Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
British small screen legend and Coronation Street stalwart, best known for playing barmaid Betty in the Rovers Return for over 40 years.
On the island
Eight records
I'll Take RomanceFavourite
Betty Driver (castaway) chose this. She said: 'I want to apologise to start with for playing this piece of music, which I can't stand. I can't bear my voice. I hated it when I did it when I was eighteen, and I'm ninety now. And oh, I just can't bear it. But all my friends like it, you see, so I did it when I was making a film… And it's called I'll Take Romance.'
Surely He hath borne our griefs (from Messiah)
Sir Malcolm Sargent (conductor)
Sir Malcolm Sargent (castaway) chose this.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (castaway) chose this. She said: 'I will like to relive my life, surely, as I have lived with very many wonderful artists and colleagues. And I would like to play you the record which began my career outside of Vienna… And it is the Brahms Requiem.'
Sir David Attenborough (castaway) chose this. He said: 'I would like a reminder of the richness of the natural world, of the rainforests… a recording of the lyre bird, which lives in southern Australia and mimics other birds as well as many other things that it hears.'
Cilla Black (castaway) chose this. She said: 'It was my first record to get to number one… I did my version of Dionne Warwick's Anyone Who Had a Heart and recorded it here because it was so beautiful.'
Zaha Hadid (castaway) chose this. She said: 'It's one of my favourite films ever, Midnight Cowboy, and I love that song.'
In conversation
Presenter asks
31:34When did you first sing in public?
When at the age of sixteen… I used to go around with a lot of girlfriends and we'd go to all these clubs and we got friendly with the boys and one night one member of a group came down from the stage and passed me a hand mic to sing just for a giggle. He didn't know I sang so I said, 'Well, all right mate, I'll show you' and I just continued where he left off and it all happened from there.
Presenter asks
33:09What was the big thing that happened that enabled you to stop being a typist and be a full-time singer?
One night I went to the Blue Angel Club in Liverpool and… the group there wasn't a rhythm and blues group, it was a modern jazz group… And they asked me to get up to sing. So I got up and did a number, and when I came back to my seat who should be there but Brian Epstein, and he came right over to me. He'd already got the Beatles on the map by this time. And he said, 'Cilla, I have an idea' and from then on I knew, you know, everything was going to happen.
Presenter asks
58:35What do you think the biggest misconception about you is?
Because I don't like overdo the flattery and complimenting, they almost think it's rude. Because they're so used to people… arselicking and all that. They think it's rude not to do it… I don't care half of the time what people say or think, so I do what I like. You know, people are not used to that. If somebody bothers me, I tell them to pull off. But I know I'm not nasty to people. I'm very nice – I mean, actually, I'm too nice. That's the truth.
The keepsakes
The book
The complete works of William Morris
William Morris
He embodied what for me is true, that socialism is about building beauty.
The luxury
Not recorded.
Presenter asks
59:55You've built this formidable professional reputation. You were made a dame in 2012. You've recently been awarded the RIBA Gold Medal. To what extent do you feel you are part of the establishment?
I don't really feel I'm part of the establishment… No, I'm not outside. I'm on the kind of edge… and dangling there… I'm not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that's it.
Presenter asks
1:19:41When you did [Death of a Salesman] on Broadway indeed, to great acclaim, he [your father] came to watch. What did he say?
He came to see it. I was very nervous… And he came back. I was hoping he wouldn't put it together, you know, that I was making a comment on him. And the first thing he said to me in the makeup room, he says, 'Boy, that guy is some loser.' I've never forgotten that.
Presenter asks
2:30:58How difficult was it to compile the list of [discs]?
Agony, Kirsty… But I have chosen. I've chosen 'Bring Me Sunshine' with Morecambe and Wise because that's exactly what they did and because of my profound and enduring love for Eric Morecambe who made my entire family laugh so much, so often and just brought proper sunshine into our lives.
“I don't care half of the time what people say or think, so I do what I like. You know, people are not used to that. If somebody bothers me, I tell them to pull off.”
“I just love working, and I will never retire. Ever. They'll have to shoot me to get rid of me.”
“The possibility that there is in front of you a rock the size of a football, and there's quite a good chance that that will contain a shell… perfect shell, which nobody in the world has ever seen before, and which the light of the sun hasn't shone on for three hundred and fifty million years. You are the first person to see that. That's thrilling.”
“I couldn't draw a sculling boat properly. Then I had a bad fall down the stairs from the college junior common room. I went to the college doctor after the fall, because I was worried that I might have brain damage. However, she thought there was nothing wrong.”
“I certainly am happier now. Before I got motor neuron disease, I was bored with life. But the prospect of an early death made me realize life was really worth living. There is so much one can do, so much that anyone can do… I have a real feeling of achievement, that I have made a modest, but significant, contribution to human knowledge, despite my condition.”
“I escaped the surveillance three or four times because I need to buy the ticket in advance. Then I had something else to do, ask a signal to send… Next morning I brought total order to the flat… left money for the family. And left. In order to shake off surveillance, I had to run through the woods so they could not find me. And then I caught train to Leningrad… Then suddenly that music stopped, and Sibelius – Finlandia. Finlandia… And I realized now I'm free.”