Elaine Paige

Speaker 30:00

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.

Presenter0:29

To list the shows our castaways appeared in is to catalogue the great Western musical hits of the past 20 years. She made her debut in The Chorus of Hair, followed it with Jesus Christ Superstar, and played her first leading role in Greece. She scored a great personal success in Billy, opposite Michael Crawford, and followed this with the role that made her an international star, Eva Perron, in Evita. Then came Cats, followed by the lead in the current hit musical, Chess, and she is Elaine Page.

Presenter0:57

Elaine, as I said in the introduction there, I mean, all those are parts that any other actress would die for. Has it been luck or good management, do you think?

Elaine Paige1:06

I think, uh, I have to say luck probably and a lot of hard work and

Elaine Paige1:12

Just a matter of uh persevering really, because very early on in my career I found that I would go out for auditions and uh

Elaine Paige1:21

I always managed somehow or other to get down to the last two or three.

Elaine Paige1:24

Inevitably I would then get the big elbow and uh somehow didn't seem to quite get

Elaine Paige1:31

The job. I mean, a lot of those that you've mentioned, the early ones anyway, were very much uh chorus.

Presenter1:37

Yes, but nonetheless you were in them and nonetheless they had a a significant part in the development of

Elaine Paige1:38

Bless you in.

Elaine Paige1:41

Oh, absolutely, yes. You can't start at the top. I mean, you've got to learn and and that's how I learnt really through being in the shows rather than uh at drama school, although I was at drama school for uh three years.

Presenter1:53

Well, let's we'll go through your your your history in a moment. But first of all, let let me ask you how do you think you'd react to this new role you've got, which is living on a desert island. Are you going to be any good at it, do you think?

Elaine Paige2:03

Well, I don't know. I've kind of been thinking about it, and uh I do like to be alone quite a lot, so I think in in that sense uh I'd be all right. I don't know how for for how long, though. I mean, it's it's all very well to say that, but uh

Elaine Paige2:16

We live in an age where one can pick up the phone and uh go and see some friends or whatever. But I I think in that sense I might quite like it. I'm a fairly practical kind of person, so

Elaine Paige2:27

I would quite like the idea of trying to um, I dunno, build myself somewhere to live. Yes, exactly. So I dunno, yes, I think I might be quite good at it.

Presenter2:32

Build myself

Presenter2:37

And what about the music that you've chosen to accompany on this on this island? Are they all memories or?

Elaine Paige2:42

Yes, memories from different various times in my life. Yeah.

Presenter2:46

What about the first choice then? What's that a memory of?

Elaine Paige2:49

Well, the Hallelujah Chorus reminds me of my school days, and in fact it was the first ever public performance that I gave with the Southor Girls' Choir, and it reminds me of music lessons whereby every

Elaine Paige3:05

Whenever we had music lessons, we would go in and we'd have to learn several more bars of this.

Elaine Paige3:10

what I consider to be quite a difficult piece, and it just reminds me of it's the one and only time also that I've ever sung with a lot of voices. And there's something quite gratifying about being able to learn your own harmony line, your own part, and hold your own when all all around you is singing something totally different. So uh it reminds me of those days.

Speaker 43:57

Oh no, no, but deep button craven.

Presenter4:30

The Alleluia Chorus by Handel performed by the Choir of Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford and the Academy of Ancient Music.

Presenter4:37

And then Paige, what kind of background did you come from? What did your parents do? Was there any showbiz in the family?

Elaine Paige4:42

Well, only in an amateur way, really. My father still plays the drums and um

Elaine Paige4:49

My mother has sung. They both were involved in concert party during the war. So in that sense there's theatre and music in the family. But by profession my father was an estate agent and my mother is a milliner.

Presenter5:02

So where do you get you you get your ambitions from then? Because I one assumes looking at your career that you you had an ambition from a very early age too.

Elaine Paige5:08

But I don't know that I did really. I mean, it it was something that uh my family and I both together seemed to discover really. No, it wasn't an ambition that I had very early on. In fact, I the one ambition I had I wanted to be a tennis player. That's what I remember quite clearly. And of course the headmistress at my school said to me, Well, that's hopeless, Elaine, because you're far too small, you can't see over the net and she was actually absolutely quite right about that. But I didn't see why that should stop me being a great tennis player, but still, um

Presenter5:35

So how does stage school come into it then?

Elaine Paige5:36

Well, it was really from my secondary school, South Orr. My music teacher would get us to perform Hallelujah Chorus or we did a potted version of uh Mozart The Magic Flute. So I think it really came from that, really, from just doing these end of term plays and musical recitals and so on, like any school child does, I suppose. But um I seem to remember wanting to do that far more than the academic studies that one was required to do at school, and so I would sort of make up all kinds of reasons and stories to get out of cl of the class that I should be in, to go and

Elaine Paige6:13

you know, sit at the piano in the assembly hall and, uh, rehearse.

Presenter6:17

Another choice of record, Piselane.

Elaine Paige6:19

Well, this one is uh

Elaine Paige6:21

A song from West Side's Story, which I suppose was my first introduction to musical theatre.

Elaine Paige6:27

It's one of those musicals where all the elements seem to come together perfectly well the story, the music, the lyrics, the style of the piece. And so I've chosen Barbara Streisand to sing her version of Something's Coming.

Speaker 46:41

Yes it will, maybe just by holding still, it'll be there. Come on something, come on in, don't be shy, need a guy, pull up a chair. Yes for me and something great is coming.

Presenter7:10

That was something that's coming from Westside Story sung by Barbara Streisand.

Presenter7:14

Elaine

Presenter7:15

I suppose it was from was it from uh stage school that you went for your very first audition?

Elaine Paige7:20

Oh yes.

Presenter7:20

And how old were you then?

Elaine Paige7:21

I should think sixteen. I hadn't been there very long, in fact, only a matter of months.

Elaine Paige7:26

When I went for my first audition, I will remember that till my dying day. Why is that?

Presenter7:29

My dying day.

Elaine Paige7:32

I'd learnt this song, I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No, and I thought I knew the lyric perfectly well. And I got to the audition and they called my name, and that was a whole hoo ha trying to ex spell my name and explain who I was.

Presenter7:46

We should say here because your name wasn't page at that time, right?

Elaine Paige7:48

No, it's my real name is Bickerstaff, and you can see why I changed it, because every time I went out we'd go through this rig and roll of spelling it and uh could you say that again? Has it got an E on the end? Oh, it was that used to take up five minutes of their time. And um so I get to the audition, we go through all that business with the name, and then they ask me what I'm going to sing, and I tell them it's I'm just a girl who can't say no, and I start off.

Elaine Paige8:11

Terribly well I remember about the first four lines.

Elaine Paige8:15

And then there was this terrible blank in my brain. It was like I suddenly didn't have a brain at all and just nothing.

Elaine Paige8:21

And I found myself just kind of going daddy daddy daddy la dee daddy and I felt such a fool and but I I didn't stop. I just kept on going dardy daddy daddy and in the end they said thank you, thank you and that was the first time I ever heard that sort of

Elaine Paige8:34

the chorus over the the from the darkness of the theatre. And uh of course I realized that nerves do very strange things to you and that you have to learn a song, I have to learn anything, really, really m

Elaine Paige8:48

E m more than you think you need to.

Presenter8:51

Another choice of record, please for me.

Elaine Paige8:53

Well, this one is the Everley brothers and um

Elaine Paige8:57

It reminds me of a time in my life when I suppose I was just becoming aware of pop music really.

Elaine Paige9:04

and uh a girlfriend and I tried to learn this song and again I sang the harmony part and she sang the lead line and uh we used to bore our friends and our parents with our rendition of All I Have to Do is Dream.

Speaker 49:19

Night or day

Speaker 49:22

Only trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away I need you so that I could die I love you so And that is why whenever I want you all I have to do

Presenter9:48

That was the Everly Brothers, and all I have to do is dream.

Presenter9:52

Elaine, you made your Western debut in 1968 in Hare. What do you remember of that time and of that musical? Were they good days?

Elaine Paige10:00

Oh, yes, I'd ha I'd go as far as to say it's probably one of the happiest times in my life.

Elaine Paige10:05

I was young, I was only eighteen years old, and uh a hippie of course.

Presenter10:11

You were a hippie waiter. Oh yes, very much.

Elaine Paige10:12

Oh, yes, very much so, to my mother's disbelief. I look back fondly at that time because it was a time of sort of freedom and.

Elaine Paige10:20

a very positive time for for young people. We all had there was a job to be had, we all had money. I and as you say, I was in my first West End show, Hare. And

Elaine Paige10:32

It was just I don't know, probably I'm being a bit romantic about it, but it was a a wonderful time. I remember I lived in a commune in Hampstead a rather upmarket commune, I hastened to add, in a penthouse flat, actually.

Elaine Paige10:45

But uh and then we all at one point decided that we were going to leave there and go down and live in the country and grow our own vegetables, which was quite horrendous. That never worked at all. I mean, it was it was all these wonderful ideals, but uh

Elaine Paige10:57

Trying to put it all into practice was really another matter altogether.

Presenter11:01

But it was a it was a rather silly time too, wasn't it? I've always think when I've seen sort of the newsreels of that time, because I lived through it too, but essentially silly it was. Pleasant but silly.

Elaine Paige11:09

Yeah, I suppose it was a bit silly. I mean, looking back on it it seems silly, but at the time it didn't. Um at the time we I I remember sort of believing in the whole thing very much so, in in that uh, you know, love and peace and to treat your fellow man with respect and care and gentleness and kindness

Elaine Paige11:28

And all that, and everything that went along with it. I think that's uh that's admirable. I think it's a a shame, in a way, that uh there there isn't en enough of it any more. But uh I suppose it was a bit silly, yes, but uh it was harmless.

Presenter11:42

Another choice of record, please.

Elaine Paige11:44

I couldn't go on a desert island without the Beatles, and um I've chosen a track from their Abbey Road album, which was very much in my life during the sixties and my hair days. So um this is that fantastic track, Here Comes the Sun.

Speaker 412:03

I'm all lonely.

Speaker 412:08

You darling

Speaker 412:10

It feels like years since it's been here.

Speaker 412:15

Here comes the sun Here comes the sun I say

Speaker 412:23

It's alright.

Presenter12:28

There's the Beatles, and here comes the sun.

Presenter12:31

Elaine, you've worked, as I said, uh for twenty years. Your your work's been associated mainly with with musicals on the West End stage, but you've also done straight acting as as well. You in fact worked for a while with Joan Littlewood's Actors' Workshop at Stratford East, didn't you?

Elaine Paige12:45

I did, yes, but I have to say that was primarily in a sort of a review type thing, so it was sort of.

Presenter12:45

I

Elaine Paige12:51

sketches and scenes from plays and things, and singing and so on. In fact, it was one of the maddest uh shows I've ever been involved in. Every night there would be at either side of the

Elaine Paige13:04

Cross arch, a different running order. So it was never the same twice. She would.

Elaine Paige13:10

be infuriated if you went on and came off the same way. And you know, she said, I don't care, one knife you want to swing in from the on a rope from the box you can do so, but I don't want you to do it the same ever twice. So it was a great learning time for me because uh when you work in commercial theatre obviously one is limited to a certain amount of rehearsal and a a certain budget and so on and so forth. And over there it was much freer. You were allowed to uh experiment a lot more, even in front of the poor paying audience. I mean that was what she wanted. She wanted you to do it different every time you performed. And so it was a great learning process and wonderful fun.

Presenter13:50

Did you though at at any time I mean you did you did Hair and of course, you did Jesus Christ a superstar, then you you started in Greece and then you went into to Billy with Michael Crawford and had tremendous success in all of them. Was there a sense though in which you find yourself being typecast, that you you thought, look, enough is enough of the of the musical theater or or something else?

Elaine Paige14:09

Or something else? Very much so. That is the problem. That.

Elaine Paige14:14

You start to go from one to the other to the other, and of course, then you are known only as a musical.

Elaine Paige14:21

Performer in musical theatre.

Elaine Paige14:23

And of course I did begin my career as a straight actress in Birmingham. And so, yes, I did very much feel that I wanted to shake that and try and get out of what it felt really rather like being in a rut. But of course in making that choice I I put myself out of work for probably about, I don't know, the longest that I'd ever been out, which was over six months. But uh again, it was through my own choice, so I didn't uh mind so much. But it was very difficult to try and get my foot back into the the straight side of the of the profession.

Presenter14:53

And I take

Elaine Paige14:54

And I don't think really I ever achieved it. I mean, the doors were beginning to open up, of course, when Evita came along.

Presenter15:00

Well it can't be a bad thing to have happened.

Elaine Paige15:01

No, I couldn't say no to that, could I?

Presenter15:03

More about Avita in a moment. Let's have another choice of record.

Elaine Paige15:07

Well, I wanted to play a piece of Mozart. Again, um, going back to my school days, it was my music teacher that introduced Mozart into my life, and I'm very grateful to her for it. And over the years I've

Elaine Paige15:20

grown to

Elaine Paige15:21

Love listening to Mozart and um

Elaine Paige15:24

Indeed, I even still try and sing some of it. We used to do potted versions at school of uh well, one potted version of the magic flute, and occasionally at singing lessons I attempt to to sing some Mozart, but uh I don't think this I could ever sing. It's the most wonderful aria called Queen of the Night, and I'd never tire of listening to this.

Speaker 416:00

My improvement

Presenter16:44

That was the Queen of the Nights aria from Act Two of Mozart's The Magic Flute, sung there by Karen Ott, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karayam.

Presenter16:54

Elaine

Presenter16:55

Evita, a huge influence on your life, a a turning point, I mean, transformed you into a major international star. How great was the competition for Evita, to start with?

Elaine Paige17:06

It was great in that I was told, certainly via the press, though how true it is, I don't know, that there certainly, I should think, over four hundred people were seen for the role, and then, of course, the press started saying that

Elaine Paige17:17

such people as Faye Dunaway, um Liza Manelli, and they started sort of, you know, name dropping every woman who was sort of in her thirties or whatever to play this part. So it was fairly stiff competition, that's true, and I did, I remember, four auditions for it, and got down to the the old four people again, and I thought, Here we go.

Elaine Paige17:37

But uh this time I was lucky.

Presenter17:39

Did you want it very badly I mean, obviously you did, but did you want it from the point of view that you knew that it was your part?

Elaine Paige17:45

Yes, it was one of those things, to be honest, when I my agent first uh suggested that I auditioned for it, I was reluctant because, as I was saying earlier, I was just about to open a few new doors in terms of straight acting, and this meant that I would be putting myself right back where I started. But of course, once I'd heard the music and read the sort of synopsis and I started to uh try and research a bit about her, I started to find out about her and Argentina and that that whole era.

Elaine Paige18:13

and I became fascinated.

Elaine Paige18:15

By the Woman

Elaine Paige18:17

And um once that had happened

Elaine Paige18:20

Yes, then I really wanted it very badly because I felt that I could uh serve the piece well, because there were certain things in terms of my height, which is fairly obvious, was correct for the part. But I also felt that uh this was an opportunity for me to be able to

Elaine Paige18:38

put together something that I had been in a dilemma about, which was my acting.

Elaine Paige18:43

Career and my music and my singing, and this was going to be able to afford me to be able to put the two things together.

Presenter18:50

You became of course that that classic show was uh a phenomenon. You became the overnight success after being in the business for ten years in the US. I think you covered that. I mean things did change for me, didn't they?

Elaine Paige18:58

You go with that.

Elaine Paige19:00

Well, it did, yes. I mean, we do all laugh about that, but in truth it was true that my life changed radically overnight and it was quite difficult to handle really because I was very much on my own. You know, I had an agent and that was about it. I didn't really have

Elaine Paige19:16

A personal manager or

Elaine Paige19:18

or accountants or lawyers or anyone really looking after me. It was just me living off my own wits along with my agent, basically. And of course everybody wanted a part of me. I was offered recording contracts and you know, adverts to advertise this, that, and the other, and doing interviews

Elaine Paige19:36

I could have done several interviews every day of the week, and I was suddenly thrown into this whole lifestyle that was totally alien to me.

Elaine Paige19:45

And uh looking back, I wonder how I got through it without sort of cracking up.

Presenter19:49

Probably helped being a bigger stuff.

Presenter19:53

That's another choice of rec

Elaine Paige19:55

Well

Elaine Paige19:56

This is a song from Lena Horne, and uh somebody that I've only sort of gotten to know about over the last two or three years, actually, a friend of mine.

Elaine Paige20:07

asked me to go and see her actor at the London Palladium, and I went along, really obviously knowing about her, but not knowing a great deal about her work.

Elaine Paige20:15

And

Elaine Paige20:16

She just blew me away, the most amazing live performance, and she just made me feel oh, I might as well give up because she just has everything. This is a great song that she sang

Elaine Paige20:28

Two or three minutes, maybe five minutes into the opening of of this act that I saw, and it's called I've Got a Name.

Speaker 420:35

Like the pine tree line on a winding road.

Speaker 420:41

I got a man.

Elaine Paige20:42

Uh

Speaker 420:49

Like the singing bird and the croaking toad, yes

Speaker 420:56

I got a name.

Elaine Paige20:59

Uh I got a name.

Presenter21:04

That was Lena Horne, and I've got a name.

Presenter21:07

Elaine, it must have seemed impossible after Ibita to have to have followed it with um an equal success, but in fact you did. I mean you you did cats.

Elaine Paige21:14

Well, that was pure luck, I have to say. Uh after Evita I was out of work for over a year. I couldn't get arrested. Just nothing. I was offered every musical that anybody had ever written, which were, as you rightly say, I it couldn't better or follow Evita, because that was such a stunning piece. And I just wasn't really offered anything that was worth while, so I just sat it out and thought, Oh, well, that's it then, you know, I've here we are, start all over again. And then about, I don't know, well over a year after Evita, Cameron McIntosh rang me up out of the blue and said that Judy Dench had injured herself and uh

Elaine Paige21:54

Would I consider uh taking over her role in cats? I mean it was pure luck.

Elaine Paige21:58

Uh lucky for me, not so lucky for Judy.

Elaine Paige22:01

And that's how it came about.

Presenter22:03

And then you followed that, of course, with with chess. And when you look back, you know, as I said, you've been associated with this very significant chapter in British theatre.

Elaine Paige22:10

Mm.

Speaker 422:10

Uh

Elaine Paige22:10

Yeah.

Presenter22:12

Which, I mean, Tim and Andrew Law Webber have have contributed to greatly. It must give me an extraordinary feeling looking back and thinking that you were there at a time when two writers particularly changed the the the face of musical theatre.

Elaine Paige22:22

Yes, that's right. I was embarking on my musical career, if you like, around the time that Andrew and Tim were writing Joseph and Jesus Christ Superstar. And of course musical theatre has changed very much since that period to date in that um

Elaine Paige22:41

It is a lot of new stuff, anyway, that is being written by Tim or Andrew or whoever. It seems to be much more now based on opera in in terms that it's nearly all sung, as opposed to the old format which was you'd have a dialogue scene and then a nice song and then another dialogue scene.

Elaine Paige22:58

Yes, I've been very lucky over my career so far in that I've been involved in some very innovative theatre, starting of course with Hare.

Presenter23:06

Yeah.

Elaine Paige23:06

Very lucky.

Presenter23:07

But what about now?'Cause you've just lately come out of of chess. What are you doing? Resting or or for

Elaine Paige23:11

Well, yes, I'm having a well earned rest, and of course there's always lots to do. I'm at the moment uh trying to find some new material to make a new album, and uh November, December time I'm hoping to go out on tour, so I'm putting that together. It'll be a new

Elaine Paige23:26

A new concert tour. So I'm I'm very busy. There's always lots to do.

Presenter23:31

Another record, please, Elmen.

Elaine Paige23:33

Well, this song is um from Paul Simon, someone that I've admired over the years since uh.

Elaine Paige23:41

Bridge Over Troubled Water really back in the seventies. I just like this song. It's a great album, and I I play it all the time in the car, very loudly.

Elaine Paige23:49

And uh and this is one of my favorite tracks from the album, it's called Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.

Speaker 423:54

People say she's crazy, she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

Speaker 423:59

Well, that's one way to lose these walking booths Diamonds on soles in your shoes

Speaker 424:11

She was physically forgotten, but then she slipped into my pocket with my core keys She said you've taken me for granted because of me

Speaker 424:21

Where is Donna?

Presenter24:24

Paul Simon and diamonds on the soles of her shoes. Elaine Page.

Presenter24:28

What about the future, though? I mean, you you're gonna make the records you say and you're gonna tour. But what about Broadway? You must have that in your sights as well. It's some something you've you've not done, isn't it?

Elaine Paige24:38

That's correct. It's still to be achieved. Yes, I would like to work there very much. It's always fun.

Elaine Paige24:44

performing to audiences other than the British because uh their reactions are very different and

Elaine Paige24:51

It's just good fun, but I want to make sure that it's the right piece of work.

Elaine Paige24:56

That I do.

Elaine Paige24:58

Maybe it'll be with chess, who knows? Um they say it's going to will be going in January next year, but it's still quite a way off, so it really depends on what happens between now and then.

Presenter25:09

And what about the acting as opposed to the singing? I mean, are are you still still have that ambition as well?

Elaine Paige25:11

Yeah.

Elaine Paige25:13

Absolutely, that's something very much that I still keep telling everyone I want to do. Nobody takes the blind bit of notice, so I think that it's probably one of those things I should probably have to find something myself and then take it to my agent, saying, Now listen, this is what I want to do, let's do it. I think at the end of the day, that's probably w how it's going to happen.

Presenter25:34

And looking back on this on this career you've had with with so many highs, so many wonderful opening nights and occasions when you've you've been with a successful show, can you just pick out one moment, one opening night perhaps that you'll remember?

Presenter25:48

Above all others,

Elaine Paige25:49

Well, it has to be a Vita really because uh

Elaine Paige25:52

That was so extraordinary.

Elaine Paige25:55

And it was the first time, so that will always remain in my memory as as the

Elaine Paige26:02

special night. My father always used to say to me, You know, you'll get there, you've just got to you know,'cause I was to moan about always being the the third or fourth in the auditions and then getting the elbow. And he used to say to me, Oh, you'll get there, you've just got to persevere, perseverance furthest and all this and Evita sort of became a family joke.

Elaine Paige26:20

In that, I was getting closer and closer, and I said, I'm not going to make it, Dad, I'm just not going to get there. So it meant a great deal for them as well, because they had sort of.

Elaine Paige26:29

seen me through all these hard, what, twelve years prior of struggle. No, I'll never forget that. David Land, the producer, made me a forty five record of the applause on the first night, and it goes on for something like oh, I think it's about

Elaine Paige26:46

Nine minutes long, and all it is he sent me this record, and I thought, What's this? And all it is is people clapping.

Speaker 426:52

Yeah.

Elaine Paige26:52

And on the label it's the Evita First Night Applause. So that's something that will remain in my memory f forever, probably, I'm sure.

Presenter27:01

Final choice of record, Wynne, please.

Elaine Paige27:03

Another ambition of mine is to sing opera, which I'm sure I will never achieve, but I singing lessons only, possibly. But this is a wonderful piece of music from Madame Butterfly, and it's The Aria One Fine Day sung by the most wonderful voice ever, Mirella

Speaker 427:22

So kida kiamera patur floid laung.

Speaker 427:35

You sing the honey

Speaker 427:39

When you start on a scorest

Speaker 427:57

Lord by God and

Presenter28:22

That was one fine day from Puccini's Madden Butterfly, sung by Mirella Frenny with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter28:31

Elaine Page, you're you're now on this desert island with your eight records. You have to imagine now that uh a wave comes along and seven are swept away, you're left with one record. Which would you choose to preserve?

Elaine Paige28:41

Well, I think it's going to have to be uh

Elaine Paige28:44

The silly time. I think it's going to have to be here comes the sun,'cause that

Elaine Paige28:48

Reminds me of as I said a very happy time in my life, so that's the one I've decided to keep.

Presenter28:53

Now, what about the book? You can assume that you've got the works of Shakespeare and you've got the Bible with you. What else would you take?

Elaine Paige28:59

Well, I don't know if it's allowed, but I've tried on anyway to take the complete works of Charles Dickens. I've read quite a few of

Elaine Paige29:07

His uh

Elaine Paige29:08

stories and they're just such wonderful stories. I love the way he uses language the way we don't speak today. Also, he writes rather long, thick books, and as I'm a

Elaine Paige29:18

Particularly slow reader, I should think that would uh keep me amused for some time.

Presenter29:23

So all the works of Dickens in one volume, yes. All right, fine. Okay, and then the luxury object in anime.

Elaine Paige29:24

Modern volume, yes. All right, fine.

Elaine Paige29:28

Yes, well I've chosen a piano because uh I've been promising myself for some time now that I will learn to play the piano, and being in the profession that I am and and having the lifestyle that I do, there isn't always a lot of time to devote to having piano lessons and, more important, practising the damn thing. One's always having to rush off here, there, and everywhere. So I thought, well, if I was stuck on a desert island, at least I could uh have all the time in the world to uh practice the piano without annoying anybody. And uh I think that equally would keep me amused.

Presenter30:02

Olympes, thank you very much indeed.

Speaker 330:11

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