Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Old Etonian comedian who worked in Fleet Street, performed Shakespeare, served in the RAF, and co-created a Russian poem act at the Windmill Theatre.
On the island
Eight records
A Russian poem about a girl called Natasha who gets her face kicked in by a prince and that we appeared at the Windmill Theatre. I used to play drums.
I was actually trying it out that night. I was spotted by an agent.
I was in Starlight Roof, in which Julie Andrews, incidentally, was an eleven-year-old child.
This led to a radio programme called Crazy People, yes, we were called the Junior Crazy Gang.
I wanted to do this Bumbly series, Children's Puppets for BBC Children's Television.
Of course the present success. It's a square world, which is ... going alright at the moment.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:19What was it your first ambition to be?
Old Edonian, I should imagine
Presenter asks
0:31What did you do when you left [school/the RAF]?
Well, um I wanted to study physics. My father is an aerodynamicist, a scientist. And um unfortunately the war interfered with this because naturally overnight physics became secret, you see, so we couldn't indulge in this. And um I mucked about in Fleet Street for a short time. and then went um holding a spear with Robert Atkins in uh Regent's Park.
Presenter asks
0:57Would you like to have remained a classical actor in Shakespeare?
Oh, no, I don't think so. I think the range is much too uh limited in that. I I I prefer working in the type of medium I'm working now where I can play any any type of part.
Presenter asks
4:06How did you manage [that eye trick]?
It's a series of eye exercises I did in the RAF when my eyes packed up. Uh they were about 610 I think each eye. They had a slight fault. They went to six sixty both eyes, so they took me off flying and gave me a job as an intelligence officer. And in an attempt to get back to flying, I used to do these eye exercises and found that I could make my eyes do damn nearly anything.
Presenter asks
5:30Who inside the BBC worked to get [the Goon Show] started?
I think um obviously the answer to that is Pat Dixon, who unfortunately has now passed over. He's a wonderful man who was one of the most brilliant and most delightful men I've ever met in my life.
Presenter asks
6:45Do you think you've found yourself [in your career]?
No. Uh my father always uh said that I was educated off the backs of cigarette cards, which is a perfect description really, because I have a complete butterfly mind. And the medium that I'm working in now demands a butterfly mind with the ability to concentrate. I'm only interested in uh something new, something something different.
Presenter asks
7:22In which medium are you happiest? Radio, television, theatre, films?
I think really television because I think visually, I think in pictures, and yet I use sound to i Evoke pictures. So um I think that television is the ideal medium for me, if you can call television a medium. I don't think it is, I think it's just a means of communication th that uses many, many mediums.
Presenter asks
7:41What are your interests outside your work? Where does your butterfly mind light?
Well, in precisely the same way. I I I I go from flower to flower. I d I don I didn't quite mean it that way, but um I have uh four children and they take up a lot of time and my family can hardly be referred to as a hobby. ... I've painted professionally and and I've had to make my living as an artist as well as a writer. I use it a lot in cartoons, that type of uh thing, but um I love I love painting. I'll never be a good painter. I'll always be an adequate painter. But I I can draw.
Presenter asks
8:58Have you any one major ambition?
Uh to go on living for a bit longer. I can't think of anything else.
“The range is much too uh limited in that. I I I prefer working in the type of medium I'm working now where I can play any any type of part.”
“I was arrested as a deserter in order to get into the RF. I volunteered seventeen times and they lost my address the seventeenth time.”
“I talked it over with father and I thought, No, I'd like to I'd like to go back to the stage. It seems a harmless enough occupation. We don't do anybody any harm on the stage. I don't think you do anybody any good, but just anybody any good.”
“My father always uh said that I was educated off the backs of cigarette cards, which is a perfect description really, because I have a complete butterfly mind.”
“I love painting. I'll never be a good painter. I'll always be an adequate painter. But I I can draw.”