Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Pantomime animal performer, best known for playing Dick Whittington's cat and other animals, specializing in feline roles.
On the island
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:00To play a cat convincingly must need a great deal of study?
Well, yes, it does, and you've got to take an interest in it. You see, I realized after a time that I couldn't sing any more, so I'd got to do something.
Presenter asks
0:48Are the skins very uncomfortable, very hot, very prickly?
Well, they're not prickly. Of course, they're made of wool. They're more like a a set of comms, you know, and the wool of course is threaded in between like you would make a carpet. But they are very, very hot indeed.
Presenter asks
1:00Where do you get a good catskin?
Well, you can have the made. In fact, years ago if you had the maid, they were very dear. They were about fifty pounds. But uh most of us make our own. In fact I can make my own now.
Presenter asks
1:11What about all the gadgets, the eye blinking, and so on, and the mask?
Yeah, well actually I wore what they call a half mask. Y if you wear a full mask it's all right but there's no animation. The art of a cat is the animation. And if you use just a half mask you can use your own jaw, your face, you know your eyes. In fact they tell me I don't even need a mask to be a cat.
Presenter asks
2:09With the mask, surely you have limited vision, which must make it very tricky if you're acrobatic?
That is the whole point. Yes, with a mask you can only see straight ahead. If you want to see below or round or up, you've got to move the head with it. Now, I had a very bad accident once at the Grand Head of Leeds because of this. You see, it it's all set on timing because you can't see very well. You have to time everything to the very fraction. I used to do what they call a ten-foot leap. It used to come through, you know, bars, actually. Through a window. A window, barred window. Used to push the bars aside, of course. … jump through the window and land on a table and do a twist leap to go for the king rat who of course was going to attack my beloved master he's in well on this particular occasion the stage manager who was responsible for setting the table he'd been taken ill with flu it was nobody's fault but the table was not set in the correct place instead of landing on the table and doing my famous twist leap i hit it on the corner and went straight into the orchestra … Drop my collarbone.
Presenter asks
3:09How many other animals do you portray?
Well of course as you know Roy times change and I've had to change with the times. In fact in television and everything else now the scope is not only for cat it's for dog, monkey, bear, goose, even the crocodile.
“Well, yes, it does, and you've got to take an interest in it. You see, I realized after a time that I couldn't sing any more, so I'd got to do something.”
“I used to come on, brush here, there, play with a ball of wool, go between the comedian's legs, upset the dame, you know.”
“In fact they tell me I don't even need a mask to be a cat.”
“Well, uh on one occasion I remember the kiddies mobbing me and they pushed me right over the edge. This was the Grand Theatre Bromley a few years ago. I was very lucky. I fell on a plump lady.”
“Oh goose. Oh definitely. Goose is the hardest. It's it's a it's a shocking thing. Well you're strapped down there. It the frame of goose is made of iron, you know. It weighs fifty, sixty pounds. A real feathered skin. And you're strapped in it.”