probably when I first got the bug. The worst thing about it was that if you got chosen for the school football team, it meant you couldn't do Saturday morning pictures anymore. But apart from that, that's my first memory of movies. Do you imagine yourself in those days as being a film star? Or were you always interested in directing movies? No, no. Coming from Islington, if you told someone that you wanted to be a film director, they'd fall about laughing. Certainly not a movie star now.

Alan Parker1:28

I know.

Presenter1:35

The television in those days or well no no television at all the movies in fact uh represented the kind of

Presenter1:41

Boundaries of your horizon, didn't they?

Presenter1:44

Really, yeah, I mean, it was a fantasy world. I mean, I have to say that, uh, you know, I suppose it shows in my work now, is that uh my influences were the American movie.

Presenter1:52

I didn't see Fancy Schmancy intellectual French movie until I was in my twenties, I don't think. So my original loves were always American movies. And that was a world that w w we couldn't possibly actually aspire to in Islington. And it was just something that happened somewhere else and it was a place called America. What about your family? I mean, what did your father do? He worked for the the Sunday Times in the garage of the Sunday Times. So no hint of Shobis there at all? No, no. In fact he then he left Sunday Times he worked for the Electricity Board as a painter.

Presenter2:19

So in France I always they say, What does your father do? and I say, He's a painter and they go, Oh, wonderful So, you know, he's the Impressionist or whatever I said, No, he's works for the electricity board, he's avant-garde, he paints in grey he paints railings and uh transformers What part did music play in your youth when you were growing up?

Presenter2:35

Very early on I actually got into rock and roll. It was the I was lucky enough to be that age group that uh was the first to get into it.

Presenter2:43

And

Presenter2:44

You know, my memories of uh you know I I bought the very very first Elvis Presley record as I guess everybody did of that particular generation. My mother worked so my grandmother actually looked after me a lot and uh I always remember she had this huge big radiogram which was made of mahogany and was about eight foot wide and about twenty eight foot tall or it seemed so in those days and I remember that I could only just lift the lid in order to get those great big records but I mean that was my first memory of music. And what was the first record you remember hearing on that uh vast

Alan Parker3:05

Lift the

Presenter3:13

Record player. It was called Civilization.

Presenter3:16

But I remember it as bonga bonga bonga.

Presenter3:19

And uh it's the usual nostalgic trip for me, but it really does conjure up the window open and the sun shining and playing uh football in the street outside. Danny Key and the Andrus sisters.

Alan Parker3:32

So bongo bungo bongo I don't want

Speaker 33:34

Wanna leave the Congo no no no no no

Alan Parker3:37

Uh

Speaker 33:39

Bingo, bangle, bangle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go. Don't want no bright lights, false teeth.

Presenter3:47

Doorbell's landlords, I make it clear

Speaker 33:51

No matter how they coax him

Presenter3:53

I'll stay right here.

Presenter3:59

What kind of a job did you reckon you were heading for? What what did you want to do when you were growing up in Islington? I came from working class background, so I I don't know that uh I had uh grand ambitions to be honest with you. I was lucky enough to get to the local grammar school, so in a way my life's I suppose slightly changed the moment that occurred. I always wanted to write more than anything else. I used to uh you know write poems and do a little bit of drawing and things, never quite knowing how that would end up as a job and you certainly wouldn't own up to the fact that you were writing poems. I mean that was the last thing you do. But uh very few ambitions to be honest. I mean only insomuch as that wi I didn't really have the kind of guidance probably that one should have had. You know my my father was in Sunday Times, most of my family were in the print as they called it. So uh in a way probably I was thinking about something like that. But uh I actually always wrote and writing was always a thing that I thought that I'd end up doing. Were you a bright boy at school?

Presenter4:53

I wasn't stupid. I wasn't overbright. No, I mean I was uh I was okay. I was I got to grammar school and I did okay. I was usually in the top class, although I was never one of the top students. I didn't go to university, for instance. Let's go to a a musical choice perhaps from from this period.

Presenter5:08

Yeah, this is Buddy Holly singing It Doesn't Matter Anymore. This I remember when Buddy Holly died, I used to have a little crystal set and listen to Radio Luxembourg, the only place you could hear the top twenty records in those days. And we were always listening in every Sunday night, I think it was, just to see whether It Doesn't Matter Anymore actually went to number one. This was actually after he'd died, and in fact it did. So I have fond memories of this song.

Speaker 45:31

No invite here am I will you left me here so

Presenter5:36

I could sit and cry, well Gary G, what have you done to me? Oh well I guess it doesn't matter.

Alan Parker5:43

Matter anymore

Alan Parker5:47

Do you remember baby last September how you held me tight each and

Speaker 45:52

Every night well, whoops of Daisy, how you drove me crazy But I guess it doesn't matter anymore

Presenter6:02

Alan, in the early sixties when you left school you took a job in advertising. Now I wonder how much your choice of job was uh conditioned by the time that you were in. It was the early sixties and and of course advertising was a very fashionable sort of industry to be in in those days, wasn't it?

Presenter6:16

It was also very egalitarian in that you didn't have to have a university degree. That's the most important reason that I was in advertising. I started actually in a postroom, so I didn't actually start with a posh job. But I did write from the very moment that I started in the agency. And they ended up letting me be a copywriter. I used to write in the evenings and I used to work in the postroom in the day. And then my dad got a bit fed up because, you know, the light was always on in the kitchen. So he he said you've got to tell them that you got to do this job full time, which I asked them and then they did allow me to do it. And there, of course, you you became aware for the first time, I suppose, about the potential uh or the possibility of directing.

Presenter6:49

Well, yes. I started uh writing ads and then commercials. And it was the beginnings of commercials and commercials were pretty awful in those days. Some people think they're pretty awful now. But you'd employ some, you know, New York director to come over and do your commercial if you wanted it done any good or talk.

Presenter7:04

So what I asked them for, I said, Look, give us a sixteen mil camera.

Presenter7:07

And we'll go down to the basement.

Presenter7:09

And we'll learn about this new medium which nobody understood really.

Presenter7:13

And we made like thirty little films down in that basement and you know somebody could work the Naga tape recorder, somebody knew how to work the spectrolight meter, somebody else could do the editing, somebody could operate a camera. I actually was the only one who couldn't do anything. I said, I don't know what I should do. So they said, well, why don't you say action? So I said action, and then I said cut and then I said one more time darling or something, you know, and I was suddenly a director, but truthfully that I hadn't thought about doing it until that moment. But looking back on that time now, I mean, how valuable a training was it for being a feature film director? Well, film is a very expensive commodity and you only learn about being a director by saying action and putting very expensive film stock through a camera. And it allowed me that. I learned the craft, the technique. I don't think that one could pretend that you learned much more. But I was, you know, I was filming every single week. I made literally hundreds, maybe five hundred different commercials over in a very sort of concentrated time span. So it meant that I would understand the mechanics of film. I knew about my lenses. I knew when to track and not to zoom, all the technical side of things. What you don't learn is how to deal with emotions because you know the only emotion that you can deal with normally in a commercial is humor, comedy in some way.

Presenter8:26

And obviously you're holding generally thirty seconds of narrative in your head as opposed to an hour and a half. That's obviously the huge jump.

Presenter8:34

Let's move down to your next choice in music. We are in the 60s and this is a very relevant choice, isn't it? Well, this is the 60s record of all time, probably, which is from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album. This song is particularly important to me because when my wife had her first baby, my wife Annie, she was asked to do these breathing exercises to help you when she got the contractions. And they asked her to sing some terrible song. I think it was Puppet on the String. She said, well, I'm not singing that. I'm going to sing Day in the Life. And the great thing about Day in the Life is that there is a middle section which really helps the quick breathing when you get contractions, as you will now hear.

Speaker 39:07

Yeah.

Speaker 39:08

Fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.

Speaker 39:14

Uh

Presenter9:14

On the way downstairs and drank a cup And looking up, I noticed I was late

Speaker 39:20

Uh

Presenter9:20

Uh

Presenter9:21

Yeah.

Speaker 39:21

Find my coat, then grab my hat.

Speaker 39:24

Bait the bus in seconds fly

Speaker 39:29

On my way upstairs and had a smoke And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

Presenter9:36

That's the Beatles, a day in the life. Alan Parker, the first movie that you did, feature movie, as opposed to a television movie or whatever, was Bugsy Malone, which you wrote as well.

Presenter9:46

Wonderful sort of feat of imagination to take this gangster story and cast it with children.

Presenter9:51

What led you to that idea?

Presenter9:53

Well, it started out as a story that I used to tell my kids. We had a house up in Derbyshire in those days and we used to drive up there at weekends and it was such a long journey, I used to keep them occupied with this story, and then they would say, you know, what's Dandy Dan doing? What's Fat Sam doing? And it really started out for them. It was also a pragmatic exercise from the point of view of trying to get a start because most of the things that I'd written at that time were about my background, you know, from Islington, London. And it was a very bad time in the British film industry, even worse than it is now. And everything came back with this great rubber stamp on it, you know, saying too parochial, too parochial. I really didn't know anything about America, to be honest with you, but I did know about American movies as we discussed earlier. So in a way it's a pastiche not on American gangsters but on gangster films and the musical. The idea of it my kid one day said to me, my eldest son Alexander said why can't the kids be the heroes of it? So I thought oh that sounds like a good idea.

Presenter10:45

You know, I was rather naive in those days. I don't think I'd ever attempt it now.

Presenter10:48

But it it I mean, it certainly did the job, didn't it? I mean, it opened up all kinds of doors for you.

Presenter10:53

Yes, once you get your star and it was very well received and not just so much in this country, but it actually was shown around the world. The moment that happens, then obviously, you know, people with the money, the Americans within the film industry, become interested in you. And then it went on from there. Midnight Express, of course, was the next movie, wasn't it? That came I suppose directly out of you doing uh Mugs and Malone. Now that

Presenter11:14

It's an amazing film. I mean, that's taken fortunes, hasn't it? It's ran in one French cinema, I understand, for six years. Uh it's still running. I think it's actually seven years, yeah. It's uh I think it's the same print. It looks a bit scratched. I went to see it the other day. The manager of the cinema in Paris said, I've changed uh the projectionist, the usherettes, everybody in this film has changed, but not the movie.

Alan Parker11:21

I think it's a

Alan Parker11:22

Seven

Presenter11:34

One of the strange things about it, that looking back at it now, is that not all the critics enjoyed it, did they? No, I mean my work people either go for or you know or hate. I've always polarised opinion. But it was nice. In the end, the film was seen in forty or fifty different countries around the world by millions of people. Actually ended up changing the law between the United States and Turkey. So I was proved to be right and it's nice when that happens and the critics proved to be wrong. Well of course it picked a what six golden globes or the nominations, six AA nominations plus the BAFTA. So I mean why bother about the critics on that point of view? But of course you do don't you? I mean you you have this running battle with the critics. I do yeah. Well all journalists, particularly in this country. Film journalism in this country is probably the worst in the world and they don't ever like you to point that out. They're quick to criticise us but they never like me to criticise them. Why should that be the why should it be the worst in the world in this country? I think it's how badly film is thought of actually by television companies, the managements of television companies, the editors in in newspapers give so little space to film because film is not an important part of our culture. Our culture is totally dominated in this country by television and film gets a couple of column inches at the end.

Alan Parker12:24

Buff

Presenter12:43

So the kind of person who actually moves into that is generally of a very poor standard.

Presenter12:49

Well let's now go to another choice of music. And this has got some relevance again to a film that you you did after Midnight Express. Yeah, I did fame immediately after Midnight Express. It was actually in those days it was called Hot Lunch. I only called it Fame about halfway through filming. And then there was a pornographic film called Hot Lunch. Goodness knows what that was about. So I changed it to Fame. And when I was preparing the film uh I went to the High School for Performing Arts on Forty Sixth Street in New York.

Presenter13:13

and I went to an old part of the building, and there in the stairwell I heard this most beautiful sound.

Presenter13:19

And uh it was a young a Russian kid called Gennady who was fourteen years of age and he was playing uh this particular piece of music. And I sat on the step and looked at him and took a photo and in fact I pinned that photo up on my wall all the time I was writing the final shooting script. So in a way this piece of music was really, although it's not in the film, is the s the whole spirit of fame and it's it's Beethoven's uh violin concerto indeed.

Presenter14:42

Alan, you said that the film Fame was about the kids at the High School for Performing Arts in New York. Now, how much did that place, the energy of that place, represent what you like and admire about America? Well, I always said that when I actually made the film, it did represent my love affair with America. And it is a love-hate thing that goes on. The film, not the TV series that followed it, which I had nothing to do with, but the film does show not just about the joy of young performance, but also the pain. In other words, the double-edged sword of being sold the American Dream, to mix my metaphors. But personally, you know, if you are amongst those young kids, particularly in New York City, from all over New York, and many from poor backgrounds, the incredible vitality and energy that you get from them.

Alan Parker14:53

Well I

Alan Parker15:04

Had nothing to

Presenter15:26

And the desperation to succeed and the will to succeed is quite phenomenal and and it it does rub off on you a little bit. How does it affect you as a director when you're directing this kind of uh of energy and talent? Because you've worked with a lot of American actors, haven't you?

Presenter15:39

Do is it easier? I find it so, yeah. It's just a matter of personal opinion. I actually find American acting more relevant to film. It's more dangerous.

Presenter15:49

Uh the thing about British acting, and this is, you know, simplistic, but it's in my opinion, that uh they are so well trained technically. It's wonderful to work with, but in a way there is never ever the chance that something will happen that you haven't actually bargained for. And for a director that's both good and bad in that we choreograph technically what we want to happen, but you do want the magic to occur, and that will always come out of a dangerous performance, and the great American actors are able to do that. And I find that personally more stimulating than the more regimented kind of uh approach of British acting. I'm always amazed too about the way that American actors take uh

Presenter16:24

physical risks with themselves actually, or go through physical excesses to get into the part. I think of De Niro say in Raging Bull who put on something like four and a half stone. And you had one of your actors in Birdie, didn't you, one of the films you made who did something like that? Yeah, well, Embirdy for part of the film he had to have

Alan Parker16:31

Build

Presenter16:38

some bandages on his face because in the story he'd been injured in the Vietnam War and uh he actually kept the bandages on for five weeks. Uh they were re-dressed every morning, he would close his eyes and the the feeling being that he wanted to forget actually what his face looked like and just to physically put himself through that kind of pain. Their theory being that if you feel it then you'll be able to show it. Whereas the British technique is to if you don't feel it you fake it. Of course when you had this success in America with fame and subsequently after that the parrot cry uh arises about you selling out and and that sort of thing. Does that hurt you when when people say that?

Presenter17:17

Not really, no. I mean,'cause I know that I haven't. You know, I was described as one of the first of the jumbo jet directors in that I don't live in America. I don't have a house with a Hollywood swimming pool. I live, you know, I live in England and I happen to make films on location in America at this point in time because that's where I find that I can best do my work. I think that what is important is that you make good films. I think that what is dangerous and obsessive in this country is nationalism. And I think it's either British this, British that. All that matters is that I do my job well and it doesn't matter where I do it.

Presenter17:49

Let's now move on to another choice of music. What interests me, you you obviously love music and you find music inspiring. How much impact does it inspire you for for a film? I mean, do songs suggest plays to you or whatever? Every single film that I've ever done, when I've been working on at certainly at script stage, there's generally always one piece of music that I play all the time.

Presenter18:09

That helps, and I've written whole stories from songs. Sometimes, even though the piece of music doesn't actually end up in the film, you know, as we had earlier with the Beethoven, is that it often becomes the spirit of the film. I think that that's occurred on all my films, in fact. So, what about a na and next choice of music then? Well, that's a bit of a cheat, really. I think I like the music very much. It's it's called When the Music Stops. It's by Roger Daughtery.

Alan Parker18:26

Well

Presenter18:32

I have always thought that within this very simple piece of music there is the most beautiful love story that I would one day write, and I've never ever got round to it. So I just thought, well, if I'm going to be sitting on the desert island with all that time on my hands, maybe I'll finally get round to writing the love story I always wanted to write. So this I hope would inspire it.

Alan Parker18:52

So when the music stopped.

Alan Parker18:56

Think it over

Alan Parker19:00

I'll ask the band to play your song

Alan Parker19:07

And when the music stopped

Alan Parker19:12

Think it over and maybe I can change.

Presenter19:21

Alan Parker, is there a theme running through your films? Is there a common denominator? Other people always do this for you. I mean, directors are always very bad at explaining what their work is about. I'm an instinctive, intuitive filmmaker. I mean, I don't approach it in an intellectual sense. So I always find it difficult to articulate or to be lucid about what I actually am trying to do, because I think you feel it. I don't know why I choose these subjects. I actually have chosen very, very different subjects each time, because I hate the idea of being put into a pigeonhole saying, Oh, he's this kind of director and the French say that a director makes twenty versions of the same movie through a career. I always thought, Well, I didn't want to do that. But there are common themes, yeah, you know, they often deal with the loss of innocence. They're all often about trapped people one way or another, and people who actually want to get away from that entrapment. But, you know, I always think it's very pretentious for me to do it. There's a lot of very clever and erudite critics who can do that for me.

Presenter20:13

You you you use words like like pretentious, and I notice that you actually refer to what you do as being a craft and not an art. Others would argue, of course, it's an art form. To you it's not.

Alan Parker20:23

Well

Presenter20:23

Deep down I think it is. What irritates me is that the word art has been hijacked by the pretentious end of filmmaking. And you know, certainly a great deal of the work that's done for instance by the BFI is so colossally pretentious and shallow and obscure and it is actually described as art, the art movie. I object to that. There's more art in my films. I just think that as a word it's overused, that's all. And I think it is pretentious to think of yourself necessarily as an artist, although deep down that's probably what I think I am. I just think it's not something that you should call yourself. It's just nicer that somebody else calls you a You're coming also to the point too don't you in in film criticism where I mean to be popular to succeed to actually sell tickets is somehow wrong. That's a British thing which is very irritating. We're ashamed to admit that we're part of show business and to me there's nothing you know more boring than doing some you know minority film that only six people go to see at the Academy or whatever. It seems to me that it's exciting that if you have something to say that you say it and you try and get to the biggest possible audience. That doesn't mean to say you have to cop out, doesn't mean to say you have to go to the lowest common denominator. It's actually infinitely more difficult to do a serious film or a film with creative uh integrity that actually also finds a wide audience. It's the most difficult film to do of all.

Presenter21:41

Right, let's move on now to another choice in music for your desert island. What's it to be?

Presenter21:46

Well, this is another little bit of culture. I thought I'd better put a couple of serious pieces in here. My very good friend David Putnam and I were in Los Angeles preparing I think it was Midnight Express and we used to play this piece of music. It was in fact it's a piece of music that David had and we used to play on his car driving down Sunset Strip and we used to wind the windows up and we were very lonely in those days away from home, away from England.

Presenter22:10

And uh it always seemed to me a wonderful sort of anachronism to hear this most beautiful piece of music and you looked out the window and you saw the the tinsel uh grot of Sunset Strip, so uh it made us feel okay.

Presenter22:41

So she loves to

Presenter23:24

Alan, you've got uh the reputation in the film industry of uh being kind of a rebel, a man who speaks his mind about the industry, you have very clear-cut ideas. Once described, I can't make out whether it's by yourself or somebody else as being the Brian Clough of the British film industry. Is this how you s how you see yourself? Yeah, Brian Clough's actually become quite respectable now. There was a time when his mouth was probably quite large, and mine has been at times.

Presenter23:48

No, I don't mind speaking out. You know, the subjects we've talked about. I just feel that as a filmmaker, maybe I should just get on and make my films. In the end, that's as articulate as I can ever be, is actually the work that I do. But also, there's a whole thing surrounding it, and there are a lot of people actually who go on T V and on radio programmes and get into print, who are on the periphery of what we do. And I just feel that the people that make films should also have a voice. And for some reason, we never have had. Can I ask you though why it is important that we have a film industry?

Presenter24:18

Well, to sit forever and watch some box in the corner of your living room is not the same as being with other people, but a common experience. And watching that very large screen, which is larger than life, is a magic which you could never ever uh achieve sitting in your living room.

Presenter24:35

And I think that is worth protecting and fighting for. There's constant talk, it seems sort of every so often that a cyc uh cyclical thing happens and we start talking about the British film industry, about the revival of have we ever had one? No, I that's a very good point. I think that's it. I think we kid ourselves we have. You know, I go to America and people might think that I might have copped out because I got to America to make films. But in the end you need money to make films. There's never been any money in this country to make films.

Presenter25:00

And uh I think it's exactly the same now as it always has been. Half of it has been a service industry for Americans, so that we make American movies like Superman or Star Wars or whatever. And the other half is only justifiable an indigenous film industry when we have an audience that actually deserves it. And if people don't go to the movies and they don't deserve an Indigenous film industry, and you could argue that we do have an indigenous film industry and it maybe is on the box.

Presenter25:23

Let's now move on to another choice of record, your seventh choice in fact. And a very unusual one this is. This is, yeah. In fact, I've grown up to not ever liking it really. I don't like it very much. But in my house, I have four children and at any one point in time there's always at least three record players playing three different pieces of music. And their music dominates in our house. And this is a song that they all played a lot of. It's a reggae piece. And if I'm on that desert island, it would certainly remind me of them. Also, the island might be a Caribbean island, so it might be nice to have a little bit of music that the locals might like too.

Alan Parker25:56

Two months later she said come and get your son Cause I don't want your baby to come tie me down now because you are old And I am young Yes while I'm young Yes I wanna have some fun Run me down Shootly waddle Sway, I'm broad, I'm broad I'm broad away Yes I'm broad, I'm broad

Presenter26:24

I think that Birdie, the last film you did, was a wonderful film. I'm not saying that just because you're opposing me. I think it was marvellous. I really do. And I think also what's quite remarkable about it is the placing of it. I mean, there you have a film very American set in New Jersey. And one, of course, might wonder, it begs the question, what's a lad from Islington doing understanding that much about that part of America, or indeed any part of America? Well, New Jersey and Philadelphia is, to me, I mean especially the working class areas, are not a million miles away from Islington where I grew up.

Presenter26:55

You know, the streets of Philadelphia where most of Birdie was shot was uh you know tiny little communities, little houses with their own little backyard.

Presenter27:02

And in a way I did identify with them. Never ever at any point did I feel a stranger. But I think that's also America, because it's a country that's made up of strangers. So you always feel comfortable there. I always do, anyway.

Presenter27:14

And it's just an area that I particularly like. There's something kind of.

Presenter27:18

grotty and and tacky about a lot of uh New N New Jersey and uh New Philadelphia. Philadelphia is uh America's best kept secret only when you see that half of it actually is is uh in decay.

Presenter27:30

It's very interesting to see. You're going back to uh America in the future to to make another movie? Yep, quite soon. To start the story which is half set in New York and half set in uh New Orleans. So it's uh on the jumbo jet again.

Presenter27:44

Right, back now to Birdie for your final uh choice of record on the album because again, there was a piece of music that had a particular kind of inspiration for you, wasn't there? Yeah, I I filmed a great deal uh on the boardwalk uh seaside terms of of New Jersey, an area that Bruce Springsteen writes about a great deal.

Alan Parker27:52

Okay.

Presenter28:01

And uh I think the lyrics of this song sum up a lot of my feelings for that area. This is uh The River by Bruce Springsteen.

Alan Parker28:14

We go down to the rim

Alan Parker28:18

And into the river we dive Oh, down to the river we'd ride

Alan Parker28:31

Then I got Mary Pray

Alan Parker28:35

And man, that was awesome.

Presenter28:39

Alan Parker, you're a young man still, and you've got a lot more years of film making in you. Do you think you're going to sort of mellow into an establishment filmmaker or? I think it's almost certain that that does happen to you as you get older. Yeah, in a way, I suppose you have to become that way, but I

Presenter28:54

Again, I suppose it's the background that I come from. You always have to have that anger. In a way, it's the anger that that pushes you forward and it's the reason why you do what you do.

Presenter29:02

But you have bags of time on your desert animal, of course, to contemplate the the future, if indeed you've got one on this desert analy. Would you try to escape, by the way? I think I probably would, to be honest. Yeah. I'll get uh

Presenter29:13

Fed up with my own company very quickly. In fact I'm terrified of being on my own. I don't know what that says about me. So I think almost certainly I tried to escape. Are you a practical enough fellow though to invent the means of escaping?

Alan Parker29:21

Mayu

Presenter29:24

I'm pretty good at that stuff, but I don't know how good I'll be without a black and decker or something. Right, now you've got the eight records there. Suppose that one day a wave comes along and takes seven away and you're left with just the one. Which one would you prefer to keep? I think I'll keep Day in the Life by the Beatles. Why? Well, if you have that, that means you get the whole Sergeant Pepper album, which is good, because you can listen to a lot of good music. And also, it's got a good cover, so when you're bored, you can start sorting out all those people on the front. And also, it reminds me of Annie, my wife, and my children. So I guess that's probably the thing that would worry me the most. So I'd take that one. And what about the book? You've got the Bible there, you've got the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book would you have? I don't know if I've got enough O-levels for the Shakespeare, so I don't know if I'd get a lot of pleasure out of that. I would gladly swap that for the works of Dickens, for instance. But I've got a little book of poems by John Betcherman, which I particularly like in that he's not the world's greatest poet, but there is an honesty and a simplicity and a beauty about what he writes, which I think that I would like. And also it'd be nice to read poems about Finsbury Park and Dalston and Highbury Corner when I'm on that island. Right, and finally the one luxury item.

Presenter30:36

Well, I I hate sunbathing and uh I'm terrified of uh getting burned and I always hide under a rock, so I think that I would like uh a couple of bottles of suntan lotion to make sure that my nose doesn't burn.

Presenter30:49

Alan Falker, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

Speaker 331:01

Desert Island Discs, which was devised and created by the late Roy Plumley, was introduced by Michael Parkinson, the producer was Derek Drescher.

Speaker 331:11

Alan Parker's choice of records began with Civilization, sung by Danny Kaye and the Andrew Sisters.

Speaker 331:17

That was followed by It Doesn't Matter Any More by Buddy Holly and A Day in the Life by The Beatles.

Speaker 331:23

The excerpt from the second movement of Beethoven's violin concerto in D was played by Itzag Pellmann with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Gielini.

Speaker 331:33

The fifth record was When the Music Stops by Roger Daltrey. In Paradisum from Foray's Requiem was sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Wilcox.

Speaker 331:43

The last two records were Here I Come by Barrington Levy and The River by Bruce Springsteen.

Speaker 331:51

That programme was first heard last Sunday at a quarter past twelve.

Speaker 331:55

The castaway on Desert Island Discs next Friday at five past nine is the violinist Nigel Kennedy.

Speaker 432:17

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