Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian and actor best known for the Carry On films and radio shows Hancock's Half Hour, Round the Horn, and Just a Minute.
On the island
Eight records
Barcarolle No. 1 in A minor, Op. 26
Well, it's interesting, you see, I did mention my love of the foray requiem. This is a bit of foray, but it is something with a lovely melody.
I adore Ferrier, but I also love this because it's an example of the art song in English, and we haven't got much of it.
Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 "Spring" (First Movement)
Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy
I always call it the Spring Sonata. I tell you why I think it's marvellous, because it shows the wealth of the man. He actually starts with a wonderful, wonderful little tune... And then it actually dispenses with it and goes on to another one, and you think, Oh, well, how prodigal
It's a wonderful melody. And you see, it's of special significance here, because it's saying... Go, little bird. And tell them I'm lonely. So if I was on a desert island, you see, this is the perfect song for me to choose.
Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48 (First Movement)
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Well it's a Tchafsky serenade and I'll tell you why again you see because it's a magnificent melody. And what's wonderful about it Michael is that what he uses in the first movement he inverts in the third and it becomes another marvellous melody.
And this is a composer I didn't really know much about, you know, until I heard Julian Bream playing him... And this is a lovely tune. Now I'm always on about tunes, aren't I? Because if I was on a design, I'd really need some good tunes, because it's good tunes that get me through the day.
Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D. 898 (Second Movement)
This is the trio n number one. The BFAT Major Shoe, but I mean I don't know if you're familiar with it, but you'd be amazed because there's this this particular second movement, which I love, you'd almost think you know you were in that scene in the Kadena Cafe in Brief Encounter.
Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 (No. 4: Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelszungen redete)
Well it's appropriate you say because I did mention my love of Brahms earlier. It's the melancholy in me, the Norse melancholy. And this is uh one of the four serious songs of Brahms.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:36Do you think you might take to the solitary life on this desert island?
I did my war service all over the place, India, Burma, and some of the conditions under which we lived were primitive indeed... You really had to use some imagination to eke out what food there was available, and you had to do things like make a fire and cook with very primitive materials... I don't know whether we'd even have a Dixie on the desert island, of course.
Presenter asks
7:55When do you get the first inclinations to be a performer, to be on stage?
I think the instinct was from my mother, Louisa, yes, I got it from Lou... My father was very rich in that respect. He would never give you an impression... And I sort of grew up in a world where all these incidents were dramatized, you know. And my mother loved popular songs and she was always singing them... And so that's really what started off the whole idea of acting and being.
Presenter asks
10:01Did your father live to be proud of you?
No, it wasn't that much proud, no. I mean, he did come and he said, well, I thought I'd see your name up one day. And sort of grudgingly, that was when I had a dappy neon outside the Apollo Theatre. But he did do that, but he wouldn't take the taxis.
The keepsakes
The book
Francis Turner Palgrave
it would have to be something full of variety, so that I could dip into and always find something to suit the mood.
The luxury
a crate of L'Heure de la Vraie by Caron
I'd want a crate of lovely cologne, and I would choose the [L'Heure de la Vraie] by Caron. I'd have a old crate of it.
Presenter asks
12:41How much did you draw [on the characters you met as a boy] for the characters you created in radio?
Enormously. Enormously. Yes, I met a man a man who was selling papers outside Channing Cross Station... And I thought, that's a wonderful way... To actually reproduce her voice... I used that voice a lot in radio. I used it for Gramp Fattock.
Presenter asks
22:41You've known everybody in show business, and yet you've never had a close relationship with anybody. Why is that?
Well, I suppose I've had some good friendships, but that's about all. I don't think it's given to us all... For some... It is natural they don't have any children, and they'll just have to accept it. And I thought, How wonderfully simple and honest And that's the truth for hundreds of bachelors, I suppose. They are not meant to share in that way. So they share in some other way. And I've always had the advantage of an audience, you see.
Presenter asks
30:40Have you thought of your epitaph?
No, but having something as funny as as Dorothy Parker when they said what do you want on your tombstone? and she said, This one's on me.
“I like to be where the roots are. And I think where your roots are, to be reminded all the time of what you are, is a very, very good thing, because it stops any sort of illusion, folly de grandeur, you know.”
“I've always had the one room, kitchen and bathroom. And I get rid of it, you know, shove the arpic down the loo, and I'd do it all myself... So I've not been subject to any false ideas about my station in life.”
“I realise from much that I wrote in the early period what an arrogant little nasty person I was. You know, this dis terrible desire to show off and at somebody else's expense, and I think I've lost that now.”
“Quite look forward to death. Quite look forward to death. Yes, I just hope. I just hope it's not painful. I don't want to kick kick up the backside with a bustle. I mean, I want it to be nice.”