Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Cartoonist whose grotesque caricatures of world leaders and public figures have appeared in newspapers for over 25 years; also works in set design and animation
On the island
Eight records
Reminds him of his uncle and childhood holidays in Twyford.
Reminds him of France and his asthma treatments at La Beau Boule.
Makes him laugh; he was desperate for humour due to his asthma.
Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
Reminds him of his daughter Kate playing the piano.
Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007
He loved playing Bach's unaccompanied cello pieces in his twenties.
Reminds him of spending time in Wales.
Don Giovanni (excerpt)Favourite
Paata Burchuladze, Samuel Ramey, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan
He and his wife Jane love Mozart and Don Giovanni.
Prelude to Act 1 of Die Walküre
Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti
He has never listened to the whole Ring and sees this as an opportunity.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:04Do you find that people expect you to be rather like your cartoons – gnarled, distorted, and sinister?
They do, yes, and I am in some ways, I think. Little bit gnarled. Inside. I'm gnarled inside. I find things disturbing, and my drawings really depict what I find disturbing.
Presenter asks
7:10How bad was your asthma? What was it like?
Well, it means that I was pretty crippled with it. I was a hunchback and I spent perhaps a week in bed and then I'd be up for a few days and I'd collapse again with more asthma, and at the time I was growing up there weren't the sophisticated drugs that there are now. And uh so I was continually in bed and I spent a lot of time in hospital as well. I remember being in lots of adult wards rather than children's wards and seeing some horrific things there.
Presenter asks
15:50Was it through Private Eye that you met your wife, Jane Asher?
Yes, it was one of their anniversaries and we all went down on the Brighton Bell. To spend the day in Brighton. And I met Jane on the train.
The keepsakes
The book
Capability Brown
I'd love a book by Capability Brown so that I could re-landscape the island.
The luxury
a Turner painting (of the river)
any Turner painting of the river would remind me of my home.
Presenter asks
21:55When you turn people into objects like Gorbachev into a hammer and sickle, do you analyse that first or does it come naturally?
It's something that sometimes strikes me immediately. I generally draw misses Thatcher as a r a rather sharp implement, perhaps an axe or a a sword. And I might see Nigel Lawson as a spongy doughnut. They automatically suggest themselves as that. But I think draw transmogrification for me is a way of avoiding the boredom of the job because If you can imagine drawing misses Thatcher over and over and over again. which I have done, it is incredibly boring, so I think just to please myself, try and turn her into a tank or. Into a An old boot.
Presenter asks
26:17What happened when they sent you to Vietnam?
Well, I think that uh at that time my drawings were considered scurrilous and uncontrollable and I don't think they quite knew what to do with with me and uh Harry Evans hit upon the idea of uh sending me out to these far fung places. And I I went to f first of all I went for the Daily Mail to Vietnam and I think they probably thought a grotesque artist to a grotesque situation. And I found there for the first time that I was unable to draw what I found, because up until then I'd been drawing abstract ideas. … And I went to draw in the morgue at Tonsenut Airport in Saigon and I just couldn't cope with it because it never dis it had never struck me before that, um When men are shot in battle or blown up in battle, they're blown into bits and the morgue was full of bits and pieces, torsos without heads and legs and just bits of people there. … And I then began to draw. And of course, once I begin to draw, then that takes over. And I'm concerned really with how to get it right graphically, really. and to a certain extent the humanity leaves me.
Presenter asks
32:05Have you ever drawn or caricatured yourself? What do you look like?
Yes, lots of times, yes. Uh very ga haggard, gaunt, um very worried, whirling eyes with deep, sort of bushy Eyebrows above. And a long pendulous jowl, and a down. Turned mouse.
“I'm gnarled inside. I find things disturbing, and my drawings really depict what I find disturbing.”
“I think people misunderstand wh uh When they see my drawings, they feel that I'm advocating violence and misery. I'm not. I'm crying out against it. I want it to stop. I've had enough of it.”
“I was one moment at death's door and the next moment I was walking around. I walked out of the s the Harley Street doctor with perfect health.”
“I don't have to make a drawing of anything. The whole point of being an editorial cartoonist is you that you offer your point of view for the newspaper.”
“I found there for the first time that I was unable to draw what I found, because up until then I'd been drawing abstract ideas.”