Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Creator of Dame Edna Everidge, antiquarian book collector, accomplished painter, aesthete, and reformed drinker.
On the island
Eight records
Der Rosenkavalier: Presentation of the Rose
Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming
It's my favorite opera, one of my very favorite pieces of music ... whenever this happens and I'm at a performance of this opera I for some reason burst into tears. I can't explain it. It's just an emotional overload.
I consider Fred Stair to be one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Fred Astaire was not just a great dancer, but he was also a splendid singer. And he interpreted the songs of Gershwin ... perfectly.
Ruggiero Ricci and Noriko Shiyazaki
My third piece of music is a most beautiful tune. It's nothing subtle. But it's a beautiful tune called Love Song and it's by Joseph Suk.
The act that impressed me most was an old guy called Randolph Sutton ... and when he sang his great hit number, Mother Kelly's Doorstep, the whole audience joined in. It was like a prayer.
The last song in this cycle. The Organ Grinder is perhaps the most tragic of all Schubert's songs. And it reminds me of that other side of the German temperament. The other side from the br brutality, from the insanity of war was a profundity which this song exhibits, I think.
Sonata for Flute and Piano: II. Cantilena
One of my favorite composers is Francis Poulanc. He is the spirit of France and of joy. Poolang has also in his beautiful music. A whiff of melancholy, which I like very much in art.
This is the composer at the piano. Playing his perhaps most famous song, Alf Viedersing.
Songs of Sunset: They Are Not Long, the Weeping and the LaughterFavourite
I would play very often the music of Frederick Delius ... And what he did, I discovered, was to set to music. In a song cycle, the poems of Ernest Dawson. One of my favorite poets.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:13You nearly killed yourself, accidentally, in Cornwall in 1961. What happened?
I went down to Cornwall ... I went out walking with my wife on a February morning across some frozen fields, stepping across a very cold little brook, I slipped on a stone, and I found myself almost laughing as I slid down this icy stream, which unfortunately flowed over a cliff. I found myself seconds later sitting on a ledge. With a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm. I stayed there for half a day until I was rescued ... So I've had the Grim Reaper very close to me. Which is important to remember when I'm feeling too pleased with myself.
Presenter asks
6:08What do you think the function is of an artist?
Well, my kind of art if you could call it that, is cheering people up. To be in the cheering up business is very gratifying.
Presenter asks
7:41Can you remember your first official performance when you did have an audience?
I mm must say that I usually had an audience of aunts, I had a lot of aunties, and I suppose inventing a character like Day Madner. was instigated by these all these women who began by peering into my cot, and ended up clapping and applauding when I sang at a little family gathering. But I did say to my mother, I'll sing if I can hide behind the curtains. So I would stand behind the drawing room curtains, And, to use my own phrase, pretend to be the wireless.
The keepsakes
The book
each page will have a memory for me … That will be my spiritual companion.
The luxury
Because there'll be some very good subjects on the island. And it's the thing I enjoy doing most.
Presenter asks
10:18What was it that was propelling you forward to perform?
I think it was some kind of primitive compulsion to express myself in some way. To find a voice for myself. I didn't have one. In spite of my cleverness, I was Very apprehensive about growing up, about living in the world of adults.
Presenter asks
10:46Why did your relationship with your mother leave you feeling very cautious and circumspect over any relationship with a woman?
Well, my mother was a strong personality. She was an intelligent woman, wasted really, because she lived in this Melbourne suburb, in a big house, with plenty of domestic help. and yet unfulfilled. So her sense of humour Uh was rather a A cynical one. She was also extremely shy, I think. and attempted to conceal this. And I feel that she had a sad and unfulfilled life. though of course she had four children. With whom she didn't properly connect.
Presenter asks
24:42When did you properly realize your drinking was a problem?
Well, I probably realized it, I think, at the end of that decade of the sixties. And I just realized there was no future in it for me. You know, it was sort of I'd done all you could do with alcohol except die. And um thereafter, you know, I I things really took off in a wonderful way. It was as though I'd been driving in a car with a handbrake on for years.
“I really am a compulsive bibliomaniac. And it really represents my desire for ballast you know, have something that will finally be so heavy I'll have to stay in one place.”
“I sometimes think alcoholism, you know, is a is a disorder of the memory. You wake up in the morning groaning and you say never again and by lunch time you're on to your second Beaujolais or whisky and soda, or not even soda.”
“They do say it's a sign of insanity if you do the same thing and expect different results. Well, of course I am slightly insane, but I'm uh very, very happy with my present uh situation.”