Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress, known for her stage and screen work, and as the daughter of actor Griffith Jones.
On the island
Eight records
Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
Chopin's nocturne in E flat. And I'm choosing this for my father, really, because he used to play it on the piano a lot when I was a child.
All my choices are unashamedly nostalgic, is again um reminiscing from my childhood, Gracie Field singing Fred Van Acapan. We used to have a wind-up gramophone, and we had nearly all Gracie Fields' records, I think. And we used to sit round and I used to this was my party piece, actually, Fred Van Acapan.
Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
My third record, I'd like to hear a choir boy singing Away in a Manger, which will remind me of many Christmases and uh going to Mass on Christmas Eve.
A job I was doing at the time when it was being played a lot was, um, a television of a Walter Scott's Kenilworth, in which I played Elizabeth I. … And one of the actors in the company, Jeremy Brett, used to bring his um record player into the make-up room. And he was rather with it at that time and knew the latest records. And this was uh one of the records I used to hear while I was being made up.
Choir and Orchestra of the German Opera Berlin
Number five is Karloff's Kameneburana. I think it's a record I'd find very hard to get bored with.
The next one is Bob Dylan singing Le, Lay De Lay. Which is to remind me of the first time I went to America. Which was for a wonderfully exciting and romantic holiday.
Siegfried IdyllFavourite
Now why am I choosing this? I know um a very sweet man who used to be the chorus master for the Covent Garden Opera and um I was fortunate enough to be invited to a series of rehearsals. … But I don't think somehow I would be awfully happy to take Wagner's ring on my desert island, but I would love to take uh the Siegfriedle again because it's the marvellously romantic idea of him writing it for his wife and playing it under her window as she was giving birth to Siegfried, I think is too much of a good thing to miss.
Killing Me Softly with His Song
Roberta Flack singing Killing Me Softly with his song. And this does remind me of the Midsummer Night's Dream tour and again of America, where we played for about um six weeks, and uh it came out while we were there, and it used to make me feel very homesick.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:42What do you feel about this desert island situation? Could you be reasonably happy on your own if it wasn't for too long?
I think I could, actually. Yes, I'm quite good at being on my own dangerously so, I think. And also, mock not, but I used to be a not only a girl guide, but a queen's guide. Oh, no. Oh, yes, indeed. Oh, I was frightfully bossy and efficient, and I used to go to summer camp every year, which I absolutely adored, and uh build fires and pitch tents and uh make shelters, and I think all that would come back to me.
Presenter asks
4:22As a child did you go and see your father in the theatre very often?
No, I don't think I did very often. Um I don't remember my childhood as being particularly theatrical. I think that was just his his job.
Presenter asks
5:33Now how did the theatre come into it, as far as you were concerned?
I think my mother suggested that maybe I should go to drama school it was one up from going to a secretarial college. So I worked on my pieces while I was in France, and I came back and auditioned for my parents. They were sitting up Ibmed, I remember, and I had the audacity to do a piece from Lady Macbeth. And um I think my father thought, My God, well we better send her, because um we can't let her loose on the stage like this without some sort something being done about it.
The keepsakes
The luxury
a really deeply upholstered, comfortable armchair
I would love a really deeply upholstered, comfortable arm chair that I could curl up in and listen to my records.
Presenter asks
6:20What sort of work did you want to do? How did you see yourself as an actress? Misses Siddons, or Frances Day, or what?
Oh, goodness. I I think I thought I was going to be a comedian. That's what I'd most enjoyed doing at drama school. In fact, I'd been quite successful in a small way. And suddenly I found myself being cast very much as a juvenile, and a rather winsome juvenile at that, which I wasn't quite prepared for and that's in fact my first job was being a winsome juvenile.
Presenter asks
8:37Things were pretty easy at the beginning of your career. Did they stay easy?
Relatively, yes, I I guess they did. I mean, I have had periods out of work, but, um, sometimes I feel, you know, a little guilty that I didn't really do my my stint of stage managing and under studying and and uh sweating in the dole queue.
Presenter asks
13:39Then you joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. How did you enjoy being a member of a permanent company?
Well, I was hardly a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company as such because I I joined them to go on their world tour of Peter Brooke's Midsummer Night's Dream, which was apart from the the main company obviously, and we rehearsed for six weeks in Paris and then we toured almost any European city you care to mention except we didn't go to Russia or Czechoslovakia. And we went to America and Japan and Australia. And that took me thirteen months, very instructive and constructive months.
“I'm quite good at being on my own dangerously so, I think. And also, mock not, but I used to be a not only a girl guide, but a queen's guide. Oh, no. Oh, yes, indeed. Oh, I was frightfully bossy and efficient, and I used to go to summer camp every year, which I absolutely adored, and uh build fires and pitch tents and uh make shelters, and I think all that would come back to me.”
“Who tells a story quite regularly about my brother and I being taken to see a play that he was in. Which was closing. And we were taken to the matinee, and my father happened to be on stage before the curtain rose, and suddenly he heard a little piping voice very clearly saying, But, mummy, they can't start yet nobody's here.”
“I think I thought I was going to be a comedian. That's what I'd most enjoyed doing at drama school. In fact, I'd been quite successful in a small way. And suddenly I found myself being cast very much as a juvenile, and a rather winsome juvenile at that, which I wasn't quite prepared for and that's in fact my first job was being a winsome juvenile.”
“Because I suppose the news came through to us during the first half of the show. I think the stage dorman had a radio or something. So by the interval all the actors knew. And we knew by the time the curtain went up on the second act that a lot of the audience knew, because it usually was a hugely successful comedy. And by the end of the show you know, usually we had ten curtain calls and tumultuous applause. The curtain came down to absolute silence, which was very dramatic.”
“I would love to take uh the Siegfriedle again because it's the marvellously romantic idea of him writing it for his wife and playing it under her window as she was giving birth to Siegfried, I think is too much of a good thing to miss.”