Jane Lapotaire

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 1986, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

A Castaway Today is by common consent one of our finest actresses. Her versatility has allowed her to play the widest possible range of roles on both stage and television. She's played the classics and starred in musicals and a thriller. Her repertoire includes Cleopatra, Jonah Bach, Lady Macbeth, the newspaper Agoniant and Edith Piaf. In fact, it was her portrayal of Piaf that made her a star both here and in America. She's Jane Lappotaire.

Presenter0:56

Jane, welcome. Are you going to enjoy this desert island, do you think? I mean, will you cope?

Jane Lapotaire1:00

Oh, I think initially it will be like the most wonderful holiday I could ever have imagined. Sun, sand, peace and quiet. I'm a very private person.

Jane Lapotaire1:10

And I'm quite practical, so I'll be able to kind of make myself a shelter and I don't know how start a fire, but I will enjoy the solitude.

Jane Lapotaire1:20

And I will enjoy the sun. I'm a bit of a sun worshipper on the quiet tomb.

Presenter1:24

Will you be waiting for the phone to ring to offer you the next part?

Jane Lapotaire1:26

Oh no.

Presenter1:27

I

Jane Lapotaire1:28

Hate.

Presenter1:28

Fail.

Jane Lapotaire1:29

In fact, one of my greatest joys in life is to hear the phone ring and not answer it.

Speaker 41:34

Really?

Jane Lapotaire1:34

I think they can't get me, they can't get me. I'm not going to answer that one.

Jane Lapotaire1:38

No, I'm really not. Um

Jane Lapotaire1:41

I suppose because after a certain while in the entertainment industry

Jane Lapotaire1:48

You don't really wait for the phone to ring any more. You know that you've got the next three months without any work, because after that you've got a job lined up, hopefully.

Jane Lapotaire1:57

You just have to get on with ordinary living when you're not working.

Presenter2:04

More to life than just working.

Jane Lapotaire2:05

Absolutely.

Presenter2:06

Let's have a first choice of record.

Jane Lapotaire2:09

Well, I would like my desert island morning to start in the gentlest possible way. I'm not a good early morning person.

Jane Lapotaire2:17

Very wise to give me a wide berth. So it has to be Vivaldi. Almost any Vivaldi will do.

Jane Lapotaire2:24

But this is the concerto in the C major for obos and clarinets.

Speaker 42:47

Hello.

Presenter3:29

Jane, as we listened there to Vivaldi, you you mentioned that you had this also subconscious reason why in fact you chose him. Why is it?

Jane Lapotaire3:36

Yes, it's not just because Vivaldi always makes me feel happy, and because it reminds me of Venice, which is one of my most favourite places in the world. He was also an orphan, Vivaldi, and it was through the care and financial support of the orphanage that he was given his initial musical training.

Presenter3:53

And this ties in with your life, of course.

Jane Lapotaire3:55

Well

Jane Lapotaire3:56

Just very slightly. I mean, I haven't empathy with people who start from nothing and make something of their lives.

Presenter4:03

But what was your background? Tell me about it.

Jane Lapotaire4:06

It's a bit difficult to talk about it without it sounding like some kind of awful tragedy. It wasn't. I, like a lot of other people my age, was a war baby. I don't know who my father was. He was quite possibly an American GI.

Jane Lapotaire4:19

The good thing about my childhood is that I did have the constancy and stability of the most wonderful foster mother.

Jane Lapotaire4:27

who started looking after me when I was two months old.

Jane Lapotaire4:30

My grandfather was a Welsh jockey.

Jane Lapotaire4:34

And he was riding in France when the First World War broke out in fact used to ride for Edward the Seventh, and is indeed buried in the Jockey Cemetery in Epsom.

Jane Lapotaire4:44

And he stayed in France during the war and married a French woman, had my mother and her brother.

Jane Lapotaire4:49

And uh my mother was eventually shipped over to England when uh

Jane Lapotaire4:54

Both her parents died, and was put into doctor Bernardo's, at which point this old lady from Suffolk, from Ipswich, Grace Chisnell,

Jane Lapotaire5:04

took seven girls, one of whom was my mother.

Jane Lapotaire5:07

And in turn, when my mother had me and left me with this old lady, my mother's foster mother became my foster mother.

Presenter5:13

You must be a very remarkable woman.

Jane Lapotaire5:14

She was. She was, I think, what we would call, Michael, the salt of the earth.

Presenter5:18

Hmm.

Jane Lapotaire5:19

Not very educated, but a heart of gold, no nonsense.

Presenter5:23

Huh.

Jane Lapotaire5:23

Oh, no nonsense at all.

Presenter5:25

What about your what I think they call blood mother? I mean, w what happened to her? Did you see her when you were living with your foster mother?

Jane Lapotaire5:31

Well, I saw her, I believe, the first time when I was four. I don't remember it. And I don't actually remember her being my mother. I do remember, like children often have very odd snippets of memories that they keep. I do remember that my foster mother taught me to say a prayer, which was God bless Mummy, Mummy Grace, Pat and Doris and all kind friends well, Pattendorris were two of the remaining Doctor Bernardo girls. I didn't realise that Mummy and Mummy Grace were two separate people. I thought that was just the way you talked to God. You had to repeat things.'Cause I called my foster mother Mummy Grace and I didn't realise that Mummy and Mummy Grace were two separate people.

Jane Lapotaire6:09

But she did turn up when I was about four, and then I do have a clear recollection of seeing her again when I was six.

Jane Lapotaire6:16

and again when I was eight. And then finally I went home. Home then was North Africa, because my stepfather Lapotaire worked for Elf, the French government oil company.

Jane Lapotaire6:28

So I had a very bizarre, extreme childhood, where I had a working class upbringing. We had no bathroom in my foster mother's house, no television, no telephone. She used to put the water into the copper on Friday morning and heat it up with the fire underneath and bring in the old zinc bath from outside and bucket the hot water into the bath.

Jane Lapotaire6:49

And I went from that oh, and of course no inside toilet you know, the toilet was next to the coal shed and then I went from that to a completely French environment where my mother and stepfather had house boy and cars and beach parties and and the complete sort of French colonial existence.

Presenter7:07

Let's have another choice of record, Jan.

Jane Lapotaire7:10

Well, this has got nothing to do with uh France, but it's got a lot to do with my younger days.

Jane Lapotaire7:16

It has to be the Supremes. Following my early morning Vivaldi, I think if I listened to The Supremes I'd probably manage to shake my body into a few exercises. Otherwise I'd go completely to pieces on my desert island.

Jane Lapotaire7:28

And I wanted something from the Supremes that wasn't.

Jane Lapotaire7:31

A miserable love song. This is a happy love song. It hasn't got as much tambourine in it as I normally like,'cause I always fancy myself in the background banging away at one of those things. It's the happening.

Speaker 47:41

Hey Life! Look at me!

Speaker 47:44

I can see the wheel shook me, took me out of my word, I walked out.

Speaker 47:52

Suddenly I just wore with that.

Speaker 47:55

To the happy When you find it that you love the world you'll be happy Cause when you got it in that love you don't take care of

Speaker 48:06

Say me better than wearer

Presenter8:12

Jane, going back to your childhood, do your mother ever try to attempt to win you back, to get you back legally, as her daughter?

Jane Lapotaire8:18

Yes, she did, Michael, and fortunately

Jane Lapotaire8:22

She didn't try that until after I'd passed my eleven plus.

Jane Lapotaire8:27

Because by then the local child welfare department of the Suffolk County Council had taken me into their care. I don't mean that they'd moved me from my foster mother's house, but that I I remember passing the 11 plus and coming home and finding my foster mother in tears on the kitchen chair. I said, Oh, I failed, I failed. She said, No, you haven't, no, you haven't, you passed. I said, Well, why are you crying? She said, Well, I don't know who's going to pay for the uniform. So they took care of paying for my school uniform.

Jane Lapotaire8:54

And had I not gone to grammar school, I think the child welfare people would have insisted that I return to my mother. I I'm very passionate about this. If I see an article in a newspaper

Jane Lapotaire9:05

where a foster child is dragged screaming from their foster parent in order to be put back with the real mother.

Jane Lapotaire9:13

It presses a button in me. Blood is not thicker than water.

Jane Lapotaire9:17

Fortunately I was twelve, fortunately my opinion was taken into account, and I said, But this woman is my mother.

Jane Lapotaire9:24

This is the woman I've known all my life. This is the woman I want to stay with. Sure, I can see my mum on holiday, and I you know, in no way was I being vengeful or punishing her. I just wanted to stay with what I knew.

Presenter9:36

Ta-da.

Jane Lapotaire9:36

And where the love and care deep

Presenter9:36

And where the love and care deem.

Jane Lapotaire9:38

Uh

Presenter9:38

Well what interests me, of course, is from this background then, you're there there you are, you're illegitimate, you're with this old lady living in the street and no toilet and all that nonsense. I mean, whatever gave you the arrogance to believe you could be an actress from that background.

Jane Lapotaire9:50

God knows. I don't know where it came from. I mean, actually, originally, Michael.

Jane Lapotaire9:55

Arrogance was my word. You're absolutely right. Um I wanted to write.

Presenter9:59

Did you?

Jane Lapotaire10:00

as English literature was my scholarship and A level subject at school.

Jane Lapotaire10:05

And I had no inclination to act other than, I think, a little foray at the local Methodist Chapel, because my foster mother was a Methodist, and that was my only kind of social entertainment, was going to the Youth Club or going to Methodist Chapel twice on a Sunday, in the morning and the evening.

Jane Lapotaire10:22

And I was involved in a couple of plays there, but I never took it very seriously. And then as a dare, I went along to a grammar school when I was in the sixth form, to a grammar school audition for Toad of Toad Hall. Only as a dare, and I got the part of Toad. I couldn't believe it.

Jane Lapotaire10:38

And then of course after that came Juliet, and by then the bug had bitten.

Speaker 410:41

Lily.

Jane Lapotaire10:41

But I really wanted to write. I wanted to be a journalist. I still want to write.

Speaker 410:44

Yeah.

Jane Lapotaire10:46

So I'm really not a dyed-in-the-wall actress, I never have been, and I'm very grateful for what my job has brought me.

Jane Lapotaire10:52

I'm very much concerned to keep

Jane Lapotaire10:55

every other iron in the fire that I can.

Presenter10:58

Let's have another choice of record.

Jane Lapotaire11:00

It's another women's group, wouldn't you know? Here I come waving my feminist banner.

Jane Lapotaire11:06

It's a group called the Roaches, and they sing unaccompanied, this little number.

Jane Lapotaire11:11

It's the nearest I can get to some religious music, Michael.

Jane Lapotaire11:15

Quiet times in churches are very important to me. I don't go to regular church services. One of the joys of Saint Joan.

Jane Lapotaire11:22

Was that we opened it in York. So my hotline to Peace and Quiet was just round the corner. Sometimes I used to listen to Evensong.

Jane Lapotaire11:29

But this is the nearest that I get in my choice of records to religious music, and here they are singing the Hallelujah Chorus.

Speaker 411:37

He shall reign and he shall reign and he shall reign and he shall reign forever and ever King of

Presenter11:37

Teacher rain, teacher rant.

Jane Lapotaire11:42

Help free channeling forever and ever.

Speaker 411:49

Forever and ever. Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Presenter11:53

Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Speaker 411:55

And he shall reign forever, forever and ever.

Presenter11:55

And he shall reign forever.

Speaker 412:00

King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Presenter12:07

Jane, when you announce to an Astonish World that you want to be in that distance, people try and put you off.

Jane Lapotaire12:11

Oh, yes, my headmistress at grammar school said she hoped I'd grow out of this juvenile phobia of wanting to act and do something sensible with my life.

Jane Lapotaire12:19

Both my mother and my stepfather didn't want me to do it, but my dear old foster mother stood by me every inch of the way.

Jane Lapotaire12:25

I realized, actually, Michael, thinking about what it was that made me want to act, when I'd been such a dedicated and determined writer,

Jane Lapotaire12:33

is that it was as corny and as big a cliche as if I couldn't have the two people in my life who were supposed to love me.

Jane Lapotaire12:40

my mother and my father, then I would have five hundred people who didn't know me love me. Also, the theatre is an extremely demonstrative place.

Jane Lapotaire12:50

For my first six years I belonged only to companies, and that did become a family substitute, the company.

Presenter12:56

Yes. The Bristol Vic School was the first company you joined. What kind of memories do you have of that organisation?

Jane Lapotaire13:02

Oh, I loved it. I mean, I feel far more at home in Bristol than I ever did in Ipswich, where I was born and brought up.

Jane Lapotaire13:08

And I still have lots of contacts there. It's a beautiful city. I mean, the joy of being a student and living in one of those Regency flats I remember my first flat in Bristol was four pounds ten shillings a week.

Speaker 413:17

Yeah.

Jane Lapotaire13:21

and I had the balcony flat of one of those Regency terraces that was only a stone's throw away from the suspension bridge.

Jane Lapotaire13:28

And of course being a drama student in a city where there was a university, I kind of got both sides of the coin in that we had lecturers from the university come to the school. So I didn't really feel that I'd missed out on my academic

Jane Lapotaire13:43

Future, although I do regret slightly, it's about the only thing in my life I do regret never having done a degree, but there's still time. I mean, people do degrees when they're seventy-five, don't they?

Presenter13:51

Then then you went to the National Theatre, didn't you? Yes. Was that sort of odd jobbing and things like that, or what?

Jane Lapotaire13:56

Oh no, I was jolly lucky. Oh gosh, I was lucky. Um

Jane Lapotaire13:59

I mean having gone to drama school on a full county council grant because of my A level results.

Jane Lapotaire14:05

and then having gone straight from the Old Vic school, which was a two year training period, then into the Old Vic company for two years,

Jane Lapotaire14:12

I was asked to audition for Laurence Olivier, it was the most frightening thing imaginable.

Jane Lapotaire14:17

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. He tried to put me at my ease. I remember him sitting on a trestle table in his shirt sleeves and a pair of bright yellow braces, swinging his legs, and I just thought, Oh gosh, the more he tries to put me at my ease,

Jane Lapotaire14:30

The worse I'm getting. There was no kind of connection between my brain and my mouth.

Jane Lapotaire14:35

Well, I got the job, so my first six years in the business were totally in two classical theatre companies. So I had the experience that most young actors just don't have today. I had the chance to work with or observe people like Schofield, Gielgood, Peter Hall, Jan Ploweright, Maggie Smith, George McEwen. And I had six years of continuity.

Jane Lapotaire14:59

Whereby I knew, and in the early days Laurence Livier ran his company very much as a company, that if you got ten lines and you did them well, then you get twenty five in the next play. And he was very much the old actor manager. You got your half bottle of champagne with a little handwritten note if you had to go on as the understudy. He knew that you were going on.

Presenter15:10

Hmm.

Jane Lapotaire15:17

It wasn't an impersonal building. There weren't three theatres. There was just one theatre, the beautiful old big.

Presenter15:23

Mm.

Jane Lapotaire15:24

And it was very much a family feeling there. Everyone knew everyone else.

Presenter15:28

You did the mention of Venice, didn't you, with uh with Olivier. How daunting is it working with someone like as as as a young actress?

Jane Lapotaire15:30

But yeah.

Jane Lapotaire15:35

Well, actually, my very first job at the National was to play his daughter in Dance of Death and his wife in Flea in Her Ear.

Jane Lapotaire15:43

Now I was taking over in Dance of Death, but in Flea in Her Ear he took over, so the boot on the other foot was. In Dance of Death, I mean, I don't remember anything about my first performance, because it happened in the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. I don't remember anything about it at all.

Jane Lapotaire16:00

except concentrating on trying to keep my knees from jiggling up and down. That was my biggest worry. Then I thought, well, at least I'm wearing a long dress and they can't see it. I don't remember anything. I just said the words and came off and went on and said the words and came off.

Jane Lapotaire16:13

But he had to take over in Flea and her ear, and he played the part of a butler.

Jane Lapotaire16:18

So I saw him experience exactly w what I had just gone through and didn't realise that someone of his calibre would suffer those kind of nerves. But of course it's worse,'cause the higher you go, the more you stand to lose. He had his script on a music stand in the wings, with his spectacle case nailed to it. He used to put his specs on, read the next few lines, rush on stage and say them, and then come back off again. Of course it was a terrible experience for him in that he he was used to playing big roles. So to play a butler with two lines here and three lines there and four lines there must have been a nightmare for him.

Presenter16:50

Let's have another choice of uh record, Jen.

Jane Lapotaire16:54

Well, I'd like an aria from an opera I have to honestly admit I've never heard.

Jane Lapotaire17:00

A tape was given to me when I was learning to sing some while ago.

Jane Lapotaire17:03

And this aria from Puccini's Larondine was on it.

Jane Lapotaire17:08

Not

Jane Lapotaire17:09

Really, in all honesty, my favourite voice is the tenor voice. I do think a tenor voice is very thrilling.

Jane Lapotaire17:15

But actually on my desert island I would like to play this and open my mouth and pretend that it's coming out of my mouth, because I think it's one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard.

Speaker 417:47

Uh

Presenter18:26

Jim, we talked about some of the great actors and actresses that you've worked with and witnessed. What about the directors? And I'd like I'm interested to in the relationship the actor has to the director. You work with one of my favorite people actually, know my director, Jonathan Miller.

Presenter18:39

Do you find him stimulating?

Jane Lapotaire18:40

Oh, enormously. Enormously. I've worked with Jonathan twice now on the production that you mentioned with Sir Lawrence's.

Jane Lapotaire18:48

Shylock

Jane Lapotaire18:50

And then I had the pleasure of working with him again quite recently when he directed Antony and Cleopatra for television.

Jane Lapotaire18:55

He really is.

Jane Lapotaire18:57

I know people have called him the Renaissance man that's a terribly pompous title for a very unpompous human being. And he came into rehearsal one day to direct Antony and Cleopatra, and under his arm was a book on pond life, Darwin's Origin of the Species, and Georgian Architecture.

Jane Lapotaire19:15

And I said, Jonathan, he said, oh, well, you see, I'm going to give this lecture about architecture afterwards, and I'm just rewriting some of Darwin's theory, you know.

Jane Lapotaire19:25

He is so unassuming and has such a variety of interests that

Jane Lapotaire19:32

I love him. I love him. I think he's a wonderful human being, and he's so generous with his knowledge, too. You never feel like you're a complete idiot, or you're unschooled, or you're unintelligent. He shares his knowledge with you in the nicest possible way.

Presenter19:45

What is that relationship though between the actor and the director? I mean, at its best, is it that kind of admiration you feel for Miller? Or is it something else? Is it perhaps somebody who's more determined with you, definite, drives you on?

Presenter19:57

Expose the things he knew he didn't know were there.

Jane Lapotaire19:59

Yes, I think I would have to plump for the latter ultimately.

Jane Lapotaire20:04

I like directors who say to me, No, no, we know you can do that easily. I don't want that, and I don't want that. I want this much more difficult thing right down the middle. I like people who make me stretch myself, who make me work in areas that I have not worked in before, and who demand a hundred and one per cent.

Presenter20:22

Let's have another choice of record.

Jane Lapotaire20:25

I have to have a John Lennon record, for many reasons.

Jane Lapotaire20:30

Not just because listening to him sing would remind me of my teenage years.

Jane Lapotaire20:36

I was in New York.

Jane Lapotaire20:37

When John Lennon was shot.

Jane Lapotaire20:40

and I was quite flabbergasted.

Jane Lapotaire20:44

By the impact that his death had on me, I think, like a lot of people of my generation.

Jane Lapotaire20:49

I grieved for that man. I mourned for that man. It was like the passing of a whole generation's youth, and our ideals and our beliefs, and the kind of whole peace and love movement that he'd uh encapsulated. I think he was a very special human being. He was also a rebel. I loved the rebel side of Lenin. I love the fact that he just cocked a snook at the establishment. So it's imagine.

Speaker 421:16

You missed it.

Speaker 421:22

But I'm not the only one.

Speaker 421:28

I hope someday you join

Presenter21:40

Jane, you mentioned that when you heard of Lennar's death you were actually in New York where you were rehearsing Piaf. Now that was a show that made you a star actually both here in Britain and and in New York. You did everything for what three years, wasn't it? Yes.

Jane Lapotaire21:53

Fields.

Presenter21:53

Three years. How how much a part of your life did it become, that part?

Jane Lapotaire21:58

Well, physically it became...

Jane Lapotaire22:01

Oh, a good ninety percent of my life I was riddled with um

Jane Lapotaire22:05

Symptoms of rheumatism and arthritis. I couldn't pick up a cup in a normal way because for an hour and a half every evening I'd practice putting my hands into a rheumatic position. It was very difficult to shake away a physical memory like it is an emotional one. So and also it took a terrible toll on me. I mean people used to say to me, How extraordinary. I mean you look so small on stage. I say, Yes, well I play it with my knees bent. I mean my osteopath and a masseur that I had in New York made a fortune out of my performance as PF because I was just knotted up twenty four hours a day.

Jane Lapotaire22:42

Um the strain that singing takes on the body.

Presenter22:45

You had to learn how to sing, didn't you?

Jane Lapotaire22:46

Yes, I did. I spent six months before I started rehearsing the play.

Jane Lapotaire22:50

in a a workshop at Covent Garden that was made up of opera singers and actors, and it was fascinating for us actors to watch the opera singers be able to do an exercise twenty five times on the same breath.

Jane Lapotaire23:01

And then they would be flabbergasted to watch us do what we call mirror exercises, take a Shakespeare sonnet, do the first five lines in one emotion, then count silently to fifteen, do the next five words in another emotion, all the time mirroring somebody else's movement, because they're used to singing and then picking up a teacup and then singing again and then sitting down. So it was a very interesting sort of um fertile cross

Jane Lapotaire23:26

Exchange

Presenter23:27

Another choice of record, please, Jane.

Jane Lapotaire23:30

Well, Michaela, I'm not going to choose a Piaf record. I I don't think um I could stop myself sobbing into my empty coconut shells if I did, but I'll get as near it as I dare. This is a lovely song by Juliet Greco that I knew from living with my family in North Africa. And what's extra lovely about hearing it again now is that actually it's a middle-aged woman's revenge. Juliette Greco in the song is talking about she's saying um

Jane Lapotaire24:00

Young girl, you think it's going to stay like that? Your little waist and the rose bloom on your cheek and uh your beautifully enamelled nails will round the corner, the wrinkles are waiting, and the great lumps of fat and the three chins. So I think I would feel less lonely hearing Juliet Greco singing this song, and at least I wouldn't have a mirror, so I wouldn't see kind of the years um hopefully not years, but just the months wearing me away. And at least if even if I knew they were, I'd be in very good company.

Speaker 424:28

The label

Speaker 424:30

House avon.

Speaker 424:33

Les Bourge de Faitre Salais et La Naitre Touron tour Saint Rong Maitrois ma petite du Marcha tour droi Verscotu vois part

Presenter24:51

Jane, as I said, Piaf made you a star not only here, but in in America. Was there any sense in which perhaps you were beguiled by what happened to you in America? I mean, did you enjoy being the celebrity? Because they're very good at making you feel like the celebrity there, aren't they?

Jane Lapotaire25:05

Yes, sir. I mean it's very nice to be standing in a queue in a restaurant, have the Metro D come and haul you out, and say, Oh, please go and sit down at the table.

Jane Lapotaire25:12

But you've got to keep your feet on the ground in our business. I mean, use the word star. I don't know what that word means other than when I go to the theatre.

Jane Lapotaire25:20

and I see some one like Maggie Smith, I can feel an awe and a charisma and an electricity, a danger that comes from that very exciting actress, oh, and many others like her.

Jane Lapotaire25:31

I could never ever describe myself in that way, because I don't know what people received from me when I work.

Jane Lapotaire25:37

Um and really

Jane Lapotaire25:38

I mean, the bottom line is a star is somebody who puts bottoms on seats. And I've been renowned for keeping people away from the theatre in their droves.

Jane Lapotaire25:49

It isn't that easy to be beguiled by it, you know, especially if you're a mum. You know, I go home from people standing up, throwing flowers on the stage when I do Piaf in New York, and my son says, Well, it's Sports Day tomorrow, and you said you'd sew the button on my school shorts, and you haven't done that. And I think, Yeah, absolutely, you know, that's that's where I'm at, that's where I'm at. Of course, I'm flattered, and I'm very grateful for the attention that Piaf gave me, in that, in real terms, it meant that I could turn down rubbish.

Jane Lapotaire26:23

It didn't mean anything in terms of money other than I could put down

Presenter26:23

Didn't

Jane Lapotaire26:26

A deposit for my little terraced house in Wandsworth, where I live.

Presenter26:31

Let's have another record, Jim.

Jane Lapotaire26:33

I have to say, Michael, that left to my own devices, I'm a very introspective person. I'm a very I'm slightly a serious person. I'm a Capricorn for people who are interested in astrology, and they do tend to be rather serious people.

Jane Lapotaire26:46

So my next choice is an effort to get myself out of any introspective moods that I may find myself in on Test Island.

Jane Lapotaire26:55

And I think he is one of the most brilliant comedians that has ever lived.

Jane Lapotaire27:00

It's Billy Connolly, of course. Any Billy Connolly would do. It's also chosen because I can only understand about one word in every five, so it would give me some work to do on the desert island, understanding all the words I can't understand at the moment.

Speaker 327:14

I think we better explain a wee bit of Glasgow accent so she can get used to it.

Speaker 327:19

And I could do but a sweet story.

Speaker 327:22

There was a young Glasgow chair.

Speaker 427:24

Yeah.

Speaker 327:25

And he was trying to phone his girlfriend, and he was in a great deal of trouble.

Speaker 327:29

So it dialed the operator.

Speaker 327:32

See Leo?

Speaker 327:34

It's just a little tad over here now.

Speaker 327:36

Uh

Speaker 327:38

Should it now just take it easy, sir? Take it easy.

Speaker 327:42

Now look, is it is there money in the is there money in the box? It says, No, I'm in here myself.

Presenter27:52

Yes, he is a funny man, isn't he?

Jane Lapotaire27:54

Oh, very clever.

Presenter27:56

Jane, you you've been a lifetime in your craft or profession. What are your ambitions? What are what are the parts that you want to play?

Jane Lapotaire28:03

Oh, Michael, like I said at the beginning of the programme, I'm not a twenty-four-hour actress. I would like to improve my watercolour painting. I would like to finish that book. I'd like a garden twice the size of the one I've got at the moment, because, uh, as my son says, every time the wind blows, he says, Quick, Mum, you can get another plant in. You see, because I believe that all those things feed my work.

Jane Lapotaire28:26

Um

Jane Lapotaire28:28

I'd also like to have another baby. That'd be a bit difficult on a desert island, won't it? I've enjoyed being a mum enormously.

Jane Lapotaire28:34

But I think

Jane Lapotaire28:36

as I got older anyway.

Jane Lapotaire28:38

Life has become about lots of other things apart from my work.

Jane Lapotaire28:42

And I would like to improve on all those things. I couldn't tell you what part I next want to do. I haven't even thought of it. The next good part that comes along, please.

Presenter28:53

Let's have a final choice of record.

Jane Lapotaire28:55

Well, after Billy Connolly I think I need something quiet before I go to sleep.

Jane Lapotaire29:00

This is a very favourite piece of music of mine.

Jane Lapotaire29:03

I'm ashamed to admit I didn't even know who had written it. It turns out to be Marcello.

Jane Lapotaire29:09

It's a piece on the oboe played by Leon Goosens.

Jane Lapotaire29:13

Who

Jane Lapotaire29:14

When I read his story about being in a car accident,

Jane Lapotaire29:17

and having his face smashed and having to learn to play the oboe again. So again, like with my choice of the Valdi, there's a story behind the person who's playing the instrument that will give me um a lot of courage to go on when the nights are windy and storms are blowing.

Presenter30:29

Jane, so now you're on this desert island and you have to make some crucial decisions now. The first of all, you have to decide which one of the eight records you've chosen you choose in fact to keep, supposing the other seven were washed away in a tidal wave or something.

Jane Lapotaire30:41

Well, it's a tussle, and I think in the end the Vivaldi has to win. I need the Vivaldi to keep my spirits up, so it has to be that one.

Presenter30:49

What about the book? Not the Bible or the works of Shakespeare? You've got those already.

Jane Lapotaire30:53

Thank goodness. It's the Ai Ching. Do you know the Ai Ching? It'll give me a lot to think about.

Presenter30:59

What about the luxury object inanimate?

Jane Lapotaire31:02

Oh, it has to be inanimate.

Presenter31:04

Inanimate.

Jane Lapotaire31:04

Oh dear'cause I decided I was going to have a mongrel dog. Cause I'm a terrible bad sleeper, you see if a snake blinks I'd be awake.

Presenter31:12

You'd have to tame a parrot on the island or something like that.

Jane Lapotaire31:14

Right. Well, in that case, my choice is easy. It is an enormous supply of pencils and paper. I can write and draw.

Presenter31:23

Dear rapporteur, thank you very much indeed.

Jane Lapotaire31:25

Thank you.

Speaker 431:32

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