Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Comedy writer and broadcaster, best known for his guest appearances on 'Duke Box Jury'.
On the island
Eight records
Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra
to get us off the ground, to have the Vaughan Williams lark ascending.
The Four Seasons: Summer (3rd movement)
Pinchas Zukerman and the English Chamber Orchestra
And if we could have the four seasons, which all come out rather the same, but summer, the last movement of summer, has got this delicious hoey bit.
Kersley Vinay with l'Orchestre Typique de la Police
It's a cigar, and a cigar is a rather erotic dance from the island of Mauritius and it's sung in Mauritian Creole. And the reason for this record is that my wife comes from Mauritius and we've both been there and it's an utterly, utterly delightful not desert, but island.
Sir John Betjeman with music by Jim Parker
John Bitchman made a record where his poetry was put to music by a modern musician, Jim Parker. I like this record enormously and all the tracks are good. The particular one I've chosen is called The Shotshire Lad.
Well, I thought a bit of jazz would cheer us up.
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595Favourite
Alfred Brendel with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Next record, um similar kind of thing actually, a bit Mozart. I love Alfred Bendel playing the K595, the concerto in B flat.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1
Norman Del Mar conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Well, I thought it'd be rather nice to go out with splendid music, with really splendid, splendid music, with pomp and with circumstance.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:19Could you endure loneliness on your seagirt fastness?
Um probably, eventually.
Presenter asks
1:23What would you be happiest to have got away from?
I don't think I'd be happy to have got away, really. I d I quite like it here.
Presenter asks
6:23As a schoolboy, what did you want to be?
I wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember.
Presenter asks
6:45What in fact did you do when you left school?
When I left school I was fourteen and three quarters and I had to go to work because my mother died and couldn't keep me at school. And I joined a firm made carbon paper.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
7:28How did the performing and literary arts come into your life? Did you do anything of that sort in the RAF?
To get out of guard duty. It soon became apparent that if you could say um concert parties, sir, you you you weren't put on guard duty.
Presenter asks
11:39Why, after three hundred and seven hard-fought scripts, did you give up Take It From Here?
Because we were, or we felt we were living off our fat, that we had nothing more to do or to say with that particular format. So we asked to be relieved of it anymore and go into television.
“the war was it's a terrible thing to say, but it it did a tremendous amount of good for those lucky enough to survive uh who had sort of strong umbilical cords, which Eric Sykes, for instance, would have gone back to the north and gone back to his job in the mill had not he been left on the beach, as all of us were when the tide receded, and we were able to make a fresh start and have a go at what we really wanted to do.”
“Oh, I said it's like leaving a monastery to become dorm at a at a strip club.”
“I think one could live for many years finding new things in the Mozart.”