Ken Russell

Speaker 40:00

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

Presenter0:28

A Castaway is one of the most stylish, distinctive and controversial directors in the world of cinema. He first made his name at the BBC with a series of film biographies. Some, like the ones about Elgar, Delius and Rossetti, were unforgettable. Since then he's established his reputation as a feature filmmaker with work like Women in Love, The Music Lovers, The Boyfriend, The Devils, Tommy, Altered States and his latest film, Gothic. Here's Ken Russell.

Presenter0:54

Ken, it's quite obvious just looking at the body of your work that music's had a very large influence on your life.

Ken Russell1:00

Yes, I think ever since I discovered classical music that was a great door opening. But I was always fond of popular music. I mean radio music. I was brought up in the thirties, born in twenty seven, and so I was a sort of radio kid.

Presenter1:12

And how important is music to you? I mean, is is that your favorite pastime, listening to it?

Ken Russell1:17

Yes, I I think it is. Whether I'm in a a train with a headset or a walking the hills with a headset or um playing, you know, hi fi on enormous twelve foot speakers and blasting everyone out of the room. Yes, it is very much a part of my life.

Presenter1:31

It interests me, actually, to uh try and find out just how people assess the eight records that they're going to take to the island. I mean, in your case, have you taken your eight favorite records or?

Ken Russell1:36

I mean

Ken Russell1:40

Well, no, because I I I thought about it. First of all, I compiled a list of eight, you know, all time favourites and they tended to be slightly nostalgic and had overtones about them that I I felt wouldn't um necessarily make life on a desert island interesting, and so I brought a lot of sort of fairly cheerful pieces along. I I'm sure one would need cheering up if it was really a desert island most of the time.

Presenter2:01

Right, let's have the first choice of record then.

Ken Russell2:04

Well, the first one is Something's Coming from Westside Story, and I've chosen it because it's got tremendous sort of uplift and hope and optimism in it. And uh I remember the the musical Westside Story came out when I was

Ken Russell2:19

Not making much of a go of life, everything looked rather bleak. I was a photographer not earning much money. I was a young family growing up and sort of broke. And this musical came out and this number uh sort of cheered me up a lot and sort of gave me hope for the future. And I think on my desert island um I had always hoped maybe there's a boat just around the corner, just over the horizon.

Speaker 42:40

Could be.

Speaker 42:43

Who knows There's something due any day I will know right away Soon as it shows It'd make em cannon balling down through the sky Gleam when it's eye bright as a rose Who knows It's only just out of reach Down the block on the beach Under a tree

Presenter3:10

And that was Larry Kurtzing in Somethings Coming from the Original Broadway production of Westside Story.

Presenter3:16

Ken, you said that you were born in nineteen twenty seven in in Southampton, in fact, wasn't you?

Ken Russell3:19

Yeah.

Presenter3:19

What sort of a cello did you have?

Ken Russell3:22

Well, very pleasant. I enjoyed it very much. There weren't many kids knocking around in the street in which I lived. It was rather a a backwater. But um my mother used to take me out a lot every afternoon as far as I can remember and we'd invariably go to the movies and have an enjoyable film show. And then we'd go to um a tai dancing. All the big stores had jazz bands and things and uh so it was really a musical childhood and a a sort of uh a movie fan childhood.

Presenter3:48

Did you by saying this Lonely Child did you sort of escape into a fantasy about movies?

Ken Russell3:52

Yes. I had a big conquer tree at the back of the garden, and depending on which film I'd seen, if it was um a swashbuckling film, then it might become a castle. If it was a pirate film, it would become a great galleon with sails billowing out. So, yes, uh

Ken Russell4:06

I I brought this cinema into my back garden in a way.

Presenter4:08

Yes, I think that people who belong to that generation, the cinema generation, I mean it did have a profound effect on

Ken Russell4:13

Tremendous. There would there seem to be nothing else, you know what I mean?

Presenter4:15

Yeah.

Ken Russell4:16

I I I never went to the theatre except for pantomime, but the films were really part of one existence because there was no television and the radio was very second best. So it was the movies. Did you fall in love at the movies? Yes, I did. I fell in love that was a bit later with Dorothy Lemour, and that's one reason I joined the Merchant Navy. I felt if she wasn't in the South Seas, maybe someone like her was. And and I went to Australia. Unfortunately, the boat didn't stop on the way at any desert islands.

Speaker 44:43

Yeah. Uh

Ken Russell4:43

I was disillusioned, sighed, when I found out, of course, that all those Paramount movies weren't made in the South Seas, they were shot on a back lot in downtown Hollywood somewhere.

Presenter4:52

Let's have no choice of record, please Ken.

Ken Russell4:54

Right, I'd like to play Cicely Courtenage singing If I Had Napoleon's Hat. I used to enjoy her films when I was a kid, the old Jack Hulbert Cicely Courtenage. And um this particular song I've had a sort of secret uh dream of actually getting up into drag and imitating Cicely Courtenage and I feel on the island there'd be no one around to watch me and I could make a fool of myself and maybe perfect the act so if I was rescued I would be able to actually go on the hall somewhere if hall still existed.

Speaker 15:23

Oh, there's some things that I always wish I had. I'd be the grandest mammoselle in all countries.

Speaker 15:31

So if you want a blessing, my affection

Speaker 15:35

Try and get this little thing for me.

Speaker 15:39

If I had Napoleon that, I wouldn't need these, I wouldn't need those, I wouldn't need that.

Speaker 15:47

If I want to leave Lucky Saw for me, there'd be no tears. I put my F upon my N and I call for volunteers.

Presenter5:54

That's Sister Cottonidge, if I had Napoleon's hat from Aunt Sally.

Presenter5:59

Carrison, what was the earliest time that you remember making a movie? What was your first effort?

Ken Russell6:04

At um the Nautical College Pangbourne I I made a movie about a villain who um steals pennies from blind beggars. I played that part, of course. Who falls in love with a beautiful girl, played by a boy of course, because it was an all-boys school, college. Then there's a sort of tug-of-war between me and the hero for the girl, and we both actually lose her because in the woods there's a sort of Frankenstein monster lurking who kills us both and makes off with the girl into his own lair. You wrote this in the directory. I wrote it in the directory. Yes, I did.

Presenter6:36

I wrote it. Yes, I did. Wonderful. What d what we're doing at Pangborn?

Ken Russell6:42

Well, I I often ask myself. Um my father was very fond of the sea. We lived at a sea port. Southampton was being bombed to pieces and um Pangbourne was the furthest place from any sort of bombing, I suppose. And um my father had been a ship's detective and I sort of still had the sea in his blood. Uh th he when he married my mum he went to his dad's business selling shoes. So he still had a hankering for his son to follow in his footsteps, so that's why I ended up at Pangbourne. But um

Ken Russell7:13

All I did there was actually make this movie and I also put on um a show. I was asked to put on the divisional concert everyone else thought was the most boring thing and uh it was a chore, so I eventually ended up with it. Usually it was the cadets dressed in grey flannels, white sweaters and caps singing, The fishermen of England are working at their nets. But I I'd had enough of this. I used to break bounds and go to Reading. We had a five-mile limit. We weren't allowed outside, and Reading, I think, was five miles and a hundred yards, and I'd go and see these Dorothy Lamour films, Betty Grable musicals and so forth, and I get beaten regularly. So I got my revenge on this nautical college by putting on a tremendous musical in which I played Carmen Morand, or someone else played Betty Grable, and all the cadets got out of their old grey things and put on dresses and put football socks up um inside their dresses to provide what nature did not. And we put on this huge all singing, all dancing show, and the commander nearly had a fit and I I left at the end of that term. I always seem to leave at the end of terms when people have fits. It's another story about that later.

Presenter8:15

In fact, you did join the Merchant Navy, did you? Yes, I did. I did.

Ken Russell8:16

Yes, I did. I did looking for Dorothy LeMour, as I said, and didn't find her. But I got to Australia and I was thinking of jumping ship in Australia because we had a sort of a modern Captain Bly who, all the way across the Pacific, made me stand on the spot. I wasn't allowed to move for eight hours that's two, four hour watches, in the boiling sun or the freezing moon, looking for Japanese submarines. Well, the war was actually over, so this man was slightly bonkers. He used to stand naked on his hands on the bridge and do press-ups. Very strong fellow. The irony was, as soon as I left the ship, it had the biggest collision in its life and practically sank in New York Harbor, not into a Japanese submarine. So I had a bit of a sort of breakdown at the end of that, and our music sort of pulled me through it. I was sort of very despondent, not knowing what to do, thinking there was nothing in life worth doing. When I happened to hear Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor concerto, I didn't know what it was actually. I just thought it was the most amazing sound I'd ever heard. And when the title was announced, I rushed out on my bicycle and bought it and sort of didn't look back. Life took on a a new dimension which has lived with me ever since.

Presenter9:25

Let's have another choice of record then, please, Ken.

Ken Russell9:27

The Garden of Fand by Sir Arnold Bax, played by um Sir Thomas Beecham. This was an early favourite, it was on seventy eight, I remember, and um

Ken Russell9:37

I I started dancing to it in my mother's parlour before I I knew anything about ballet. I just started improvising. I like the story particularly, and it's it's actually very fitting for this present situation. It's about a mariner washed up on a desert island who um is very sorry for himself for a moment until the most wonderful, most beautiful, fantastic, glamorous nymphette materializes and dances before him and entwines him in her sensual embrace, and that they both dance and work up to a most passionate climax.

Ken Russell11:03

And wouldn't you know it, at the height of the passionate climax, a gigantic wave sweeps up the beach and drags them out to sea, for she was Neptune's daughter.

Presenter11:29

That was a gardener fan in two parts. Sir Thomas Beacham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ken Russell11:31

Yeah.

Presenter11:36

Ken, you you spent uh about five years, I think, as a ballet dancer, didn't you?

Ken Russell11:40

Yeah, four or five. Yeah, about that.

Presenter11:40

Yeah.

Presenter11:41

Yeah, about that. And then you worked as a as a photographer. Uh was there all this time though a sense that that you believed always that you're going to make movies? Was that you were always aiming toward it or what?

Ken Russell11:44

Yeah.

Ken Russell11:50

Yes, as soon as I heard that Tchaikovsky piece, I I started imagining pictures to music. I mean that's how silent film started off, very much um an integral art form of images and music. And as I told you before, I was crazy about films, you know, from an early age. So I did try and get into the studios, but with no luck. So I I went r from one job to another. I was about a dance um actor, photographer, and uh eventually saved up a few pennies to make an amateur three amateur movies actually, and with that I did get into the BBC.

Presenter12:25

You joined the BBC Two at a very good point in this history, didn't you?

Ken Russell12:27

Yes, I did. I did. Actually, it was only a few months after that Something's coming and actually something was coming. I showed my films to Hugh Weldon and uh he took me aboard Monitor. So um

Ken Russell12:40

Plays to be optimistic.

Presenter12:41

How do you rate Terkey Welldon? Do you enjoy working with him?

Ken Russell12:44

Well, he was a great teacher. Yes, I did. He was a great raconteur. He just made you feel good, and he inspired you, because what one really needs is someone to have faith in them, but to have faith and also be able to instruct them, and help them, and guide them, and he was a great teacher.

Presenter12:57

Was it your idea to do those film biographies that that in fact made your name at that particular time?

Ken Russell13:02

Yes, he as I say, he encouraged people to um film their enthusiasms, hoping that he'd get the best out of them, and he invariably did. As I told you, I music's my sort of hobby, and it was wonderful to be paid for doing your hobby. And uh it was an experimental film school as well, because uh we were allowed to try things out and hope they worked. They didn't always, but I don't know where else one could have learned that.

Presenter13:26

I think it's quite extraordinary when you look back. I mean, it's a long time ago that you made those movies. Yeah, twenty five years. Still remember. I mean, the frames of of the Elgar thing you the frames of Delias and I should remember forever. And I think a lot of people too. When you look back, are you are you satisfied that

Ken Russell13:29

Yeah, 25 years.

Ken Russell13:33

Frame the dealers.

Ken Russell13:36

Correct.

Presenter13:40

Now as you were then?

Ken Russell13:41

I obviously see faults in them. They were made with terribly small budgets and um not many actors and only a crew of about four or five people. You couldn't do it now, you wouldn't be allowed to by the unions, but because they s they were called documentaries, you know, they actually turned into mini features. But they seem to stand up and I think the black and white helps. They sort of give them that archive look.

Presenter14:01

What about the controversy too at the time? Because it would be uh wrong to believe that everything went went smoothly, indeed.

Ken Russell14:06

You know, like No, the more films I made the the more confident I felt and also I began to feel that I was

Ken Russell14:13

There was in danger of um becoming a cliche. My biographies, you know, I wanted to sort of break out of the mould. I I didn't want to make pretty pictures of horses galloping over hillsides all my life. The last film I did for B B C was called Dance of the Seven Vales, and it was on the

Ken Russell14:30

Life of Richard Strauss, and it was a political cartoon. And I was chastised for making a political cartoon about a musician and music. I can't think why, because, you know, you get political cartoons in the papers, you've had them for a couple of hundred years in England. Every day everyone either takes notice of them or not. But

Ken Russell14:46

the authorities felt, everyone felt, that it was outrageous to actually take a a composer and because he was a Nazi or accused of being a Nazi to make a cartoon about it in terms of his own music. I mean, his music's sort of over the top. I mean, anyone who writes

Ken Russell15:02

a symphony called A Hero's Life and says it's about me and I'm more important than Napoleon or Alexander the Great needs taking down a peg or two. And uh you know, he wrote a domestic symphony about bathing a baby and he had an orchestra of a hundred and thirty. Well, I mean, yeah, it's a bit over the top. I you can't take him seriously. So I think in fact there's a

Presenter15:20

I think in fact there was a didn't didn't the House debate your film and the very White House.

Ken Russell15:23

They did, yes, it was. Yeah, she she wanted to sue me for being a pornographer. Found she couldn't sue the B B C actually and so thought she'd sue the um post office telephone cables which transmitted the film. So she was really upset. But it was a you know, it was an unusual film, but I haven't worked for the B B C since.

Presenter15:43

Right. The next record, your next choice, tells us everything about what you've just been talking about this year. Right.

Ken Russell15:44

Going to

Ken Russell15:46

Right, it's called by Strauss and it was the um the N credit music, and it outraged several critics because they said, Oh, the fool's got the wrong Strauss. Uh Gershwin meant Johann Strauss. Well, actually I think I've got the last laugh because Johann Strauss never wrote a symphony, and one of the lyrics does mention the word symphony, so let's listen.

Speaker 416:07

Oh give me the free and easy waltz that is V and Easy Ann. Go tell the band, if they want a hand, the waltz must be Strauss's.

Speaker 416:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 116:21

Yeah

Speaker 416:24

Give me oo pa pa when I want a melody floating through the house Then I want a melody

Speaker 116:35

And I

Speaker 416:37

My struggle

Presenter16:38

Ella FitzGerald and George Narragerschwinds by Strauss.

Presenter16:43

Ken, let's now talk about your your feature movies, because after the BBC you you went to Hollywood and you started making films. I suppose that Women in Love kind of set the tone for your career. I mean, critical acclaim but also shock, horror, outrage at the same time. Is it part of a a a deliberate ploy on your part to actually shock people, to to to make them sit up and and watch?

Speaker 116:53

Critical claim, but also

Speaker 116:56

Yeah.

Ken Russell16:56

At the same time. Yeah.

Ken Russell17:04

No, I I I just seem to choose um shocking subjects, or maybe shocking subjects choose me. But I see everything in the world as shocking one way or another, and by shocking I just don't necessarily mean it's an unpleasant experience. I mean, you can get a little electric shock and it makes you jump, but you know you're alive, you're you know, you're you're a bit livelier than you were before you had the shock. So, um, I rather look on things like that.

Presenter17:28

When you look back at over the the the films you've made over the years, let's take something like The Devils, uh which probably was the most controversial film that you made in that early period, certainly. Does it remain a what you p

Ken Russell17:34

Could you film me?

Ken Russell17:38

Yeah.

Presenter17:38

Elizabeth.

Ken Russell17:38

Yes, I I am pretty pleased with that because um

Ken Russell17:42

Well, uh, you know, I came in for a lot of stick. Everyone said it was sacrilegious and all that. But the point is that it's on the curriculum of Loyola University in Chicago and as it's being taught as a sort of rather devout uh look at the Catholic Church. Well, the Catholic religion, not the church. And I like love it when the sort of the critics, you know, are prove wrong. I mean, I got a lot of stick again for the music club as everyone said that's not, you know, that's not really Tchaikovsky, but Shostakovich saw that one I know and thought it was a, you know, a great film.

Presenter18:12

Talking about critics, of course, I mean it it was the Devils, was it not, which brought you and Alexander Walker together. Yeah. And when you bashed him over the head with a with a rolled newspaper.

Ken Russell18:16

Yes.

Ken Russell18:18

Look at that.

Ken Russell18:20

I regret that really. Why? It should have had an iron bar on it.

Presenter18:21

Why?

Presenter18:26

But a lot of people indeed thought that you'd invent a marvelous new spectator sport, Bash the Critic. Yeah, well.

Ken Russell18:30

Yeah, well

Presenter18:31

Yeah.

Ken Russell18:31

Uh who knows when Gothic comes out I might be back at it wi and this time I will put the iron bar in.

Presenter18:38

What is it though that that that you object to in uh uh about critique?

Ken Russell18:42

Well, in that case it was the fact that he discussed two items that actually weren't in the film, and refused to retract on them during the interview. He just ignored the things.

Presenter18:51

Again, looking back at the films that you made, what about the films that you personally don't like?

Ken Russell18:55

Yes, I I

Presenter18:56

Yeah.

Ken Russell18:56

Yeah.

Presenter18:56

Which one?

Ken Russell18:56

I don't well, I don't like Valentino. It's absolutely horrible.

Ken Russell19:00

Well, I I dunno. I went to see it um a couple of years after I'd made it, and and I had to leave half way through. I thought it was the worst trash I'd ever set eyes on. It was rubbish. I thought what idiot made this? This is appalling.

Presenter19:14

It deserves beating on the head with an iron bar.

Ken Russell19:16

Yes, I did bang.

Presenter19:18

Bam. Let's end on the choice of record, please, Ken.

Ken Russell19:21

Well, Elgar sort of put me on the map at the BBC and I've I've got a tremendous collection of Elgar records and it's difficult to know which one to take, but I'd I'd like to take his um second symphony because I'd also like something to do on the island and if I played this through I could actually try and think of ways to film it because it's always been a bit of an enigma to me, this piece. Elgar's, you know, pomp and circumstance, all that. But there there's a lot of mystery in this and I think it's mystery about him, about England, about oneself. And I think one could ponder on this symphony forever and not get tired of it.

Presenter20:54

Symphony number two by Elgar, Sradium Bolt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter21:00

Ken, let's now talk about Gothic. I think this is the first film that you've made in Britain for ten years, isn't it?

Ken Russell21:04

Yes, I think it is.

Presenter21:05

Why is that?

Ken Russell21:06

No one's asked me.

Presenter21:09

Do you feel is there a sense in which you feel uh neglected by the British film industry? I think you could say that.

Ken Russell21:12

I think

Presenter21:13

And why why would that be?

Ken Russell21:15

I don't think um I I really fit in with it. I mean there are quite a few English directors who don't and they they make films abroad. I mean John Schlesinger who also started off on Monitor never seems to make a film here any more. Alan Parker does it. Alan Parker, no. No, it's it's the old prophet in one's own country, but I'm employed, you know, in America. I do operas in Italy, France, Austria, Australia, you know, so forth. But I've never done one in England. But maybe times are changing'cause um Virgin Vision had the vision to give me a script they felt was tailor-made for me and I made it.

Presenter21:51

What is the story about?

Ken Russell21:52

Stories about a time that Byron and Shelley spent together in Switzerland. They were sort of in exile. And uh they had their girlfriends with them. And they wild away one summer in eighteen sixteen dreaming up ghost stories and had a competition. And we've condensed it down to one night. And of course the winner was Mary Frankenstein.

Ken Russell22:15

Well, that's not a bad name for it. Mary Shelley Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Say it which way you like. Yeah. And uh that that's the movie. Are you satisfied with it? Horror in the house of um Diodati. Never satisfied with anything. It has its moments, yeah. It's uh it's quite fun.

Speaker 122:19

Uh

Presenter22:19

Save.

Speaker 122:19

But

Presenter22:31

Let's have another choice of Reco, please, Ken.

Ken Russell22:33

I've often thought when I've been out of work in England over these years that I should get a a sixty mil camera, or now I'd get a video camera'cause um times have changed and make my own film. And I've uh often thought of Marla's Song of the Earth. I did a film on Marla up there anyway. And um Song of the Earth would be a sort of like um

Ken Russell22:52

a pastoral symphony, if you like, or a look at the seasons through Mahler and the and the Chinese. And uh often this uh lake, my lake, Derwentwater, looks extraordinarily Chinese in the in the winter when it's uh covered in mist and the islands you could imagine that they're tops of mountains peeping through the clouds. Well maybe if I'm out of work this year, maybe I'll start it. And there's one particular movement I like called The Drunkard in Spring and I've I've had some nice drinks in the lake district.

Speaker 423:46

Um

Presenter24:23

That was A Drunkard in Spring by Gustav Mahler, sung by Rennie Collow, and it was a Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karayam.

Presenter24:32

Ken, let's talk a little bit about opera now, because you've directed quite a bit of opera, haven't you? How did the interest start in there?

Ken Russell24:35

Yeah.

Ken Russell24:37

Don't you?

Ken Russell24:39

Well, some one just rang me up out of the blue, uh from Italy, and they had an English opera or at least it was an American opera with an English libretto, The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky and Orden.

Ken Russell24:50

They quite like using film directors there as opera directors, and they like novelty as well, and so they put two and two together, and my name came out of the hat.

Ken Russell25:00

And I was encouraged by them to do um an outrageous sort of production. I generally do things not for repertory, but for festivals where they want something unusual to drag in the punters, and um I generally quietly

Presenter25:14

Quiet, yes. What would be the most outrageous one then that you've.

Ken Russell25:18

Well, I'm I've I don't know. I've apparently Puccini's granddaughter is outraged at my La Boem and um I've been told by other members of the family that if I'm seen in Italy again I'll be shot by them and things like that. But uh you know, but the general public the Italians anyway like a football match and I provide a football match on the stage.

Presenter25:37

With music. Do do you find that that opera is uh is a a good area to move in?

Ken Russell25:42

Yes, I do. I I find it um balancers film. You can get in a terrible rut somehow and it it makes you think of getting effects in a different way. You know, you have no mobile camera, you've got sort of static lights and the actors are imprisoned in that stage, but you've got to find a way of liberating them. And I find that working in one and then working in the other alternately sort of enhances, you know, it it freshens you up for each approach.

Presenter26:06

And what about working with with opera singers? Are they the same as film stars?

Ken Russell26:10

Well, the snag about it is that you can't always choose them. I mean, um, they generally think of the the singers before they think of the director, the opera producers, because there are very few good ones about and they have to be booked up years in advance, whereas there are a lot of, you know, opera directors they can pick them out of a hat. And so they tend to get the singers first and then the the director, and that can cause problems. You know, I've had um singers who refuse to do what I've asked them.

Ken Russell26:40

What happened? Well, in Madam Butterfly we had a we had um a Korean lady who, um, you know, they're supposed to be madly in love, Madam Butterfly and this American sailor, Pinkerton. And I had a a love scene. I mean, there's a twenty minute love scene at the end of Act One where, you know, it's extremely passionate. So

Ken Russell26:57

I had Lieutenant Pinkerton making love to the lady on the Japanese rug, quite discreetly, actually. But anyway, this this Korean lady said Me no lie on Tlopper, Mr Plinkerton, me go home.

Ken Russell27:11

And did she? Yep, flew away and I was glad she went'cause we got a much we got another girl who was only too happy to lie on top of Mr. Pinkerton.

Presenter27:20

That's another choice in the

Ken Russell27:20

That's another choice in that book. Well, living in the mountains I do, I'm sort of m mountain mad, but um, oddly enough, though the Lake District Mountains have inspired many a poet, they don't seem to have inspired many a

Ken Russell27:32

uh composer English anyway and so I'm going to play something now that's um it's called Symphony on a French Mountaineer's Air. It's a nice jolly piece to have on the iron. It would remind me of home without actually being too nostalgic, like say Delia's Song of the High Hills might bring tears to the eyes. But this is nice rumpty tump stuff and it's also there's a theme in it that I'd I'd sing along with. It's it's very much like This Is the Army, Mr. Jones. See if you can spot it.

Presenter28:59

As part of Dandy's symphony on a French Martin Air for piano and orchestra, the pianist was Robert Cassardassou and the orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormondy.

Presenter29:09

Ken, living now in Glake District, happily up there, among the mountains, what's the future going to to bring? I mean, are you going to come down and work in Mongols, do you think, or or go to America again or what?

Ken Russell29:19

I'm on trial in America. I'm being sued, so I guess I'll go to America again. You're being sued again supposedly not finishing a film that never started, but uh that's a long story. Um yeah, but I well I I seem to get up there less and less, which is good in a way, you know, means you're working and so forth. There's more work down here than up there, but uh well, it's always in my thoughts, as it were. And um if I wasn't allowed to be shipwrecked with my family, which I don't suppose I am, I'd uh like my last choice to be something that uh involves the family. My wife and I when we first went to live in the lakes romantically played this song over and over during candlelight dinners and so forth and and pledged we'd make a film about it, just the two of us. Well we never did get around to that, but um two months ago I did a little programme for the BBC North and although she and I weren't in it, our kids were in it and so um little Rupert who's eighteen months and Molly who's eight were the stars of this little video I did to this music about uh life in the lake district.

Presenter29:23

You've been pseudo before.

Speaker 430:24

Find no kinery tree from life's machinery Fiends could get no kinery September in the beanery While you love your lover, let blue skies be your cover, let How we love sequestering When no pests are festering

Speaker 430:38

Greenery, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, My greenery.

Speaker 430:44

Chirita

Presenter30:53

Adding Greenery sung by Meltomy from a record called Meltomy Live at the Mezzonette.

Presenter30:58

Ken Russell, you're on the Desert Island now. Yes. Along comes a tidal wave. It uh washes away seven of your records. Which one would you care to keep?

Ken Russell31:07

Well, I think um the old Song of the Earth,'cause it's uh well, it's an hour's worth of music and it's varied. It it it it covers all moods and I I I think it's uh a sort of Bible to me that.

Presenter31:18

And then you would need the book. They assume you've got the works of Shakespeare, you've got the Bible there. Yeah. What else would you want?

Ken Russell31:20

But the workshop

Ken Russell31:22

Yeah.

Ken Russell31:23

No, I I I'd have the Prelude instead of the Bible.

Presenter31:27

We have

Ken Russell31:27

Bye.

Presenter31:27

Yeah.

Ken Russell31:27

The Prelude by Wordsworth. I mean, that's my Bible. I think it's the Bible of a lot of people who love living up there with the mountains, r rocks, everything else. You know, it it means something.

Presenter31:37

And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Ken Russell31:41

Well, I would say, in in case life got a little too rough and too impossible to take, I think I'd like to take a quart of brandy. And then I probably wouldn't have any more worries.

Presenter31:53

Ken Russell, thank you very much indeed. Thanks.

Speaker 432:02

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