Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Actor, writer, director and musician, best known for playing Dr. Gregory House in 'House' and for comedy with Stephen Fry.
On the island
Eight records
I have to confess I could quite happily have chosen eight Muddy Water's records. He is the the musician who I have listened to most of in my life and has meant the most to me. It's very difficult to choose one. I've gone for a track called I Want to Be Loved.
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
Pinchas Zukerman, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta
This is the opening of now I don't even know how to say this, it it doesn't it doesn't come up very often now that I have to say it bruch bruch brutch I've never known. It's a violin concerto in G minor. It's partly to show that I'm cultured although I'm not actually cultured, I'm a raw Philistine uh but this is one of the few pieces of classical music that I could countenance on a desert island. Uh it's just uh an absurdly romantic piece and uh I love it.
This is a record when I was about ten I tried to make a petrol bomb. And uh I burnt myself rather badly, which was a just punishment for being so idiotic. And uh While I was convalescing, instead my father actually never got particularly cross about the petrol bomb, which he had every right to, but he went into Woolworth's and uh he said, Have you got a pop record? ... He bought me they gave him tumbling dice by the Rolling Stones, and I'm I probably played it a thousand times while I was getting better.
Frank Sinatra with Count Basie
Sinatra I love anyway, Count Basi's orchestra is about as about as good a collection of musicians as ever got together, and this is Love is the Tender Trap. Just about the first house I lived in when I came to London, there were about four or five of us living in this house. It was about the only tape we had, and we used to wash up to it I can remember that wash up and dry to it, obviously, and put away to it.
This is Ian Dury with a song called Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, which I happen to believe is the second best pop song ever written. ... I just think it's witty and uh sexy and clever and I think Endura is an absolute genius.
This is a an important piece of music, a very short piece of music, but um basically it's impossible to be despondent to this music. This is uh the theme from The Seahawk which was a wonderful Errol Flynn uh swashbuckling film by and the theme is by Eric Korngold and uh Dunalf cheer you up.
Brown Eyed GirlFavourite
Well, talking of my wife, this is Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. Um I'd I'd love to be able to say that we heard this song while um strolling through Venice, uh or but it that is that isn't the case. It's simply my wife has brown eyes and uh she is a girl, and that'll have to do as a reason.
Me Minus You Equals Loneliness
Because I I do enjoy sadness. I rather en I like a bit of a wallow. I'm very happy when I'm sad.
This is uh The Letter by Joe Cocker, a live version that he did at Fillmore in New York. Every time I hear it, I genuinely feel as if I am in the audience at one of the most spectacular and musically perfect performances ever.
This is a song by Sister Rosetta Tharp, My Journey to the Sky. I I can never hear Sister Rosetta's voice and not be thrilled to my boots. I'm not a religious person, but whenever I'm listening to her, I sort of become religious.
This is a a tune by Randy Newman, Louisiana, nineteen twenty seven. I o I've always loved this song, but it came back into everybody's consciousness obviously after Hurricane Katrina. And this is a song about the terrible flood of nineteen twenty seven, and I find it just so beautiful and and stirring.
This is uh Grinning in Your Face by Sun House, which is um a bleak but absolutely haunting piece of music. Sun House was a preacher who turned away from the church and he went over to the blues side, the um the worldly side of music. And this is just his voice and his hand claps and I'm not even quite sure what it is that he's clapping to. He's hearing something in his head and I feel as if I hear it too and I I am absolutely thrilled by this piece of music always.
In honour of my great friendship with the writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry, this is a song by Professor Longhair called Go to the Mardi Gras. It's something that we actually used for the very first television show we ever did together as the title music. But that's sort of by the by. I also happen to love this. It makes me just so happy. This will get me through some grim days on a desert island, I've no doubt, because it just makes me so happy to hear this.
I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)
We are going to hear a wonderful tune. This is a recording by Nina Simone. I wish I knew. Well it's actually I wish I knew brackets how it would feel to be free, brackets. And it's a sort of musically perfect thing that could as for me could just go on for hours and hours and hours. I never ever want this to stop.
Buddy Rich, Nat King Cole and the Lester Young Trio
We are going to hear possibly the greatest assembly of musicians gathered under one name, one banner. This is the Leicester Young Trio. But his buddy Rich Nat Kinkole and Lester Young Trio playing I Cover the Waterfront.
Brown Eyed GirlFavourite
We are going to hear a song by Van Morrison. This song is called Brown Eyed Girl. There is a Brown Eyed Girl in My Life and I'm lucky enough to be married to her. And this is a song that will forever summon up my my life with my wife Joan.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:28You're obviously, by the sound of it, Hugh, one of life's worriers. What do you worry about?
I get uncomfortable with happiness. I think if things are going too well, I start to worry, you know. ... I could worry about the colour scheme of this room. I could absolutely everything. ... [Worrying about] not being up to scratching. ... Is that someone just saying fraud, you know, calling out from the crowd? Oi, where do you think you're going?
Presenter asks
1:58Has [the worry] got worse with success?
Well, it got worse in one very swift step. When I d decided to do it for a living, I used to get a great amount of pleasure out of performing at school and university ... as an amateur. I used to have a lot of confidence ... and as soon as I started doing it for a living, It all changed, I don't know why, and one of the strange things that happened was that I I had always hitherto I had always thought of audiences as being female in character. And when I started to do it professionally, for some reason they became male. And they became competitive. They became an adversary that had to be conquered.
Presenter asks
3:08Is there nothing at all in your professional life that gives you pleasure?
Finishing things. I love to finish things. Almost any amount of pain is ... worth the pleasure of coming off stage or uh finishing writing something that that's caused you a lot of grief. It's the banging the head against the brick wall. It's uh it's so nice when you stop.
The keepsakes
The book
I find myself. Less and less interest in fiction as the years go by. I think probably an encyclopedia probably gives me the most consistent. pleasure that I get from reading now is delving into strange and unlikely areas about which I know nothing.
The luxury
A set of throwing knives (double set)
I would like to return from the island with an uncanny skill. To be able to knock the pip out of an ace of spades at twenty paces, that would be a great thing.
Presenter asks
4:49Was there ever any doubt which Fry and Laurie would play which [in Jeeves and Wooster]?
Not in our minds, no. It seemed pretty obvious, really, that Stephen has a wiser countenance, I think. He has a a sort of darker, more authoritative look. ... He's got the dark brown voice. ... And he's a he's a he's an inch and a bit taller and generally more imposing.
Presenter asks
22:48What was the first you knew, Hugh, about Stephen's disappearance from the West End?
Our mutual agent informed me that uh There was a problem. Very soon after that I Opened an envelope from Stephen. He'd written a number of letters to people saying ex sort of explaining as best as he could why he'd done what he'd done.
Presenter asks
23:50How did you feel when finally he did turn up? How did you react?
Just about just about the gamut, actually. Um if gamuts I think are still things you run and I ran it. Relief and joy and anger and worry and can't think of any more, but there must be more, I'm sure.
Presenter asks
2:46What bit of your work is the one that makes you most contented?
Wow. I think of and look at occasionally some things that I did with Stephen that we did on A Bit of Fry and Laurie that I think of with great pride. I think there were moments in Black Adder and I think particularly of the third series of Jesus Moisture I think all the harmonics seem to be blending. But I can't look at anything I've done in the last month and think, oh, got that one right.
Presenter asks
9:27How did you learn that your father had won a gold medal at the Olympics?
I went fishing with him. I was probably about ten, and we got into a boat, set out on to this lake to go fishing. And my father took the oars, and I can remember whispering to my mother, Does does does Dad know how to row? and she said, Yes, he does he does know how to row. In fact, he used to keep his gold medal in a Sock draw. It was not proudly displayed. I mean, he had great pride in it. He was just the sort of man he was. And I think perhaps it was a generational thing as well. They'd been through a lot, after all. They'd been through a war and uh Yeah, it's not. And and and things like uh medals and um you know all the baubles of success they they didn't particularly uh pay attention to.
Presenter asks
13:40As a winner of many awards, how are you with accepting praise? Do they all sit easily on your shoulders?
I'm I I'm actually I should point out I'm not wearing them on my shoulders at this moment, but uh although there are some days It was a poor choice, it wasn't you know what I mean. Um n not completely. I mean I I feel that there's probably some mistake. I'll find some possible explanation that will at least sort of nurture that doubt, which I think I mean, doubt is good. I think fear is good. I certainly think all performers should be frightened. I I think you have to be frightened of what you're doing, otherwise it it probably isn't worth doing.
Presenter asks
14:23There was a point in your life when you stopped feeling fearful and your mood was flat. Did that worry you?
I did. I I was in the middle of a stock car race. I don't remember the circumstances. But I do remember cars either side of me were exploding. I mean, literally balls of fire. And I was sort of weaving my way through this. And I remember being bored, actually, neither frightened nor exhilarated. And I thought, that can't be right. So I s I started to investigate that a little bit. What did you find out? Well, oddly enough, if you if you ask a a psychiatrist or a psycho a psychotherapist whether you might be suffering from depression, oddly enough they're inclined to say yes. If by saying yes they encourage you to come back and give them fifty five quid for an hour's uh consultation, yes, yes is the answer you'll get.
Presenter asks
17:47When you first met Stephen Fry, did you automatically become quick, firm friends?
It was pretty instantaneous. I mean, it luckily for us, being English, we were. It was concealed by the need to actually do something. We agreed that we were going to do this show and we had to start writing there and then. We made each other laugh. We played chess until the sun came up and um We've barely had a crossword. I think we might have had three. One of them was of. I cannot remember what the other two are. It's that's actually not really natural, is it, not to have a crossword? That seems odd.
Presenter asks
28:08Do you now accept, even in a hidden part of yourself, that you are a great actor?
No no, I don't. I think I've learned a thing or two. and I think I know a good thing when I see it. I mean, I'm fascinated by acting. I'm fascinated by... by behavior. I'm fascinated by people and I and I uh There are things I would love to to capture and explore and in any guise actually as a writer or director as much as an actor. I I find the whole process of it fascinating, but I absolutely don't. I mean, I was just so lucky to find Find a thing that fitted, and my collaboration with the creator of the show, David Shaw, I'm not saying we we didn't uh pat each other on the back exactly, but we did quite often say Boy, we w we were lu very lucky to have found each other.
“If a thing's worth doing, he once said, it's worth getting absolutely miserable about.”
“I'm able to fantasize so accurately about what it would be like to win Wimbledon or or be the Prime Minister or clime Everest that I actually never bother to try and do any of these things.”
“I think what what I can do is do a large number of things sort of reasonably well. I can play the piano better than Stephen, but I can't play it as well as Jules Holland. But then I can probably act better than Jules Holland, but I can't act as well as Kenneth Branagh.”
“I think yes, it is it's a bit scary. You know, I I I couldn't possibly deny that I've uh hidden behind Stephen a bit uh over the last ten oh, more than that, years. and that to uh come out from his shadow and by god it's a long one. is a is a slightly scary thing, but then I I think it's it's a good thing, you know, one should be scared and one should stand alone and get shouted at and uh Called a fraud. It's thoroughly healthy, I'm sure. Just deeply demoralizing.”
“I've been very, very blessed. But I hear the beating of the wings behind me all the time. And uh I'm always anticipating disaster and uh you know, feeling it brush by me.”
“I was in the middle of a stock car race. I don't remember the circumstances. But I do remember cars either side of me were exploding. I mean, literally balls of fire. And I was sort of weaving my way through this. And I remember being bored, actually, neither frightened nor exhilarated. And I thought, that can't be right.”
“It might be about the actual words that he's singing, a true friend is hard to find, or it may be something that is is even more basic than that. It is just those notes, tho those notes just do a thing to my body that is absolutely transporting.”
“I saw this big beaming smile on my parents' faces and that was a great thing. That will never leave me.”