Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedienne and monologist, known for her wartime revue monologue 'Useful and Acceptable Gift', and for writing verse and radio criticism.
On the island
Eight records
Lovely song he wrote called Signor More, do you remember? / La Vaison. Yes, I do.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:33What did you think of the Noel Coward review you were in [called 'Sigh No More']?
Lovely song he wrote called [La Vaison]… Yes, I do.
Presenter asks
3:45Did you write your own material for those revues?
I think almost entirely. In Noel Coward's review I did 'This is the end of the news' which he had written… and which he cleaned up for me to use.
Presenter asks
4:26How did you and Stephen Potter write the scripts for the 'How' series?
That's right. We used well, that's not quite true, really, but we ad-libbed a good deal. There were no tapes in those days… marvellous people from the BBC would come and take down in shorthand what we were improvising… And then we'd get the scripts and we'd add and take from and all that sort of thing.
Presenter asks
6:00Which have been your favourite films among the many you've made?
Every time you make a film, it's a pleasure, I think. I've enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed playing that little tiny bit in 'Genevieve' very much… And then I enjoyed the only American experience I had, which was quite different, a serious part, in a movie called 'The Americanization of Emily'.
Presenter asks
6:33Did doing one-woman shows need a lot of courage?
Well, you know, in a funny way it's what I'd been doing all the time, though not in London… it was what I was doing in the war when I was doing the hospitals in isolated units… So it had a lot of practice. And Lauria Lister said, 'Don't you think it's time you tried and did it in London?' And so I first did it, as I remember, at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.
Presenter asks
7:43Your satire is very gentle. Has anyone ever complained?
I once had an anonymous letter from a lady when I was living in the Kings Road, Chelsea, and she took me to task for mocking at people who spoke with a Cockney accent. It seemed to me an odd criticism, because what I'm interested is not the Cockney accent, it's the character, it's the individual.
“I'm a rather mixed lot, really. My father's mother was American from Rhode Island. He was born in New York. His father was English from Wiltshire. My mother came from Virginia.”
“I wouldn't want to go through it again, though I enjoyed it enormously, to start with. I met my husband as a result, I suppose, of going to the that kind of dances and parties. And it was great fun in those days. We weren't perhaps so socially conscious as we are now, and I don't mean social social.”
“I used [to go to] the places where you it wasn't worth sending a big company… I entertained I think it was in India some small pox patients in a smallpox tent, and we played just outside. We being of the girl who played the piano for me and me.”
“I have been inspired by real people, but not to imitate the way they sound so much as the way they use the English language. And I have a favourite character. She's the Vice Chancellor of an English University… Her phrases were quite unique. For instance, I did a benefit concert for her up north, and she wanted to give me my expenses. So she said 'My dear Joyce, we have not yet touched on the sordid topic of coin.'”
“To me religion is really a way of life. It's got very little to do with Sunday.”