Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Broadcaster best known for his humorous outside broadcasts and the 'Let's Go Somewhere' series.
On the island
Eight records
Can I go back to my school days at Eton when I was a member of the Eton College Musical Society and they came along and recorded us all singing the Eton boating song? You know, We All Swing Together. I'd love to hear that.
I love All the Things You Are, which incident is my wife Pauline's favourite song, so let's combine the two if we may.
Can I have my wall song, which was We'll Gather Lilacs? I heard Ivanovello played an orchard once in Normandy when we were there, and I think it's a marvellous one.
Double DamaskFavourite
Can I have one of the people I've enjoyed meeting so much on the stage, Cicely Courtenays, a great friend of mine. She's a marvellous person.
Can I have one of my other great favourites, Bud Fannigan, a tremendous chap. He sang strolling quite beautifully.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Philharmonia Orchestra
I'd love something by a British composer and who better than Elgar and perhaps some Nimrod from his Enigma variation.
Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Round the Ole Oak Tree)
All through one's life one's had little mini classics of my type of music like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes or These Foolish Things, Moon River or Raindrops Falling on My Head. And I think the modern one of those is Ty Euler Ribbon.
It'd be rather nice sitting on the island to hear the voice of someone in my family. And luckily, I've got a son called, he has to call himself Barry Alexander because of Barry Johnson already in Equity. He's in this group called Design. And it'd be nice to hear his voice.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30Where would you like this island to be?
I think somewhere off the coast of Australia, possibly near Sydney somewhere, as near as I'm allowed to go, so that I might hear the roar of the crowd on the hill when there's a test match there.
Presenter asks
3:49Did you envisage at that time becoming an actor or director?
Yeah, well, you know, I've always been a sort of sucker for the stage. The only part I've ever played, in fact, was the silly ass in the ghost train. But yes, I went to a fortune teller who said, yes, you ought to be an actor. You're going to be well known one day. And she made me sign a special book and said, you'll be not famous, but well known. But I hadn't got the guts to give up my job and go on the stage, I'm afraid.
Presenter asks
4:36What happened when you put aside your uniform?
Well, I've been very lucky because in the war, when we were in a wood in Thetford before going across to France, a couple came to have supper with us one day, and they were Stuart Macpherson and Winter Vaughan Thomas. They'd come to learn to be war correspondence with a neighbouring battalion, and I happened to meet them there and like them, and I happened to meet them again after the war. I was so lucky. And Stuart said, oh, we're a bit short of people at the BBC, why not do a test. And I did attest, I went and asked people about what they thought of the butter ration in Oxford Street, I remember, and if you ask silly questions, you get silly answers. But they did say you can keep going. At any rate, they didn't think it was very good, but they said at least you didn't sort of dry up.
The keepsakes
The book
John Fisher
One I keep by my bedside called Funny Way to Be a Hero by John Fisher. It's an anthology of music halls and it's got the life stories and comedy routines of everybody like Billy Bennett, Jimmy James, Max Miller, Flanagan and Alan, the lot and I could learn all their routines and make myself laugh even if I didn't make the birds laugh.
The luxury
I think I'll try and take an automatic bowling machine. It'd have to be worked by clockwork, so like a bat with an old bit of wood and we could bowl coconuts through this machine. There are machines like this and I can have a bit of practice.
Presenter asks
15:32How are you going to manage on this island? Do you think you'd be pretty efficient as a castaway?
I think I'd be very inefficient. I'm quite hopeless with my hands. I can't do anything from like fuses or knocking in nails. I'm very good at making scrambled eggs. ... Uh no, terrified, really. I like bathing and lying on a beach. I don't like going on the sea. No, I'd stick there, absolutely.
Presenter asks
17:48If you would take just one of your [eight] discs, which would it be?
Uh I think it's got to be laughed. I think I'll take cis with me with um double damask and have a good laugh sometimes anyhow.
“I'm rather fond of civilization, bad as people say it is.”
“I hadn't got the guts to give up my job and go on the stage, I'm afraid.”
“I think I'd be very inefficient. I'm quite hopeless with my hands.”
“I think I'll take cis with me with um double damask and have a good laugh sometimes anyhow.”
“I could learn all their routines and make myself laugh even if I didn't make the birds laugh.”