Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
British actor who began his career in Will Hay films and stage shows, and was a WWII prisoner of war.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:40Did you take it for granted that you'd follow the family tradition and go into the profession?
Not really. I I suppose if you go and see hundreds and hundreds of shows I did as a child … You vaguely think of yourself on that stage doing it. But when it came to the push and I left school, I wasn't going to be on the stage at all. I was going to be a film cameraman and start as a clapper boy … And it was all arranged and then uh a few weeks before I was to start the job, uh the company went bust before it started, so to speak. And I automatically I think there was hardly any conversation about it at all. I I went to Italia Conte Stage School and that was it.
Presenter asks
1:25What was your first appearance [on stage]?
Well, my first paid job as a professional was in the crowd in a Will Hay film. I think the film is called Boys Will Be Boys. One of the knockover films. … And then I'd been at Italy Contrast a few months and I went into a show called Where the Rainbow Ends at the Hoban Empire and played the part of a frog, a dancing frog, and then in another part of the show I was a flying dragon.
Presenter asks
3:31What effect did [the war and being a prisoner of war] have on you? What sort of rehabilitation did you need?
Well, I don't know, it was very slow really. Unfortunately, I was my age group, I was still in the army. You see, I was stuck in the army for another eighteen months or so. And um I was in a camp up near Newcastle a long time, wandering about this big camp, picking up pieces of paper. And in some ways, that was worse than being a prisoner of war, 'cause when I was in the prison, I knew I was there, you know, I was captured. But this was a terrific waste of time. … But that sort of delayed the rehabilitation a bit. But then I got a job in a pantomime, you know, and um started to live again.
Presenter asks
5:47What led you to specialise in these elderly parts?
Well, you know, in repertory and, um there's always character pods about and there's always someone's got to play the old man. It's usually the man that isn't particularly a romantic actor and looks a bit quaint probably. And so you get lumbered with these old men parts. So having been lumbered you try to do them very, very well. … Apparently somebody thought I was doing it very well, and they thought we want an active old man. You see, in light entertainment, if you have a very old man, you can't knock him about and push him around, 'cause it isn't funny somewhere along the line there's got to be a cheat. … This old chap can stand being pushed around a bit, you know, and he's battling and he's got the energy. So I suppose that's it's sort of filled a filled the bill in some way or other.
Presenter asks
7:40What's for the future? What would you like to be offered tonight if the telephone rang?
I'd like someone to say, um, that film story that you've you've got, Clive, uh we've decided to use it. Will you come to the office tomorrow morning? And we're going to give you a terrific lot of money and we'd like you not actually to have to write the whole thing, but to be advising them and sitting there now … And, of course, we want you to play a small character part. … Yeah, we're going to the south of France for five months next year and we're going to pay you a terrific lot of money … And we're going to give you top billing.
“I used to go to work on a bicycle hang on the back of a lorry skirt at nine o'clock in the morning and finish at eleven o'clock at night, ten and six a week. It's a good experience.”
“We painted all the tanks desert colour and then we quickly painted them to Greek colour, whatever colour Greece is. And then we went to Greece and uh I was there a few weeks and managed through influence to b get captured.”
“It was two school rooms over a hairdresser's shop in this old old building right in the middle of the village. Yes. And they they used to take us out to work every morning and lock us in at night.”
“I got a job as second tenor in a quartet called the Normandy Singers. I did an audition at the Palace Theatre with about sixty other singers. Now I'm not really a singer at all, but I bought this piece of music and it's summertime. It's a woman's song really. I soprano I suppose from Paul Guambest. Anyway, I went and learnt it … And uh I got the job. … After I'd been in the pantomime a few weeks I asked the musical director why he'd chosen me as second tenor for this show with all those good singers. He said I like the song. So that was a good lesson.”