Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian.
On the island
Eight records
The Audience at the Metropolitan Theatre, Edgware Road
I thought to myself, what sort of party do you think I would chip? I'm not as an eye. I want to dance a bit, don't I? I want to just sit there looking at a tree or something. So I thought, if I want to jig around, so what better than what? The most obvious thing for a knees up, isn't it? Knees up Mother Brown, would you believe?
Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1
I thought I'd choose a bit of Chopin, but I wouldn't choose one of those flowery bits, you know, those little bits which are marvellous. But I thought I'd choose something quiet, gentle, to go to sleep to.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 'Choral'
Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Otto Klemperer
I thought on a desert island b s have something joyful and noisy and I kind of think you could you can join in this in a way if you know it.
I went to the music halls and I did a music hall act and my pianist, my lady pianist, was there, and for many years I did a song. I sang What you believe straight, and then I did a sort of comedy thing after it. And often now I'm in restaurants and my manager or p friends, if there's a band, they often ask them to play this particular song because it was the sort of thing as they associated with me over, what, nearly twenty years.
Vissi d'arte (Love and Music) from Tosca
I like Puccini because it's romantic and it's got some good tunes in it. And I've chosen a piece of Puccini, but not necessarily the best known, you know what I mean. But it is well known. It's from Tosca and it's love and music.
I was once described in a rather posh paper as a dramatic clown. Now, as you know, the forum, the funny thing happened on the forum was written by Stephen Sondheim, who's a very difficult composer to sing, he is. But he's also a very nice man and a brilliant composer. And I thought, what a clown. So I thought I'll go for send in the clowns, you see.
Brüderlein und Schwesterlein from Die Fledermaus
Vienna State Opera Chorus and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
I was going to choose a Viennese opera piece anyway, operetta. But this is a piece I I've liked. And there again, I haven't gone for the necessarily the big pop stuff, but it still is, I think, popular enough. I mean, well known enough.
JerusalemFavourite
Coventry Cathedral Boys' Choir
I can remember to this day standing there singing this with the children, feeling very proud to be singing among a lot of children. And that was my first sort of appearance, so to speak. It was in a chorus, children's chorus, long time ago.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34Could you endure prolonged loneliness?
Well, it's as the old joke goes, it's better than the alternative. What's that? Being dead. Well, yes, you see what I mean. But uh I wouldn't like it for for too long.
Presenter asks
0:34What would you be happiest to have got away from?
Well, I think the thing is that I would sometimes be happiest to get away from would be me. And that's the one thing I'd be thrown together with, if you just get what I mean. Very close. ... I wouldn't be happy to get away from people. Traffic jams. They're definitely traffic jams.
Presenter asks
3:23What did your parents want you to be?
I don't honestly know. I really don't know. I think I have a feeling my mother would have liked me to gone to the church. You wouldn't believe that, but I think so.
Presenter asks
7:59When was it that you veered towards the theatre?
The keepsakes
The book
Charles Dickens
I would take a book, not so much just to read, but so I could act. And so I've decided on David Copperfield, because there's a lot of good parts there.
The luxury
after my mother had died, a lot of things were left, was a little cross which was given to me.
Oh well I veered towards it when I was thirteen because I was in the Church Dramatic Society ... And I used to have an impediment ... of speech in those days, particularly when I got nervous. And I think they all felt sorry for me, so they put me in a play ... And that was the first time I smelt grease paint. And then I had no ego in on the stage to enjoy it, just to be part of it. And I thought it was marvellous.
Presenter asks
8:26What was your first job when you left school?
In the docks in Tooley Street, in London ... a filing office boy, really, a filing clerk. I was appalling. I really was a disaster. I got the sack.
Presenter asks
18:26Do you find it hard to discipline yourself to stick to the author's script?
Yes. ... Yes, well it depends on the script. I mean I didn't when I did Shakespeare I didn't think it needed changing very much. Generally speaking you sometimes can amend a little, put a little bit here and then a little bit there just to alter it around slightly.
“I was a Sunday school teacher at 13. Yes. And I was very popular among the children because I decided that some of the stuff I was teaching was rather dreary. And so I used to make up the things as I went along and tell stories, which was very naughty.”
“The thing was, in those days, when I was doing all these acts around as an amateur, I couldn't afford a script writer, so I used to get old jokes that I'd heard from the music hall, Max Miller, and people like that, well-known jokes. And I used to do these jokes, and I used to think to myself, now, how can I make them sound different? So, by sheer cunning, desperation, I used to spin them out.”
“I went into a nightclub in London called the Blue Angel ... And then I was asked to go to the establishment, which was a young satirical night club, and I thought, I don't think it's for me, you know, this known musical comic doing going this terribly sophisticated nightclub. Anyway, I did go. And it was very successful, as a matter of fact. And from there, I was asked to go onto a television show called That Was Wee That That Was, which was also very successful. And I suddenly, things suddenly took an upturn.”