Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
One of Britain's foremost TV dramatists and children's writers, known for Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, and the Alex Ryder series.
On the island
Eight records
Etude Op. 10, No. 12 in C minor, 'Revolutionary'
I've played Chopin very, very badly all my life. And one of the very happiest memories that I do have of my childhood is uh listening to my mother, having lessons. She was taught by a very good concert pianist called Bernard Vitebski, and at the end of a lesson, as a special treat for me, he would sometimes play the revolutionary study.
Um going into my teens, I think it's impossible for a man of my age not to have been influenced in some way by the Beatles. Ah, I mean, I grew up with them all the time and and they were always around, and so I've chosen Ellen Rigby, which is my favorite song.
Gloria in excelsis Deo (from Gloria, RV 589)
Taverner Consort and Players, conducted by Andrew Parrott
Well, my parents sent me to um Sunday school as well to to learn the Jewish religion, which had the immediate effect, of course, of turning me into an atheist, which I've been all my life ever since. But if I were going to turn to to God on your island, I guess this piece of music might help convert me.
Ewan McGregor, José Feliciano and Jacek Koman
Oh, this is a slightly odd one. I'm a great fan of Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director, and one of my favourite films of his is Moulin Rouge. And although some of your listeners, I fear, may find this sort of a slightly unpleasant noise, it's a piece of music which I just love, and I can see myself on the island dancing naked under the palm trees to the sound of the tango out of Moulin Rouge.
She's Always a WomanFavourite
Well, the the greatest mainstay of my life has been Jill Greene, who is the producer of Foil's War, to whom I should also add I am I am married and have been for uh gosh seventeen or eighteen years now and I think that probably I would not survive long on this island without her, would need something to remember her by and this song Billy Joel She's Always a Woman was I think playing the very first time we met and whenever I hear it anyway perhaps it's a lyrics I always think of her.
Go Down, Moses (from A Child of Our Time)
Oh, this is a uh another piece of religious music, although modern classical. Uh one of the few regrets I have in my long career is that I was invited to write a play for the National Youth Theatre many, many years ago on Crystal Night, and I still regret to this day not doing it. Ed Wilson, the director, uh invited me and it was a it was one of the very few mistakes I've made and he played me a piece of music to inspire me, and that is the piece of music that I'm going to play now, which is Go Down Moses from Sir Michael Tippett's A Child in Our Time.
Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat (from Guys and Dolls)
Um, going back to the theatre again, uh, I still have very strong memories of going with my sister Caroline to see Guys and Dolls many, many years ago at the National Theatre. Quite simply the most wonderful uh evening uh in of going to the theatre I think I've ever had. And it occurs to me that this song, Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat, uh following a storm is again good music for a desert island.
In the Midst of Life is Death (from Albert Herring)
English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britten
I spend a great deal of time in Suffolk, where I'm probably at my happiest. I absolutely love it up there, particularly in Orford, a village on the coast, which is where I go to write and where I feel comfortable. Even if most of the residents do seem to be drunk most of the time, it is still a wonderful place to go. And I can't go to Suffolk without thinking of Benjamin Britton, who is buried at Alborough, just down the coast, and whose work was often premiered in Orford. And I once went to a semi-professional production of an opera called Albert Herring in St Bartholomew's Church in Orford. It's a very light, rather silly opera in many ways, but in the middle of it there's this absolutely wonderful requiem, but just seems to come out of nowhere, and I'd like to choose that.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:03What was it about writing that unlocked your sense of self?
What was unhappy for me was a school I was sent to, Worley Farm, uh, where I was sent in nineteen sixty three, which was very cold and very difficult for me. And it was at that time, between ages eight to thirteen, that I discovered books and the library and telling stories, and discovered that I was only really going to be happy when I had a pen in my hand, or a book in my hand, and so it really was um a great escape for me.
Presenter asks
1:47Why does every writer need an unhappy part of their childhood?
Well, I think that um all writing does come out of tension to a certain extent, and certainly uh for a children's author I think that having missed out on some of the fun of childhood and and feeling that childhood was taken away from me or lost to me to a certain extent helps me to try and recreate it in my books.
Presenter asks
5:13Tell us about life at home.
It was very strange. I mean, if if I'd been living in sort of eighteenth century Versailles, it would have been fine, but twentieth century North London it was a bit odd. Uh my father I know I still to this day don't quite know what he did. He was a solicitor, I think, but uh he was involved in sort of very mysterious circles. My mother was a sort of a socialite playing bridge and disappearing for tea parties and charity events. We lived in a huge house with servants and vast gardens. And it was a sort of very arid existence. You know, looking back on it now, it was sort of emotionally very empty.
The keepsakes
The book
What I'd like is a large French dictionary, so I can improve my French and feel that if I was rescued, or rather when I am rescued, I'd actually learned something and done something. And of course I could thank my rescuers in pretty fluent French.
The luxury
I'll take my fountain pen, but you're also going to have to give me a very large amount of paper and some ink copious amounts of both.
Presenter asks
13:07Were your parents aware at the time of how unhappy you were [at boarding school]?
Now, I did all that, but my parents never thought about pulling me out of the place and just, you know, get on with it, go there. Now, they weren't cruel people. I just think it was the time, you know, that um that you know, if you had paid for that sort of education, the sort of the the spirit was your kid just got on with it, your child had to put up with it. So it is surprising to me, though, that they didn't question it more, why I was so unhappy and so unsuccessful there.
Presenter asks
28:01Would you rather have had a normal, happy, regular childhood and no success, or have had the childhood you have and the success you have?
I'm very, very h happy with the way things have turned out in my life. I really am. And uh I don't think I'd have changed anything of it much, uh really and it's difficult to answer the question honestly because at the time going through Orley Farm and and being so unhappy with myself and what I was uh maybe that wa maybe it would have been better then but but I wouldn't have known what would have happened next. And what's happened next for me has been so good, Alex Ryder and the other books and and all the rest of it that um that I you know, one goes with the other. So I wouldn't have changed anything, I suppose.
“I think that a that a book only or a story only really exists when it's told to a lot of people. I mean if I tell you a story then it has a small flicker of life in it. If I tell ten people then it's doing better. But if I can tell that same story to a million people I think the story is up there and running.”
“Most most evil in this world, you know, is not big evil, it's little, it's petty.”
“I write every single day, uh, sometimes up to about ten hours a day, never less than about five. Uh but as I say, you know, people say how how are you so disciplined? But discipline is stopping, not starting.”