Kenneth Williams

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this edition of Desert Island Discs. Whilst we're off air over the summer, we're sharing some of the gems from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:13

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

Presenter0:36

For forty years our Castaway has occupied a unique place on stage, screen and radio. He made his reputation during the fifties and sixties in review and on the London stage. He starred in some of the masterpieces of radio, like Hancock's Half Hour, Round the Horn and Just a Minute. He made an international reputation by being a regular in the carry-on films. He's been described, and rightly so, as one of the great institutions of British entertainment. He is Kenneth Williams. Kenneth, do you think you might take to the solitary life on this desert island?

Kenneth Williams1:08

Practical Michael after all. I did my war service all over the place, India, Burma, and some of the conditions under which we lived were primitive indeed. Admittedly, we were backed up by army logistics, but every now and again you were left in some of these c encampments with the bear necessities. You really had to use some imagination to eke out what food there was available, and you had to do things like make a fire and cook with very primitive materials, just a Dixie and stuff like that. I don't know whether we'd even have a Dixie on the desert island, of course. You can have them, certainly.

Presenter1:44

What what about music? Wouldn't that be a a a boon, a companion to you? I mean, isn't it music important?

Kenneth Williams1:44

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams1:47

I mean it's always been a great solace to me, yes, and my tastes have always been toward the um

Kenneth Williams1:55

The funereal, the dirge-like in music. I love things like Requiem Masses. I love the Requiem Foray and the.

Kenneth Williams2:04

The one of Brahms, Deutsches Requiem. I love that. So what about your first choice then? Well, it's interesting, you see, I did mention my love of the foray requiem. This is a bit of foray, but it is something with a lovely melody. It's a foray bacharoll. It's the number one in A minor, Opus twenty-six.

Kenneth Williams3:28

Don't you there's enchanting

Presenter3:30

That's a lovely melody, isn't it? Beautiful. That was played there, in fact, by Paul Crossley. He was the pianist there. Let's go back to your background. In fact, you're living not a stone's throw now from the place where you were born, aren't you? That's right. Is that a conscious effort? I mean, are you very. Yes, I do like.

Kenneth Williams3:40

That's right.

Kenneth Williams3:42

Yes, I do like that. Yes, you're right. You've hit on something there, because I like to be where the roots are. And I think where your roots are, to be reminded all the time of what you are, is a very, very good thing, because it stops any sort of illusion, folly de grandeur, you know. Everybody who gets on a bit in the world, every now and again I go to them, you know. I visited people who live in very posh places. You know, I went once and there were servants and there's a chauffeur and a muse flat and all the shish. And I thought, Limey, this is a bloke I was at school with, you know? And they get to be a bit grand.

Presenter3:43

That yes

Kenneth Williams4:15

And uh and I think to myself, Well, I don't want any of that. That's why I've always had the one room, kitchen and bathroom. And I get rid of it, you know, shove the arpic down the loo, and I'd do it all myself. And that's one still, you see, a hangover too from the army,'cause that taught you to do your own darning of your own socks, sew your own buttons on. And I can do all those things for myself, and I've got the same apartment in the same sort of area that I grew up in. So I've not been subject to any false ideas about my station in life.

Presenter4:47

And I suppose if you had a Everby and then your mum, who's been obviously been a big influence in your life and is still alive, she lives next door, doesn't she?

Kenneth Williams4:53

Yes.

Presenter4:53

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams4:53

He should have brought me down with a bang. I think so. Yes, you're right. You're right. So with my old man, my father was a great one for saying, don't talk with a plum in your mouth, mate. Don't come here and talk with a plum. Hello. Stuff with me. Don't talk because they've got a plum in your mouth. He used to say, You don't remember where you come from. I was a vanboy in the LMS, and that's what it was, a hell of a mess. He used to say that about the railway. Because Sarah began, you know, he was a vanboy before he got the apprenticeship in hairdressing. And even at hairdressing, it wasn't much good because he had no diplomacy. I actually saw a woman say, I would like, Mr. Williams, to have a henna die. I said, want to look like a tart? Henna dye, and you're ready. Let me look to your face. Want to look like a tart?

Speaker 15:12

Hey that

Speaker 15:18

And even

Kenneth Williams5:32

And it was unbelievable. Do you think? Yeah, leave it as it nature intended, misses. Misses. Instead of you never thought of no idea.

Speaker 15:34

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams5:40

And a bit of diplomacy, a bit of flannel, you know. It's extraordinary. But, you know, like cockneys in pubs, you get often that quality too, behind the bar. A bit of chai Ikin, as they call it. Like they will get away with a sort of rudeness that people think, Oh, well, that isn't malign, it isn't nastily meant. He got away within his shop, because he was quite a successful hairdresser, you know, and at doing the sort of things at Marcel waving, which was very much the fashion of the period, doing those sort of things, he was very good at it. And I think, you know.

Presenter5:52

Uh

Speaker 45:52

Yeah.

Speaker 15:52

Uh

Kenneth Williams6:15

That it wasn't a disadvantage that he had no diplomacy. Let's have another choice of record, please, Kenneth. Well, now this is a favourite. This is Kathleen Ferrier. I adore Ferrier, but I also love this because it's an example of the art song in English, and we haven't got much of it. In Germany, you've got the whole tradition of leader, but we haven't got much of it in England. That's why I value Roger Quilter, because he said a lot of the Tennyson songs. And this is one of the songs from The Princess, which is a lovely Tennyson poem. And this is the song Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal.

Speaker 46:48

Thou fold thy limb in all her sweetness on

Speaker 46:59

It sleeps into the bosom of the lame.

Speaker 47:09

O fold thyself, my dearest love.

Speaker 47:17

Find a s

Presenter7:50

Roger Quilters now sleeps the Crimson Pedal, sung there by Kathleen Ferrier.

Presenter7:55

Kenneth, let's go back to this this background you were telling us about with your your mum and dad uh living in in London. When do you get the the first inclinations to be a a performer, to be on stage?

Kenneth Williams8:05

I think the instinct was from my mother, Louisa, yes, I got it from Lou. Because she would come back from shopping expeditions or from a pub and say, and that woman come in, she pushed right in, she said, oh, excuse me, and put a pipe in voice. Oh, excuse me, could I have half a penny for that? I was getting these sort of impressions myself, you know. And I got that all from my mother. My father was very rich in that respect. He would never give you an impression. He'd say, come in here and I cleaned him, turned round and he said so and so, I said, get out of it. They were always turning round. Always. I turned round to him and I said, if you don't like it, get out. He turned round and he said to me, look here, mister, and I turned round and said, look here. They were all turning round when I grew up. And I sort of grew up in a world where all these incidents were dramatized, you know. And my mother loved popular songs and she was always singing them. And I was shoved on the table, so the scrubbing was going on all round the table, and I wasn't allowed to put my feet in the way of new scrubbing, you see. And she sang things like, Are you lonely tonight? Do you miss me tonight? You're sorry to be drifted apart. You know, are you lonely tonight? She sing. And when she came to the line, Does your memory stay to a Bright Sunday? She actually sang, Do the Chairs in Your Parlour, and then I thought she sang Cemente and Bear. So I thought this lover was covered in cement who worked on a building site, you see. And it's much later I found out that it was, do the chairs in your parlour seem empty? Not cementy. But my mother sang cemente and bear. And I never heard. I never heard the dictionary was terrible. And so I grew up always trying to interpret all these things. And so that's really what started off the whole idea of acting and being.

Presenter9:41

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams9:43

Yeah.

Presenter9:43

Your your your father would surely want you to do a proper job, wouldn't he?

Kenneth Williams9:43

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams9:45

Oh, yes, he didn't like anything to do with the acting profession. He said to me, All the women are trollops, broke shall pain, since I've had em in here, I've had em in here with their blue give us a blow wave. Oh, I fancy a buster, Get out, I'll blow you, I'll blow you right off the bloody premises, get out But he had no time for them. He used to throw men out.

Presenter9:46

Oh yes, he didn't like anything.

Kenneth Williams10:01

They just throw people out of the shop and wait because they wanted a little dyeing done or something. He thought it was terribly effeminate, you see. Now you know, I see how the climate's changed. If you go into a hairdresser today and say, I want my hair waved, they'd say, certainly, just do it. Nobody would question it. Did he live to be proud of you, though? No, it wasn't that much proud, no. I mean, he did come and he said, well, I thought I'd see your name up one day. And sort of grudgingly, that was when I had a dappy neon outside the Apollo Theatre. But he did do that, but he wouldn't take the taxis. You and your mother can pay through the nose if you want to for a taxi. I'll get the bus and walk up from the circus. And he went to Piccadilly Circus on the bus. My mother said, oh, come on, I've got my dress on, Charlie. Let's have a taxi. Get out of it. I'm not paying their prices. One and sixpence all the way to Piccadilly. I'm going to bus for Tumps. Get out. It was all that get out.

Presenter10:55

Suddenly turning around.

Kenneth Williams10:55

But he

Kenneth Williams10:56

Yes, I tell you, man. I tell you man told him. Let's have another choice of record, please. Yes, it's a Beethoven piece. I always call it the Spring Sonata. I tell you why I think it's marvellous, because it shows the wealth of the man. He actually starts with a wonderful, wonderful little tune. I mean, it's a tune, Adam Boys could whistle. It's so lovely. And then it actually dispenses with it and goes on to another one, and you think, Oh, well, how prodigal How can you and then you realise the enormous riches of this man, the slap of Shakespeare, you know, he'll give you a wonderful phrase, and you'll think, Oh, that's incredible And then followed by something equally wonderful, and you think, Oh, my goodness, the man's got loads of

Presenter12:33

Part of the first movement from Beethoven's Spring Sonata played by Itzak Pilman and Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter12:41

Kenneth, you were mentioning there the the sort of uh the the way that you're always interpreting what people said as a as a young boy growing up. When you later came onto the stage, and and particularly I'm thinking about the the characters you created in radio, how much did you draw?

Kenneth Williams12:53

Enormously. Enormously. Yes, I met a man a man who was selling papers outside Channing Cross Station and I actually went up to him and said, I remember the occasion. It was about Churchill. It was it was it was worrying about his health. And he said, Yes, I did this headline, yesterday's sinking, day sinking lower, he's gonna sink altogether, anyhow, we should get on with it And the voice, you know, was all like the back of the throat, like all what do you call it, constricted, see?

Kenneth Williams13:19

And I thought, that's a wonderful way.

Kenneth Williams13:22

To actually reproduce her voice.

Kenneth Williams13:24

I use that voice a lot in radio. I used it for Gramp Fattock. Come in on, I'd like to get my hands round Judith Chalmers. And I I thought all this very hoarsely into the telephone. And it sounded really quite dirty.'Cause Judith Chalmers was then the sweetheart, you know. That's right. The they went on the two-way network, they were the forces.

Presenter13:41

We got a wonderful round the horn character, Jewel and Sand, that's written by Barry Tootwood.

Kenneth Williams13:46

That was a clever idea, wasn't it? That was a very clever idea, because you see, what Barry Tooke and Marty Feldman were doing there because I said, you know, I don't think this'll be popular. They said, yes, it'll grow. It'll grow, Ken. Give it give it a chance, because what we're doing is to educate them, because we're going to say, all right,

Presenter13:47

Okay.

Kenneth Williams14:03

Hitherto it's been regarded as esoteric to go into a whole reload of jargon, but we'll make these two outrageous characters.

Kenneth Williams14:10

Funny, because of the manic insistence of the one.

Kenneth Williams14:17

Making the other confess. So the one would say, Well, I went in, Mr. Own. And I say, Yes, you went in, go on. Well, Mr. Own, I went in and he said, Yes, what did he say? Go on, go on, what did he say? Go on, tell me what he said. Well, he got hold of me and he said, Yes, go on. What did he say about your eyebrows? Well, he said, You could do with pluck plucking, yes, Mr. Own. And this other one kept pushing the other one into terrible confessions, you see, which I mean, they weren't really terrible at all, you actually worked them out. But there was always this.

Speaker 414:24

Yeah.

Speaker 114:34

In yeah

Speaker 114:42

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams14:43

feeling that there was a sort of um

Kenneth Williams14:48

I don't know, doppelganger, if you like, pushing the other one into admissions that he didn't really want to make. And life.

Kenneth Williams14:54

is full of such people.

Presenter14:56

I said also too in the in the introduction, it's perfectly true, that you've been involved in some of the the masterpieces of radio. I mean one thinks of Hancock's Half Hour as as an example.

Kenneth Williams15:05

Yes, I

Presenter15:05

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams15:05

Hancock's hop hour, well they had the brilliant script wrote Scortland Simpson, and I used to come in there, you see, with this character every week who said, Oh, hello, put your little finger in mine, no, no, stop messing them out, come on, no, come on I used to have this darf voice about this man who kept saying two little fingers, which was a brilliant idea, it was totally childish. But it also upset Hancock, didn't it? It upset him terribly, because he said, I don't want you coming on here halfway through the show, getting enormous rounds of applause and destroying, he said, the pattern of the show which should proceed, he said, like a real narrative every week, not like a variety show which stopped in the middle by some character coming on and taking all the applause, you see. Look at it from his point of view, come up through the windmill, working very, very hard on things like variety bandbox, and eventually getting a series and making it. I suppose, you know, you would reasonably resent somebody who seems effortlessly to be walking on and getting away with anything, really getting away

Presenter15:24

I'm gonna have a

Presenter15:25

Because

Presenter15:58

Really getting away with

Kenneth Williams15:59

Matter

Presenter16:00

But I did. But in retrospect, of course, knowing as we do, we're with hindsight, it was obviously part of that sort of paranoia which in

Kenneth Williams16:06

Yeah.

Presenter16:06

Yeah, yeah.

Kenneth Williams16:06

Yes, because it became more and more destructive. It wasn't only getting rid of me, it was getting rid of hatti, getting rid of sits. And eventually.

Presenter16:08

It was

Presenter16:11

And eventually

Kenneth Williams16:12

Galton and Simpson, which is unbelievable, isn't it? Because you'd think you'd guard them like gold. Absolutely. Another choice of record, please, Kenneth. Well, it's Asula. And this is marvellous. It's a wonderful song. When I first heard it, I couldn't believe it. It's a wonderful melody. And you see, it's of special significance here, because it's saying...

Speaker 416:15

Yeah.

Presenter16:15

Uh

Kenneth Williams16:35

I think it's sung in Brazilian, but it's saying in English, it would be saying, Go, little bird.

Kenneth Williams16:42

And tell them I'm lonely. So if I was on a desert island, you see, this is the perfect song for me to choose.

Speaker 416:50

Ha sulang, a sulang kom paniel.

Speaker 416:56

Oh,

Speaker 417:07

Is que sing ser ton nois ser at home.

Presenter17:40

That was the Blue Bird by Ovale, sung by Gerard Souze.

Presenter17:44

Kenneth, reading your autobiography, Just Williams, one's uh amazed by the range uh of people that you've you've worked with. I mean, everywhere from

Presenter17:52

Hattie Jakes to Orson Welles really I suppose, Sid James to to Maggie Smith, you know. Yes, Maggie Smith read it heavens. I'd like to to ask you about about, you know, looking back as as you have to when you do an autobiography, oh the ones that really stand out. I mean Maggie Smith was a kind of influential figure, wasn't she? Oh, enormously, yes. I l

Kenneth Williams17:57

Yeah, actually.

Kenneth Williams18:07

Oh, enormously, yes. I loved her comedy. She did things with beads in a thing I played, a sketch with her about a party hostess who said, here's a pencil and pattern, you won't find it bad. These are games that we all of us know, pass them on as you write them, and add infinite at'em, it's just party games, make a good party go. And this was rubbishy lyric, but she made it terribly funny because she had a row of beads which she swung around the neck, and then they swung around the shoulders, and they swung right round the breasts, then around the middle, and you thought, they're going to go off the frock entirely, because they were spinning these beads, and then she swung them all back until they were all round the top again. So she finished the song immaculate. And of course it was the result of hard work. But it looked, when she did it on the stage, effortless. And that's a quality that really great comedians I mean, it's the same with Alec Guinness, he'll practice something to perfection and so that it ends up like a deft piece of wonderful comedy business, but it's the result of very hard work.

Presenter18:58

Can you see Maggie Smith growing into one of our favorites day media thought?

Kenneth Williams19:02

No, I think she

Presenter19:02

Will

Kenneth Williams19:02

I think she will, because she is so, what do you call it, singular. Yes. And a unique actress. And I always remember there was one moment in the Schaffer plays when I said to her, you know, that's a very long speech where you talk about the failure of your marriage, and you're not breaking it up. I mean, it should be broken up. I mean, it can't be read like a monologue, and the moment it's coming up as a monologue. And she said, I know that. I want six weeks to get that. And she did. Yes. She did exactly that. She got it in six weeks. And what about Dame Edith? Because you you liked working with her then? I loved it, yes. But she made a lot of objections, and I only heard about them afterwards, because Binky Beaumont, who was presenting it, you know, he said to me, We had quite a bit of opposition, you know, when your casting came up. We said we're casting Kenneth Williams. And she said, Kenneth Williams? Was casting Kenneth Williams for the wood god? A god? Kenneth Williams? And he said, Well, now, why don't you like the idea, Dame Edith? She said, Well, he's he's got such a peculiar voice.

Kenneth Williams20:12

And I thought, what is she? What a nerve. Because I didn't know. And she invited me, you know, into her dressing room. We were on tour at Brighton and she said, I can hear you half way down the corridor talking to everyone in the company. Why don't they visit me? And I said, Because they regard you as a great myth of the theatre. You're a big figure and formidable for them. I mean, say I've been in my dressing room, they just pop in and say, Hello, what have you been doing? But they couldn't just pop in with you, they feel. She said, Well, I'd like them to pop in. I'm very ordinary. I sit at home on a three-legged wooden stool, basting my joint. I I like to baste my joint and I make my rockshaw pudding. And Johnny G comes down, Johnny Gilgood and says, Oh, dear me, dear delicious rockshaw pudding And I thought, Dear, oh dear, it's anything but ordinary. And she said, I'm very ordinary.

Presenter21:08

Uh Danny, a vagin to a Yorkshire pudding. You can hardly imagine it, can you?

Kenneth Williams21:13

Yeah.

Presenter21:13

Oh yeah. That's an

Kenneth Williams21:14

Well it's a Tchafsky serenade and I'll tell you why again you see because it's a magnificent melody. And what's wonderful about it Michael is that what he uses in the first movement he inverts in the third and it becomes another marvellous melody. But I love the first bit best.

Presenter22:33

Part of the first movement from Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, played by the Academy Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Mariner.

Presenter22:41

Kenneth, you've known everybody in in the show business, uh as I say it comes through in your book, and yet you've never had a close relationship with anybody. Why is that?

Kenneth Williams22:52

Well, I suppose I've had some good friendships, but that's about all. I don't think it's given to us all. I remember the recent announcement by the Pope talking about this Test You Baby business, and this marvellous s sentence where he said, For some

Kenneth Williams23:08

It is natural they don't have any children, and they'll just have to accept it. And I thought, How wonderfully simple and honest And that's the truth for hundreds of bachelors, I suppose. They are not meant to share in that way. So they share in some other way. And I've always had the advantage of an audience, you see. And that is an enormous advantage, because there's a whole wave of affection can go through an auditorium.

Presenter23:30

If your work turns out right. But you've never had that sense of dynasty, of wanting somebody to continue what you are, what you're going to be.

Kenneth Williams23:36

Yeah.

Presenter23:37

No, nothing like that.

Kenneth Williams23:38

No. I admire it when I read about it historically, when I read about famous families and the the line and I think that wonderful thing in Budden Brooks, the Thomas Mann idea, this family and this Hanseatic League and part of that whole tradition going on and on and on, and then coming to this terrible finality with the drop out, the one that doesn't quite fit.

Kenneth Williams23:58

And I was fascinated by it. But it's not something that has been an ambition of mine. No. I think what you've got is something that's special to you, and you must look after it, do what you can, do your best with it like Voltaire says, digging your own bit of garden.

Kenneth Williams24:14

and be satisfied.

Kenneth Williams24:16

Another choice of record, please, Karen. It's Tarega. And this is a composer I didn't really know much about, you know, until I heard Julian Bream playing him. He played some of Tarega. And this is a lovely tune. Now I'm always on about tunes, aren't I? Because if I was on a design, I'd really need some good tunes, because it's good tunes that get me through the day. It's a mazirka, and it's called Adelita.

Presenter25:38

The Mazurka Adolita by Terega, played there by Julian Bream. You've done as I say this autobiography involves, of course, looking back and and over your what, sixty years now, isn't it? of life. I am sixty one, yes.

Kenneth Williams25:51

Yeah, it's not

Presenter25:52

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams25:52

So the professional would be about forty, wouldn't it?

Presenter25:55

Okay.

Kenneth Williams25:55

A.

Presenter25:56

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams25:56

Yeah.

Presenter25:56

Do a map

Kenneth Williams25:56

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a drink.

Presenter25:59

And you'd always kept it there from

Kenneth Williams26:00

Oh, when I was fourteen, yeah, started with wanting to know how I progressed in terms of the apprenticeship. Because when you're apprenticed, you learn something every week. And I thought, I must keep a record of all this, so that when I get my indentures, I've got an absolute absolutely clear idea of how I developed. And I went to the army and still was able to practice draftsmanship, you know. In the REs, I went into the survey section. So I still kept it up. And I kept up the diary. But of course, it all became different, you know. I mean, I started putting in bits of conversation.

Presenter26:01

Really?

Speaker 126:19

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams26:26

Almost as a bit of entertainment for myself. You know, if I heard something funny, I put it all down. And so it became a terribly useful compendium on which I could draw. And when it came to actually constructing the biography, there was no need for me to do any work. I just chose the bits I wanted to choose, you know. I mean, for information I hadn't got in the diary, like circumstances of birth, the day, the hour, I simply went to my mother and asked her. I mean, she knew it all. I said, when was I? What can you remember? Of course I can remember when you were born, she'cause your old man, your father, he had the Monday it was always early closing Mondays and he had the afternoon so he was able to come to the berth,'cause it was the early day closing. You see, early closing day would be changed instead of Thursdays when we moved to Marchmont Street. But in the King's Cross era it had been Mondays. And was it a pleasant journey, looking back?

Speaker 126:49

Mm-hmm.

Kenneth Williams27:12

It was in some ways, but in others it wasn't. It was almost salutary, the lessons that had to be learned, because I realise from much that I wrote in the early period what an arrogant little nasty person I was. You know, this dis terrible desire to show off and at somebody else's expense, and I think I've lost that now. I think I don't do that. But that business of picking people up, you know, if they make a mistake. And I pick people up occasionally and I did it very much to their embarrassment. And that's not the attitude of a gentleman. Somebody told me that when an Indian potentate of Buckingham Palace was dining with Edward VII, he picked up the finger bowl and drank from it. So Edward VII did the same. And they said that is the mark of someone who was a gentleman.

Kenneth Williams27:56

Uh another choice of record, please. This is the trio n number one. The BFAT Major Shoe, but I mean I don't know if you're familiar with it, but you'd be amazed because there's this this particular second movement, which I love, you'd almost think you know you were in that scene in the Kadena Cafe in Brief Encounter.

Presenter29:15

Part of the second movement of Schubert's trio number one in B-flat, played by the Oustrach trio. Kenneth, what's in the future for you now? What are you going to do? What immediate plans?

Kenneth Williams29:23

Well there are various things in the pipeline, you know, and there are always people sending in ideas, but a question of whether either a theatrical management wants to do it or whether a television series wants, you know, wh whether the company wants to make a television series out of it. But um I've got some ions in the fire and they want me to do another book too because publishers said as the book's done so well you ought to do a follow-up because your biography, Just Williams, only takes us to seventy-five and there's been a considerable lot happened since then. Yes. And you ought to do an a follow-up and I said yes well I will but of course you need a bit of time to get the thing in perspective. I think you know you need another decade before you get that decade in perspective don't you?

Presenter30:05

Mm, exactly.

Kenneth Williams30:05

I really do think you need a bit of time on that. So I'm not like kids. And they said, what about an anthology of poetry? And now that is what I'm interested in.

Presenter30:07

Yeah.

Kenneth Williams30:11

But it would have to be very, very carefully selected,'cause so much of the poetry I adore would include an awful lot of stuff that people are still alive, you see. I mean, although I'm mad about nineteenth century poets, I mean, I love, of course, Austin, I love Tennyson.

Kenneth Williams30:27

Mad about Dennyson. But then of'cause I'm mad about lots of moderns like Larkin.

Kenneth Williams30:32

You know? And I'm mad about people like

Presenter30:32

Mena

Kenneth Williams30:34

That wonderful man that wrote Delamere, who that wondering about Is There Anybody There, said the Traveller, knocking on the motor.

Presenter30:40

In the book and and on the programme too you mentioned that uh you uh are thinking of uh prepared for Passing on.

Kenneth Williams30:48

Quite look forward to death. Quite look forward to death. Yes, I just hope. I just hope it's not painful. I don't want to kick kick up the backside with a bustle. I mean, I want it to be nice. That that being the case, have you thought of your epitaph? Uh no, but having something as funny as as Dorothy Parker when they said what do you want on your tombstone? and she said, This one's on me.

Kenneth Williams31:06

Yeah

Presenter31:09

And the final choice of record pieces.

Kenneth Williams31:10

Well it's appropriate you say because I did mention my love of Brahms earlier. It's the melancholy in me, the Norse melancholy. And this is uh one of the four serious songs of Brahms. It's the bit where you know it's under translation from Corinthians, Faith Over Charity and The Greatest of These is and they don't say what we say, the greatest of these is charity, they say und die Liebe and the love. Und die Liebe is the Grür sister unde Einen. The love is the greatest all.

Speaker 432:01

Good job.

Speaker 432:17

Then he's not

Speaker 432:24

Yeah.

Speaker 432:26

Yeah.

Speaker 432:27

My friend

Speaker 432:29

By the blood brand man

Presenter32:37

That was the fourth of Brahm's four serious songs, sung by Herman Prye. Kenneth, you're now on your desert island. You have to imagine that seven of your records have been washed away or destroyed. You're left with one. Which would it be?

Kenneth Williams32:50

Oh, well, it would have to be one which fired my imagination in dozens of different ways, so I would go for the Beethoven. Yes, the the Spring Sonata. And what about the book? Assume you've got the Bible, the works of Shakespeare. Yes, well, it would have to be something full of variety, wouldn't it? So that I could dip into and always find something to suit the mood. And the best thing I can think of in that direction would be Paul Graves' Golden Treasury. It's I don't think any anthology though Larkins comes near, because but that's another matter'cause it's essentially verse, whereas this is all poetry. So it's the one I would choose. Yes. And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Kenneth Williams33:29

Well, it's a desert island, so though the sea water could be used to wash, you'd still be a bit, I think, smelly. So I'd want a crate of lovely cologne, and I would choose the La Plebe la Vondre by Caron. I'd have a old crate of it.

Kenneth Williams33:45

Kenneth Williams, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 133:55

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