Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actress and singer, known for performing in reviews and musicals.
On the island
Eight records
It's an incredible voice. I've never heard anything quite so wonderfully controlled without force. So high at the top and so low at the bottom and so marvellous absolutely everywhere.
Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto
Well, it is … which is one of the most romantic songs, the most romantic song I think that I've ever heard. And one must have at least one extremely romantic song on a desert island. It's the song I heard when I first came back from Green.
Well, it was the song that made me first want to go on the stage. I heard it on the wireless and... And I thought I like that, I must learn it. So I did learn it, and then I rang up a friend who did amateur shows and said, Can I come and sing my song in your show? And he said, Yes. And so I did. And it was in its minute, unimportant way, a very thrilling kind of little success.
Well, it's very early music, it's Renaissance, and it's marvellous to know that it's complete as it was then, and that... Usually one thinks of very early music as being rather sad, and this is very, very jolly. Very dancey and happy.
I've never heard a soprano voice so touching is this one. I'm not very fond of very full-bodied sopranos. I like the ones that sound like little birds and very easy. That's what she sounds like.
Long, Long SummerFavourite
Well, because I should think sitting around on a desert island all by oneself one has so much energy to work off suddenly and this is a marvelous piece of music that makes you want to dance and it's very stylized as well as being free in a kind of way and it's very ecstatic, it's very splendid, I love it.
Who Taught Her Everything She Knows
Well, because it contains the whole essence of that gaudy thing called Showbiz. And I think to any actress it's a very dear thing.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:54Could you endure loneliness?
Oh, I don't think I could endure it for very long. I could only endure it with the prospect of it being suddenly interrupted.
Presenter asks
1:34What do you want your record to do for you on the desert island? Cheer you up, evoke the past?
Well, I want them to. To cheer me up. and to make me sad and cry if I feel like that. and to make me think of things that are attached to some of them. And without is simply two. Make me fantasize about Things it I could never be like or never experience.
Presenter asks
5:07Did your parents encourage you in your stage ambitions?
Oh no, they were terribly against it. In fact, they took me away from Rada very quickly.
Presenter asks
5:14As a student, how did you see yourself? Did you envisage yourself as a review artist, or did you see yourself as Hedda Gabler?
The keepsakes
The luxury
French silk lined leather glove
to wear in the cool of the cool tropical evenings, I think I'd like so extremely beautiful, extremely fine and soft. French silk lined leather glove.
Well, if you can go from one extreme to the other, I more saw myself as Hedda Garbler than as a review artist. Because I was just as snobbish as most extremely young people are, and I thought Review was probably a very low form of work.
Presenter asks
9:03You were one of the top girls in Intimate Revue, but you tried to break away from it, didn't you?
Well, I did for many reasons, but Mainly because I thought it was running itself into the ground at that point, and that one could go on and on, just getting older and older and doing the same things again and again, and everyone would hate one in the end.
Presenter asks
12:34Your voice is very distinctive, a cross between a coo and a gurgle. Do you find that this restricts your opportunities?
Well, it could do. Because I think at the very beginning I was pushed by lots of people to using only one special part of it, which was sort of funny and unusual. But I've got lots of parts of it. And anyway, I talk like that a lot sometimes because I'm shy.
“Oh, I don't think I could endure it for very long. I could only endure it with the prospect of it being suddenly interrupted.”
“I more saw myself as Hedda Garbler than as a review artist. Because I was just as snobbish as most extremely young people are, and I thought Review was probably a very low form of work.”
“Mainly because I thought it was running itself into the ground at that point, and that one could go on and on, just getting older and older and doing the same things again and again, and everyone would hate one in the end.”
“I just suddenly decided that if anything was going to make it change, I must make it change.”
“I talk like that a lot sometimes because I'm shy.”
“The unknown at least would be the unknown, whereas the desert island itself would be too known a quantity by then.”