Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actress known for comedy, a member of the National Theatre and RSC, best known for playing an agony aunt in the TV series 'Agony'.
On the island
Eight records
I heard her singing Dreambird. I suppose I must have been about four or five, and I began to do impersonations. And I think I was quite a precocious child, and I just know that my mother stood me on the sideboard and said, Do your Al McCogan impersonation for the visitors, which I did.
This is Buddy Holley, who was my brother's favourite singer... And this for me, I used to hang about doing my homework all night and then about eleven o'clock I'd pinch my cheeks... and go downstairs with my nightie buttoned up... longing for one of these boys to see me as something other than Jeff's little sister.
The Beatles were so instructive to me in so many ways. I mean, I discovered what life was all about through listening to Beatles' records. And John Lennon in particular.
I choose it because it's funny, it's real. It's also, I find, incredibly moving. It's a lady going on her first flight to America to see her son, who she hasn't seen for five years.
this comes from a period in my life when I started listening to lyrics. And this is a poem really.
L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) from Carmen
I discovered through driving along with my cassette player in the car that actually you could sing opera and act brilliantly and I discovered that through listening to Maria Callas... she was a brilliant singer who made acting part of her singing and it went through me like a wire.
Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56Favourite
This music, particularly this next one that w we're going to play, is one that I just never tire of, and there are very few pieces of music that you can say that about.
Où va la jeune Hindoue? (Bell Song) from Lakmé
I think if I'm on an island I'm going to have to get pretty interested in birds, which I could easily do... But this song, this beautiful... song, I think might get me in communication with the birds on the island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:14Were you interested in music as a child in Hull?
We didn't have what you'd call a musical house. We had some of those old seventy eights, but we used to melt them down to make fruit bales out of them... So there wasn't a great deal of music around, except on s on the radio
Presenter asks
3:20Are you still religious, given your Jewish background?
I suppose I'm a kind of orthodox hypocrite, really. I do the best I can under the circumstances... we belong to a Reformed synagogue and my children go to Sunday school in the Jewish faith and we do our best.
Presenter asks
4:15Wasn't a Jewish family in Yorkshire an unlikely background for someone wanting to go on the stage?
Well very, and I didn't think that there were any precedents in the family. In fact, recently when I was in America I discovered that A great many of my mother's family were on the stage. They were a Russian dance group called the Boris Rydkin Troupe.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
When did you first realize that the theatre was for you?
Well, I think I always knew. I did say that I started acting as the placenta hit the pedal bin, and it's it feels as if it was true, but I was a bit of a rebel and a bit naughty at school, and much more concerned with making the class laugh than with actually learning anything.
Presenter asks
8:37What about your father? Your mother features strongly in your writing, but where was he?
My father is also eccentric, like the rest of us. I mean, he had a tailor's shop on Monument Bridge in Hull... And he had this shop, and he was a personality, and people used to just go in and used to say, I've got these wonderful ties, 16 quid, you get a free suit with everyone.
Presenter asks
22:10What does your quote mean, that 'behind every success story there's a guilt complex'?
I wish I knew what drives me to do the the amount of things I do... We are living in an age where, particularly for women, we've got to prove that we can go out to work and still get the casserole in the oven and still be there in the black neglige at night. It's just out of the question... People like me are running around chasing our tails and trying to prove that we can be everything. It's absolutely exhausting.
“I did say that I started acting as the placenta hit the pedal bin, and it's it feels as if it was true, but I was a bit of a rebel and a bit naughty at school, and much more concerned with making the class laugh than with actually learning anything.”
“I think the great thing about living in England is you can never get really big-headed. Because you can only reach a certain stage before everybody starts going for you.”
“She was only a tailor's daughter, but she had em all in stitches.”