Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
One of the great actresses of her day, renowned for Restoration comedy and her seasons at The Old Vic.
On the island
Eight records
Oh, why wait you hear, then you'll know why I've chosen it.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Oh, why do I choose it? Because perfect speech, perfect rhythm ... Apart from being a great actor, he's a great speaker, I think, which I'm a listener.
Because he's got the most miraculous ear. I've never heard anything to equal. Peter's ear for accents and manners.
She sings so marvellously. ... When I hear her, I think I can sing. ... I feel if I open my mouth, that sound will come out of me.
But this uh record it's a very old one, but I think it's absolutely of its kind. Perfect.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:09Were you taken to the theatre a lot as a child?
Oh, no, hardly at all. So it wasn't a childhood ambition to be an actress? No, no, nothing to do with the theatre at all. What did you do when you left school? When I was young, I was apprenticed to millnerry.
Presenter asks
3:32How did the theatre come into your life?
Well, I had a very dear friend. I still have her. Used to do extremely good productions of Shakespeare plays. Amateur productions. Yes, but they were very good. She had a very high standard. And I played for her once or twice, and old William Pearl saw me. And he was doing some of his rather specialized productions with some amateur and some professional players. And he asked me to go and play. And I played nothing short, the leading part, Christian, Trailis Christa. And I was offered a contract by Verdun and Idi from that.
Presenter asks
4:34Looking back, what do you think was the first big opportunity you had?
No, no, I think the first one recorded, as it were, was a millimeter in the way of the world.
Presenter asks
When you start to work on a part, what do you work on first?
You try to envisage the voice, the clothes, the appearance, the water. No, no, no, no, the life. The life in the in the person, the life in the woman.
Presenter asks
11:12Have you any ambition still unfulfilled? Any part that you've always wanted to play that you haven't yet done?
Yeah, it's awful, isn't it? I haven't got any sort of. little niggling things inside me. I'm an absolute sort of open book or a white sheet or whatever you want to call it waiting to be written on. It's rather exciting in a way because you never know what's coming round the corner.
“I hear music in a lot of things, but it's not conventional music, you see, as such.”
“I like them because if I were stuck on a desert island. I think I'd like to listen to them and they've got people in them and lovely sounds and no, no, not the past at all.”
“I've had Lady Bracknell in every form. As I've said, it only leaves that I should play her underwater.”
“I'm an absolute sort of open book or a white sheet or whatever you want to call it waiting to be written on. It's rather exciting in a way because you never know what's coming round the corner.”
“When I hear her, I think I can sing. It's the most peculiar effect. She swamps one with lovely sound. I feel if I open my mouth, that sound will come out of me.”