Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Writer, director and actor, known for Yes, Minister.
On the island
Eight records
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
In the end I just opted for making a choice on the basis of of nostalgia really. ... And this is a piece of music that my father used to have a record of or rather several records of,'cause they were seventy eights and they used to be played on the grammophone with fibre needles which he sharpened.
It was the first jazz. album that I bought. I was about fourteen, I think, and I'd just become aware of mainstream and modern jazz.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
Solomon, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Herbert Menges
It was the first piece of music that I ever played the timpani in in my school orchestra. But this record is slightly better than that, and Solomon is uh the servless.
I'm the Guy Who Found the Lost Chord
I think if Music Hall hadn't died before I came into the business. And if I hadn't grown up the son of a middle class doctor in Bath, what I would really like to have been was a kind of low comic. I think this record is really what I would like to have been if I'd ever had the nerve.
Kur giria žaliuoja
Actually, I am also. All four of my grandparents were born in Lithuania. ... And uh I discovered, after we were married, ... My grandparents came from a village about twelve kilometers from where my wife comes from. She was born there and was a refugee from the Red Army in nineteen forty four with her parents. So this is really because of the sentimental connection with both the country, which sadly no longer exists.
I wanted to have a pop music record and I was undecided initially between The Beatles and Randy Newman and Paul Simon, but Paul Simon wins by a short head.
Don't Play That Love Song Any More, Sam
Monty Norman and Julian Moore are two marvellous songwriters there. Friends for whom I have the most enormous respect, and this song, Don't Play That Love Song Anymore, Sam, is sung by Gemma Craven.
Non più andrai (from The Marriage of Figaro)
I thought I might get the whole opera. Well, if I'm just going to get one piece, it I would like it to be Figaro singing to Carabino before Carabino is sent off to war.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:18Why did you choose to read law at Cambridge?
Because I think because it wasn't medicine, really, and it was the only. other profession that my family could Contemplate, really. I didn't know that there were other things you could read, like fine art or archaeology or the whole world of subjects that I hadn't heard of. I came from the sort of family really where you had a profession when you grew up and if it wasn't medicine, law seemed the obvious alternative.
Presenter asks
7:02How did you become an actor after graduating?
I went back to Cambridge and finished my degree. And then the week I graduated, I got a phone call saying, did I want to go to America with Cambridge Circus? So of course I accepted. So that's how I became an actor.
Presenter asks
10:51What was your first professional acting job apart from Cambridge Circus?
Well, it was a job at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. In Becket by Henui, which was a curious production, because everyone except for the King and Becket and the French Princess were wearing masks, And I played about four parts.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
20:10What was the first television series you wrote?
I'd been in a series called Doctor in the House and after I left it, George Layton, who was still in it, it was then called Doctor. at large, I think. The writers failed to deliver a script one week and he rang me up and said, How about having a go at writing one? And I was on the point of giving up writing. I'd been writing for some years without any success. Anyway, we had a go at writing script and it and it turned out to be funny and they used it.
Presenter asks
22:17Did either you or Antony Jay really know what happens behind the scenes in Whitehall [when writing Yes Minister]?
No, it wasn't speculation. I think Tony may have known a little more about it than I did. But it was really research rather than speculation. ... We researched it in in some detail. We found people who would tell us.
Presenter asks
28:18How did you feel about the sudden death of Leonard Rossiter during the run of Loot?
Leonard Rossiter, who was playing Inspector Truscott, collapsed and died of a heart attack during her performance, and this was a terrible loss. It was a great loss to me, personally, as a friend. I was immensely fond of him. ... He was really a a a unique and irreplaceable comic actor.
“I came from the sort of family really where you had a profession when you grew up and if it wasn't medicine, law seemed the obvious alternative.”
“I think if Music Hall hadn't died before I came into the business. And if I hadn't grown up the son of a middle class doctor in Bath, what I would really like to have been was a kind of low comic.”
“I think the main difference between English and French farce is that English fasce is about a lot of jolly nice people who get themselves into embarrassing scrapes and are misunderstood. And French farce is about dreadful people doing appalling things and getting their comeuppance.”