Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Playwright and screenwriter best known for The Philanthropist, the Oscar-winning Dangerous Liaisons, translations of Ibsen and Chekhov, and directing Carrington
On the island
Eight records
Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, Op. 3 No. 10, RV 580
Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
George Fenton, who wrote and arranged the music for Dangerous Liaisons, chose Bach's reworking of this to sprinkle through the film. And it's a piece I've always loved.
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622: II. Adagio
Anthony Pay, Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
It's from Mozart's clarinet concerto… This is a recording which uses an instrument called the Bassett clarinet.
Mickey Baker, Sylvia Robinson, Ethel Smith
My father was very fond of Buddy Holly… One of his songs that I'm particularly fond of, both because I like the tune and because I think the sentiment in the title is unarguable. And that's a song called Love Is Strange.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: II. Adagio
William Pleeth, Amadeus Quartet
One of my favourite records was the Amadeus playing Schubert's string quintet. And I discovered when I was researching Carrington that it was also a favourite of Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, so I included it in their film.
"Erbarme dich, mein Gott" (St Matthew Passion, BWV 244)Favourite
Janet Baker, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter
Janet Baker has a very beautiful voice, and I have an enormous number of her records. And I've chosen an aria from the Saint Matthew Passion.
One of the records of that particular year [in Los Angeles]… sort of summons up Los Angeles for me, which isn't entirely pleasurable, but it's played such a big part in my life that I feel I ought to be reminded of it.
Douglas Perry, New York City Opera Orchestra, Christopher Keene
I've chosen the closing aria from an opera by Philip Glass about Gandhi called Satyagraha… a very, very peaceful piece of music which I think would calm the troubled brow when things got hard on the island.
Requiem in D minor, K. 626: VIII. Lacrimosa
Chorus and Orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
Well the last record is from Mozart's Requiem. In fact it's the last piece that Mozart ever wrote. It's the Lacrymosa.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:00What do you sound like, a man who can't say no? Is that more the case?
No, I don't think so. I have been known to say no from time to time, but I do probably err on the side of doing too much.
Presenter asks
1:59Was it also the case that you and your good friend David Hare believed it was impossible to survive as a playwright beyond the age of thirty?
Oh yes, we used to sit there in our early twenties at the Royal Court and say, 'We've got ten years.' … The theatre burns you up, we used to say. We've got ten years, and how are we going to get through the rest of our lives?
Presenter asks
5:24What was your fascination with that novel [Les Liaisons Dangereuses] and that story in the first place?
I'd come across the book Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Oxford. It was one of my set books … it was one of those books that seemed to me to reveal various bleak truths and was beautifully constructed. It was a book that I came back to again and again.
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
at Oxford my special subject was Proust, a la Recherche d'Etemperdu, so I've never yet come across a novel that's as compendious and as astute about the human Spirit and its difficulties, and it's sort of inexhaustible, I think, so I think that's the book I would take.
The luxury
inexhaustible supply of black notebooks and Parker pens
I suppose actually, boringly, it would probably have to be an inexhaustible supply of black notebooks and parker pens.
Presenter asks
12:19So you were a sort of white chameleon, stuck in the middle – sort of outsider. Did that mean that you wanted to write? Is there any link there at all?
I don't really think so, because I'd already started to write at the age of eight or nine in Egypt. The school I was in … had a drama department … one of the things we did, we were asked to write plays for our class to perform, and I started – that's how I started.
Presenter asks
19:12You wrote Carrington some seventeen years ago – but despite the success of Dangerous Liaisons, the backers didn't jump at it, did they?
No, they didn't jump at anything. This was a strange illusion that I had after I won the Oscar for Liaisons – that somehow it would get easier. … I think [their reservation was] the subject matter really – the sort of unconventional nature of their lives and the tragic conclusion, which is always a thing that disturbs people who finance films. They don't like films with unhappy endings.
Presenter asks
31:35Which of your bodies of work are you proudest of? Is it possible to say?
Not really. … I suppose Carrington gave me most sense of achievement because it was germinated over such a long, long period. But Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the film of that were also things that I'm very proud of. So it's difficult to say. You plunge into these different things and you never quite know which ones are going to work and which ones aren't.
“The theatre burns you up, we used to say. We've got ten years, and how are we going to get through the rest of our lives?”
“The happiest time of my childhood was this five years that I spent in Egypt.”
“I always think oversimplification is one of the things that gets us into the trouble we get into.”
“I didn't, actually. I had no idea that I could do it. I was in Los Angeles and went into a bookshop and bought a book called First Steps in Directing.”
“Writing is the most difficult way in that you could possibly choose.”