Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedic actor best known for playing Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses and Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May.
On the island
Eight records
When I was a young lad, my friend I had a very good friend and he came he has his family was a bit better off than my family, and we used to go and play in the loft, and in the loft we found one of those very old wind up grammophone records... And one of the records that we used to play was the Darktown Pocal and we used to love it because we tried to learn it.
When I was on tour on your tour as an actor, what you'd find is that come Sunday... always end up at cruise station... You'd just be sitting there on your suitcase, and when I heard this record it brought back such memories of me sitting on cruise station with a couple of actors desperately trying to keep warm, waiting for our train to take us to uh another station.
Help!Favourite
There's a great influence, I think, on many people's lives, people of my age group... the Beatles. I remember that period. It was a very silly time. It was wonderful.
The International Christmas Pudding
The Goons (Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan)
Let's have one of my idols, Peter Sellars. And he was never better for me than when I first uh got to know him and the rest of the team in The Goon Show.
As we've been talking about Fools and Horses, one of the most powerful episodes was when Rodney got married. And John Sullivan chose that wonderful record, and I it always bring back that moment to me when um Rodney and Derek were parting, going their separate ways.
Original Broadway Cast of West Side Story
Leonard Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics)
I saw the musicals seventy times. I quite like musicals... the sheer energy and vitality that this particular show had, when it saw it on stage, it was unbelievable.
It just reminds me of I spent an awful lot of my time going across the world. I'd be at home for a few months and I'd be off again, and this sort of reminds me of those times.
I thought there's bound to be an electric storm on my desert island, or just off shore. I'll just sit there with a large umbrella... and play Mars, the Bringer of War from the Planet Suite, at full volume while the electric storm is going on.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:13Recognition was a long time coming, David. Does it make it all the sweeter?
Yes, I suppose it does really. The giddy heights of fame one never really thought that they were to be for me. I was always going to be a jobbing actor, a working character actor. So when that sort of fame, if you like, started to come with Fools and Horses, it was a little bit of a shock.
Presenter asks
1:56Tell me about Christmas days you've known. Presumably you must have spent an awful lot of them in boarding houses around the land doing panto.
Whilst I was uh uh doing Pantomime in Newcastle was playing buttons in Cinderella... I struggled back after two shows Christmas Eve, fell into bed and I'm in a sweat and I'm absolute the cold is running, I'm feeling really ill... I phoned down to the reception and I said, Um, excuse me, how are you doing Christmas dinner today?... About five o'clock I decided I've got to get out... So I had a bath and everything, and I staggered downstairs and went into the restaurant... not a soul to be seen... Eventually some one comes out, and he says yes. I said, I understand that you do Christmas dinner. Where is everybody? He said, No, Christmas dinner, that's right. Oh, yes, pet, we do that like, you know, twelve o'clock... Lunch time. They call it dinner up there. I couldn't believe it. So my Christmas Day dinner ended up with cold turkey and salad, sitting on my urn, looking out over Newcastle, watching the rain fall. My one day off Christmas Day, and I looked at myself, went upstairs and looked in the mirror and went, Happy Christmas
The keepsakes
The book
complete book on how to build boats
Deeply practical book, this is probably not permitted, but there we are.
The luxury
Complete carpenter's cabinet full of tools
Then I'd be as happy as a sandboy. See, I could do anything, then I could build anything, make anything, cut anything. I could build little huts and boats, rafts, go out fishing, little all sorts of things. I'd be busy so busy all day I wouldn't even notice that I'm on a desert island.
Presenter asks
7:04You are a very private person. I mean, you're not on that kind of light end golfing circuit with the Bruces and the Tarbys and all of that. You shun all of that, don't you?
I enjoy the work. I really enjoy making people laugh... But at the end of the day, you want to turn your back on that and go home and and be a private person again.
Presenter asks
8:25Which of the two BAFTA awards are you proudest of – the one for Best Light Entertainment Performance for Delboy, or the one for Best Actor for being Scullion, the Gate Man in Porterhouse Blue?
She ought to be scullion... Very proud of that.
Presenter asks
17:28The writer of Only Fools, John Sullivan, didn't want you to have the part of Delboy, did he?
John Sullivan had only ever seen me on television doing things like open all hours, iron or porridge, or always some sort of hapless or unfortunate character. The total opposite was needed for Derek Trotter. He needed a powerhouse, an up front, a smart guy... And John never thought that I would be able to do it.
Presenter asks
22:37From everything I've read about you, it does seem that you lacked self esteem really from when you were very small till really quite late.
I had no self esteem. I was never ever good enough. I I really was I wanted to be an actor. I certainly burned with it. But everybody around me, everybody, was much better than me. Everyone.
“I was always going to be a jobbing actor, a working character actor. So when that sort of fame, if you like, started to come with Fools and Horses, it was a little bit of a shock.”
“I was burning to do something with this bell, so one night I said, I'll stuff the director. I'll do it my way.”
“I had no self esteem. I was never ever good enough. I I really was I wanted to be an actor. I certainly burned with it. But everybody around me, everybody, was much better than me. Everyone.”
“I'd be as happy as a sandboy. See, I could do anything, then I could build anything, make anything, cut anything.”