Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Actor and author, best known for his play 'The Corn is Green'.
On the island
Eight records
David of the White Rock (Dafydd y Garreg Wen)
Memory of childhood and a little boy who became David Lloyd. The song we used to sing in school.
The Perfect Fool (opening chords)
Used as opening music for his play Night Must Fall. On the first night it gave him confidence: 'It was gonna be all right.'
Connected to Gertrude Lawrence, who came to see his play Night Must Fall. 'The perfection of light point singing.'
Under Milk Wood (excerpt, opening passage)
Double reason: Richard Burton (discovered by Williams) and Dylan Thomas. From the Dylan Thomas Memorial Programme.
Sentimental record done with tremendous simplicity and poignancy. Gracie Fields is 'absolutely 100% real'.
Max Bygraves is a comedian and charming singer, 'absolutely himself and completely real'.
Used as opening music for his play The Wind of Heaven. Reminded him of his early days in London with a portable gramophone.
Noël Coward and Yvonne Printemps
Personal and sentimental, tied to his marriage in 1934. He would only play it on the last night before rescue.
In the Hall of the Mountain King
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
The thrill of being on that stage and I knew that I thought nothing's going to stop me staying here on this stage only with bigger parts. And that's the th it would always thrill me on the on the island. I would feel that creepy thing at the back of your neck, you know, when you hear this marvellous dramatic music.
I'd heard this music as a child sung in my village and I had the feeling I can say it now. I I couldn't have said it then because I was so superstitious, I felt this is going to be a success. It was the music that told me, not my words in the in the dialogue.
The Entrance of the Little Fawns
Pro Arte Orchestra, conducted by Gilbert Vinter
It's tremendously merry tune. I love it.
I'd like something funny. Peter Sellers and Irene Handel. I think I would be laughing or at least smiling through the worst weather.
Because I've I absolutely worshipped his his talent... Gracie Fields is singing, marvellous, touching, singalek, funny, and everything a a star should be.
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
I know I would love hearing it.
Bouzooki music, you know, marvellous uh it's nostalgic music in itself, and yet with a wonderful rhythm and and and and deep-seated sort of gaiety in it, and a deep-seated sadness too, which is to me the best of that sort of music.
Elizabethan SerenadeFavourite
I think you'll get the the m the idea of him thrill of of pageantry and and drama and uh challenge. It's marvellous.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:11What are the general principles you've worked on in choosing these records for the island?
Well, I suppose memories really, because as one gets a bit older the memories become more important and I would like to be with memories of the people I've liked and known very well on experiences in the theatre, whether my own or other people's, and Just things connected with Things in the past generally, yes.
Presenter asks
4:34What gave you the urge to write and act? Can you remember? And which came first?
Uh I think m hearing music again helped. It gave me a sort of feeling of of the drama before I ever saw the inside of a theatre. And I used to try and um act and write plays before I ever saw any. When I went to Oxford and saw plays there and um used to go to London and see them when I suddenly realized that I was That was the life for me.
Presenter asks
5:21Which of your plays, the plays you've written, do you look back on as the most satisfying?
Uh I suppose the corn is green, really. And um but there's another player too which I'm I have an affection for, if you can have an affection for something which is A little bit of a monster. It's a play which is. which did a great deal for me, which naturally I was grateful for. And we had to have um An introductory bars of music, and the producer, Miles Mallison, said, What do you think it should be? And I said, Well, it must have wonderful dramatic thrill in it, the music. These opening, it must be opening chords of some extraordinary, eerie, challenging dramatic music. And he said, Well, I think I've got the record for you. And I particularly love this record because on the first night when I was very nervous, I knew that a great deal hung on this play, which I'd written a part for myself in. And if the play failed, I would be really sort of sunk for the time being, anyway. What was the music? And it was The Perfect Fool by Holst, the opening chords. And the lights went down, and the music started, and I had a feeling, well. It was gonna be all right. What was the play? Uh Nightmare's Fall.
The keepsakes
The book
because you see I've always been nothing concurrent fascinated by words. The com what you call computations, the permutations would um be endless.
The luxury
Presenter asks
11:30Like so many people in the straight theater, would you call yourself a music hall fan?
Yes, very definitely. Um I think we're fascinated by the people in the music hall who uh who are absolutely 100% real, like Gracie Field. And I think my next would be um a comedian. who is not only a comedian, but a a very, very charming singer and and who who's, again, like Gracie, absolutely himself and completely real, both as a an actor and as a person. And that is Max Bygraves.
Presenter asks
12:34Now what sort of castaway do you think you'd be on this island? First of all, would the solitude worry you very much?
N not greatly, no. It would at moments, of course, but not as I it is. No, I wouldn't um be appalled by it.
Presenter asks
0:31Could you endure loneliness for a long time?
Not for a long time. No, I I can be alone for a whole day, quite happily working. But I'm much happier if I think I'm going to meet some friends in the evening.
Presenter asks
0:46Is music important to you?
I've no understanding of music and I can't sing, but I love music, and I've always used it in my plays.
Presenter asks
5:49What did you read [at Oxford]?
French and Italian. Because you see, I'd been sent when I was fifteen by my teacher, Miss Cook, which was very far-sighted, over to a little village school in Haute-Savoie to a friend of hers, and there was not one word of English spoken there. So I just had to speak French, however difficult it was for me, for three months, literally every day, all the time. Which was marvellous, of course, preparation for going for a scholarship in French.
Presenter asks
5:54As an actor, what was your first major opportunity?
Angelo, yes, marvellous part. But you could never have known it was a marvellous part to see it because it was so short... And gradually I realized it was one of those golden parts that uh... every line tells and it's uh terribly effective.
Presenter asks
7:13What sort of man was Edgar Wallace?
Oh, he was a fascinating larger than life man. Larger than life. Yes... And my father of course was thrilled with it because my father was slightly a racing man, you know, with the the pools and the pennies and uh he was thrilled and really much more by him as a as a racing man and an owner of horses than as a playwright.
Presenter asks
12:16What gave you that idea [for a one-man show re-enacting Charles Dickens's readings]?
Well, it was it happened out of the blue. It was extraordinary. Uh I was asked to be in a... One of those all-star things on Sunday, you know, it's something that's changed the whole course of my life. I was reading a biography of Dickens by Eunipope Penny, and she was talking about these marvelous success he had with these. They had readings of real performances, extraordinary solo performances, it seems. So I thought, well, as a lark I'll try getting myself up as him and coming on for eight minutes, ten minutes, and do a thing from Bleak House, not even dialogue, but description is because I knew his wonderful powers of description were really dramatic, you know, quite apart from the printed page.
“I would like to be with memories of the people I've liked and known very well on experiences in the theatre, whether my own or other people's.”
“I think m hearing music again helped. It gave me a sort of feeling of of the drama before I ever saw the inside of a theatre.”
“It was gonna be all right.”
“we're fascinated by the people in the music hall who uh who are absolutely 100% real”
“I think I would just have to lie on the sand and hope for the best.”
“I don't think I would play it until the very last night when I knew the ship was arriving next year'cause I get rather depressed if I did.”
“I've no understanding of music and I can't sing, but I love music, and I've always used it in my plays.”
“Until I was well, really, until I was about eight or nine, and I learnt English really on the side, and of course at school did it. But of course, talking Welsh at home, all my English was was out of out of books. It was the printed word.”
“I've always been nothing concurrent fascinated by words. The com what you call computations, the permutations would um be endless.”