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Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A satirist who, with John Bird, created a television double act skewering modern British life, and was a pioneer of 1960s satire.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Oh, this is Thomas Talis. It's his forty-part motet spemin alium, and this is sung by the Choir of Kings.
This is Pablo Casals playing the Song of the Birds. This is because I suppose I was introduced to music because of my father. I didn't really know my father very well because when I was very tiny he went off to the war and I really didn't see him again until I was six. But he played the cello, so I'd like to hear Pablo Casals and remember my father.
Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars
In my teens I got very, very keen on jazz and I joined the Air Training Corps because they had a silver wing band and they gave me a trombone and sort of taught me to play it ... But this record, this is just infectious jazz. This is Louis Armstrong and his all-stars and this was at the Town Hall concert in New York in 1947.
This is Peter. This is Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. And Dudley is interviewing Peter, who is the proprietor of a less than successful restaurant out in the wilds of Moorland, miles from anywhere, called The Frog and Peach.
It's Easy to Blame the Weather
Billie Holiday with Teddy Wilson and His Orchestra
This takes me back to New York and the establishment there ... Teddy Wilson ... Every night he would play, and he'd always say, what would you like me to play? And I'd say, play something you used to do with Billie Holiday. and Lester Young ... But this record is Billie Holiday singing and it's easy to blame the weather.
Keyboard Sonata in A major, K. 208
I'm a Scarlatti freak, and this came about when I was doing a play in the West End, and opposite the stage door was a wonderful shop called Cheapo Cheapo Records ... I saw a record of 14 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti played on the harpsichord and I thought that's like having a cold bath ... And of course discovered that Scarlatti is the most wildly sensual romantic composer of all.
String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18
Jean-Claude Pennetier, Régis Pasquier, Raphael Oleg, Bruno Pasquier, Jean Dupuy and Roland Pidoux
I worked a lot with Eleanor Bronn, who's another very, very close friend ... she recommended to me Bramsey's chamber music and I I love it.
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109Favourite
This is Beethoven's piano sonata number thirty, opus hundred and nine ... And this is played by an American great pianist called Richard Good. And I've chosen this because this was the first present I gave my wife Emma when I met her. I met her just before Christmas, about 15 years ago. I absolutely fell in love with her immediately. And I gave her this record as a Christmas present.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:29What was the name of this English master [who inspired you]?
His name was Teddy Martin, also called Sandy Martin, and he was in his late 40s, I suppose, when I was about fifteen. And I was pretty average at school, and that's flattering. And then one day, Teddy came into an English class and, without saying anything at all, started to read the foul quartets of T. S. Eliot. And something happened and it changed my life.
Presenter asks
2:39Did he [Teddy Martin] take you under his wing and give you books?
Yes, he did. He took me home to his house after school one night, and it was the first time I'd ever seen a room which had books from the floor to the ceiling. And he had a a car, and he filled up the back seat with books and said, When you've finished this lot, come and get some more.
Presenter asks
8:44Did you learn from [F. R.] Leavis about satire and that satire was about moral judgments?
I certainly at that time was very influenced by Leavis' very rigorous view about society and the great tradition and all that. As I've got older and more decadent, I've sort of rather left those beliefs behind. I like to think that what John and I do is ridicule our betters.
The keepsakes
The book
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
This may be a slight cheat, but I'd like to have a novel called The Leopard by Giuseppe Tommasi di Lampeduzza. But if I possibly could, could I have it in English and Italian? Because maybe by the time I get off this island I might know a bit of Italian.
The luxury
A very old rug made by the Baluch people of Afghanistan
I think what I'd like actually is a very old very beautiful rug made by the Baluch people of Afghanistan. And I could sit on this and in strong sunlight the wonderful colours would be tremendous. And I'd sit and watch the horizon.
Presenter asks
15:43How would you characterize how you changed [the Footlights reviews] and what did you bring to it?
I suppose what we uh brought to it was um very, very much influenced by Peter. So it was that sort of surreal ... Going off at tangents ... Bizarre.
Presenter asks
26:26Where do you put yourself in the political spectrum?
Pretty far to the left. I would like to describe myself as a as a socialist.
Presenter asks
30:56What did your English master, Teddy Martin, think about what became of his protege?
He was he was keen. Just before I left Cambridge, I talked to him and he said, Well, what are you going to do? And I said, I'm going to join the Workers' Educational Association and bring Yeats to the coal fields. And he said, Well, that's wonderful. And I had a an interview with the WEA and they said, Well, you can do that, and we'll pay you six pounds a week. And then Peter rang me up and said, We'll pay you twenty pounds a week to come and tell jokes.
“In our house we had two books. One was called The Universal Home Doctor and the other was called The Universal Book of Hobbies. And that was it.”
“I tasted claret, I tasted whisky, brandy, I had spaghetti that wasn't out of a tin, I had coffee that was ground, aubergines. Cogettes. It was amazing. I must have spent the whole year just eating and drinking and making up.”
“I wouldn't really like to spend my life doing anything other than having a good laugh with my closest friend.”