Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Stage and television actor best known for playing Ray Doyle in The Professionals, noted for maverick, campaigning roles.
On the island
Eight records
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043: II. Largo ma non tanto
I love this because of the the sense of partnership. One of the first things I learned at drama school when we did improvisation classes was that you must be aware of and listen to the other person. And this is a prime example of two people working together.
My mother told me an extraordinarily sweet story about this. She was seventeen during the war and was in Irdington, which is a suburb of Birmingham. Went to the milk bar. And there was a young airman who was seventeen years old and asked if he could buy her a cup of tea. And of course she rebuffed him. And he said, No, no, no, I'm not trying to pick you up. It's just that I have to leave to go on active service this evening. My parents are crying and I just had to get out of the house and I've got the whole day to kill. And so she said yes, and then on the radio came this piece of music.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30: III. Finale
Yevgeny Kissin with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
What I've always thought about art and the expression of art is the marrying of the access to what you're feeling with the skill to express it. There is hardly any artist who can do it as brilliantly as Yevgeny Kissin. And when I first heard this recording and it came to an end, Boom. And I realised that it had been a live recording, uh I it almost made me feel dizzy.
Requiem in D minor, K. 626: Lacrimosa
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
It just touches that innate sadness in me, which is not misery, but it's just that sense of contemplative missing of something that you can't quite put your hands on.
The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492: "Cosa mi narri? ... Sull'aria... che soave zeffiretto"
These two singers just listening to each other so intently that their voices blend so beautifully. And there's something wonderfully liberating about perfect and beautiful music which relieves us all of all of our prisons.
Messiah, HWV 56: "Surely He hath borne our griefs"Favourite
Handel throughout after he'd written Messiah, the poor man walked hundreds of miles, literally, trying to find a body of singers who were able to sight read, and he couldn't find them, and ditto with the musicians, and so he could never achieve his ambition, which was to have a huge orchestra and a huge choir sing this huge piece. Malcolm Sargent. Put this lot together. The music is great enough to withstand almost any interpretation, but this is what Handel himself would like to have heard, I believe.
Gunther Mende, Candy DeRouge, Jennifer Rush and Mary Susan Applegate
Sometimes other people's words express better than you can what you want to say and this was this was given to me by my partner on a significant anniversary of ours uh and uh I was very moved and touched by it, so I wanted to include it and indeed take it to my desert island.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11: II. Romanze - Larghetto
István Székely with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, conducted by György Lehel
It's just so lyrical and relaxing and poetic. And if Mozart was the the Shakespeare of music, then Chopin's the Shakespeare of the piano.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04Does acting on stage fulfil you more than television?
I think so, yes. For a start you can remain in the character for two and a half hours instead of sipping at it, you know, for one and a half minutes at a time. ... But also because you get an instantaneous response, and the choices are far broader uh on stage. You know, you can choose to be a lawyer, a doctor or a policeman. That's about it nowadays, if you're going to work on television.
Presenter asks
6:32What do you remember of those early years [growing up in Birmingham during and after the war]?
I was b born and brought up in Birmingham, which was Heavily bombed. And the house that my parents lived in had been bombed out, so it was very present. And that sense of fear was very present, particularly in my mother, who was uh was fifteen when the war started. And it sort of shattered her nerves, and she was fearful through most of her life.
Presenter asks
11:10What was important to you [as a child]?
Playtime, I suppose. To be away from school. I hated school. ... I loathed school with a passion. ... Because I formed the impression that I was working for my teachers, not for myself. And so I missed out on a lot just through being willful and stubborn and rebellious.
The keepsakes
The book
Patrick O'Brian
I think Patrick O'Brien writes better than pretty much anybody in the in the English language. And there are twenty of these novels. So if I can't take them all, I would just take the thickest, which is Post Captain.
The luxury
Solar-powered synthesizer with built-in sequencer
because then I could make up my own music, because I play very, very badly and inexpertly. And with um with a synthesizer and a sequencer you can string things together.
Presenter asks
18:18What happened to make you see the light [and stop drinking]?
I discovered a spiritual path which is still at the centre of my life, and indeed was with my parents as well. We all sort of got it at the same time, which involved teetotalism, vegetarianism, meditation, and so on. And it was literally like a light. of of understanding. and I stopped overnight.
Presenter asks
22:23Can you say more about [your spiritual path]?
Basically no one is ever really happy, ever. There is always something missing with everybody, no matter what they get, and we all of us think that it lies in something material, or in a person, or a thing. ... And in fact we all know that that's never the answer. And it's the separation from our source, and you can call that source soul, spirit, God. Christ, anything you want to call it, but there is something above, beyond and outside of the physical for which we all have a yearning, whether it's conscious or unconscious.
Presenter asks
31:36Is it a sadness to you that you've been married so many times or that you didn't sort of stick at something for longer?
Yes, it is, because I've I've never been in any relationship where I didn't intend it to last forever.
“There's a kind of satisfaction and simplicity in lack of choice. which is calm and peaceful.”
“In order to be an important and exciting young actor, it was good to be a hellraiser. It's utterly ridiculous and I blush to tell you. But that was the way that was the way it was seen.”
“The great philosophers and and spiritual teachers have said Know thyself and you can't really do that with so much mental noise around.”