Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor and comedian best known for his music hall act as an East End wide boy.
On the island
Eight records
Well, the first one is obviously my life is show business, and one of the greatest performers in my book was Judy Garland. And we're talking about show business in my side of it, variety, which is traveling in the country, or was in those days, living in a trunk, living out of a trunk.
Well, we're talking about show business again, which is my life. It's all I ever talk about. But in those days, I did have two people who were marvellous in my mind and strange enough in years to come. One actually managed me and looked after me, and that is Flanagan and Alan, and of course, Underneath the artist.
National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge
Well, my third one is a is a very happy memory to me, and that was when for the first time I took my daughter Anne, who is now in New Zealand, I took her to Covent Garden to see Lisa Markova in Les Silphid.
because that was the very first tune I ever followed on the professional stage. At the windmill? At the windmill. On that first day? On that very first day, and for the six weeks that the season was on, six times a day.
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: In the Hall of the Mountain King
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Pritchard
Record number five is a record that I was given by my second wife when we were courting. I took her to the Albert Hall and she gave me a present. That was the very first present she's ever given me
Well, the number six we was talking about uh meeting my young wife and we were married on the twenty-sevent of August nineteen seventy seven and the hymn we played was Morning Has Broken and that was what's happened to me. A new dawn came into my life on a new day and a wonderful new day.
Die Fledermaus: Adele's Laughing Song
Record number seven, of course, who I've pretty well introduced now, and that's something from Fledemouse, and that is uh Adele's Laughing Song, and I'd like the one where Elizabeth Schumann sings it.
1812 OvertureFavourite
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti
My last record is eighteen twelve. The Tchaikovsky Overture. Tchaikovsky Overture, eighteen twelve, yeah, with the bells and the guns. I love it. Oh, it really does things to me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:52How much does music mean in your life?
Quite a bit really, although I don't sit listening to music too much … music's always been through our family and more particular now that I'm married to a uh a young lady who is interested in a ballet and of course she has an awful lot of records she's brought into the house.
Presenter asks
1:26Why did you do that jumble talk in your music hall act?
I always did that what we call jumble talk, just mad talk in the end, because I find that not so much now, but in those days, so many otherwise good comedians spoilt their act by trying to sing. … I can't sing, I'm never going to try to.
Presenter asks
3:00Where did you get your cockney accent from [since you were born in Aldershot]?
Now, when I was a kid, nearly all the regiments in Aldricho, which of course is the home of the British Army, nearly all the regiments were London regiments. And I used to come home from school with the cockney accent, you see, because I was always at the camp.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
I don't know the only luxury if I was on a desert island weekend in Paris
What was your father like?
He was ninety two when he died. … In age he was a grandfather, but he was just a friend, a pal, a great mate. It wasn't father and son between my father and I, and this probably is why I I'm able to feel this way about my present marriage and my my child.
Presenter asks
5:48How did you get started in concert party work?
It was called Five O'Clock Follies. My brother Walter, a chap called Sid Rule, Roy Fluenn, Reg Winter. The crowd of them had this concert going. … Sid Rawd, who ran it, used to do an acrobatic act … and two days before the show this guy chickened out on my brother, love him, opened his mouth and said, I've got a brother, you know, so Arthur was into show business.
Presenter asks
14:12What did you do when you were demobilized after six years of service?
I got a job as navvy down in Maidstone. … You see, when I. Joined the army, I was an errand boy or shop assistant. … I badly wanted to be a draftsman'cause I I I'm useful. I've been to art school and sign writing and things like that. But because I hadn't done it before the war, you see, I couldn't pick it up … So I had to get what jobs I could.
Presenter asks
17:37How did you get your audition at the Windmill Theatre?
I used to do a double act when I was going round the clubs … there was a chappy called Johnny Current and I we did this double act. … He came to me once and he said, Look, they do auditions every six weeks at the Windmill Theatre London … we turned up at eleven and Anne Mattel, who was the production manager … said, You're late … do a double. So we go up, do a double act, finish it … And they said, Right, thank you very much indeed. … my brother … had sent [a photograph] in a letter to the Windmill Theatre, telling them that they should have seen my single act … and this photograph dropped out, and she said Have him.
“I was this little boy being lifted and thrown about and a few weeks later we were doing a show at Webben, which is a village near Aldershot and I was laying sort of horizontal across his head and he was spinning around and we hit the flats on the side, fell to the ground. He picked me up, put me across his knees, pretended to spank me and the audience laughed and so he said, from now on we've got a comedy acrobatic. Oh and it frightened the laugh out of me. It petrified me every time I was petrified to go and do this concert.”
“I went to the windmill theater and had an audition. at ten o'clock in the morning and I was in the show at twelve o'clock.”
“I've been in show business thirty-five years, I've done practically everything. Apart from Bally, although I've done Cod Bally and Pantomime. And now comes the ultimate. I go into opera. No, and when I get there they say, Just be yourself and tell gags and I think well, where the devil have I been for thirty five years? What have I trained for? I've gone back to doing and libbin”