Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor and documentary maker best known for the sitcoms 'Men Behaving Badly' and 'Doc Martin', and for presenting natural history programmes.
On the island
Eight records
It could have been anything by T. Rex. And it wasn't the first record I bought, but my sister liked David Bowie, so I couldn't like him. And and sort of Mark Butlen and T. Rex were the opposition.
I mean I r I really do like all Bob Marleys. It just rings a bell with me. I don't know why. Keeps me in touch with my black roots.
I sort of discovered when I I s was working at the Bristol Old Vic repertory company and I loved it. ... It's just such a great ballad and I think I'll probably need that on my own on this island.
I bought this um. ... cassette and discovered, you know, the body of his work, this rock and roll. But also I think there's a lot of wit. And I just absolutely love them.
again witty. There's so much to Zappa, he is an orchestrator and it's so complex and he makes so many musicians work so hard and seeing him live was uh incredible.
SailingFavourite
for people of my age, it was the slow song in the school disco. ... Then it's just a I think it's a it's a key song in my make up, but because it's about a key time in my development, such as it is.
this is um my daughter Emily and her friend Daisy, accompanied by mister Fulton, singing Elton John's Your Song at School recorded on my telephone.
We Have All the Time in the World
the band Dodgy played at our wedding and I had a secret plan that Philippa didn't know about that I would get up and sing this song All the Time in the World to her on our special day.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:20Is it important, that public acknowledgment of the success?
I didn't plan on it uh any success. ... Success has sort of come as a as a surprise. Actually, just, you know, keeping busy has come as a surprise, really. This is not sort of faux modesty either. I'm genuinely surprised by the success. So awards are, I mean, are great to get them, you know, really nice.
Presenter asks
6:47Do you ever worry that [doing documentaries] is who you're about to become and that people are going to forget that you're an actor or that it'll compromise your acting?
that is precisely the worry. Yes. I worri and I worried when I first'cause Nina the Elephant was that came about through my involvement with the Bourne Free Foundation, but the other ones, the Islands and the Dogs and the Horses, it sort of just came out of personal Interests, and it's not a good time to turn down a job in television. But I did worry that that would decrease my currency. for what I consider my day job, which is the the acting.
Presenter asks
10:47What sort of person was [your mother]?
My mum, um, she was she was great, she was very uh witty, but also I think she had a very low self-esteem, which I'm and I sort of because my father died when I was eight, I kind of piece images of uh together of what life was like for my mother. And uh I didn't find out until I was uh eighteen or so that my father had actually left us before he fell ill and died, and and died really quite quickly.
The keepsakes
The book
Spike Milligan
for no good reason. It's I haven't read it in years. It's really funny. There's a population in it, isn't there, of this um this community, and I imagine I'm gonna have to sort of populate my island somehow.
The luxury
I'll take an electric guitar and I'll start by trying to work out how to play Chuckberry's music, and then I'll move up to the zapper.
Presenter asks
20:50What made you an annoying child?
showing off, trying to get people to like me or laugh at me. ... Anything anything, light a fart, sit in the dustbin, you know. It would stop them hitting you. Briefly. I mean, it it's quite corny, isn't it? People trying to make people laugh to stop them from being hit.
Presenter asks
28:15Do you feel more connected to your father because you're an actor too? Does it make you maybe understand those more difficult periods in his life?
No, and I don't think I'm the same person at all, from what I've heard. My memories are all the few that I have, are quite clear and fond, and warm, but w I I don't understand him Leaving his family, I don't understand that at all. To me that is the most important thing.
“I'm desperately to be liked by everyone and always have been, hence what I do, probably. But I sort of sometimes find myself contorting myself to be liked by people.”
“we're all monkeys in the zoo. You know you can go and look at the Judy Dench monkey or you can look at the Martin Clunes monkey or the Ricky Gervais monkey if you want a bit of this or a bit of that. Oh that that one's crying, that's a good monkey there. You know, we're all monkeys in the zoo and people stroll past us and dwell or not.”
“I don't know if it did ever do me any harm, but it didn't certainly didn't do me any good, and it's morally questionable whether adults should hit children systematically with sticks.”
“when I met Philippa, really, that's sort of when my new life started, really. She's the most important. thing in my life uh that that everything came from that my sense of family my sense of, I don't know, life, you know. I just wouldn't be where I am without her.”