Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An Oscar-winning actress turned Labour MP and transport minister, best known for Women in Love and A Touch of Class.
On the island
Eight records
I think it's the very first record I ever heard of hers. I'd never heard of her before, and I can't, I must be honest, remember when I first heard it but I can distinctly remember just standing stock still to listen to it.
Festival Singers of Toronto & CBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Igor Stravinsky
I longed to be a ballet dancer. I love the ballet still, although I hardly ever see it. And it was via that medium that the great glory which is Stravinsky was opened up to me.
He managed to do what certain great actors manage to do, regardless of language, of understanding what they're saying, of understanding what is that in a way is doing, is to touch something so central about what it means to be alive, what living it really is. It was just extraordinary.
San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Edo de Waart
My initial interest in it was because of its title, obviously. I mean, what was How Was Someone Going to Put Tricky Dickie into an Opera? I knew John Adams' work before I heard or saw this opera, and I admire him very much. When you realize that the chairman is chairman Mao Titung, it's charming, I think.
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maxim Shostakovich
I first heard the name of Shostakovich when I was doing a play in a season at the old Lyric Hammersmith. I again had never heard of him in my life before. This music was played during not the music we're going to hear now, I think it was his fifth symphony that was being played at that time. And it was such a revelation that I immediately rushed out and tried to find out more about him.
War RequiemFavourite
The images that come out of the First World War, the absolute slaughter for nothing, terrible images of there's a photograph of a long, long line of soldiers in a crocodile, each with their hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them, and they are blind. They've been blinded by gas. And what is inherent in this war requiem, where he links it so closely to poems about that First World War, and yet still at the end manages to find some kind of redemption, is for me wonderful.
I genuinely believe him to be a genius. Uh when you realize that he he not only writes the music, but also the words to his songs, and and the actual output is so phenomenal. Um it was extremely difficult to choose one record of his, but I've gone back to uh a tried and trusted favourite, and its superstition.
Concerto for Double String Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir Michael Tippett
There is a way of taking almost in a sense a classical tradition, a classical experience, and infusing it with such a passion and of a a sense of being alive now, that something else is created, and I think that is something which I find personally runs so strongly through all of Tippett's work.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:23Have you performed for the last time on the stage? Will you never do it again?
Um it's hard for me to be able to say categorically never again, because obviously I would like to be returned to my seat at the next General Election. But if I'm not and I will still have to earn a living, then the only other thing I know is acting.
Presenter asks
2:05Was there never any joy in [acting]? Did you never feel any real pleasure or sense of satisfaction or achievement?
Well, you you may f have those feelings and indeed you do. I mean certainly this is true within the live theatre where it is at its best an absolutely unique experience for all concerned. I mean that is the audience as much as the actors. But those experiences are rare. What is always frightening and Really gives you a sense of your own lack of importance in a way, is that there's nothing you can do to guarantee that that will happen.
Presenter asks
4:58Why were you so frightened when you made your maiden speech [in the House of Commons]?
Well, I hadn't rehearsed it in as much. I mean, it was certainly written, but I didn't really know until that day that I was going to be called. And I have really thought about this and wondered why I did find it the most frightening experience of my life. And I can't really come up with a logical reason. It was possibly because, as I rose to my feet, it suddenly hit me that I was representing thousands of people in my constituency. I was their representative within the centre of what is our political system, the House of Commons. And of course, within my constituency, there has always been a sizable number of residents who are creative artists in their own right. And all I could think of When I was standing up to make it was that Keats lived in my constituency.
The keepsakes
The book
A book on the history of Japanese sand gardens
perhaps I could be given the best kind of book on the history of, and perhaps I could pick up some tips from that.
The luxury
It's going to be a bath. I mean, I don't think it would be anything other than a bath, really, given what I've my experience and its symbolic value for me.
Presenter asks
6:21Was there a point at which you felt you were now doing something much more worthwhile [in politics] than you were doing before?
I don't think it was as clear … that I had been inordinately blessed in a way, that I had been extremely lucky in my life, and that there was perhaps more that I could put back. But when I say that, I think what happens in theatres, certainly in live theatres, is is enormously important. I mean, I it it's not mere entertainment theatre at its best. There is something that happens between kind of circle at at its best, where you have a group of strangers sitting in the dark and in a sense a group of strangers standing in the light. And when it really works, there's an energy that goes from the one to the other, which is constantly reinforcing both. And so I always regarded theatre at its best, in a strange way, as being a kind of allegory for an ideal society.
Presenter asks
27:09What would you say is the single most important thing, personally, that you've achieved so far [as Minister of Transport]?
The shift that I've noticed is the way people now accept that we cannot go on the way we are as far as transport is concerned, and we certainly can't go on the way we are as far as London transport is concerned, and that there have to be alternatives to the way we move ourselves and our goods around this greater. … And I think that the emphasis that we are placing upon, for example, local authorities beginning to really prioritise pedestrians, cyclists, public transport, beginning to shift away from the perception that roads are the exclusive preserve of just one form of transport, and how one can assist and help that process.
“I always regarded theatre at its best, in a strange way, as being a kind of allegory for an ideal society.”
“the House of Commons is under rehearsed, badly lit, and the acoustic is terrible.”
“the best theatre Is about trying to find and tell the truth. It's not about covering up, it's not about playing games, it's not about hiding, it's not about pretending you're something you're not. It's trying to find what it is to be a human being and why we behave towards each other in the ways that we do. And I think that the best politics is trying to find the truth as well.”
“she polished the Oscars and after a couple of years the fine glitter on the top wears away and it's base metal underneath. I like that.”