Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A world-class writer and actress, known for winning Oscars and being both a star and relatable.
On the island
Eight records
CorassicFavourite
It's a piece called Corassic, which is the name of our house in Scotland... And when I turned fifty, he wrote this piece of music which is about the land surrounding our house.
Florence, It's a Lovely Morning
This is my dad, Eric, who wrote The Magic Roundabout... And losing him when he was fifty-two tore us to pieces. So dad's always been very close, very important part of our lives. And this is him talking and singing.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Willcocks
This is the point at which I have to say to Greg, my husband, to switch off the radio because he hates this so much... This is Christmas, really, and I'm not religious at all. Yet, this piece of music speaks to me about my childhood and the time before my father was ill.
Victor Hara, who's a Chilean freedom songwriter, was murdered. And in Tilemani, we're all musicians who all knew Victor Hara and were exiled from Chile for fifteen years... sitting there listening to these voices and the thrang of these guitars just fills you with courage.
this is Tom Waits and it's a song called Hold On and this is for Gaia. This is giving birth. I loved being pregnant. I was so happy.
Actually, this is Gregg's song. This is something that he um introduced me to that I loved immediately and continue to love fifteen years later... and it's it's groovy, groovy, jazzy, funky.
this song is about the fact that not everything you do will succeed, and that's okay.
With a Little Help from My Friends
This is Joe Cocker, and it's him singing at Woodstock with a little help from my friends... with Joe Cocker becomes this great cry of anguish. And I thought that would be a very good thing to have on the island, because at some point you're going to feel deep anguish, and this will express it
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:17How much do you try not to be preoccupied by how you look?
I try hard not to be. I do. And and indeed was n I don't think I am considered a beauty in that sense. I've always thought of myself as a character actress. So I'm in a sense I've got much less to lose.
Presenter asks
7:20When did they tell you you were a mistake?
It was less hurtful than what they said about my first performance in the ballet when I came out as a a snowflake at the end of the line and and they both started to laugh because at the end of this line of lovely teeny wee gorgeous delicate things there was this great queen mother of a snowflake who was bossing everyone around. And I said, You mean you laugh? They told me that when I was nineteen and I remember feeling quite quite hurt.
Presenter asks
18:04How on earth did you stay sane in that period [between 1991 and 1996]?
I don't think I did stay sane. Actually. It was tough. I think I probably should have sought professional help long before I actually did. For all sorts of reasons. Yes, divorce, ghastly painful business, but also fame, in some ways ghastly painful business as well.
The keepsakes
The book
Homer
the Odyssey is good because, as well, it's about an exile. And I could learn Greek.
The luxury
a round, heavy bottomed cast iron saucepan with a removable handle
the thing I would miss most is cooking. So I want a saucepan.
Presenter asks
18:53When you fell off the edge, where did you go?
Well, I think my first bout of that was when I was doing Me and My Girl, funnily enough, um, when I really didn't change my clothes and couldn't answer the phone and was but went into the theatre every night and was cheerful and sang the Lambeth Walk. But I think I was m my first bout was on actual clinical depression. And that's very much the theatre when my dad died... And then, in a sense, I suppose work did save me. And then Gregg saved me, because he picked up the pieces and put them back together again, you know, after sense and sensibility.
Presenter asks
32:37Where did the not good enough come from? Where's that voice originating?
I don't know. I mean, I think that mum and dad both came from the post war Semi-puritanical upbringings. I mean, my mum's Scottish, so the Presbyterian thing is strong within us... I think it was a creation of my own making and was always there. Something to do with justice, and I couldn't cope with suffering of any kind. I had to put it right somehow. And of course, that's very arrogant to think that you can. Alleviate the world's suffering. You can't.
“Knowing people for a long, long, long time gives me great pleasure. And if you do that, of course, you haven't got any chance of changing because they'll be the first ones to turn round and say to you, What do you think you're doing? You're being an arse.”
“I think it was John Ruskin said, he was talking about capitalism, and he said, you know, the acquisition of each new thing just engenders a new form of weariness. And I thought it was the most brilliant way of describing stuff, and the stuff that we accrete during our lifetimes. Greg and I certainly have got to the point where we say, Can we get rid of this? Yes, come on, let's chuck it. It's like you're going along in your boat and you just want to make it lighter so you can travel faster and you can go with the wind a wee bit more.”
“I think that in relation to miscarriage and IVF and all of those subjects, I think it's very helpful for people like me to talk about that because an awful lot of women go through that and they think that it's only them and it's only them that feel awful about you know, having had difficulties and failing to produce children and feeling that as a terrible failure, which is so wrong.”