Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Film director best known for comedies like 'Chiltern Hundreds' and 'Trouble in Store'; also a novelist and painter.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:33Which of these three careers of yours — writing, painting and film directing — came first? Was any one of them a very early ambition?
Well, I think one of my earliest recollections was writing and painting the scenery and producing and appearing in shows that we used to put on when I was at the age of four.
Presenter asks
2:05Which ones [of your films] do you look back on with the most affection?
Well, certainly Chiltern Hundreds. I liked making that very much. And of course the first Norman Wisdom film, Trouble in Store. And a picture called Dancing with Crime, chiefly because it was a drama.
Presenter asks
4:26How do you manage to carry [your three careers] all on at once?
A jolly good point, Roy Plumley. I don't. … Well, I mean that this is something that I'm glad to clear up because people always think I paint with one hand and write books with the other, tap down, so on. I never do more than one thing at a time. People can't, can they really, honestly.
Presenter asks
4:55How disciplined are you as a writer and as a painter, come to that? Do you work regular hours?
Well, I don't believe in this business about waiting for inspiration. I mean, I think it's a business, and you've jolly well gotta accept that, and therefore, you must … myself, and uh therefore if I'm writing a book I get up at five thirty and I write from six till eight thirty every morning and think about it during the day. Uh I think it's absolutely vital to get anything done.
“I'm one of the bunch of keys. My father was the very, very famous … review artist Nelson Keyes. … [W]hen I went into the film business I thought it would be unfair to take his name. I thought I ought to get on on my own.”
“I used to make dramas all the time, but after Chiltern Hundreds I only get comedies now.”
“[T]here is a … amusing story about [Lollipop Wood]. I wrote it originally. I dedicated it to my two nieces who live in Dublin. … [W]hen finally it appeared, of course my … little nieces were grown up young ladies and were reading James Hadley Chase and were horrified to find their name on the front of Lollipop Wood.”
“[A]fter the war, … as soon as Paris was liberated, I hustled across there and … fell in love with the French moderns of the Impressionistic School and came back home and changed my style and people started to like what I was doing.”