Michael Bogdanov

Speaker 20:00

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.

Presenter0:30

Our Castaway is one of the theatre's most controversial talents. To some, he's a brilliant innovator, a bold explorer. To others, he's a desecrator of works of art. Anywhere you look at him, he's different from the rest. Not many people I know have directed an opera at Covent Garden and run a pub in Wales. Nor have many directors been required to explain their work before a judge at the Old Bailey, as our Castaway was when the Mary Whitehouse Brigade took exception to his work at the National Theatre. He was, I'm glad to say, acquitted, and his stint in solitude on our desert island will be entirely voluntary. He is Michael Bogdanoff. Michael, welcome. Another unusual thing about you, of course, is you've chosen this moment in time to form a new touring theatre company, the English Shakespeare Company. Unusual because it's a time when other companies are cutting back because of costs and things like that. Why did you choose this moment?

Presenter1:20

Yeah.

Michael Bogdanov1:20

Well, it was partly accident and partly design. A few years ago, I decided I'd take a bit of a sabbatical from the National Theatre, and at the point where I did go on leave, I was going to form a touring company for the National, and it was going to have links with Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and initiate projects outside the National, and then come back into the National at a later point. So, in other words, we were going to really sort of forge links with the community outside of London. But then the money fell through, and I hooked up with Michael Pennington, who I had formed a professional relationship with at the RSC and the National, and we went to the Arts Council with a very minor project, very modest one, to see if they put some money into us. And they said, No, what we want is something really large. If you've got something really large, then we'll be interested. So, we went back to them with something really, really large, which was Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part Two, and Henry V. And they jumped around, gave us some money, and we went off and saw Andrew Lee at the Old Vic, and he uh said the Mervishes in Canada, I'm sure, will put some money in. And then we found the Allied Irish banks who were looking for someone to put money into. Suddenly, there it was. I mean, in no time, we'd actually formed a company and were on the road.

Presenter2:23

Now you're back at the old Vicnell. You've just concluded a tour round Britain and of course and the continent as well. First of all, tell me, what kind of reception do you have in Britain, the provinces?

Michael Bogdanov2:31

Absolutely extraordinary. I mean, the main thing is that every Saturday we perform all three days. We do them as a trilogy, all three plays, and the audiences at the end of that Saturday rise and cheer in a most extraordinary fashion, in a way that I haven't experienced it before in Britain. And in other places, of course, it's a question of reawakening an interest in theatre that has gone somewhat dormant simply because there hasn't been the product and they haven't had the chance to experience any classical theatre. So we've been doing two jobs, really. We've been both reawakening an interest in areas where there's now a paucity because the last ten, fifteen years there's been no money, and at the same time we've been satisfying a desire for other areas that is voracious for classical theatre and been received in an amazing fashion.

Michael Bogdanov3:16

Let's have a first choice of music.

Michael Bogdanov3:18

Well, my first uh choice of music is going to be Louis Belson's Skin Deep. It's uh if you like, it's a it's a memory from school days. In fact all my pieces I I'm afraid to say are rather ham because I decided I was going to remember my life on this desert island. And Louis Belson and Skin Deep was a piece that we used to sit around in uh various drawing rooms at school and try and remember the drum riff that uh it constitutes the centrepiece of it.

Presenter4:41

That's Louis Belson and Skin Deep.

Presenter4:44

Michael, before we talk about that was a memory of your of your childhood, but before we talk about that, let's let's just talk a little bit more about this English Shakespeare company of yours. You've chosen the Henry Trilogy and you're notorious stroke famous for the way that you give modern relevance to the works of Shakespeare. What relevance is there, do you see, in the Henry trilogy to to day?

Michael Bogdanov5:03

I don't think that politics in this country have changed an awful lot since those days. The divide that there is, the social divide between North and South, or the Irish problem, or the problem with devolution in Wales and Scotland. I mean, the Henry 41 and Henry 42 plays are dealing almost exclusively with groups that represent the minority cultures, the Celtic cultures in Northumberland, Scotland, Wales, and an attempt to overthrow bureaucratic rule in Westminster, which finally triumphs as it usually does and defeats the various kind of disparate elements in our somewhat polyglot cosmopolitan society. And then Henry V is about uniting the country behind a war of expediency, a political war of expediency, a very dubious claim to the French throne, and uniting the country behind that in a patriotic effort and thereby eradicating a lot of the dissident elements that there are in society. Now I find obvious parallels in that with today's situation in this country.

Presenter6:04

Does the audience though, this is the point, do they see the modern relevance of it, do you think?

Michael Bogdanov6:08

Oh yes, I mean I think that one of the great things that we've achieved with this tour is to have a a clarity of thought and intention in the plays that mean that young people in particular are awakened to the power of the pieces and understand them absolutely perfectly. And an older generation I'm continually getting letters from people who say I've been a theatre goer for fifty years and I have never ever seen Shakespeare so clear and so beautifully spoken as well at the same time. So obviously something's getting through.

Presenter6:36

You have to give them, I suppose, visual signposts as well. I mean you have to sort of give it visual relevance to symbols from today. Can you give us some examples of of what you've done in the in the Henry Transition?

Michael Bogdanov6:39

But

Michael Bogdanov6:45

In the Henrys, well I normally work almost exclusively in modern dress, but in the Henrys I was faced with a particular problem because at the end of Henry Four One there is a protracted battle with swords and I thought of all sorts of metaphors that I might get away with, you know, arm wrestling or mudslinging or chess, but I decided actually I couldn't avoid finally the wonderful sword fight that there is between Hotspur and Howell. So in a way that dictated one style because in fact I decided it was chain mail and it was long swords. So to going to the other extreme, right up to date with modern dress, obviously street fashion and punks come well to the fore. So really the productions run the grammar from chain mail to punks and the visual signposts that there are en route are merely to help people identify the elements in society that they're dealing with and not put up any barriers between them and the language. Let's have another choice of record, please. Well this one's representative of a whole series of records. It's Buddy Holly and Peggy Sue and really it's reminding me of all the days I used to busk in in Paris and Scandinavia and Mexico earning money, playing three chords and all the Buddy Holly numbers.

Presenter7:55

Peggy Suit

Presenter7:57

Then you know why I feel blue without tagging

Presenter8:02

My egg is so

Presenter8:06

Oh well I love you Kelly, I love you, baby soon.

Presenter8:13

Peggy Suit

Presenter8:14

Biggie suit

Presenter8:16

Oh how my heart yearns for you obey

Presenter8:21

Buddy Holly and Peggy Sue.

Presenter8:26

Michael, what kind of of background did you come from? Was it a theatrical background?

Presenter8:30

Yeah.

Michael Bogdanov8:30

No, not at all. In fact, I wasn't really interested in theatre till quite late on. My background was was a mixture. My mother is from South Wales, and my father was born in a little village outside Kieff, and he was a linguist, and I suppose my background in one respect was languages, because my father's interest in languages, he was an authority on Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. And he did work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and he was librarian of Whitechapel Public Library for quite a long period of time. So it was books and languages at home as much as anything. And at school, it was sport. I was an absolute fanatic for sport at school. I used to go up to Lourdes and watch Middlesex every Saturday. And any spare time I had, I'd be outside the the flat, sort of kicking a ball up against the wall and practising hiddy goody or pushka's moves from the 7-3 thrashing that England had at Wembley. I mean, so in fact it was a kind of a mixture, as I say, of

Michael Bogdanov9:27

Bookson and Sport

Presenter9:28

And there was no thought in your mind at that time that one day you might actually enter the theatre, in any capacity at all.

Michael Bogdanov9:33

Not really. I acted uh in a play called How to Bell the Cat when I was about ten and uh people said uh isn't he funny?

Michael Bogdanov9:42

And then at school I did a uh a Christopher Frye play called uh The Boy with a Cart. But my ambitions were never really to act, I suppose. But when I went to university I did a lot of writing and a lot of performing in cabaret, and it was there really that my interest started.

Presenter9:56

Do you have an interest in in Shakespeare, which is your abiding passion, or do you have an interest then when you were younger?

Michael Bogdanov10:01

Not really. In fact, I was turned off Shakespeare at school because we used to spend sort of one whole term on one soliloquy of Hamlet. In fact, for twelve years I left Shakespeare altogether. When I was in Ireland and working in television and radio and and sort of touring up and down the theatre with with one night stands and uh with weekly rep, uh I I didn't have a thought of Shakespeare in my head. But when I decided to come back over to England and to start again, as it were, I went to the Royal Shakespeare Company as an assistant director because I decided I'd got to know about Shakespeare and it was at that point that my my interest uh started to develop in in uh all sorts of ways. But at school I was completely turned off Shakespeare, apart from going to the old Vic when the Burton Neville Othello was there, which was quite extraordinary and was really the first Shakespeare that I saw.

Speaker 110:40

Uh

Presenter10:40

Never will

Michael Bogdanov10:46

Another choice of record, please. Well, this is one from my Irish days. This is the Rocky Road to Dublin performed by the Dubliners, and really it's a tribute to Luke Kelly, who's now dead, because I've never seen a group of people smash themselves to pieces on the altar of drink like those boys did. And I used to be their roadie for a bit, travelling up and down Ireland with them, hauling them basically out of the pubs and sort of apologising to audiences for them being an hour late. But anyway, Luke died a little while back, and this is the first song I ever heard him sing.

Speaker 111:15

Well in the merry month of May Now from me home I started Left the girls and chew and nearly broken hearted salute and father dear Kissed me darling mother drank a pint of beer Me grief and tears to smothered enough to reap the corn and leave where I was born Could a stout mix hard to banish ghost and goblets and run your bear a broken To rattle up with the bugs and frighten All the dogs on the rocky road To double em on to grief for hair a turn and down the rocky road Turn all the ways to double em I follow the darling

Presenter11:39

Down the rocky roads and all the ways to double them

Speaker 211:42

My

Presenter11:42

Yeah.

Presenter11:45

That's the Dubliners and the Rocky Road to Dublin. Let's talk about uh Dublin, Michael, because it obviously had a huge effect on your on your career. You went to Trinity College in in Dublin. Why did you choose an Irish University to start with?

Michael Bogdanov11:57

Well, it was a complete accident in a way. I wanted to go uh abroad. I was l I was late uh to do some exams for Oxford and it would have meant waiting a year. And so I tried to get some money to go to Heidelberg or the Sorbonne, romantic names to me at that time, and nobody would do that. So I thought, well, I'm not going to go to any English university. And a friend of mine at school had written a letter to Trinity saying that he'd got uh three A levels and could he have some application forms and they wrote back by return of post saying just turn up with £100.

Michael Bogdanov12:25

So I wrote the same letter and got the same reply back. I thought, well, any university that could do that is worth its salt. So over I went and it was the best thing I ever did.

Presenter12:31

So

Presenter12:34

Was it a golden time, was it?

Michael Bogdanov12:35

Oh, absolutely wonderful. I mean, it it uh it it was such a formative period, and it uh introduced me to so many things that have become uh uh a part of my life ever since.

Presenter12:45

And this is where the the the the real interest in the theatre started.

Michael Bogdanov12:49

That's right, Trinity College in Dublin University Players, which is a very small theatre that had a very small group, I mean all of whom from that period of time have made their way in in most extraordinary fashion. And the group of us there wrote and acted and directed, and it was right at the end of my college career after because it was a four-year course, double honours, that I con directed a one-act play by a Canadian boy, because he hadn't got anybody to direct it, and it won the university's One Act Drama Festival. I thought this is easy, so I immediately directed Wee Clo by Jean Paul Sartre, made a complete mess of it, but by then I was hooked. And from there I went on into stay in Dublin and to carry on directing.

Presenter13:25

You're also a performer too, aren't you? I mean you had a radio program.

Michael Bogdanov13:27

You had a radio programme of sorts. I mean, I it's actually by default. I used to do a lot of uh cabaret stuff with the guitar and and play some terrible pastiche Bob Dylan numbers and Irish folk songs. And uh there was a an equity strike. I didn't know this at the time in Dublin. And they asked me if I'd uh do a half-hour programme with a uh a gentleman called Andre Prière in the casino orchestra and he used to play these beautiful sort of sweet melodies and then I'd come on with these terrible three chords and play these terrible songs with my leg up on a stool because I was in plaster in the time. I was smashed up in a car crash in the midst of winter and it really saved my life in a way, this this radio programme. But the trouble is because of the strike, every time I turned the radio on, there I was singing I'm a lonesome traveller again and again and again, seven times over. They repeated the programme.

Presenter14:11

Another choice of music.

Michael Bogdanov14:13

Uh this one is uh from the Dublin days. It's uh Miles Davis and uh it's miles ahead. And it reminds me of a wonderful flat that uh four of us used to share in Dublin in it used to be called 208, 208 Rathmines Road, which uh I shared with Terry Brady and Ralph Bates, both of whom as I say uh have made their ways uh in an extraordinary fashion and uh we used to plays for breakfast.

Presenter15:34

Miles Davis and Miles Ahead.

Presenter15:37

Michael, you broke off this uh affair you were having with Dublin, uh where you're obviously enjoying yourself in the most remarkable way. You went to Wales and you took a pub.

Presenter15:46

No, why was that?

Michael Bogdanov15:47

Well, I thought at one point I was going to stay in Ireland for the rest of my life, but I started to quarrel with Ireland politically, religiously and socially, and I realised that I couldn't finally settle there because I would have to commit myself to Ireland. And when Patsy, my wife, myself, and our small child Jethro, who was born in Dublin, came back over, we were looking for a place in Wales to buy, and we saw advertised this little pub that that Patsy knew up in the hills in North Breconshire. And I went down one September sunny Sunday afternoon to have a look at it, and fell in love with it on the spot, made an offer there, and then over the counter it was three thousand five hundred pounds.

Michael Bogdanov16:25

Six weeks later, we moved in, and it was a two-story Welsh cottage. The front room was a bar. There was no bathroom, and the toilet was an L-sand, which you emptied in the stream that ran by the door. And we lived there and ran it, and owned it, not stock and barrel, for nearly two years. Did you enjoy it? Oh, it's absolutely extraordinary. That was another.

Presenter16:41

Did you enjoy it?

Michael Bogdanov16:45

big influence on my life, if you like, because in fact we're still in that same valley. We have a farmhouse further up the road from the pub, and uh that is for a long time was the the only place that we could call home, because we would if we were travelling a lot, the only place we'd ever end up for any length of time would be in that valley in Wales, which is a Welsh speaking valley.

Michael Bogdanov17:03

Another choice of record.

Michael Bogdanov17:05

This is another Irish one. It's a Shauna Reeler recording from Mishera, which was a film about Ireland, and it's an old Irish song called Roching Do. And it really it reminds me of all those wonderful times over in the west of Ireland in Connemara and Kerry where my wife's father comes from. It's just the mists and the mountains and the light above all and Roching Do does that for me.

Presenter17:57

It was Russian dough from Misha era.

Presenter18:00

Michael, can we talk now a little bit about Peter Brooke? Because you mentioned there that you joined the Royal Shakespeare Company while you had this pub in Wales. And of course it was it was there that you came under the influence or worked with Peter Brooke, wasn't it? An extraordinary man with an extraordinary reputation in modern theatre. What did you make of him?

Michael Bogdanov18:16

Well That was really one of the luckiest things that happened to me in a way. I mean, uh there'll be many lucky things I seem to be talking about. But uh that year that I went to Stratford was the year that Peter was working on his famous production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and I was his assistant on it and then his associate on the World Tour and also in charge of putting it into New York. So my association with him was very, very close for several years and really he was a confirmation of so many things that I'd come to understand and believe made up theatre. I developed in isolation in Ireland for ten years and I hadn't really had anything to do with English mainstream theatre and this was my first contact and in Ireland I developed ideas on the physical aspect of theatre as opposed to just the verbal and was fascinated by Eastern theatre, Japanese, Chinese, mime, acrobats, circus, everything that went into the European tradition if you like. And when I met Brooke that was a confirmation that these things were indeed a very integral part of theatre and it wasn't just a verbal literary pursuit as a lot of people would have me believe.

Presenter19:24

He's always had like yourself this this very sort of international view of theatre, hasn't he? Do you think there's a problem in in this country that we are we are a little bit insular in our attitude toward theatre?

Michael Bogdanov19:32

I think we're more than a little bit insulin. I think we're very xenophobic.

Michael Bogdanov19:37

Where theatre is concerned. Well, where the arts are concerned in general, although that's not true of opera in a way. But theatre, we we do guard our citadels and and try and cling on to our our somewhat now tatty classical heritage. I mean very jealously. And we don't open the doors to influences from abroad. And it is true to say that we haven't really been a major influence in world theatre this century or indeed last century at all, that any influences come from outside and they're they're European and they're American or they're Eastern and we plod on our literary elitist way.

Presenter20:11

So when we say that as we do very often, that we should be proud of our theatre, are we being wrong?

Michael Bogdanov20:16

I n no, I don't I don't think that we shouldn't be proud of it. What I do think is that we should be rather more objective about it. After all, if uh if America didn't exist, we'd be hard put to look to somewhere for the the kind of plaudits that we think we deserve, because certainly Europe doesn't look to England in the same way as as we think that it does.

Presenter20:36

Another choice of record piecemeal.

Michael Bogdanov20:38

This is uh one that that uh is fr really from my pub days and indeed my current days in my valley in Wales. It's the Morris Denorpheus singing uh Mavanwi and uh it really is was the first sort of Welsh song that I almost knew the words to through the choir that used to sing in uh the Shoemaker's Arms in uh Pentu Bach.

Presenter21:52

Morrison Choir and their family. There's no sound like that in the world, is there? It's quite extraordinary.

Michael Bogdanov21:57

Yes, it it sends shivers up here.

Presenter21:59

'Cause every time you hear it that that sound is extraordinary quality.

Michael Bogdanov22:02

Goes it.

Presenter22:03

Let's now move on to the National Theatre. You joined the National Theatre in in nineteen eighty and it was a rather spectacular start, wasn't it? Because you were prosecuted for a scene in Howard Brenton's The Romans in Britain depicting homosexual rape. Was it a frightening experience for you? I mean not the homosexual rape that you prosecuted.

Michael Bogdanov22:22

Yes, it it yes, it was. Um it it affected me more than I thought at the time, simply because I never really believed that it was happening or was going to happen. But the further that the the the whole thing went on, the more ludicrous it became, and the the more real became the danger that in fact I I would end up having been found guilty under this subsection of the nineteen fifty six Sexual Offences Act, um which was never designed to apply to the stage at all, and that was what the law couldn't sort out.

Speaker 122:48

Um

Michael Bogdanov22:53

And when it was called a draw, sort of halfway through, and disentangled, it was with a profound sense of relief.

Presenter22:53

Uh

Presenter22:59

What did it tell you about some of those out there that you're prosecuted?

Michael Bogdanov23:04

It told me a tremendous amount about both about the uh the English public, the English uh establishment, and also about the media uh who really fanned the whole thing in the most extraordinary way. And uh

Presenter23:11

Hmm.

Michael Bogdanov23:15

I have no love, I have to say, since those days of n newspapers or television, and it's only radio who really gave me a fair hearing and a fair deal during the whole of that extraordinary affair.

Michael Bogdanov23:27

Yeah.

Presenter23:27

What about the reaction to your other the other things you do that upset people? I'm not thinking about the your Shakespearean interpretations of it. Those colonels in Tunbridge Wells no doubt froth at the mouth when they when they see them. Do you get a an equally violent reaction to that sort of what they would say, tampering with the text?

Michael Bogdanov23:41

Yeah.

Michael Bogdanov23:42

It's calming down to a certain extent. When I first did the Taming of the Shrew at Stratford, I had about eighty letters from apoplectic colonels. More, in fact, than I had over the whole of the Romans in Britain affair. Now they come intermittently, and with the Henrys I suppose the percentage is about eighty-five pro and about fifteen percent against. So in fact, the the I'm I'm winning some sort of battle, I think.

Presenter24:03

It's changing for the better.

Michael Bogdanov24:05

I I think so. But I mean, as my main task is to try and encourage young people and people who've never been to the theatre before and people who don't know Shakespeare to enjoy Shakespeare, I I consider that if I've done that, then I've done a good job. And I'm a Shakespeare lover, not a hater. I analyze those texts down to the last syllable to ensure that the decisions I'm making are not arbitrary ones. And although I get called wilful and vain by the Guardian.

Michael Bogdanov24:29

And arbitrary act that that's the last thing that uh I think I am.

Presenter24:34

Another choice of record, please, Michael.

Michael Bogdanov24:36

Well, this is um from my first acquaintance with Lottie Lenya, which was actually in a bar in Munich where I studied for a spell, and it also reminds me of the days in Leicester and Newcastle, where I did two productions of the Thrupney Opera, and it's the Pirate Jenny song.

Speaker 124:51

The name

Michael Bogdanov24:52

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 224:54

I'm going to go to the next one.

Speaker 224:57

And three?

Michael Bogdanov24:57

Break off the tune in one day.

Michael Bogdanov25:01

Unmantra.

Michael Bogdanov25:02

He had very divorced.

Speaker 125:04

Yeah.

Speaker 125:08

Bit of big girls.

Speaker 125:11

Uh

Speaker 225:11

Won't we turn?

Speaker 125:12

Uh

Speaker 225:12

See Canon.

Speaker 225:17

Yeah.

Speaker 225:18

Yeah.

Speaker 225:32

Und sangen einen jigligen for yiglingertu, und ligen ketzen und bringen vo beer.

Michael Bogdanov25:40

Uh

Speaker 225:40

Most big cardi Belgian golden beer too.

Michael Bogdanov25:44

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter25:47

That was Para Jenny's song from Kurtval Strepanny Opera, sung by Lotti Lenya.

Presenter25:52

Michael, you can now obviously pick and and choose um what you have to do in the theatre. What it takes the choice? What is it that attracts you to a proposition?

Michael Bogdanov26:01

Well, I I don't know that one can pick and choose. Uh i in order to to keep one's mind alive and working and moving forward, uh w I have to keep challenging myself in some form.

Presenter26:01

Back.

Michael Bogdanov26:12

And the English Shakespeare Company is is a challenge of that kind, but I suppose ideally I would like to find a warehouse somewhere with the facilities to have a a company and the money to have a large enough company and the facilities to work and develop projects maybe for three months and then take them out. And I'd like that space to have video equipment and audio equipment and a gymnasium, in other words, a a proper research training centre where one can really get to grips with projects. And I suppose that would be the ultimate challenge for me, to find out how far I can stretch myself and a group of people in developing a particular view of theatre.

Presenter26:52

Can I ask you a question that probably one or two people out there might be asking. I mean, I heard this entire interview. Why? Why should you bother? Why should we bother?

Michael Bogdanov26:59

Well, theatre for me is an instrument of social change. Uh I have very strong views on how I think society should be and what I would like it to be educationally, socially, politically. And the only way I can actually put forward those ideas coherently, as far as I can see, is through theatre. I can stand and talk, I can write, and I can teach and I can, I suppose, go into politics. But theatre seems to be what I'm quite good at, and therefore I try and use theatre in order to to try and and say some things that that I hope will interest people and finally either enthuse them or anger them. I don't mind which as long as they're positive about it.

Presenter27:37

Can I

Michael Bogdanov27:38

Maybe an instrument for change, anything? I think it's at its highest point. It always has been. All art has been.

Michael Bogdanov27:44

What about the future, the immediate future?

Presenter27:45

Yeah.

Michael Bogdanov27:45

Well, the immediate future is to try and uh raise the money to do all seven Wars of the Roses, adding Richard the Second, Richard the Third and Henry Sixes to the Henrys already in existence, and then go out on the road playing all seven over a week end. And whether or not we achieve that uh is dependent on the finance.

Presenter28:02

And the stamina of the players too. And the stamina of all of us, I think. A final record, please, Michael.

Michael Bogdanov28:03

Standard stamina.

Michael Bogdanov28:07

This is the sanctus from Mozart's Requiem in D minor, which uh is once again a memory, I suppose, of my Leicester days and and uh friends there, uh Bob and Susie Meekle, and Bob who runs the music department at Leicester University, and in whose choir Patsy used to sing, and the last thing she sang was the Mozart Requiem.

Michael Bogdanov28:56

Where is London?

Presenter29:26

The sanctus from Mozart's Requiem a performance by the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giorini.

Presenter29:34

Michael, you're now in your desert island, and you've got your eight records. A wave comes along, and seven have disappeared, you're left with one. Which would it be?

Michael Bogdanov29:42

I suppose it would be the Rocky Road to Dublin. It was a rocky road coming away from Dublin, but it was also a wonderful period of my life, the ten years, the most formative years of my life, I think.

Presenter29:55

What about the book? Assume you've got Shakespeare, assume you've got the the Bible. Which book would it be?

Michael Bogdanov30:00

Well, I'm going to take with me the book that I carry around with me indeed I have on my person Enna, and it's Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book, nineteen eighty seven. So I decided I wanted to look at all those wonderful wines and remember the taste and just savour the moments that I've had in various bars throughout the world.

Presenter30:18

And what about the luxury object?

Michael Bogdanov30:20

Well, the luxury object is a custom-made thing, actually. It's a a fifty-pound jar of Marmite. Why?

Michael Bogdanov30:27

Well, I I decided that the senses uh had got to be pounded to, so I'd remember wine and I'd taste marmite, and I'd thought fifty pounds I could just have a finger a day and

Michael Bogdanov30:36

Keep the taste of toaster marmite going. Michael Bogdanov, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 230:48

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