Nigel Hawthorne

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

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

Nigel Hawthorne0:30

It was once said of our castaway that he spent the first twenty years of his career being ignored and the next ten being discovered. It took one television programme, Yes Minister, to make him, in the words of the old Showbiz Joke, an overnight success after thirty years in the business. The part of the devious civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby, has won him both critical and popular acclaim. In short, he's become a star. He is Nigel Hawthorne.

Nigel Hawthorne0:55

Nigel, did you ever imagine, when you read the script of Yestminster for the first time, that that it would so transform your life?

Presenter1:01

No, I don't think so, because I think when I read the script and we we did one to start with, it it was a pilot I was very aware of the quality of the writing. I never thought it would go, and certainly Paul and I when we discussed it thought it was just a one-off anyway, and uh we didn't know until we were about um four days into rehearsal that uh the BBC was going to make a series of it, and I don't think they decided.

Presenter1:26

So I certainly didn't think that. It did transform my life, but because it's been done so gradually you know, we don't do one a year, we do one every so often when the writers really feel that they have something to say. So it hasn't really taken over my life as such, but it is the thing that people

Nigel Hawthorne1:44

It must have changed to to the extent that you become recognized in the street now after years of being fairly anonymous in your craft and I suppose also too it's opened up all kinds of other opportunities.

Presenter1:49

On the other hand.

Presenter1:53

I suppose, yes, and the danger is that people offer you the same sort of a role, you know, the rather uptight civil servant type. So I try and avoid that as much as possible.

Presenter2:03

But I do travel on public transport all the time. In fact, I came in by train yesterday, and people, I think, do recognize me, but they never bother me.

Presenter2:14

I think perhaps they might be a little apprehensive of how I'd react.

Nigel Hawthorne2:16

You live quietly in any case, don't you? I mean you actually avoid the sort of showbiz glitter and all that. I go in the country.

Presenter2:18

Grassing.

Speaker 12:22

Uh

Presenter2:22

Yeah.

Presenter2:24

Saturn

Presenter2:26

Yes, I suppose so, yes, it is a sort of desert island. In fact, the house is nowhere near a village. So it is sort of an isolated property and it has fields around it. So it's very much like a an island.

Nigel Hawthorne2:38

So you're going to enjoy this stint you're about to say, yes. All right. Let's have your first choice of music then for this Desert Allen.

Presenter2:39

Yeah.

Presenter2:44

Yeah. Hmm. Well, I suppose the first choice would be something that I would have remembered as a child in the years when I was growing up in South Africa. And we had one of those old radiograms that we play with the the arm used to come down very heavily and practically split the record in a two and one of the records that we always played was Accentuate the Positive which was Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters.

Speaker 23:08

We've got to expate the positive realism

Speaker 23:14

Find it to negative, latch on to the affirmative, don't mess with Mr. Inbetween, you got to spread jar up to the maximum, bring bloom.

Speaker 23:28

Now do the minimum have faith, or pandemonium, liable to walk upon the scene. To illustrate.

Nigel Hawthorne3:38

Nigel, a reminder there for you of your early days growing up in South Africa. Of course you were in fact born in Coventry, weren't you? Yes, I was, yes. Your father was a doctor.

Presenter3:42

Yes, I was, yes.

Presenter3:45

Yeah, and um I suppose it was nineteen thirty two when I was about three and a bit.

Presenter3:51

We lived on um the Binley Road in Coventry, which was fine, except I think it was a bit smoky and the the traffic was a bit worrying because there were four children. And Dad had a colleague, a man called Hutchinson, who was going to South Africa to take up a position at um the University of Cape Town, and persuaded my father to go out there, and he liked it so much that he came back and fetched the family and bought a practice from a a Doctor Leicester, and we set up home in Cape Town. What kind of a child were you?

Presenter4:19

Well

Presenter4:20

I think fairly horrid.

Presenter4:23

Only fairly.

Presenter4:25

Yes, I was quite a knowing child. I'm talking about a young child. I think I did change in puberty very dramatically. Don't we all? But I mean as a young child, my mother told me that I used to cry a lot in my pram, and people used to come round and say, Did you know your child was crying, Mrs Hawthorne? She used to sigh and say, Yes, I did. But I had a habit of leaning down and looking at people through my legs, you know, so you could see them upside down. And it used to get very cheap laughs. Something that I no longer find possible to do.

Presenter5:01

I mean looking down like that. Are we detecting in this then the first starts of the of the actor, the showing off perhaps? Yes, I think so. I always thought that uh on looking back that that was probably where it started.

Nigel Hawthorne5:06

Yeah.

Nigel Hawthorne5:07

Now

Presenter5:12

finding that um a good way out of any sort of serious involvement in anything was to get a laugh, and so that I didn't have to commit myself to anything particularly.

Nigel Hawthorne5:21

You went to university, didn't you, in East Africa? D to do what? What what was your father's ambition?

Presenter5:22

Yeah.

Presenter5:26

My dad wanted me to be in the diplomatic corps. I mean he had sort of grand ideas.

Presenter5:31

If I could have been king, I think he would have quite liked that. But um

Presenter5:35

My own ambitions were rather vague at that time. When I left school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I thought I might teach. I thought I might go into horticulture at one stage, because I had a grandmother who was a flower painter, and I was very interested in that particular area.

Presenter5:53

That didn't happen, so I decided to read English at uh the University of Cape Town.

Presenter5:58

And it was while I was there that I became very involved in the um student theatre, you know, and uh

Presenter6:05

broke off my uh academic career in the second year, at the end of the second year, and told my father that I was going to the theatre.

Nigel Hawthorne6:11

He would not be well pleased.

Presenter6:12

No, not at all. And um

Presenter6:14

Never really understood it to the end of his life.

Presenter6:17

Which was sad because I'd like him to have uh understood what I was trying to do. Let's have a second choice of record, please.

Presenter6:24

Richard Tauber came to South Africa, I think, on one of those world tours, and he became ill and my father went to attend him.

Presenter6:33

and came back and had all these stories about this extraordinary man. And I said what was he like? and he said ugly looking brute and he was rather critical of the fact that he only sang light opera and not grand opera, so he wasn't really a singer.

Speaker 26:42

Yeah.

Presenter6:50

But um secretly we acquired several of his records and one of those was um You Are My Heart's Delight.

Speaker 27:01

Wow, my heart is eyes and wax width.

Speaker 17:07

Fire.

Speaker 27:13

You make my darkness bright when like a star you shine on me

Nigel Hawthorne7:29

Nigel, did you in fact start acting when you were in South Africa?

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Nigel Hawthorne7:32

Yes, I did.

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Presenter7:34

After I left the university I went straight into a professional company.

Presenter7:38

and we did a play called The Shop at Sly Corner, which was a thriller, and there was a crook in that called Archie Fellows, I think his name was, and um the man they'd chosen to play the part wasn't quite up to it, and the director came round and said We've decided to give you the opportunity, and I took over.

Presenter7:56

And so that was my first job there. But um shortly after that a young couple came to join the company.

Presenter8:03

and I got to know them very well. They were Sean and Barbara Sutton, and they persuaded me that perhaps I might have a chance if I came to England.

Presenter8:13

And when I arrived in England in nineteen fifty one, I think it was, they were at Waterloo Station to meet me, and I've always been tremendously grateful of their support, and Sean gave me my first job in Buxton Rep.

Nigel Hawthorne8:25

Do you ever go back to South Africa? Because you've still got family there, haven't you?

Presenter8:27

Yes, I've been back, I think, four times since 1951, whatever that is.

Nigel Hawthorne8:31

What do you make of it?

Presenter8:33

Well, it's very sad uh for me, because one can see the way things are are going. I have a huge love for the physical side of the country, and I love my family, of course. When I go back I argue with them. We have the most dreadful arguments about politics.

Presenter8:51

And so I know now, really, to keep my mouth shut.

Presenter8:55

What they say when you go back is you can see how things have changed and how they've improved.

Presenter9:00

And what is very sad to see is that things haven't. You know, the attitude is exactly the same.

Nigel Hawthorne9:07

The irony of course too is that they they wouldn't understand what has happened to you either because yes, minister's not shown there because of the equity ban.

Presenter9:11

Yes, ma'am.

Presenter9:13

No, they they know very little about me and uh I find that quite refreshing actually. It's nice to go back home and not be the um, you know, local boy makes good because they don't really know anything about it.

Nigel Hawthorne9:13

No, they

Nigel Hawthorne9:17

It's

Speaker 29:17

Yeah.

Presenter9:25

Another

Nigel Hawthorne9:25

Uh Choice of record, please.

Presenter9:26

Yeah.

Presenter9:28

Number three. Yes, I would really like to choose something that has an association, certainly because in those days in South Africa, La Vien Rose was one of the songs we always used to sing. The recording that I would like is the one made by Edith Piaf. And the connection there is because I think you interviewed Jane Lapater fairly recently, who made a huge success playing Edith Piaf. And we worked together on a BBC series of Marie Curie, which was one of the happiest jobs that I've ever had in my life. And she and I played opposite each other.

Presenter10:01

It was um a very, very happy occasion, and I'd like that.

Speaker 210:07

Des you qui pour des c'est les mières, rir qui se pares sur sabonchre, voila le portres s tour.

Speaker 210:16

Do l'emoque, la paul pier.

Speaker 210:21

Oh, for the several, quilt for the touch, Jevois la violent.

Nigel Hawthorne10:34

Nigel, so here you are in in England. You just arrived, a a young man. You know Sean Sutton, but you don't have any job, nowhere to go to. What happened?

Presenter10:43

Well, I had a job in three days. Sean asked me to go and meet a man called Anthony Hawtry, who ran the Embassy Theatre, which is now the central school of uh speech and drama in in Swiss Gottage. He interviewed me in this enormous office, which seemed to me enormous anyway. Um uh it was book lined and had a very thick carpet.

Presenter11:03

And I offered him one of my duty-free cigarettes, which I thought was rather smart, and um he said, All right.

Presenter11:12

I have got to ask you one thing.

Presenter11:14

Are you prepared to take off your coat?

Presenter11:18

And I got up and I took it off.

Presenter11:20

And he said, I didn't mean now, he said. And it all got very embarrassed and nervous, and I blushed a lot. But I got the job, and um I started, I think, three weeks after I'd arrived in the country at Buxton in Derbyshire in weekly rope as an

Nigel Hawthorne11:38

So that was your training rep, in fact. Yes. Were you all this time auditioning for something bigger? Was it a constant stream of going?

Presenter11:46

Yes, it was all sort of a bit disastrous really, wasn't it? Yeah, because I eventually understudied Leslie Phillips in a play at the comedy theatre for nineteen months and never went on once. And Leslie persuaded me to understudy in um there was a Sunday night society called The Repertory Players and he said, Well, your best way of getting on is to go and

Nigel Hawthorne11:48

Was it a matter of money?

Speaker 111:57

And

Presenter12:07

Cover for them, they'll eventually give you a part. And so I did nine productions for them in a row understudying and never went off.

Presenter12:16

And it got ridiculous after a bit, and I was on, I think, seven pounds a week in those days. So I didn't really know who I was, what I wanted, except that I didn't want to be as I was then. I didn't want to be poor, and I didn't want to be scrambling around after work as I was, and I just went on like that for

Presenter12:35

rather too long, you know, and became very unhappy and uh

Presenter12:39

I didn't quite know what to do and then somebody rang me up in 1957 and said, Would you like to go back to South Africa? And the relief was enormous.

Presenter12:49

And I knew that I was being a coward, but I knew things weren't working the way they were.

Presenter12:54

And so I took a deep breath and I said, Yes, and I went back and did Look Back in Anger in nineteen fifty seven.

Nigel Hawthorne13:01

When you came back though, what was the big breakthrough here? What put everything into a different perspective for you here? Was it Stratford?

Presenter13:06

Stratford. Stratford Atty Bow, yes. Meeting Joan Littlewood was a huge breakthrough for me because.

Presenter13:14

Anybody who'd either worked with me or knew me would have thought that Joan Littlewood and I would have been poles apart, and in fact we were.

Presenter13:21

About because she was casting O what Lovely War, and she needed officer material.

Presenter13:26

I managed to get in and I did an improvisation for her one day, which for some reason she found very impressive. And she rang me up and she said, I'm going to give you all the parts. And I said, What about the others and all that? And she said, Never mind the others, I want you to do them. And she sort of ladled all these roles on me, which I hadn't had in rehearsal at all. And we took What Lovely War out on the road all over England. And then we went to Germany.

Presenter13:59

And playing that show in Germany was quite remarkable. We played in Essen, for example. We had to cut out a a whole lot of the lines about munitions because of the Krupp family, because they were enormous patrons of the theatre there. And I suppose morally speaking we should have stuck out and said no, we wouldn't cut them, but I think we were under contract to a touring company, so we did.

Presenter14:21

Then we went to East Germany with it, and then two years later we went on another tour of East Germany. We played the East and the West sections of Berlin consecutively. I think we were the first company to have done that. So it was very fascinating and as a period

Presenter14:36

enormously uh enlightening for me. A choice of record. Well, from What a Lovely War, I'd like to have Mivanwi Jen singing Keep the Home Fires Burning because um

Presenter14:46

Mervanwy and I did a subsequent production for Joan Littlewood, and it was my first political satirical role when I played Roy Jenkins in misses Wilson's Diary and she was misses Wilson. But here she is singing Keep the Home Fires Burning.

Speaker 215:02

Home flies burning.

Speaker 215:07

While your hearts are yearning.

Speaker 215:13

Oh, the land afar away, they dream home home.

Speaker 215:25

There's the syllable.

Nigel Hawthorne15:31

Nigel, a memory there for you of uh of working with Joan Littlewood. She is a remarkable lady. Plainly, and plainly had a great effect on on many people's careers, including your own. Yes, yes, huge effect on

Presenter15:40

Mm.

Presenter15:41

Not because I felt that I put into operation what she wanted, because she was an enormously exacting director.

Presenter15:50

and could be brutal, you know, and was with me on more than one occasion. I mean, she tried to destroy me.

Presenter15:56

When we were doing that played the criterion, the Mrs Wilson's diary. She used to come in and write the most paralysingly painful criticisms of me on the walls of the stick them up on the walls, I don't mean she wrote on the walls for six weeks. And it wasn't until I actually confronted her with my dilemma and I said, I know you're trying to break me, and you never will, because I know you're trying to do it.

Presenter16:20

So why don't you just tell me really what you want and let me try and supply it, and don't torture me, you know. And she said she was very sweet and she said, A lot of actors get into very bad habits when they do long West End runs, and if you're in those bad habits, there's nothing you can do but stop and start again, and that was uh what I was trying to do with you.

Nigel Hawthorne16:42

Yeah.

Presenter16:43

Another record.

Presenter16:45

Well, this was from the um American period because uh was that?

Presenter16:50

I suppose it was nineteen seventy four. The National Theatre planned a production of As You Like It, which was to go over to San Francisco and do a six month tour all over the United States, going into Canada and eventually ending up on Broadway.

Presenter17:07

It was a sort of a break for me. I'd never been to America before. It was wonderful to be able to see the country, even though it was only two days in each town, or sometimes a week, to go as far down as Atlanta, Georgia, to go to the Niagara Falls, things that I'd never ever thought of doing before, thought that I'd be able to do before. And wherever we went, on all the jukeboxes it was John Denver singing Rocky Mountain High.

Speaker 217:31

Colorado Rocky Mountain High I've seen it fading fire in the sky

Speaker 217:42

A shadow from the starlight, a song still in a lovely bud.

Speaker 217:52

Rocky maps.

Speaker 217:54

Hi, Colorado, Rocky Mountain High.

Nigel Hawthorne18:01

So Nigel, now it's the early seventies we're talking about and it's the the time where you are in fact being discovered. Was there one thing you can look back on now and put your finger on it and say, yes, that was the time when in fact it really did start changing for me?

Presenter18:13

Yes, I'd done a play, and I was very tired.

Presenter18:17

It was about this time of year autumn, late autumn,

Presenter18:21

and I took myself off on my own to Malvern.

Presenter18:26

I walked around the hills and it was very damp.

Presenter18:29

And I got a bit gloomy.

Presenter18:32

And the thought of Elgar and everything didn't really do anything for me at all. And I remembered that a friend of mine called Mike Willem

Presenter18:39

had said, If you want to come up to Stratford, I've got a spare bed, do please.

Presenter18:44

And so I gave him a ring from the hotel and I said, You know, does the offer still hold?

Presenter18:49

And he said,'Yes, of course, whenever you like'. So I went up a couple of days later, and when I arrived he said,'I'm not speaking to you. Two scripts have arrived for you, and on my doorstep.

Presenter18:59

and one was an author from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Speaker 119:00

One was an author.

Presenter19:03

to do a musical called Privates on Parade by Peter Nicholls, and the other was to do an Alan Aykebourne play at the National Theatre called Bedroom Farce, which I thought was wonderfully funny.

Presenter19:15

And I elected to do bedroom fast. And Michael Gwyllem called me in one morning and he said I've got some people who've come to breakfast, and they were Judy Dench and Ian McKellen, and they said We want you in the Royal Shakespeare Company, and talked me into doing Privates on Parade.

Nigel Hawthorne19:32

And that was a that was a breakthrough. It must have been a strange feeling for you because you had, I think, auditioned many times for the RSC, had you not before most of my life. What happened before you got the prize?

Presenter19:34

Yeah.

Presenter19:40

Oh.

Presenter19:44

I was on parade offer what from them? Nothing, nothing at all. I used to go up, you know, like we all did. We used to drop everything we were doing and get on trains and wear a suit and go down at the St James's Theatre or whatever theatre we were auditioning at. We'd stand up in front of Anthony Quayle or Glen Byramshaw, whoever it was, and do our pieces and they'd say thank you and we'd go back to where we came from. And there was no progress at all. I mean, you just did that, and they didn't ask you to read something else, or stay on, or come back again, or anything. You just did it, and that was that. Did that make you resentful?

Presenter20:21

It made me wonder whether I was in the right job. Uh no, it didn't make me resentful. I don't I hope it didn't. I thought that there was probably something in me that wasn't right, obviously. I think it's very easy to be resentful of other people. I think I did get resentful of people who were sons and daughters of famous actors that seemed to have an in that way. But people with talent who was as anonymous as I was, I didn't resent at all. No, I don't think so.

Presenter20:51

So it was quite surprising when Trevor Nunn came up to me on the opening night of Private's on Parade at the Aldwych Theatre and said, Promise me one thing. Please, please, please say you'll come to Stratford. You've been trying to get there all your life. All my life. Another choice of record. Well.

Nigel Hawthorne21:05

But

Presenter21:12

I was thinking that probably on this island I'd need a few laughs.

Nigel Hawthorne21:16

Yeah.

Nigel Hawthorne21:17

You'd need them throughout your career, actually.

Presenter21:19

Yes, I think so. They're a great helper in times of stress. Um there was a wonderful lady called Florence Foster Jenkins who used to sing almost as badly as I do. She used to take the Carnegie Hall in America and uh pack it out with people. She was tone deaf.

Presenter21:36

And whenever I hear her sing anything I become absolutely helpless with laughter. And I don't think I'm being cruel. Well, you have yourself. Listen to her singing the Queen of the Night, Aria.

Speaker 222:04

Really

Presenter22:20

She was singing in German, did you realize that? She was singing in pain, I thought.

Nigel Hawthorne22:24

It's so unrelenting and I mean it's awfulness, isn't it? Yes, absolutely awful. But it is funny and uh wonderful thing about the performer, isn't it? That that woman actually stood on stage and did that, you know.

Presenter22:28

Yes, absolutely awful.

Presenter22:37

We all do. We're sort of Aunt Sally's, aren't we? Set ourselves up. I mean, I'm constantly doing plays that people ridicule and and and friends come backstage and talk about the weather, you know, and it's and it's exactly the same. I mean, she just took it a stage further. But the the wonderful thing was that she didn't really know, I don't think, you know, that she was uh because people used to stuff handkerchiefs in their mouths. So I don't think she ever knew quite what was going on.

Nigel Hawthorne22:56

So good speaker.

Presenter23:03

Which would of course make it even funnier. Ten times funnier, yes. It's the actual seriousness of the thing. And I always think that that's an important thing. Because, you know, playing comedy is very very close to playing tragedy. And I think it's quite sad that people devalue comedy. They think, oh, well, comedy's not really as important as playing the great tragedies and everything.

Nigel Hawthorne23:06

Yeah.

Presenter23:23

And I think it's equally important, and I think that the nearer one can get to tragedy and comedy.

Presenter23:30

The funnier one is. Yes. The play I'm doing at the National at the moment, The Magistrate, is about a man who

Presenter23:36

gets taken on the most terrible trip to a most dreadful hotel.

Presenter23:41

And he's a very, very respectable man, and he gets totally destroyed by that. Now you can play it as wildly comic.

Presenter23:50

But I think it's much more interesting to say what happens to the man is actually terribly painful.

Presenter23:56

And it's the pain in the man that makes the way he reacts to what's happened to him, I think, very funny.

Presenter24:03

Another choice of record, please, Naisa.

Nigel Hawthorne24:03

Choice of

Presenter24:05

Well, I was thinking that perhaps if I saw a steamer, would I possibly see a steamer? Yes, you're allowed to see a steamer. I would see a steamer going by, and I'd need to attract attention. And if I lit a fire and all that, and um that didn't do it, I thought I'd choose Verdi's Requiem and turn it up full.

Nigel Hawthorne24:10

Yes, sir.

Nigel Hawthorne25:17

Nigel a new series of Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister now of course coming up next autumn.

Presenter25:20

Yes, coming up.

Nigel Hawthorne25:23

What kind of reaction do you get from those people that you you imitate in the uh I mean, what do civil servants say to you? You meet them quite obviously. Uh They are towards the end. Do

Presenter25:33

Yes. They think that um Sir Humphrey

Nigel Hawthorne25:35

Yeah.

Nigel Hawthorne25:38

Of course, going back to the point you made about it is funny, yes, Prime Minister. And Sir Humphrey and Jim, they're funny they're characters too, but they're played very straight. What do you think that your character represents on the serious side?

Nigel Hawthorne25:53

Uh

Presenter25:53

Represents on the side.

Nigel Hawthorne25:54

Yes, I mean what what what does he epitomize in the British that that's there, that is actually there?

Presenter25:54

Yes, I mean

Presenter25:57

There, that it was actually there. Pomposity, most of all, I suppose. Also, people who are obsessive about things. And I think we are, if you go back to the war when we had boffins who were obsessive about making things, gadgets, we involve ourselves very, very deeply in things. There are tribes of Indians living in Cromer in places like that, you know, that take their things very seriously, and people who dress up as railway porters and have trains and stations and things, model railways. And we do take ourselves very seriously. And I think that that is a very, very endearing side of the British.

Nigel Hawthorne26:00

Listen.

Presenter26:31

Sir Humphrey isn't quite as eccentric as that, but he does epitomize somebody who does take himself and his work desperately seriously, and because of that I think he's funny.

Nigel Hawthorne26:44

Now what about the rest then? You we've got there, you're in the national now. You in fact you've you've done writing uh of course uh as well, haven't you? Yes. Are you going to pursue that or

Presenter26:50

Are you going to do that?

Presenter26:52

Oh I don't. Michael

Nigel Hawthorne26:53

Oh yeah.

Presenter26:53

Yes. I mean, I enjoy writing, but I don't know whether I'm any good or not. Probably not. I mean, there's so many wonderful writers that why i if you can uh be good at one thing, you should rarely be content with that and let the others do.

Nigel Hawthorne27:07

Yeah. All right, then. Perhaps Joti, you might write about this bloke who spent 30 years in the business being an overnight success. Perhaps that might be.

Presenter27:14

Well, somebody's asked me to, so I'm in the throes of doing that, but I find it very difficult. Last choice of record. Well, my heart is always in in Africa, and certainly in South Africa. The events of the day have always frightened me over the last ten years, I suppose. But something that's always moved me very much about Africa has been African people singing. They have a natural sense of harmony, rhythm. So I've chosen a black group who call themselves, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, the Ladysmith Black Mambazzo Choir.

Presenter27:50

And they're singing an African song, which I know that if I was on a desert island, I would certainly play over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 227:59

Angesa banga, who was in la toa, o dwa wiches, agasa ma shodu kete wa mane won ta batter.

Presenter28:06

Because the man should

Speaker 128:08

Yeah.

Speaker 228:10

Umusawakenamin Kesawu Jesu.

Speaker 128:13

I guess I would just

Speaker 228:15

I'm giving my nigga nigga

Speaker 228:17

I'm Miss Saban

Speaker 128:24

Because the mashup

Speaker 228:26

Wa mane van cha baja humu sawaki.

Nigel Hawthorne28:32

Nigel, you're now on your desert island. You have to pick one record from the eight. Imagine that seven have been washed away or melted in the sun. Which one record would you choose? Well.

Presenter28:41

The first record I chose was Accentuate the Positive and there was a line in that.

Presenter28:47

Which goes bring gloom down to the minimum and thinking of that, I might choose Florence Fosterjay.

Nigel Hawthorne28:55

Yeah.

Presenter28:55

Yeah.

Nigel Hawthorne28:55

For a laugh. Right. And then what about the book? You can assume that you have the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible. Which book would you have?

Presenter29:01

The Bible.

Presenter29:03

Well, because I was brought up in Africa, I never learned French.

Presenter29:07

So, I think teach yourself French.

Presenter29:10

Uh

Nigel Hawthorne29:10

Uh

Presenter29:10

I'd like to learn it.

Nigel Hawthorne29:12

And what about the luxury object?

Presenter29:14

Uh

Nigel Hawthorne29:14

Inatom.

Presenter29:14

But

Nigel Hawthorne29:15

Uh

Presenter29:15

Would I be allowed my spectacles?

Nigel Hawthorne29:17

Cause you can't do it.

Presenter29:17

Yes, thank you. Then I choose a pencil and paper.

Presenter29:21

Because I'd like to make an inventory while I was on the island. I'm very interested in plants and wildlife.

Presenter29:26

And I think I'd probably make an an inventory of all the plants that I could discover, probably uh establish some sort of nursery, give myself something to do.

Presenter29:36

Until such time as I got rescued.

Speaker 129:46

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.