Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, writer and presenter; first black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre; known for Homeland and the documentary Psychosis in Me.
On the island
Eight records
I remember as a kid listening to this tune, Bob Marley and the Wailers Exodus and playing drums and singing the entire album and just imagine because it was live, just imagining myself there and I had this wonderful two hours in my front room basically playing a live concert and pretending to be Bob Marley.
I just remember as a kid … hearing music like this … Just a sense of happiness … The warmth in the house, you know, my mum and dad cooking their West Indian food … This was one of those tracks … that really is very evocative.
This sound and this band very much reflected the multicultural nature of my world … it was like the dole office or the factory … One in ten, for me anyway, was about I'm a number on a list … just this sense of hopelessness in those early 80s of not having a future.
Tom Waits' $29.00 from the album Blue Valentine evokes the change from the boy that left Birmingham to this young adult.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
It was so hot and we were in the garden, it was dancing, and it was just beautiful. And it just really reminds me of a new beginning. And it's the chimes. Still haven't found what I'm looking for, but every time it starts, I just remember that day.
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
I sang Otis Redding, sitting on the dock of the bay … And people were sobbing … This song words reminds me of him. Sitting in the morning sun.
I was in Houston and I bought this bike … And it was D'Angelo cruising. And that's exactly what I was doing. Cruising … through downtown Black America and just feeling … seen, acknowledged, supported and alive.
Ain't NobodyFavourite
The opening moments of this song are just so evocative of summer … On my desert island, I want to be chilling in the day, dancing at night. And this is very evocative of fun times …
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04Let's start with that feeling of being on stage then, David. Such a powerful quote from you. And it sounds very physical, that sensation. I feel ten feet tall. Tell me more about it.
[I]t well, you have surety on stage, you have um certainty. So, you know, we've all rehearsed the moves, everyone knows their lines, everyone's wearing agreed costumes, everything's set. And that's not like life, is it? … [O]n on stage I sort of grow … You give me a character, I pour myself into that character, and it gives me a sense of freedom.
Presenter asks
4:24Your dad was a lorry driver. Tell me a bit about him. What was your relationship like when you were little?
He's a quiet man, my dad very, very quiet man … he would probably [be] golf on driving his lorry … [H]e owned this thing called a bread run … And as a kid I just remember sitting in the front of this truck, high up … looking out the window, watching the fields and the different towns roll by. It was great.
Presenter asks
5:14You say your mum was tremendously hard working … but she also had a reputation for being wayward and someone who had a little fire in her … Tell me about the wayward side.
The keepsakes
The book
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I've never actually read it, but I s I I was voicing one of the characters called Destruction. And rather than Destruction just being about breaking things apart, is it more about creation? And changing new things and making things anew. Just a wonderful embodiment of life.
The luxury
a fold-out disco light-up dance floor
Bang on the Shaka Khan, the crew's in. I might try and brew some sort of cocoanut rum, sipping a fe you know, a whole leaf colada and uh and and sort of and sort of dancing.
Well, she loved the bingo. She was always out … she had a bit of a fire in her … [O]ne of my earliest memories … I just got hit in the face with this rock … [S]he … walked off to the police station and she sort of calmly said to the police, the neighbours have just thrown this stone. And she said, I beg you come because if you don't, you're going to be around my house later, taking them to the morgue and me to the prison … [S]he knew she had to stand her corner, she knew she had to protect her children and she was fierce, she was strong …
Presenter asks
7:44So the incident that you described, your earliest memory of having a rock thrown at you by a neighbour, very sadly, that was just the beginning of the abuse that you would experience in childhood, which you believe is at the root of the mental health problems that you experienced as an adult. I know that there was one formative incident when you were seven years old, I think, that you trace that real kind of fracture back to. Can you tell me about that?
I saw this old guy across the street … [H]e sort of walked up to me in a very calm way and then he kind of leaned in and he said, 'Get the [fuck] out of my country, you little black bastard' … And it really suddenly hit me that because I was black, that he didn't think I belonged here … I just buried everything, buried the discomfort, buried the pain, and just sort of trying to get on with my life and just assimilate.
Presenter asks
13:00So David, you had found a professional path and pursued it with a passion. But life at home had become more difficult. When you were about 15, your dad became unwell. How do you remember that time when you look back now?
It's a difficult time. I remember one night kind of coming home … [M]y dad always used to type in this typewriter … [T]here was one word written on a A4 piece of paper … He just said illness … [M]y dad suffered a form of psychosis … [S]o my dad was … taken away … and spent a couple of weeks in … an institution, sectioned.
Presenter asks
27:24What do you think about the next generation who are helping to shape the stories that we tell? John Boyega's producing, Michaela Coel, of course, is a brilliant writer as well as an actor.
Really inspired by them. They keep me going. You know, we've maybe just pushed the door open. They've kicked it right open.
“[O]n on stage I sort of grow … You give me a character, I pour myself into that character, and it gives me a sense of freedom.”
“[H]e sort of walked up to me in a very calm way and then he kind of leaned in and he said, 'Get the [fuck] out of my country, you little black bastard' … And it really suddenly hit me that because I was black, that he didn't think I belonged here.”
“[T]he first Christmas after this they split … there wasn't much food in the cupboards and it was just cold and bare … [T]hat felt like the end of my childhood, I think.”
“[Martin Luther] King's voice appeared in my head … I was looking around the room going, where's that voice coming from? And there was this big booming American voice inside my head explaining what I had to do.”
“I found a strength and acknowledgement there in my career as a black British actor that I'd never had before … It's been disappointing coming back here, the sort of roles that I've been coming my way.”