David Frost

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:28

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter0:30

On our desert island this week is a young writer, satirist, and cabaret artist who's made a sensational rise to fame in a very short time indeed. It's the head man of That Was the Week That Was, David Frost. And David, after the send-up you did of me in this program a few weeks ago, this invitation to be a castaway comes under the heading of Coals of Fire. Well, it's not at all painful yet. Well, now we've dumped you on this island. What's the one thing you'd be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter0:57

Punctuality, I think, actually. It always terrifies me, and I was almost late for this.

Presenter1:02

Is is music a big thing in your life?

Presenter1:05

You know, I played on the linoleum when I was only three, which was quite good. And now at the moment, I play the gramophone extremely well, but nothing else really.

Presenter1:14

Did you have any plan in choosing these eight records that could be the only ones you'll ever hear again?

Presenter1:19

That's very moving indeed. Well, no, not really, except that I wanted to take memories on disc rather, or platters or waxings, as I adore to hear the disc jockeys call them, memories rather than actual great bits of music in hand. What's the first one?

Presenter1:35

Well, the first one's an early memory. It's of Sunday schools, because father's a Methodist minister, and of Methodist churches.

Presenter1:43

years ago, quite apart from the present really, I used to go regularly to Sunday school and

Presenter1:49

I used to enjoy it very much, except when missionaries came because leprosy. I don't know why, but always. And I got terrified, so I associated missionaries and leprosy, and I used to go home and look frantically for the white spots deadly appearing all over. But otherwise it was marvellous.

Presenter2:07

quite apart from him singing now, and I'd like the old rugged cross.

Speaker 42:19

Year of suffering and share.

Presenter3:11

The Old Rugged Cross, an Australian recording by the Ballarat City Choir. What's your second choice?

Presenter3:17

Well, my second choice is going to take me back.

Presenter3:20

to the years a little after the leprosy visits. It's going to take me back in fact

Presenter3:25

To going to the pictures.

Presenter3:27

Which I did at the same time actually.

Presenter3:29

Because going to the Odeons and Gomonts, which are now no doubt bingo halls, was a very great part of my youth, of going and getting the cashew nuts and the butter kissed rolls or something like that, finding an elderly woman to take me in if it was an A film, and desperately smoking a cigarette to see if I could get into an X. They were great days, and I'd like a bit of film music, and I think I'll take it from a more recent film, but to me a very perfect, exciting, visual one, the film Shoot the Pianist.

Presenter4:27

A theme from the soundtrack of the French film Shoot the Pianist. David, in what part of the country were you born? I was born in Tentedon in Kent. It's a delicious little town to which...

Presenter4:38

Whenever I return, people say, Oh my, how you've grown.

Presenter4:42

And you have. Oh, thank you. What was it your first ambition to be?

Presenter4:47

Oh, undoubtedly a train driver. At the age of five, I was sure of it, and I knew all the engines. By seven, it had changed, actually, to being a professional footballer with Newcastle United. I think I liked the striped shirts, actually.

Speaker 14:58

I think I

Presenter5:01

At school, what subjects were you good at?

Presenter5:04

Well, things went fairly merrily in several. I was very lucky actually because one of the things that I was good at was maths.

Presenter5:11

And that meant that at a point where you have to choose between doing the arts and the sciences, and when in fact one's no idea what one wants to do, I was in danger of choosing the sciences, which would have been awful. And really, the only reason I chose the arts was that I couldn't do physics problems. All those terrible things about tins with oxygen in and how much they weigh when it's taken out and lead filings, awful. So I chose the arts.

Speaker 15:34

Yeah.

Presenter5:35

I know you won a scholarship at Cambridge. Before you went up to Cambridge, you did work for a year. Yes, I had a free year owing to the hiatus over.

Presenter5:43

National Service and so on, one of the many Ministry of Defense, Hi ATE. And so I had the free year in which I taught.

Presenter5:52

in a secondary modern school which was co-ed and I was in charge of all the history.

Presenter5:56

the games and it was a very exciting year and I could have gone into rep but I did this because I knew it was going to be so different to what I was going to do later. It was a marvellous year. I believe there was some alternative employment offered that would have fulfilled that childhood ambition. You could have been a professional footballer. Yes, I was offered terms as a professional footballer before I went to Cambridge in fact. There'd been a thing in the paper when I'd got eight goals about hot frost strikes again which was some sub-editor's dream.

Presenter6:22

And I was offered terms by

Presenter6:24

Nottingham Forest. Not alas, Newcastle United. Nottingham Forest got very boring shirts, but they offer me What did you read at Cambridge?

Presenter6:32

English uh sporadically, but alas all too little really, because there was Footlights, which was Revue and Cabaret, and there was Granta, the magazine, which

Presenter6:42

Yes. Yes. Um I I believe you've got one issue banned. W was this anything to do with politics? Were you already politically conscious? Well, I was I conscious. Great question. Um no, the issue, the trouble was over not so much politics actually as expletives.

Presenter6:58

Justifiable expletives, it must be said, but uh there was a great row with the printers and in the end we had to use a three-letter word instead of a four-letter word.

Presenter7:06

Cutting it down a bit. Yes, that's right. Never extreme, you see. And Footlights, the review club of Cambridge, you were doing what? Well, sort of running it and doing review and cabaret, one review a year, and lots of cabarets as well, all over the place. So nevertheless, despite all these extracurricular activities, you did get a degree. I was very grateful that they decided that I was...

Presenter7:30

worthy of when I wasn't, but I did. Let's have record number three now. Well record number three really takes me back to these days, the days of cabarets and all this.

Presenter7:40

It's a piece that's been recorded since by Alan Bennett, who was originally an Oxford man, in fact, which shows how unbiased we all are. And it's that marvellous parody of his.

Presenter7:52

of all reminiscences of the last war, particularly of the early days of the war.

David Frost7:58

England lay like a green carpet below us.

David Frost8:02

And the war seemed worlds away.

David Frost8:06

I could see Tunbridge Wells.

David Frost8:10

And the sun glinting on the river. And I remembered that last weekend I'd spent there with Celia.

David Frost8:18

that summer of thirty-nine, and her playing the piano in the cool of the evening.

David Frost8:25

Suddenly, Jenny was coming at me out of a bank of cloud.

David Frost8:29

I let him have it, and I think I must have got him in the wing.

Speaker 18:30

B

David Frost8:32

Because he spider-passed me out of control.

David Frost8:35

As he did so

David Frost8:37

I always remember this, I caught a glimpse of his face.

David Frost8:42

And you'll know

David Frost8:43

He smiled.

David Frost8:47

Funny thing war

Presenter8:48

Alan Bennett in an excerpt from Beyond the French. And rather marvellous for another reason, quite apart from the parody actually, because it's also a memory of exactly what I was told.

Presenter8:58

about the war and vaguely recall of it. Yeah, super.

Presenter9:02

Well, you're down from Cambridge. What was the first novel?

Presenter9:05

Well

Presenter9:06

I decided that of the various things I'd done at Cambridge, sort of the writing bit.

Presenter9:10

and the performing bit and the television bit. That I wanted to do television by day and the others by night as it were. Not that you could do cabre very well by day except on workers' playtime. And so in fact I went to Associated Rediffusion, London's television Monday to Friday. And there I wrote and appeared in various programmes, all for the best part of a year.

Speaker 19:28

Yeah.

Presenter9:34

Quite a variety from current affairs to the twist and back.

Presenter9:37

If indeed they're not one and the same thing.

Presenter9:40

And at the end of the year was when TW started forming, which was last August, because I'd been doing writing and cabaret during the year and met Ned Sherrin, who produces TW. Whose idea was TW? That was the first time. Well, it sprang out of tonight, really, and Donald Bavistock and Ned were working on it for some time.

Presenter9:59

And then I got embroiled.

Presenter10:01

And for the last three or four months of preparing, we worked together, you know. Yes. The intention was what, a a minority late night sort of program? I don't know, really. I think just to be as free late on a Saturday night on television.

Presenter10:14

As people are in conversation, and to be funny about important things rather than mother-in-laws.

Presenter10:22

Um, frying pans on the head or something. And the audience has crept up to eleven and a half million now and you're keeping the children up. So we hear, yes, although they're not our responsibility that late at night. It's completely the parents.

Speaker 110:23

Yeah, so

Presenter10:33

How do the mechanics work, David? To keep it topical, do you rehearse new material as it comes in through the week? Well, Thursday and Friday people rehearse sketches, though I don't usually on those two days because I'm still sort of writing or editing with Ned or something like that. How many do you write yourself?

Speaker 110:47

Yeah, like that.

Presenter10:49

Probably sort of seven or eight minutes a week, and then obviously a lot of ad-libs as well, which aren't written right when obviously they come out.

Presenter10:56

On the air. Must be a mass of material get sent in every week. Yes, we're now getting a delicious shoal of about 500 scripts a week from outside, you know, which somebody or other reads. I try and read as many as I can and.

Presenter11:10

Which items have caused the most controversy? There was The Consumer's Guide to Religion. There's a bit of a fuss about that. Yes, and indeed the fuss involved father in that, of course, because suddenly people realised that the man who did this item's father was a Methodist minister. And so he got all the press on him down in Suffolk. And of course, they did as London press do and Suffolk press don't and feed questions about don't you think it was the most blasphemous, disgraceful and disgusting thing, you know, and all this sort of thing. And father, of course, took it all and said yes and no to it. So as a result, he came out saying entirely different things in all the papers. He came out in one saying he thought it was clever. In a second he thought it was a bit risky. And in the third that he dozed off halfway through.

Presenter11:52

Let's have record number four now.

Presenter11:54

Well record number four must be if we're on memories. I think we must have memories of Millie Martin, our bundle of earthy sexuality as we always tell the press, of Roy Kinnear, of David Kern and everybody else. So I must take a bit of

Presenter12:09

That programme on a Saturday night, once it called, and oh, the th the late one with the rising audience.

Speaker 412:18

The strikes will get better or else they'll get worse. The Chancellor will open or close up your purse. There'll be cricket in winter and football in spring. And we shall smile bravely and not win a thing. There's trouble in Katanga and trouble in Laos. But God is in his heaven, not in the White House.

Presenter12:37

I think Harold's sincere, don't you? Oh, there's no doubt of it.

David Frost12:41

But And you've only got to look at Joe to see that he's sincere. Utterly, for that matter, there's no questioning that Jack Kennedy's sincere. Yeah, come less, so is Khrushchev. Give him his due, whatever else he may be, he is sincere. True, true, true. Thank God there aren't any Machiavellis in world politics today.

Presenter12:56

You knew where you were with Machiavelli.

Speaker 412:59

That was the week that was It's over, let it be Just let the world swing by If that's alright with you then it's alright

Presenter13:11

An excerpt from that television program. It's coming off for the summer in a minute now.

Presenter13:16

Yes, but we're

Presenter13:17

Zooming back in September. Good. How has this big and sudden success, what's the big difference it's made to your life?

Presenter13:27

I suppose just, you know, how little spare time one has, really. Because unlike a sort of first night that goes pretty merrily, with this, of course, you can't look back on it afterwards, because no sooner than one show is over at 11.43 and we're laying into a steak or something afterwards, and one's thinking about the next, you know, there's just no time. Yes.

Speaker 113:46

There.

Presenter13:47

But you're still doing Cabrie as well. Oh yes, sort of detens enter every few weeks for a few weeks'cause I like it. And you've already made your first film. Yes indeed. I don't know now actually, looking back on those hectic weeks, two or three weeks ago, how I managed to fit it in with the other. But I think I did, yes. Is acting part of your plan?

Presenter14:07

Well films certainly because films excite me and

Presenter14:10

Well films like Shoot the Penis, certainly, and uh

Presenter14:13

And wants to get involved. Now what's for the future? Do you you're doing a summer season? Yes, that's a sort of missionary venture because I want to go out to

Presenter14:21

the West Country and do it because I always used to go and see summer shows at Yarmouth because the Frostian homestead as it were is in fact in Beckles in Suffolk when you used to go over to Yarmouth for evenings and have the candy floss and the nuts and all that.

Presenter14:36

and go to summer shows which infuriated one because one thought they could be so much better and the people in fact wanted more than they were getting.

Presenter14:44

We allege we're going to give it to them.

Presenter14:46

Have you any one big ambition that's still?

Presenter14:50

Outstanding.

Presenter14:51

Well, I think I've achieved it really, you know, to be on desert island disc. My dear David, what a nice speech.

Presenter14:57

So everything's finished now. You've achieved it all. Well, really, I think. Yes. There's always any questions. Of course. Let's have record number five.

Speaker 114:59

Oh really I mean

Presenter15:04

difficult here because it would be much easier if there's 16 records actually but there's only eight

Presenter15:09

And I like and admire Oscar Peterson and Frankson Archer, so I've got to get them both together.

Presenter15:15

And we can do that by taking Oscar Peterson's LP, a jazz portrait of Frank Sinatra.

Presenter15:20

and Oscar Peterson playing one of Sinatra's greatest hits.

Speaker 415:25

Uh

Presenter15:53

The Oscar Peterson trio, just in time, which brings us to number six. Number six, I think.

Presenter15:59

I want as a sort of portrait.

Presenter16:02

of the world in which we seem to move a fair bit of the time.

Presenter16:05

It's a record by Helen Shapiro of Saint Louis Blues, backed by the Nurrie Paramore Orchestra.

Presenter16:12

Seems to me to sum up.

Presenter16:13

The show biz part anyway of the world we move in, you know. Not suggesting that's all of it though, thank goodness.

Presenter16:19

It's WC Handy's St. Louis Blues, which is marvellous. It's Helen Shapiro, who I think is splendid and has enormous potential, or certainly.

Presenter16:29

had enormous potential, but has her exploitation

Presenter16:32

you know, ruined it.

Presenter16:34

And it has a backing by Norrie Paramore in his orchestra, which seems to me to be all I loathe about the commercial tap.

Speaker 416:43

Well yeah

Speaker 416:47

Be up until the day I die.

Speaker 416:56

Deep I love my baby until the day I die

Presenter17:12

Helen Shapira.

Presenter17:14

How good a castway do you think you'll be on this island, David? Can you look after you, sir?

Presenter17:17

Abysmal. No good at building huts and shelters.

Presenter17:20

No, I should have to live in the open air. What about food? Have you ever learned to poach or anything useful like that?

Presenter17:27

Eggs or a pheasant? Both. Neither. I'm very good at sort of taking the small blue packets of salt out of a packet of potato crisps and sprinkling the salt into the potato crisp and getting it equal all over. But that's about the limit, I think. I think this comes under under...

Speaker 117:42

But that's about

Presenter17:45

Cooking or or horticulture? I'm not sure. It depends whether the island actually grows potato crisps or

Presenter17:53

Could you build some kind of a craft?

Presenter17:55

I'd have a go, I think, at a raft, probably, you know, and after a time to get out to that coral reef where all the riches lie. Would you use it to escape?

Presenter18:04

No, no, because I...

Presenter18:07

Look at lots of cartoons and on cartoons what always happens to people on desert islands is that a very beautiful woman walks up out of the sea. I hope you're right. After a week or two, you know, and I have to make some remark about it. And sometimes she's a mermaid, too. But I'm very optimistic about it. Yes, good. Well, so am I. Let's have record number seven now. Well, number seven, there's no reason for this one except that I think it's marvellous. I think Joni Summers is marvellous and I think this has got great sex appeal.

Speaker 418:34

You're not so fine.

Speaker 418:38

I feel my lover is.

Speaker 418:42

A swine I have vibes for you to give you dirty looks I have words that do not come from children's books There's a trick with a knife that I'm learning

Presenter19:05

Joni Summers. She's new to me and I think she's marvellous too.

Presenter19:09

Everything I've got. Now, last record, David.

Presenter19:12

Well, this one is the most memory of all, really. It's Edith Piaf singing Nonje Regret Rien.

Presenter19:20

Simply because

Presenter19:21

of the couple of times it's been

Presenter19:24

Our tune

Speaker 419:42

No runa regrettor.

Speaker 419:47

Nila Bea

Presenter19:52

It did Piaf singing Nosion of a Gret Pier.

Presenter19:55

Now you've um let us hear your eight records. If you could only take one, which would it be?

Presenter20:01

I think in fact the last one because of the most recent memories of it. Right.

Presenter20:05

And one luxury or lot to take with you.

Presenter20:08

Oh damn.

Presenter20:09

I think I'd like

Presenter20:11

A direct land line to the BBC Gramophone Library.

Presenter20:15

That's alright.

Presenter20:16

So that they can do that thing they always do at the radio show of finding a record for me in 30 seconds. Yes, I'm not sure that is all right because it means you're getting an unlimited supply of records. And it destroys the whole base. Yes. Oh, well then. I would have a program if everybody could do that.

Speaker 120:28

I don't know that.

Speaker 120:31

No, no, no.

Presenter20:33

It'll have to be a vat of those potato crisps. All right, and lots of packets of salt. That I can pour over them. Yes. And one book to take with you apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Presenter20:43

I think that would have to be Chaucer actually because people are always telling me that he is marvellous and tolerant and humorous and perceptive and brilliant and I've never seen it yet.

Presenter20:55

And I think I'll have time to find out one way or the other. Good luck. And thank you, David Frost, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Island Disc. Not at all. I like it here. Goodbye, everyone.