Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor who performed Shakespeare with the Old Vic company, including Hamlet at Elsinore.
On the island
Eight records
it's a reminder of that boyhood days which passed during the fourteen eighteen war and which I can remember very vividly. I think this song sums up a lot of the heartbreak of that time.
to remind me of this time it's Flannagan and Allen singing underneath the arches, which they did every night, and I used to stand in the wings and listen to them.
Nocturne from A Midsummer Night's DreamFavourite
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer
Well, the next record is the Nocturne from the Midsummer Night's Dream. Greg. ... and it reminds me above all of somebody who thank God is very much alive which is which is my darling wife Dorothy Heyson who was playing Titania in that production. And I had known her for a long time before, but I think that that was while she was doing that. This was when some strange flash or thud or bang or explosion took place, and this is what started what has been now marriage of nearly thirty years.
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (first movement)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Böhm
The next record is Mozart. He is one of the composers whom I couldn't bear to be on a desert island and not to be reminded of. And I've chosen the Fortieth Symphony.
Uff a fox singing A Sea Shanty Australia, it's called. When I left Stratford, I was for the first time I earned a bit of money making films. And I was able to afford a boat. And first I bought a catamaran and sailed that. And then we sold the cat and we built a forty-foot catch so that I could sail both winter and summer whenever the chance came. And this is a reminder of those days. And also because we had we had this record of offers. And we it reminds me of funny old w winter evenings singing these songs down in the cabin.
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
I needed something to remind me of America, to which I owe so much and which I care about so much. And I was in perplexity which to choose, but I've decided to plump for Ella FitzGerald singing the Rogers and Hart song Manhattan.
Voice of a Whale
Because various reasons. Partly I'd like to be reminded of whales, which are in danger of being wiped out. And next, from a more practical reason, I thought that I might be able to make friends with the whales. And I'll need friends.
Romance No. 2 in F major, Op. 50
The other composer that I I couldn't be without is Beethoven. It was a dreadful problem to know what to choose, but in the end I have decided for The Romance, No. Two, played by David Oustra.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:44What was your first engagement, your very first engagement of all?
Well, in the vacations from the RADA, I used to go down and get various jobs at the Kew Theatre, which has been pulled down. It it's there no longer. And when you left the RADA? I did a play down at the Kew which Lee Ephraim, who is a a kind of American impresario, he came and saw. He had a foot both in America and here. He put on shows like The Desert Song and Rosemarie And he came and saw this play, and said, Well, young man, I have nothing really to offer you, except I'm sending out a musical sketch with a a comedian uh called Naylor Grimson, and I think you'd be fine for the young man, and you can be the straight man to this Jewish comic. How would you like to do it? So I said sure. So that was the first time I ever really tasted money or the music halls. … I was very young, very naïve and very innocent. I suppose I was seventeen or eighteen. But I look back on it with a kind of nostalgia.
Presenter asks
5:35You were one of the Old Vic company which played Hamlet at Elsinore Castle, weren't you?
That's right. That was the first time that an English company went there. It was extraordinary. Remember, it poured with rain, and we'd be driven off the battlements and into the ballroom at the hotel. But it was extraordinary. That was with Olivier, Larry, and Vivian Lee playing Ophelia. Memorable.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Whom I admire as a poet and love as a man, and am. It would be A continual reminder not to lose my sense of humour in those circumstances.
The luxury
On this desert island I have no doubt that the currents and the winds are going to wash up all kinds of Flotson. And amongst them, I'm confident, will be some Sodden Admiralty charts. Sodden, I said, I mean damp. And uh They will be washed up, and my old eyes now can no longer decipher the small print on Admiralty charts, so I must have a magnifying glass to to make my way on that singing whale.
Why did you leave [Stratford]?
I think partly I was getting stale with doing virtually nothing but Shakespeare. In the end it becomes almost a chore and you think, hello, I'm getting very stale at this. I want to get away and do other things, do films, do modern plays. This was one great feeling I had.
Presenter asks
19:01Surely before embarking on your wartime exploits in Albania, you must have taken a pretty intensive course in how to live off the land.
You mean before I went into Albanian? No, none at all. Absolutely none. I was sent in virtually unprepared. I I couldn't speak a word of Albanian, and uh well I did have some maps, that's about all. No survival drill? Uh no, I had a p um pocketful of K rations, that was about all. No, it was a very harem scarum affair. Oh, I. Um no, I'd have a but I I I was a Boy Scout, for heaven's sake. Oh, that's good.
Presenter asks
19:40Would you try to escape?
Yes, I definitely would try to escape. There's far too much going on in the world which I find marvellous, and people I love, and I would emphatically resist being stuck on a perishing desert island.
“So I said sure. So that was the first time I ever really tasted money or the music halls.”
“This was when some strange flash or thud or bang or explosion took place, and uh this is what started what has been now marriage of nearly thirty years.”
“and frightened myself to death jumping out of those beastly aeroplanes.”
“He said, all right, I'll show you. I'll show you how to do it.”
“Yes, I definitely would try to escape. There's far too much going on in the world which I find marvellous, and people I love, and I would emphatically resist being stuck on a perishing desert island.”
“I thought that I might be able to make friends with the whales. And I'll need friends.”