Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer and performer who gained fame as the tallest and funniest Monty Python member, then created the iconic Basil Fawlty.
On the island
Eight records
Michael Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
I remember going to see the movie in Western Supermere when I was about ten with my parents. It was black and white. I can't even remember who was in it. But there was something about it that appealed to me and there's something about New York that always has appealed to me and I think of Rhapsody in Blue as being in New York.
Because of all my happy days with the Pythons, I would like to have a reminder of all those relationships.
I started the Amnesty concerts. And the great problem about the Amnesty Concerts where you had so many funny people... that the the the temperature, the excitement, the level of expectation for humour would become so high that at a certain point you had to diffuse it. And I would always ask dear John Williams to play a piece, and then you would cool the audience off so that they could start laughing again.
Sidney Bechet and the New Orleans Feetwarmers
I either seem to like music that I find in some way touching, or I like sort of rowdy, cheerful music. And I knew I was going to have to have something by Scott Joplin. So I I played through and I thought Maple Leaf Rag was as cheerful and rowdy a piece as I could find.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Well, as I think I said, uh music either seems to sort of cheer me up or touch me, and I think of all the most romantic tunes I've ever heard. This touches me and almost has a physical effect on me.
I love people um who have uh combine witty lyrics with tuneful music with a slightly eccentric beat and I wondered whether to choose something by Randy Newman or something by Harry Nielsen and in the end I decided I'd choose Gotta Get Up by Harry Nielsen because it's how my life feels at the moment.
Cavalleria rusticana: Easter HymnFavourite
I've had a brush with opera in the last few years and I find that what bothers me about it is that the stories, the characterisation, the dialogue and the acting, which are things I rather care about, seem to come at the bottom of a list in opera. On the other hand, the sound is magnificent and this I find particularly magnificent.
Bob Thiele and George David Weiss
Louis Armiston, what a wonderful world, because the older I get, the more I realise how much there is to enjoy.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:55Why did you feel you wanted to be different, had to be different?
I think that I went through the kind of training... that enabled me to take on that middle-class appearance very, very easily, almost too easily. I could slip into it just at the drop of a hat... and I think I was always a little suspicious of it.
Presenter asks
2:19Was the desire to make people laugh, did that come first? Or was it the desire to break out of this conformity?
I think that the the desire to make people laugh came out of the fact that I was a typical child of older parents, a little bit more withdrawn, a little more thoughtful... And I discovered that I could make the form laugh when I'd been there about a year. And that is not only a nice feeling... But at the same time, I felt that I became much more popular as a result.
Presenter asks
6:54What effect did [being six foot tall at age twelve] have on you, then?
I think it uh it taught me, like every English class boy, to pretend that I was a lot more grown up than I was.
The keepsakes
The book
Tammy Wynette
The reasoning behind that is I think I wouldn't get too upset if I lost it.
The luxury
Presenter asks
13:08Was the discovery of Footlights when you got to Cambridge, was that the beginning of John Cleese going off the rails in the eyes of Weston-super-Mare?
Oh, absolutely. I'm sure it was. And the funny thing was, when I first went up to the Footlights desk... I said I might be rather interested in joining. And they said brightly, Oh, do you sing? I was never allowed to sing at school... So I said no. And they said, Do you dance? And I said, Well, no, not really. And I fled in confusion.
Presenter asks
23:59Is there a grain of truth in [the critic's quote] that neurosis made you funny and sanity has made you dull?
My experience of therapy, I mean, once you have been given a little bit of creativity, which is no more than the ability to play, once you have that, I think that therapy can kind of open up the field so that you can go in areas where you might not have been able to go into before.
“I think sometimes as I get older and I look around, I think the world is even sillier and madder than I used to think it was even when I was doing Monty Python.”
“Humour is critical. It's always basically attacking something, usually the status quo.”
“I simply realized as a matter of practice that what is funny is people's lives unraveling. You know, if you have a film in which somebody gets happier and more organized, it's not going to be a comedy.”
“Somebody once said if you want to see what matters to people, see who they're envious of. And I've always en felt envious of people like Tom Stoppard and Alan Aikbourne or Michael Frein, these kind of people, David Mammet, with a body of writing behind them...”
“Humour is about anger, it's about lust, it's about envy, it's about greed... It's all about the worst aspects of human behaviour.”