Maureen Lipman

Maureen Lipman0:00

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.

Maureen Lipman0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is an actress with the priceless gift of being able to make people laugh. She's been described as a female Woody Allen or the Lucille Ball of Moswell Hill. She's been a member of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she's won awards for her work in productions in the West End Theatre. On television, she became best known for her role in the series about an agony columnist called Agony. She's also a writer who chronicles a life which seems to me to be, to say the least, chaotic. She is Maureen Lippmann. Maureen, welcome. Reading your book and your your articles about just the process of living for you, I don't think in fact you would last more than a minute on this desert island.

Maureen Lipman1:10

No, no, you're absolutely right, and the sooner I get off it the better.

Presenter1:14

When you were a child in In Ho.

Presenter1:18

Were you interested in music?

Presenter1:20

A such or what?

Maureen Lipman1:21

We didn't have what you'd call a musical house. We had some of those old seventy eights, but we used to melt them down to make fruit bales out of them. And then it's difficult to get the right sound, isn't it?

Maureen Lipman1:31

So there wasn't a great deal of music around, except on s on the radio, Housewife's Choice, I remember, and and music while you work being played.

Maureen Lipman1:38

The first, I suppose, knowledge of music as it affected me was when I heard the records of Al McCogan, which had a kind of incredible effect on me, this girl with a laugh in her voice. And I suppose maybe because she was a nice Jewish girl or something, she was big in our house. And I heard her singing Dreambird. I suppose I must have been about four or five, and I began to do impersonations. And I think I was quite a precocious child, and I just know that my mother stood me on the sideboard and said, Do your Al McCogan impersonation for the visitors, which I did.

Maureen Lipman2:09

And she would sit in the wings saying, Roll your eyes, Maureen, sing out, don't forget the laugh in your voice And so I performed and in ye l years later I would think to myself, God, that's just the sort of thing I would hate as a grown-up to see a little performing midget like that. But at the time I couldn't stop doing it and then I kind of organised lots of concerts in the garage. I was a big organiser and directed shows where we would all end up saluting and singing God Save the Queen or two foot one of us.

Presenter2:37

But no doubt therefore what the first record would be.

Maureen Lipman2:40

The first record would be Al McCogan's Singing Dream Boat.

Speaker 12:43

Loo da loo.

Maureen Lipman2:49

You dream boats, you lovable dream boats, the kisses you gave me set my dreams afloat

Maureen Lipman3:00

I would sail the seven seas with you.

Maureen Lipman3:06

Even if you told me to go and try to my own thing new since

Speaker 13:12

Uh Uh

Maureen Lipman3:12

Dearly

Speaker 13:12

Uh

Presenter3:13

Omar Cogan, they're reviving memories for you of early days in Hull and the early sort of moments, I suppose, of your theatrical career.

Speaker 13:17

The early source.

Presenter3:20

You brought him in this Jewish background. Um are you still religious, or are you religious?

Maureen Lipman3:26

I suppose I'm a kind of orthodox hypocrite, really. I do the best I can under the circumstances. It's very hard for me.

Maureen Lipman3:32

to say to the West End management, I'm not coming in Friday night'cause I'm cooking the chicken. You just can't do it. So we belong to a Reformed synagogue and my children go to Sunday school in the Jewish faith and we do our best.

Presenter3:46

So that your religion and your background, I mean, does m still have something to do with the way you feel now? I mean,

Maureen Lipman3:49

Oh.

Maureen Lipman3:50

Oh, certainly, certainly. And all the fripperies, all the the sort of stage things about being Jewish are part of my life, the the Yiddishness of it, which of course is really European rather than anything essentially Jewish. But I mean I love all those Yiddish words and I love the food. I love the warmth and the feeling of belonging, but it is not number one priority in my life.

Presenter4:15

But given this background, there you were, this this Jewish family in Yorkshire I mean, wasn't it rather unlikely background for somebody who wanted to go on stage?

Maureen Lipman4:23

Well very, and I didn't think that there were any precedents in the family. In fact, recently when I was in America I discovered that

Maureen Lipman4:29

A great many of my mother's family were on the stage. They were a Russian dance group called the Boris Rydkin Troupe. And there's some wonderful pictures which I brought back with me of them all in their fur hats and pearls. So I was very relieved to hear that, because I have often thought that perhaps I was a changeling that swapped the bracelet on my wrist at birth. You know, I didn't really look like the other members of the family. Apparently I looked like a Korean refugee as a baby. I was sort of yellow, with very small eyes.

Maureen Lipman4:55

Nothing's changed, really.

Presenter4:56

Well, let's let's have a another choice of music now, uh shall we? We're we're still back in your youth, back in uh in uh in Hull.

Maureen Lipman5:03

Bye.

Maureen Lipman5:04

This is Buddy Holley, who was my brother's favourite singer. My brother being totally tone deaf, used to do wonderful impersonations of Buddy Holly. And he would have all the boys round. This is my early teens.

Maureen Lipman5:17

And this for me, I used to hang about doing my homework all night and then about eleven o'clock I'd pinch my cheeks, which my mother always told me to do before entering a room. I was literally twenty-three before I ever went in a room without thumbprints on my face. Why? Because I was pale. Blech is the word for it. I used to pinch my cheeks and put a little bit of very pale lipstick on and go downstairs with my nightie buttoned up.

Maureen Lipman5:37

And say, I'm making a coffee. Does anybody want one? Very casually, you see, longing for one of these boys to see me as something other than Jeff's little sister. Then I'd just casually hang around for a bit listening to all this chat about Dylan and Holly. And you know, they were all saying things like, you know, to be absolutely basic about this, what is life?

Maureen Lipman5:56

It it was absolutely fascinating and sophisticated to me, and this song reminds me very much of those days.

Presenter6:02

It's gold.

Maureen Lipman6:02

True Love Ways.

Presenter6:04

Just

Maureen Lipman6:05

Yeah.

Presenter6:05

Q n

Maureen Lipman6:06

No.

Presenter6:06

Oh why?

Maureen Lipman6:10

Why?

Speaker 16:10

A you and I

Speaker 16:16

We'll buy and buy

Speaker 16:21

No true love wise.

Speaker 16:27

Sometimes we'll sigh.

Presenter6:31

When do you actually first realize yourself, Maureen, that that the theatre was for you? Was there one moment as a child, as a school player, whatever, that you thought, this is for me?

Maureen Lipman6:40

Well, I think I always knew. I did say that I started acting as the placenta hit the pedal bin, and it's it feels as if it was true, but I was a bit of a rebel and a bit naughty at school, and much more concerned with making the class laugh than with actually learning anything.

Maureen Lipman6:56

The school play one year, which was directed by my English teacher, Miss Nicholson, was Doctor Faustus, and it was an all girls' school, so I was playing Doctor Faustus.

Maureen Lipman7:06

And it went tremendously well. And I think even really at that time I was absolutely sure that there was nothing else I would do. Certainly when the Careers Officer came round, I said I'm going to be an actress, and they did look a bit a scant'cause I didn't look like one.

Maureen Lipman7:22

And everybody said you must have something to fall back on.

Maureen Lipman7:25

And I said, well, I'm going to fall back on the casting couch, you see, and I've been saying it ever since I'm waiting. But I was absolutely convinced. And certainly my parents put up no objections whatsoever.

Presenter7:33

I was going to ask you about that, because it would seem to me coming from again from that kind of background that you came from, and you were clever enough to go to university, you you passed the A levels, that that there must be pressure on you to go to university, to try something else.

Maureen Lipman7:38

And you're

Maureen Lipman7:41

That was the

Maureen Lipman7:44

Yes, they did, and in fact I applied to a couple and they turned me down without seeing me, because I put on I wanted to be an actress and they were not in the business of turning out thespians, although I think they probably are now because there's more drama departments.

Maureen Lipman7:57

But what I did was apply to several drama schools, came up to town with my mother, who is of course an actress Mankay, really.

Maureen Lipman8:05

And went to see various schools, and in fact, Lambda, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, took me on.

Presenter8:11

But what about mum? A typical Jewish mother, as you say. She must have been absolutely distraught and distressed. Here was her daughter, what were you, seventeen, eighteen, down in London by herself?

Maureen Lipman8:17

Yeah.

Maureen Lipman8:18

Yes, yes, that was that was difficult. But she found me nice Jewish digs in Barron's Court. I mean, I was totally looked after and it took me a long time, a very long time, to actually achieve any level of maturity and to learn how to cope on my own. I'm still not terribly good at it, which is why this island's worrying me a bit, quite frankly.

Presenter8:37

What about your father, Byron Brown? Your mother was clearly a remarkable woman, and in your writings, in your books, she features very, very strongly as a very funny but very positive figure in your life.

Maureen Lipman8:47

Mm.

Presenter8:48

Whereby your father?

Maureen Lipman8:49

My father is also eccentric, like the rest of us. I mean, he had a tailor's shop on Monument Bridge in Hull, and his advert in the paper said Maurice Lippmann's shop is next to the docks. Drop in and see him.

Maureen Lipman9:01

Good, wasn't it? And he acquired two shops, one next to the other, very small.

Maureen Lipman9:07

And there was a step down, one step in between the two shops, and there was a huge, about five-foot sign above it saying, Ready-to-wear department downstairs. Now, there was no ready-to-wear department, and there was no downstairs, and the arrow pointed out the window. So, I used to say to him, What have you got that sign for, Dad? He said, Well, Burtons were getting rid of it, so I thought I might as well use it. And he had this shop, and he was a personality, and people used to just go in and used to say, I've got these wonderful ties, 16 quid, you get a free suit with everyone. You see, which was a lot of money in those days. So, he was well known about town.

Presenter9:40

He was also quite forgetful, your father, wasn't he, too?

Maureen Lipman9:42

Very forgetful, yes, he's still very forgetful. There was a marvellous occasion on the the day of of my wedding, actually, when um

Maureen Lipman9:50

He uh forgot to take me down the aisle. He was outside in the little anteroom with me, and he was he's a very emotional man, and he was saying, Mamma Lee,

Maureen Lipman9:58

which is what he called me Mama Lee, he said, I'm so proud of you. This is the most happy day of my life. You should only have pleasure all your life. I'll see you in there. And off he went inside the synagogue. And I had to, in my wedding dress, stick my foot in the door, pull the door out, and shout, Dad down here, Dad

Maureen Lipman10:15

This is the day you've been waiting for. Gonna walk me down the aisle Oh my God, as he came back and walked me down the aisle the happiest day of his life

Presenter10:22

I'm amazed that you got that far because there was a classic encounter, which you must uh recount now, of Jack, Jack Rosenthal, your your husband, and the first time you ever took him home to meet your mum and dad.

Maureen Lipman10:32

Yes, well I'd never been able to take a boyfriend home before really because they were not ethnic enough really and when I met Jack there was a wonderful feeling of not just falling in love but of oh thank God I can take him home and when I did take him home the first time obviously I was put in my own bedroom with the Teddies and Jack went in the box room.

Maureen Lipman10:54

And of course we'd been seeing one another in Manchester for a while and it was a little difficult, you know, to sort of sleep. And so I was kind of pacing about at one point and my mother said, Are you still awake? and I said

Maureen Lipman11:06

Yes, and she said, Come in, have a chat, I haven't seen you for ages. So I went in and sat on the edge of the bed and we began to talk. My father got a bit annoyed about oh, and he was rolling about, will you two give over? And finally he got up out of bed and he went into my room.

Maureen Lipman11:21

And I stayed with my mother for the rest of the night.

Maureen Lipman11:24

Now, meanwhile, back in the box room, mister Rosenthal, being a little restless, got himself up, crept across the creaky corridor, opened the door of my bedroom, wandered in, knelt beside the bed, kissed my dad on the back of the neck, and got into bed with him.

Maureen Lipman11:40

It's taken many years for my father to quite accept this man who's married his daughter. He's not awfully sure.

Presenter11:45

Might I wrong on

Presenter11:48

Oh, it's a wonderful story that. Knowing Jack as I do, I'd love to have seen his face. What about Jack's taste in music? Was it m Jack's love of music that wooed you?

Maureen Lipman11:56

Oh, certainly not. No. When I met Jack, he was producing and writing The Dustpin Men at that time at Granada. I was working at a little theatre attached to Granada called The Stables, which is where I first met you.

Maureen Lipman12:09

And he had three records. One was Hare, which he adored one was Morgana King, I Can Do a Trick with My Heart and the other one was The Witchetta Lineman, which kind of became our record.

Maureen Lipman12:22

But I'm not playing that one because I've heard it so often.

Presenter12:23

So what you can add at the touch?

Maureen Lipman12:25

Well, it has to be a Beatles' record. The Beatles were so instructive to me in so many ways. I mean, I discovered what life was all about through listening to Beatles' records. And John Lennon in particular.

Presenter12:39

You may say I'm a dreamer

Presenter12:45

But I'm not the only one.

Presenter12:51

I hope someday you join the

Presenter13:03

John Lennon scene Imagine

Presenter13:05

Maureen, you you've always had this ability, of course, to make people laugh. You described yourself in your book uh as being the joker in the pack, always. Where do you think it comes from? Where does it stem from? Was it, uh as in the case of m many comedians, a kind of defense mechanism when they were young? Was it?

Maureen Lipman13:19

I think so, yes. First of all, it was my way of making myself noticed.

Maureen Lipman13:24

Secondly, I do think also that it is a way of protecting yourself. If you've got sticking out teeth, it's before somebody smashes you in the teeth to make them laugh, isn't it? And the glasses came and uh the figure didn't develop till a bit too late and this sort of thing. And I I was in that role of being somebody who pretended to know about everything, you know, the wise cracking kid.

Presenter13:46

It's it seems to me to be much more difficult for a woman to be funny than a man. There's a kind of expectation in a in a man that he can go on stage and he can crack jokes and and if a woman does it, it's much more of a problem, isn't it? Why why would that be? It was.

Maureen Lipman13:55

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Lipman13:58

It was. I do think it's getting better. I think with the women's movement having made the steps they've made, that this is becoming a thing of the past. It's simply to do with losing your femininity. And if you listen to Sophie Tucker and May West, you realise they were saying the most extraordinarily lewd jokes. Getting away with it by being cod sexy in a funny sort of way. But you can't actually be

Maureen Lipman14:24

Feminine in inverted commas and funny. It doesn't work. You have to do what Joan Rivers does, which is and what I do, which is to put yourself down all the time. I don't know why it should be.

Presenter14:35

You you're one of the few women actually that tells jokes.

Maureen Lipman14:38

I tell jokes, yes. And I've never actually found in life that people objected to it, but there is a strong feeling around that men don't like women telling jokes.

Presenter14:47

You have to be careful in your choice of joke.

Maureen Lipman14:49

Well, it depends who you're with.

Presenter14:50

Tell us a joke now that might might be acceptable, do you think, to to the people listening to you on your desert island?

Maureen Lipman14:51

I check.

Maureen Lipman14:56

Well

Presenter14:56

Yeah.

Maureen Lipman14:57

I I'll tell you this one. It's it's a little bit Jewish, but I'm sure everybody'll get it. It's Mrs. Goblatt in Fortnum and Masons.

Maureen Lipman15:04

And a liveried salesman comes up to her in a top hat and tails. Can I help you, misses Goblin? she says, I want a quota chopped liver. Certainly, madam. Quarter of a pound of our finest patty de foard de graf, Mrs Goblatt. Anything else? She says, Gimme a stick of woosht.

Maureen Lipman15:18

Could you take down a piece of our finest German salami for misses Goblatt? Anything else? I want a box a lockschen. Could you take down some of our finest Italian vermichilla for misses Goblatt? Will there be anything else, madam? That's all I want. Thank you, madam. Would madame like it delivered, or will she slap it home herself?

Presenter15:37

That's a lovely joke, I don't know.

Maureen Lipman15:38

Couldn't offend anyone, could it?

Presenter15:39

Of course not. Which leads us nicely actually into somebody I know is a great favourite of yours who was uh on this next record, who was one one of the few women I suppose who actually made a living out of uh out of being humorous.

Maureen Lipman15:51

Joyce Grenfell is my heroine. One day I hope to do a show about Joyce Grenfell. For me,

Maureen Lipman15:58

Initially she was just insidiously funny. Without ever being cruel, she managed to prick bubble after bubble after bubble in a most extraordinary way.

Maureen Lipman16:07

People said that she was an enthusiastic amateur. To me she was and she never thought this about herself to me she was a great actress, and I would have said Dame Joyce Grenfeld any day of the week.

Presenter16:17

Yes, I'd I'd certainly agree with that, Dame Joyce Granford. What what particularly would you like? What kind of uh

Maureen Lipman16:21

Well, this track is called First Flight, and I choose it because

Maureen Lipman16:26

It's funny, it's real. It's also, I find, incredibly moving. It's a lady going on her first flight to America to see her son, who she hasn't seen for five years.

Maureen Lipman16:36

She's a very simple woman, and she's very frightened about the meeting, and very frightened, particularly because the girl who's married is an Afro-American, as she says.

Maureen Lipman16:46

She wants to get it right.

Maureen Lipman16:48

She writes me such lovely letters. She calls me Mother Comstock. Dear Mother Comstock. I'm misses Comstock, you see, and I I think it's nice. It's got a sort of bouncy rhythm to it, Mother Comstock.

Maureen Lipman17:01

You know, when I think of my mother in law

Maureen Lipman17:04

Well, I never called her anything for twenty five years, except, well, you know, dear, in a time of crisis.

Maureen Lipman17:10

Now and then I'd say misses C, and she liked that. I should have done it more often.

Maureen Lipman17:16

Do you think there's a place where they could watch for the plane coming in? You know, an observation terrace, don't they call it? Something like that. They have one in London Airport, I know.

Maureen Lipman17:25

Well, we are swinging round. There's a building coming into view with people like

Maureen Lipman17:30

They're there.

Maureen Lipman17:33

They're over there

Maureen Lipman17:34

Oh.

Maureen Lipman17:36

There they are.

Maureen Lipman17:38

Oh, I do hope I do it all right.

Maureen Lipman17:40

I just want to do it right.

Presenter17:43

Joyce Grantville in a sketch called First Flight. Have you got one particular favourite comedy role that you've played on stage, say, that sticks in your mind?

Maureen Lipman17:52

Yes, I played in a a play which was later put on television called Outside Edge, which was a play about criminal.

Presenter17:57

I love that play, yeah.

Maureen Lipman17:59

And the character in that, what I loved about it, she was a big woman, a bricklayer, with a tiny little husband, and she came on looking like the most extraordinary thing you've ever seen, with her hair stuck up and big glasses and a gash of lipstick, and a big possum fur coat and very little underneath, and a big pair of stacked shoes, and this tiny husband she used to pick him up. Ooh, I love him, my little Kev. And she said to him, Oh, you look lovely in white, Kev. If your little legs had a been a bit longer, you'd have made a lovely bride. And she was obsessed with him, and it was such a joy to play night after night. And still, hardly a week goes by that I don't go in the grocery's shop, because it was on television later, and someone says, How's your little Kev then? and I just adored it.

Presenter18:39

When you're doing a part like that, is there called creating a part like that? Is there one moment where the character clicks in? I mean, remember Guinness saying that he had to get the walk right before he could ever get into a character's part. Is there a similar kind of thing for you?

Maureen Lipman18:47

Before it could ever get

Maureen Lipman18:51

That's true, yes. You have to get the legs right. It's terribly important. The legs are so important. If ever I'm doing.

Presenter18:54

Under the legs.

Maureen Lipman18:57

My Margaret Thatcher impersonation. I have to do the Here's My Head, Me Bums Following, In a Minute Walk, you see. And with um the character that I played in See How They Run the Fast. There was a moment in rehearsal when Ray Cooney said to me, Litman, he said, you've got comedy legs and from that moment on the legs began to perform on their own, and it was the legs that won the award, not me.

Presenter19:17

Okay, let's have another record now. Record number five.

Maureen Lipman19:21

This is uh Dori Previn, and this comes from a period in my life when I started listening to lyrics. And this is a poem really. It's called Lady with the Braid.

Maureen Lipman19:38

I don't know what made me say that I've got this funny sense of humor You know I could not be downhearted If I tried, if I tried It's just the calling home is such a ride

Presenter19:59

Maureen Agony on television uh was tremendously successful. It also of course broadened out your appeal. We g created a new audience for you. You became that thing a celebrity, didn't you? So game shows and

Speaker 120:09

Injured.

Speaker 120:11

Yeah

Presenter20:11

became chat show hostess for the most as I suppose. Did that change your life tremendously?

Maureen Lipman20:16

Not really, no. My mother always says you can say what you like about that agony, but it put you on the map.

Maureen Lipman20:21

Um and I suppose it did.

Maureen Lipman20:24

Certainly I didn't go out and get mobbed, let's put it that way. I I lead a very sort of simple life and that didn't change. What it did do is it enabled me to open bazaars and that always gives you a lot of material. If you go as I did once into a open a fate, make a speech for ten minutes and then walk round buying cakes, I came to a stall and a lady said to who was serving on the stall said to me, Oh, oh, I do know your face and the other woman said to her, I've you gone mad, she's just opened the fate, this is Miriam Carlin and that sort of thing happened a lot and you get to tell these self-deprecating stories about

Speaker 120:54

And that sort of thing happened.

Maureen Lipman20:59

going into a sweep shop in York with my brother, who's always been pretty scathing until recently about my career, and the lady behind the counter said, Oh, aren't you that girl in ugly?

Maureen Lipman21:08

And I was a bit peeved about that, and I said, No. I know I know I look like her, but I'm not. Oh she said, you sound like her as well, exactly. I said, Yes, a lot of people tell me that, but I'm not really.

Maureen Lipman21:19

She said, well, I bet you're glad she's not much of an actress, is she? So, I mean, it does give you I think the great thing about living in England is you can never get really big-headed.

Speaker 121:22

See I mean

Maureen Lipman21:28

Because you can only reach a certain stage before everybody starts going for you.

Presenter21:31

Yeah.

Maureen Lipman21:32

And I feel at the moment this is just around the corner.

Presenter21:34

You think the knives are out?

Maureen Lipman21:34

Uh

Maureen Lipman21:36

I think so, yes. You've got to keep a very low profile when you're doing a lot, because what happens is that people start asking you for your opinions, and if you're a loudmouthed person, you give them. And when somebody from some paper rings up and says, I'm doing an article on evenings, could you give me a quote?

Maureen Lipman21:50

And you find yourself saying, Well, I think it fills a nice gap between the afternoon and the night. And the next day you read it and you think, God, what did I say that for? You know, so you do become a bit of a person. And I enjoy shows like Give Us a Clue and Call My Bluff. There are a lot that I've been on that I haven't enjoyed at all. I don't like losing someone a thousand pounds. It stays with me for weeks. I get palpitations in the night.

Presenter22:10

Let let me throw an opinion at you, a quote at you now, and see what you uh

Presenter22:15

What you make of it. You s you say in in uh in your book, which is called How Was It for You? I love the subtitle, Home Thoughts from Abroad.

Presenter22:23

That behind every success story there's a guilt complex.

Presenter22:27

What does that mean?

Maureen Lipman22:29

Well, I don't know what drives you, Michael. I I wish I knew what drives me to do the the amount of things I do.

Maureen Lipman22:36

I don't believe that you can be all things to all persons, but it is the current trend to try.

Maureen Lipman22:42

And people are always saying to me, How do you manage to be a wife, a mother, a writer, an actress? And I literally have to say, because I do them all.

Maureen Lipman22:51

less than the standards to which I strive. We are living in an age where, particularly for women, we've got to prove that we can go out to work and still get the casserole in the oven and still be there in the black neglige at night. It's just out of the question. And therefore all these magazines keep telling us that other people do it. I don't believe it. People like me are running around chasing our tails and trying to prove that we can be everything. It's absolutely exhausting.

Presenter23:16

Alright, let's have uh another record now.

Maureen Lipman23:20

In my late twenties I discovered I'd never heard really any opera. Certainly it didn't permit our house the minute that anything like that came on the television. The minute anyone went oh it was switched over very quickly. But late later on I discovered through driving along with my cassette player in the car that actually you could sing opera and act brilliantly and I discovered that through listening to Maria Callas and I know there's an awful lot of purist talk about whether she actually was the greatest singer but for me she was a brilliant singer who made acting

Maureen Lipman23:51

Part of her singing and it went through me like a wire. So I've chosen Maria Kellas and it's a piece from Carmen, not because I think that was probably her greatest role, but because I've seen so many Carmen's in the last few years and it always thrills me. I loved the Spanish dance in Carmen, I loved the film of Carmen, so this is bringing that kind of Spanish extravaganza and my love for Maria Kellas together.

Speaker 124:15

Situ, situation.

Speaker 124:31

Yeah.

Speaker 124:35

Yeah.

Speaker 125:00

It's leisure time, it's leisure to hear any.

Presenter25:16

Do you actually go to the opera?

Maureen Lipman25:18

No, I have been to the opera, but I find it pompous. I did enjoy Gleinbourne once, and that was mainly because a bat got in.

Maureen Lipman25:26

And made its presence very felt on the stage, and that suited me down to the ground.

Presenter25:31

What about what about classical music as such? I mean, do you have any great love for it or?

Maureen Lipman25:35

Yes, I do. It's the music I play all the time. I have quite a strong melancholy streak, I think all comics have.

Maureen Lipman25:41

And

Maureen Lipman25:42

This music, particularly this next one that w we're going to play, is one that I just never tire of, and there are very few pieces of music that you can say that about.

Presenter25:52

And what is it?

Maureen Lipman25:53

It's Beethoven's triple concerto.

Presenter26:55

Do you like the idea of this desert island?

Maureen Lipman26:57

I don't, no, not a bit. I think I'll be all right for a little while, but I'm very, very non-practical and it's not getting any better. I thought when we moved house I might, you know, improve, but in fact I still don't even know how the central heating works. So I would be useless really without mister Rosenthal to tell me what to do.

Presenter27:15

You wouldn't survive in other words.

Maureen Lipman27:15

I wouldn't survive, no.

Presenter27:17

In that short time you have left to there on this desert island before you expire, what would you take to read? What would be the book?

Maureen Lipman27:21

What was

Maureen Lipman27:24

Well, I've chosen the complete Jane Austen. And again, it's really for the same reasons as I love Joyce Grenfell. It's that insidious wit.

Maureen Lipman27:34

And that

Maureen Lipman27:35

extraordinary delineation of character and to think she was writing when she was writing and with as little life experience as she had, to be able to carve people up the way she did. And when she loved someone, she really made that character. I mean, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, two of the greatest characters around.

Presenter27:52

What luxury item would you take on the island?

Maureen Lipman27:55

I want a parking meter and a year's supply of tickets.

Maureen Lipman28:00

And if you'll allow me to, I want a little gipsy caravan not parked near the meter.

Maureen Lipman28:05

And I'm going to have a wooden floor in it and I'm going to tap my days away until I'm rescued. I know that's rather a lot all at once, but I that's my little corner of civilization which I shall stick to.

Presenter28:14

A parking meter and a caravan. A woman of simple choices, you are. One last record, Maureen.

Maureen Lipman28:20

This is the bell song from Lacmei, sung by Made Mesplay. I think if I'm on an island I'm going to have to get pretty interested in birds, which I could easily do. I love birds, although I'm never allowed to have one in the house, it's a superstition, which was drilled into me by my mother that they were unlucky. But this song, this beautiful tinkling song, I think might get me in communication with the birds on the island. I'm going to teach them all to say.

Maureen Lipman28:44

Can we have a new government, please? Because I'm retiring to Dulwich, you see. I'm going to teach all the birds to speak like Mrs. Thatcher. And maybe then I can start talking to the animals and harness turtle power.

Speaker 128:56

Uh

Presenter29:56

That was the bell aria from Lachme, sung by Made Mesplain.

Presenter30:00

Of all the records you've chosen, is the one that you'd want to keep? S let's say sort of a tidal wave came in and took seven away and left one, which one would you want to keep?

Maureen Lipman30:07

Left

Maureen Lipman30:09

I will keep the triple concerto because.

Maureen Lipman30:12

I think somehow having the human voice with me.

Maureen Lipman30:16

might upset me and also because it is such a testament of

Maureen Lipman30:22

Man's genius that Beethoven could write that kind of music without hearing the sounds.

Presenter30:27

And supposing they found you on the island in your little caravan on your parking meter there.

Maureen Lipman30:31

Yeah.

Presenter30:31

And uh sadly you've gone. Would there be an epitaph you'd like to leave behind?

Maureen Lipman30:36

I think I'm going to have She was only a tailor's daughter, but she had em all in stitches.

Speaker 130:41

Oh.

Presenter30:41

Yeah.

Speaker 130:41

Ha ha ha.

Maureen Lipman30:42

I thought very long and hard about that because

Speaker 130:42

Oh wait.

Speaker 130:44

Of course you did.

Maureen Lipman30:45

There is a there's a a phrase that people always use up north, which is this is it.

Maureen Lipman30:50

Now what does that mean? You tell someone something on the phone and say, well this is it. And and I was very torn between that and but I'll I'll stick to the tailors I think.

Presenter30:57

I should. I think it's wonderful. It'd look great on a tombstone there. Maureen Lippmann, thank you very much for being our castaway this.

Maureen Lipman31:03

Thank you very much. I loved it.

Speaker 331:14

Desert Island Discs, which was created by the late Roy Plumley, was introduced by Michael Parkinson.

Speaker 331:19

The producer was Derek Drescher.

Speaker 331:22

Maureen Lippmann's first record was Dream Boat, sung by Alma Cogan. This was followed by Buddy Holly's True Love Ways and John Lennon's Imagine.

Speaker 331:32

The monologue First Flight was by Joyce Grenfell.

Speaker 331:35

The fifth record was Dori Preven's The Lady with the Braid.

Speaker 331:39

The albignera from Bizet's Carmen was sung by Maria Callas and the René Duclo chorus with the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Jos Pret.

Speaker 331:48

The soloists in the excerpt from Beethoven's Triple Concerto were David Oustrach, violin, Mistislav Rostropovich, cello, and Sviatislav Wichter, piano, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajal.

Speaker 332:02

The final record was the Bell Aria from Lacmay by Delibe, sung by Madame Mesplay with the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Jean Pierre Maty.

Speaker 332:21

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts.

Maureen Lipman32:26

Podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.