Rowan Atkinson

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is a man who's risen to the top of his profession at the age of thirty three. Such early success is made even more surprising by the fact that the profession he's chosen is a difficult and a serious one, making people laugh.

Presenter0:44

But from the time he came to public attention at the Edinburgh Festival to such popular television programmes as Not the Nine O'Clock News and Black Adder, he has managed, with a mixture of satire, irony, and expressive facial gestures, to do just that. He is Rowan Atkinson.

Presenter1:01

Rowan, it is a serious business being funny, isn't it?

Rowan Atkinson1:05

Yes, for a lot of the time. There are some very amusing moments as well, but it is it is quite a chore.

Rowan Atkinson1:12

I find it increasingly easy, to a certain extent, to

Rowan Atkinson1:17

To be relaxed about it.

Presenter1:19

But do you nevertheless fear that you will wake up one morning and simply not be funny any more?

Rowan Atkinson1:26

Well, f five or six five or six years ago I think I did used to fear that. But increasingly I don't. Ma maybe I'm mad. I mean maybe my my optimism is totally unjustified. But increasingly I suppose I've I've come to realize that perhaps I can do it and can do things. And and I think in terms of the you know, the range of work that I feel as though I might be capable of.

Rowan Atkinson1:49

I feel now that I've only attempted about

Rowan Atkinson1:52

40% of what I feel as though I could do. I'm not saying I will ever get the opportunities to explore the other 60%, but that's what I j I genuinely feel.

Presenter2:02

What what you're saying is you've become a professional.

Rowan Atkinson2:05

Maybe I have, yes. I mean, maybe I realize now that I couldn't give it up and become an electrical engineer, and I won't be retiring early.

Presenter2:13

Will will humour be a comfort to you on on the island, or or do you rarely laugh alone?

Rowan Atkinson2:20

I rarely laugh, actually, generally speaking. I think I think that's true. I I laugh at certain specific

Rowan Atkinson2:26

things and certain performances.

Rowan Atkinson2:30

People like Barry Humphreys in the theatre, but I I'm I'm not a laugher, really, gener generally speaking.

Presenter2:36

Let's have your first record.

Rowan Atkinson2:38

Right, the first record is going back some time. This reminds me of school. At school I was very sort of electrical engineering-y, and I was one of those little boys who used to carry a screwdriver in the top pocket of his blazer. And I used to run with a friend of mine, Paddy Rickaby, the Film Society at school, and we always used to sort of maintain and look after all the school's film and sound equipment. And I just remember one particular occasion testing the sound system in the Memorial Hall with this record, which was uh very, very current and very popular at the time, which is Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.

Speaker 23:16

There's a sign on the wall

Speaker 23:20

But she wants to be sure.

Speaker 23:23

Cause you know sometimes words have

Speaker 23:27

Me

Speaker 23:31

By the broken

Speaker 23:33

There's a songbird who sings Sometimes all of our thoughts

Presenter3:47

Stairway to Heaven, led Zeppelin.

Presenter3:50

Rowan Atkinson, your public school headmaster, said you were the most bloody-minded boy he'd ever met. Was that fair comment, do you think?

Rowan Atkinson3:57

It was an extraordinary comment, wasn't it? I mean, when I look back and how basically conventional a bloke I feel as though I am, but for some reason I I had a fairly

Rowan Atkinson4:05

Fairly traumatic time at school, certainly in the last two years, I suppose when I was going through my rebellious period.

Presenter4:12

When you were were you a clown at school, did you make your friends laugh all the time?

Rowan Atkinson4:16

No, not at all. At least I gave up when I was about twelve. I I seem to remember when I was eleven and twelve, i. e. when I was at prep school, I seem to remember standing up in the changing rooms in front of other boys and doing something.

Rowan Atkinson4:28

something peculiar, such as such as to entertain them. And I remember them laughing a great deal, but then as soon as the adolescent self consciousness set in, I I gave all that up and I haven't ent entertained off screen or off stage for for twenty years, I suppose.

Presenter4:42

The interesting thing is you don't have a funny face.

Rowan Atkinson4:45

No, no, no.

Presenter4:46

I mean to look at you now it's

Rowan Atkinson4:47

Well that is why I didn't discover it until I was about twenty-one.

Rowan Atkinson4:52

And it was when I was at Oxford. Someone asked if I'd do something in a one night

Rowan Atkinson4:56

Review at the Oxford Playhouse, and I had to to think of something, and I'd I'd never written anything.

Rowan Atkinson5:01

at that stage and so I just started sort of improvising in front of a mirror and suddenly these these peculiar creatures started to to characterize and to form in front of me.

Presenter5:10

We used to call it Gurning.

Rowan Atkinson5:12

Gerning, yes that's right.

Presenter5:13

Pulling your face in.

Rowan Atkinson5:14

Well, there are competitions, I think, in the north of England, Gurning competitions.

Presenter5:15

The North

Rowan Atkinson5:18

Not that I've ever rented one, I hasten to it.

Presenter5:19

What about what about your family? I mean, what's what was your family background?

Rowan Atkinson5:24

It was quite a quiet, middle middle class background. My father was a farmer and a businessman in the north east of England, which is where I was born.

Presenter5:34

But what does your mother now think of of this son she's got? Having brought him up to be a proper chap with a good solid education, now she's got a chap who makes his money out of making funny faces and saying naughty words on the telly.

Rowan Atkinson5:46

Yes. I think she'd prefer not to hear the naughty words, and she'd probably prefer me not to pull too many faces. But she, like a lot of parents, I suppose, was quite concerned about show business as a career, and imagined it to be peopled by a lot of, you know, rather plump people with those moustaches that droop round the side of their mouths and huge purple velvet bow ties who hand you grubby fibers at stage doors. And she probably had that image, as indeed I did. And then, of course, since then I've found that I've worked almost exclusively with with Oxbridge graduates, which Which perhaps pleases her.

Presenter6:21

Let's have another record.

Rowan Atkinson6:23

One of my activities at school, apart from running the Film Society and and messing about with screwdrivers, was that I was choir secretary. I was actually in the choir. My voice was never very good, in the same sense that I I was also captain of shooting, but I wasn't the best shot in the school. And as choir secretary, at least I was I did quite a lot of singing, and I grew to know and to love choral music a great deal. And this is The Miserary by Allegri, sung by the King's College Choir from Cambridge, and it is just the most fabulous and moving piece.

Presenter7:51

The Miserary by Allegri sung by King's College Choir, Cambridge, with Roy Goodman.

Presenter7:57

Well, Rowan, your degree, as you said, is in electrical engineering. Quite a good one, I think, isn't it?

Rowan Atkinson8:03

Yes, I worked very hard. Since I left school and left all the all the choir and the and the shooting behind, that I started to take work more seriously and I worked very hard so so I got I was told that I was only three percent off first in my first degree.

Presenter8:16

At what point did you know you would never use this?

Rowan Atkinson8:19

Degree.

Rowan Atkinson8:20

It was about a year later, because I started off at Newcastle University, and then I went on to Oxford to do research. And I suppose it was a year into Oxford that I'd started to take all the review sketchwriting, sketch performing very seriously. And it was in the summer of that year, having met up with a very dear friend of mine, Richard Curtis, who since that time has written or co-written virtually everything I've ever done, and to whom I'm very, very much indebted. And he and I did a review in the summer of 1976, at which I got my first review in the local paper in the Oxford Mail. And it was a very flattering review indeed. And it was at that point that I decided to at least give it a try. And because I knew that I was going to go to the Edinburgh Festival fringe with the Oxford University Theatre Group that year, I thought I'd

Rowan Atkinson9:13

Try and get an agent, which is what they always say you should do. So I wrote.

Rowan Atkinson9:17

eight or nine letters saying

Rowan Atkinson9:19

I think I'm rather good, and I'm going to go to the End Festival this year. Will you come and see me?

Presenter9:23

Nothing if not pushy.

Rowan Atkinson9:24

Yes, it's it's the it's the only r really pushy thing I think I've ever done. But it paid off to a certain extent because of the nine letters I wrote I only got two replies.

Rowan Atkinson9:35

One was from the agent who I eventually went with, Richard Armitage. But thankfully he was as good a person as I could have found and um and I I worked with him for about ten years, right up until his death only about a year and a half ago.

Presenter9:50

Let's have your third record.

Rowan Atkinson9:52

The third record reminds me of university exams, I suppose, when I was.

Rowan Atkinson9:57

At Newcastle I think I worked really very hard. And before my finals exams at Oxford University, every night for some reason I I had this kind of tradition that I would play this next record just before I went to bed. Why, I don't know. It was just I j I I just found it inspiring and restful and kind of flushed out of me all the all the all the academic thoughts and all the revision that I'd been cramming my head with during the day so that at least I could sleep. And it's as good a Beatles track to choose as any and it's let it be.

Speaker 210:28

We may be party.

Speaker 210:30

There is still a chance that they will see There will be an answer, let it be

Speaker 210:40

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.

Speaker 210:47

Yeah, there will be answers. Let it be Let It Be, Let It Be.

Presenter10:58

Let it be from the Beatles. So you went to Edinburgh in nineteen seventy seven. Richard Armitage, the agent, came to see you. What did he say to you could happen? Did he say the world was your oyster?

Rowan Atkinson11:12

He was very flattering, so to a certain extent he certainly insinuated that, but he didn't say it in as many words.

Presenter11:19

Who were your heroes, then? I mean, who did you hold up as being the great comic?

Presenter11:24

Genii.

Rowan Atkinson11:25

Well

Rowan Atkinson11:26

I suppose certainly throughout school and university.

Rowan Atkinson11:30

Monty Python's Flying Circus was undoubtedly the only programme to watch, and to a certain extent, although they were obviously slightly before my time.

Rowan Atkinson11:38

Beyond the Fringe, the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett and all those folk, um they were a tremendous in inspiration. Also at sc at um school to a certain extent I I'd become very interested in a French comedian called Jack Tatty, who was a film comedian who who did some very wonderful, very visual

Rowan Atkinson11:59

Films in the fifties and sixties.

Presenter12:01

What was the first professional engagement that your agent found for you?

Rowan Atkinson12:06

I suppose really it was a review at the Hampstead Theatre in nineteen seventy eight a review that was rather pretentiously titled Be Beyond a Joke.

Rowan Atkinson12:18

And by nineteen seventy seven I'd started to do virtually a one man show on The Anborough Fringe, and that led to this show that I did at the Hampstead Theatre, and that was when they were my first London reviews.

Presenter12:32

Another record, please.

Rowan Atkinson12:34

This uh reminds me very much.

Rowan Atkinson12:37

of my time at Oxford and of the the first steps into review and sketch writing, and is devoted really to the person with whom I've worked most, Richard Curtis, and he was infatuated with two singers at the time. One was Linda Ronstadt and the other was Paul Simon. So this would certainly remind me of of endless hours at the house in Woodstock Road, Oxford, where we used to live and used to work.

Speaker 213:04

I'm not the kind of man

Rowan Atkinson13:05

There

Speaker 213:08

Pretends to socialize.

Speaker 213:11

I seem to lean on old familiar ways

Speaker 213:18

Ain't no fool for love songs that whisper in my ears Still crazy after all these years

Speaker 213:29

Was still crazy after all.

Presenter13:38

Paul Simon still crazy after all these years. It's a nostalgic bunch of records this row.

Rowan Atkinson13:43

It is, it is, it is so sad, why I don't know.

Rowan Atkinson13:46

There is I mean, it it is difficult because because when you try and think of your eight favorite records, naturally you tend to associate them with items in your times or personalities from your past. And so naturally they're bound to be nostalgic. And if they're nostalgic then they're bound to be sort of saddening. And it is questionable whether on a desert on a desert island you want to depress yourself.

Rowan Atkinson14:05

By playing them.

Presenter14:06

But are you I mean, are you quite a melancholy chap?

Rowan Atkinson14:09

Not very. I don't I mean, I I can be, which is wh why I probably value my friends a great deal. And

Presenter14:16

But the kinds of characters you play are are

Presenter14:20

Inoffensive people who are rather vulnerable, aren't they?

Rowan Atkinson14:24

Yes, they vary actually. A lot of the characters well, that I've done from the start really have varied between very strict Stantorian schoolmasterly sort of figures, and very, very vulnerable, sad,

Rowan Atkinson14:39

pathos orientated figures. And I seem to bounce

Rowan Atkinson14:43

between the two and they do represent

Rowan Atkinson14:46

sort of extremes of

Rowan Atkinson14:48

Performing style

Presenter14:49

We saw most of them, I think. We r you ran the gamut in um in Not the Nine O'Clock News. How did that come out? It's a terribly cumbersome title, isn't it?

Rowan Atkinson14:58

It is. It's very difficult to say. But it turned out to be a very good title. Or at least the the negative aspect of it, uh the fact that not, not anything meant that w meant that the spin-offs from the show, like not in front of the audience and not the royal wedding and all those those sort of things were were were rather appropriate for a s satirical viewpoint. And it started just because

Rowan Atkinson15:20

The producers John Lloyd and

Rowan Atkinson15:22

Sean Hardy had seen all four of us, so myself and Mel Smith and Griffery Stones and Pamela Stevenson.

Rowan Atkinson15:29

And different places and at different times.

Presenter15:31

But then it was one of those moments in television, wasn't it, when everything came together?

Rowan Atkinson15:35

When it really gelled, I th I thought it was I thought it was great. It was in the middle of the second series, I think, when when we really started to get to grips with what we actually wanted to do. And the great thing about working with other people of very strong and different performing styles

Rowan Atkinson15:54

is that it inspires you to move into new areas. I had my sort of, you know, little one man showy area that I felt all I was going to do on nine o'clock news was come in and do a monologue every week and then go out again. And then suddenly working with Mel Smith.

Rowan Atkinson16:07

working with Griff that you suddenly you were pulled in different directions.

Presenter16:12

Let us have your fifth record.

Rowan Atkinson16:12

That's

Rowan Atkinson16:15

This is a singer that I discovered relatively late on when I was uh starting to live in London at the end of the seventies. And it's L. Fitzgerald, and I d I discovered

Rowan Atkinson16:26

Two records of hers, the Cole Porter song book and the Rogers and Hart song book, and I'm afraid it's another very, very sad song, which is I believe is about a woman who's been hanged, but I'm not sure. It's called Miss Otis Regrets.

Speaker 216:46

Mrs Owis regrets she's unable to lunch today.

Speaker 216:56

Madam

Rowan Atkinson16:56

Well

Speaker 216:58

Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.

Presenter17:07

Ella Fitzgerald singing Miss Otis Regrets.

Presenter17:11

Rowan, the first black adder, I think, was in nineteen eighty three.

Presenter17:15

He was your own creation, wasn't he? This kind of sex praised Elizabethan.

Rowan Atkinson17:20

Sex crazed. Um well, of course, initially it wasn't Elizabethan, it was medieval. It was the first series was set in the fifteenth century, and it was an idea, not of mine alone, it was an idea of myself and Richard Curtis to try and do a situation comedy of some kind in the wake of Not the Nine O'Clock News, which we'd stopped in 1982. And at the time, of course, Faulty Towers was at its height. And everything and we loved it like everyone else did. It still, in my view, defines situation comedy on television. And it was incredibly difficult trying to think of something that would not

Rowan Atkinson17:58

appear to be just a rather feeble copy of it.

Rowan Atkinson18:02

Which is why

Rowan Atkinson18:04

We thought if we set a situation comedy, you know, five centuries back, we at least might have have a better chance of avoiding direct comparison. The black out of the name came from nowhere in particular. We were just looking for a sort of slightly dark, slightly Errol Flinny sort of name, which wasn't particularly amusing and wasn't

Presenter18:22

Uh

Rowan Atkinson18:24

you know, l laden with pun.

Presenter18:25

But quite a a lot of um comedians use historical settings for their sketches, don't they? I mean, one thinks of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Russ Abbott indeed. I mean, he puts some knickerbockers on and cross guards us and makes us laugh. Why do you think that is?

Rowan Atkinson18:34

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson18:38

Thanks for this.

Rowan Atkinson18:42

I don't know. I suppose you obviously the costumes are funny to a large extent, and we certainly exploited that more in the

Rowan Atkinson18:49

in the first series than in either the second two. We had, you know, absurd cult piece jokes and things which I'll probably r regret when I look back at them in ten years' time. In fact, I'm beginning to to regret them even now. And and out of it came a lot of jokes, because it w it was a time when things were very dangerous, when if someone said I'm going to kill you, you know, he really meant it, and there was a very good chance that he was just going to stick a sword through you. And and therefore the sort of danger and the and the awfulness of the times, particularly in the first series, the medieval times, the sordidness and the dirt and the squalor and all that, they they do provide a nice, horrible, serious background from which the comedy can stand proud.

Speaker 219:00

Then even

Presenter19:29

Well, now somebody stuck a sword in you in nineteen eighty six when you went uh to Broadway. And it was um the Butcher of Broadway, they called him, didn't they? Frank Rich of the New York Times.

Rowan Atkinson19:35

Mm-hmm.

Rowan Atkinson19:39

Is it?

Presenter19:40

Who who killed your show overnight, really?

Rowan Atkinson19:43

Yes, he did. It was a fa fascinating time. Fascinating, it was fascinating. It was frustrating, but it was fascinating. And I wouldn't have.

Presenter19:46

Fascinating.

Rowan Atkinson19:53

I don't regret going, not for one minute. The peculiar thing about Broadway is that it is a very unusual

Rowan Atkinson20:00

place because of this factor, the New York Times factor, that basically whatever the New York Times says, then that goes in New York.

Presenter20:09

He accused you of being lavatorial.

Rowan Atkinson20:11

Mm.

Rowan Atkinson20:13

Which you were.

Rowan Atkinson20:14

I mean, only to a certain extent. No review that I got and Frank Rich wasn't the only person on Broadway who didn't like what we were doing, but there were a couple of others, and and generally their standpoint was, you know, good old English levatorial humour. How bored we are of it

Rowan Atkinson20:30

Um but of course I've had all those reviews endless numbers of times in this country. I mean f folk have always I mean the first series of of the of The Blackadder was absolutely slammed for those reasons. Virtually everything I've ever done has been decried in a lot of areas of the press and the media.

Presenter20:46

But that's the difference, isn't it? That that in Britain you can be given time to develop and people will give you a second or a third chance and wait for something to come through.

Rowan Atkinson20:53

Wait for some

Presenter20:55

In the States, it either happens or it don't.

Rowan Atkinson20:56

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson20:57

Yes, it does. I mean, the main reason for that, of course, on Broadway is a financial one, because the cost of staying on Broadway is so

Rowan Atkinson21:05

astronomic, that unless you're basically full all the time, you can't afford to stay.

Presenter21:09

Another record.

Rowan Atkinson21:10

Well this reminds me, I suppose, of a sketch in the in the one-man show that I first did in The Secret Policeman's Ball in nineteen seventy nine, which was a mime sketch, a piano mime. And uh although this wasn't the piece that that we actually used, I, like a lot of people, learned piano for two years at school and have deeply regretted giving it up. Ever since I would dearly, dearly love to to play the piano. I would like to play like anyone who can play Chopin really well.

Presenter22:27

Chopin's Nocturne in C Sharp minor, opus twenty seven, number one, played by Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter22:35

Well, Rowan, fame, as you've described, came upon you really rather suddenly. A lot has been said about your having had too much too fast. Do you feel that?

Rowan Atkinson22:45

Well, I did feel it in that it's something that I was very worried about at first, that I would just be a flash in the pan and and and would disappear. But I to to a certain extent I've I've come

Rowan Atkinson22:57

To live with it.

Rowan Atkinson22:58

It's sometimes extremely difficult if

Rowan Atkinson23:01

If fame gets in the way when things are going wrong, it's always that moment when you've just missed the train.

Rowan Atkinson23:08

and somebody comes up and starts to pester you, or when you're you know, when your car's broken down, or you you get to the to the cash till at the motorway services and you haven't got any money and you've left it in the car, it's all very well saying, Well, I'm just a you know, a very

Speaker 223:19

And you

Rowan Atkinson23:24

normal sort of electrical engineering type of bloke from the n from the from the north east of England. But of course I can't be now.

Presenter23:31

When are you at your happiest?

Rowan Atkinson23:35

I'm at my happiest either with my friends or with my girlfriend or and or I suppose in in terms of singular selfish experiences, I think it's probably

Rowan Atkinson23:47

driving a very fine car very fast with certain music playing on the stereo system. I've uh started very cautiously to embark on a on a modest amount of uh motor racing and I get a tremendous degree of excitement from that. The challenge of it is is is very enthralling.

Presenter24:10

You also collect motor cars, don't you?

Rowan Atkinson24:12

Yes, I mean in no great way. I've I've sold quite a few recently because I decided that I had too too many, but what

Speaker 324:18

What have you got?

Rowan Atkinson24:18

I've got down to a modest number now. Well, I.

Rowan Atkinson24:21

I've got a little lance here which I kind of shop shop around in which is is very interesting. But my main car I suppose is an Aston Martin. It's the third Aston Martin that I've had in about seven years. And uh and it is a tremendous car. But the strange thing is that even though it is a fast car and it is designed to go fast, that that is not really w where most of the joy of ownership comes from.

Rowan Atkinson24:46

It is that thing joy of ownership which you feel, which I actually feel as much just cleaning the car.

Rowan Atkinson24:52

Ever since I was sixteen or seventeen no, ever since I was twelve or thirteen, I've really enjoyed washing cars for some reason. I enjoy the task of taking something dirty and washing it and working on it and then seeing this this immaculate and shining object at at the end of the exercise. And I it's a very it's a very practical and sort of simple satisfaction, but but it is very, very real.

Presenter25:07

That's

Speaker 225:07

Yeah.

Presenter25:14

Your seventh record, please.

Rowan Atkinson25:16

About a year and a half ago I bought an album by a contemporary rock band called Simply Red.

Rowan Atkinson25:21

And on it I discovered this extraordinary version of Coleporter's Every Time We We Say Goodbye, which for all those who believe that contemporary rock vocalists have not the skill or the emotion to sing like they used to in the old days, I think this is a song and a track which should dispel any of those thoughts.

Speaker 225:39

Every time we say goodbye, I die a little

Speaker 225:52

Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why

Presenter26:01

Hello.

Presenter26:03

Mick Cucknell of Simply Red with Cole Porters every time we say goodbye.

Presenter26:08

Looking at your your heroes, you know, I mean, if if you say Peter Sellers, people say Inspector Cluzo, if you say Dudley Moore, they say Dad, if you say John Cleese, they say Basil Faulting.

Rowan Atkinson26:18

Yeah.

Presenter26:19

What do you want them to say when they say Rowan Atkinson? Do you want them to say Black Adder?

Rowan Atkinson26:22

Well, for the time being, they tend to say it. So I'm perfectly happy with that.

Rowan Atkinson26:29

Well, I think, for instance, Peter Sellers did a lot more than just Inspector Clusa, although obviously y y you're right, that's what he is best remembered for, but he had an extraordinary acting range.

Rowan Atkinson26:38

But that sort of range is something I mean, maybe I will

Rowan Atkinson26:42

Do the one character that everyone will remember me for, and maybe, you know, that the Black Adder characters will be the ones that people will remember, and I'll never do anything else that is memorable. But um I certainly I enjoyed the time at Not the Nine O'Clock News because it gives you such an opportunity to explore a range. I mean every week you can play five or six different characters and you don't feel remotely typecast and people know you as Rowan Atkinson rather than as Mr. Black Adder or

Presenter27:07

But I read you want to be a baddie in James Bond.

Rowan Atkinson27:10

Yes, well I always played Very Evil.

Rowan Atkinson27:13

people in plays at school for some reason. The first part I ever played at the age of fourteen was a fire raising.

Rowan Atkinson27:20

Head waiter in a play called The Fire Raisers by Max Frisch, who invites himself into a man's house and then blows it up. And I also played uh

Rowan Atkinson27:29

Mephistopheles and Doctor Faustus, and all those sort of, you know, sat satanic roles.

Presenter27:32

So the

Presenter27:34

It's the eyebrow.

Rowan Atkinson27:35

It's the eyebrows. Oh good.

Rowan Atkinson27:36

That's good to know. I'll remember that at my next audition. Use the eyebrows.

Rowan Atkinson27:42

I would love to play a villain in a Bond film, but I find that as I get older

Rowan Atkinson27:49

The the range of parts I can play.

Rowan Atkinson27:52

becomes broader and becomes easier. I think if you are a character actor, which to a certain extent I hope I am, then of course most character parts are not set in your twenties, they're set in in in your forties or in your fifties. And they are the sort of parts that hopefully will um will become increasingly easy to cast me in.

Presenter28:11

Your eighth and your final record, Peter.

Rowan Atkinson28:13

Well this is um it's slightly sentimental and it reminds me of my first date with my girlfriend and we went to see Diastraites at Wembley Arena. And I think Mark Knopfler, yet another Mark, is a a tremendously good writer of music. And as my musical director, who writes a lot of music for the Black Adder and things, says, Diastraits and Mark Knopfler, he writes wonderful tunes and then never sings them. He lets his guitar play them and he sort of moans along in the background. And this is an example of it, but he's brilliant.

Speaker 228:45

Lady Lighter on the T V

Speaker 228:48

She had all her brains in the picture

Speaker 228:52

Mitch it does not

Speaker 228:55

You talk to me when it fails like it

Speaker 228:58

Just the way it out of hair fell down around her face

Speaker 229:05

And I recall my fall from bread

Speaker 229:13

Uh

Presenter29:15

LADY WRITER by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. Roan, I have the impression that you're you're going to sit on this island, listen to your records, and really get quite miserable.

Rowan Atkinson29:25

Mm but assuming that music is one of the best reasons for living.

Rowan Atkinson29:30

Then I think I don't think it matters really what music you play, as long as you you play it. And if it reminds you of your past, even if it's saddening or makes you cry, I think if it uh disreminds you of your friends, then I think it'll

Rowan Atkinson29:42

Stop you killing yourself.

Presenter29:44

What will you miss most?

Rowan Atkinson29:45

Um I think I have to say friends. And

Rowan Atkinson29:50

Just leading a normal life I love.

Rowan Atkinson29:52

shopping, you know, and I love driving and I love just kind of tootling about. So I'd miss that.

Presenter29:59

Well, you can take something with you. Um we we're giving you the records. Which one of those, by the way, will you choose if you can only have one?

Rowan Atkinson30:06

Damme, I'm torn between choosing the most cheerful.

Presenter30:11

It's rather the most sad with

Rowan Atkinson30:11

I think it would probably be uh the last one, late the die straight strike. But if I had to choose the most inspiring, then it would be the the Allegri Miserari. Although it is unfortunately also the most sad, but I'll I'll choose that anyway, the Allegri Miserari.

Presenter30:26

And as you know, we give you the Bible and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare. What book are you going to take?

Rowan Atkinson30:33

I think I'd have to take a funny book.

Rowan Atkinson30:36

in an attempt to offset the sadness that the music will will bring me. I'm not very well read at all. I I'm a terribly bad reader of books. It's really only on holiday that I get the John Le Carrie out. And if it's not John Le Carrey, then it tends to be P G Woodhouse, because he makes me laugh more more than anyone else in print. And it would probably be the first book that I ever read of his, which I found in the school library at the age of sixteen, and it was called Uncle Fred in the Springtime.

Presenter30:59

And your luxury.

Rowan Atkinson31:02

This is a very difficult one, but after a lot of hard searching I've decided to take a car.

Rowan Atkinson31:07

And it doesn't really matter what sort of car it is, but it should be a nice one, and therefore I think it should be an Aston Martin. And all I want to do to it really is clean it, so it can be locked up, and so I can't use it to sleep in it, and no petrol, and w we presume no roads to drive it on. But I could build a a little bamboo car port. And as long as with the car came

Rowan Atkinson31:30

A plentiful supply of car wax, and a plentiful supply of those of those little orange dusters with red sewn edges that you find in all good hardware stores.

Rowan Atkinson31:39

Then I would just occasionally clean it and look at it.

Presenter31:42

You shall have it all. Rowan Atkinson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Rowan Atkinson31:47

Thank you.

Speaker 331:55

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