Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
He is a theatre and film director.
On the island
Eight records
The Gordon Highlanders Military Band and Pipe and Drum Corps
The first one I thought would be good because it would evoke certain things in my past or in my blood, which is mostly Scottish... And uh I also thought that it would be valuable to have something stirring and emotive to march up and down the beach with, because obviously I would have to work hard at keeping fit, and I can't think of anything better than a bagpipe band and Scotland the Brave.
The Baccholian Singers of London
And one of the pieces that I remember most clearly was... A male voice arrangement of bushes and briars... and uh it evoked, of course, very strongly the English background, the English tradition, and I've always thought a very beautiful piece of music.
Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Well, I think that the Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, which to me evokes most strongly really the the New York City ballet and and Balanchin's serenade when they came to London in the early 50s and seems to me an essentially and splendidly theatrical piece of music.
The Kingsway Marching Band and Chorus, conducted by Alan Civil
Yes, well this relates to my enthusiasm for cinema and for John Ford... there is a recording of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, one of my favourite films, and this I think would evoke a multitude of great experiences to me.
Well I'd like to have the whole album with me if I may, but perhaps we might hear one which I particularly like, Poor People, which will remind me of that network of associations.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, BWV 1051Favourite
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
But the end of the sixth Brandenburg is one that also happily recalls a David Story play life class because we used this at the end of the play through the curtain call and all through the time when the audience left the theatre. So we played the entire movement and I think it has great exhilaration and positiveness and this would do me good.
The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended
And that to me is such an emotional and nostalgic and charming piece of music that I just know I would like to have it.
The Song of Human Inadequacy (Das Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens)
I would like to have a song by Brecht... And I'd like to have Brecht himself singing the song of human inadequacy from the Thrapony Opera. I think the kind of irony that there is in Brecht... really fuelled his humanism, and his passion. I think that kind of irony is indispensable, and I think this would prevent me getting too sentimental about the world that I was divorced from.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58How much does music mean in your life?
Well it means quite a lot, though... I don't listen to as much music as I'd like or as I ought. I think I've always enjoyed making music. Though I've never really played an instrument, just toyed with the piano, I have. I sung a bit in various choirs when that was easy and I like singing.
Presenter asks
4:58What were you best at at school?
Oh, well, I was a a classic. Academically I was rather proud of doing Greek and Latin and I went up to Oxford. I had a year in Oxford before I went into the army during the war, and I went up actually on classics.
Presenter asks
5:04Was your army career interesting?
Not frightfully. I ended up attached to the intelligence and we were engaged in the deciphering of codes, which sounds very interesting, except that all that is related to mathematics and I'm quite hopeless at it. I was never quite sure how I got into it and I can't remember much about it.
Presenter asks
10:19The keepsakes
The book
Roger Martin du Gard
I would also like to read again very much Les Thibault by Roger Martin Dugas, which is a book that seems completely to have disappeared, an epic book with almost the kind of scope of a bourgeois word piece.
The luxury
A box of seeds with instructions and a watering can
I think I'd like a box of, if I might have, of seeds. with instructions on the back and a watering can.
What was the policy of the magazine [Sequence]?
Well, it was a time of really rediscovering cinema after war had intervened and there were lots of films you couldn't see and didn't know about. And I think that we were very taken by American cinema as opposed to British cinema, which at that time was, I think, rather overpraised. And one of my great enthusiasms was John Ford, the films of John Ford.
Presenter asks
25:09Is it true that at the age of nine you wrote on a looking glass the words, 'I rebel about nothing in particular'?
Well, it was that actually pinned up these words on the notice board at St. Ronan's, my prep school, with a boy called Stead. And Stead and I put this up, and it wasn't apropos anything, it was really very odd... I think that really as society gets more conformist, I think one has a duty to be a sceptical individual, true to oneself, shall I just put it like that. I think to become a professional rebel would be very boring. On the other hand, I do think that... Safety and conformism is even more boring.
Presenter asks
29:02Could you look after yourself on a desert island?
No, I don't think I am. Uh but I think I'm perhaps not as bad as I think I am. I think as a as a little boy I did a bit of fishing... But I'm not a fisherman, but I think if driven to it, I could surprise myself.
“I think that the cinema is most interesting when it's not entirely literal. And although the cinema tends to be mostly naturalistic, I find it most uh stimulating to work in when you can actually use the possibilities of cinema to transcend the naturalistic or literal.”
“I think that really as society gets more conformist, I think one has a duty to be a sceptical individual, true to oneself, shall I just put it like that. I think to become a professional rebel would be very boring. On the other hand, I do think that... Safety and conformism is even more boring.”