Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Founder and director of the National Youth Theatre.
On the island
Eight records
First choice. I'd like to start with um a a cold porter number sung by Hutch, Get Out of Town, which was uh one of my favourites as a uh young man.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23
Solomon (piano), Hallé Orchestra, Sir Hamilton Harty (conductor)
…two of my favourite pieces from those days are Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, No. 1 in B, Flat Minor…
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Moura Lympany (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra
Greek, yes, because Greek we're talking about the upbeat things and I think that that piano concerto on that lonely island will certainly give us a sense of the upbeat of life.
Any Little Fish (from the Coward Medley)
Noel Coward was one of my idols when I was a boy… I've chosen something from a card and medley which he must have recorded in the thirties… I bought that record for a shilling in 1942…
One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)
Harold Arlen (music), Johnny Mercer (lyrics)
I've chosen Sonata as my next record because uh I'm a sort of Sinatra freak… Um and what I settled for in the end was One for my baby.
Candle in the WindFavourite
Elton John (music), Bernie Taupin (lyrics)
These days… my favourite is Elton John. In fact, Elton is not only a favourite in in the musical sense, but he's also been a benefactor of the National Youth Theatre.
Seven has got to be nostalgia again and it's gonna be Nielsen a little touch of smilchen in the night… to me convoys in the Mediterranean when I saw that film Casablanca and of course it has to be as time goes by.
Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler (conductor)
…the most tingling major piece of music I know is Ravel's Bolero.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:32Does music play a big part in your life?
It doesn't uh play a very big part these days, except insofar as uh now and again I I present a play with music, but uh … When I was um a youngster I had a very strong interest in music and growing up in Manchester I spent many Sundays at the Halley at Bellevue.
Presenter asks
2:16What was your first ambition?
Writing was a big ambition. Uh playing cricket was an even bigger ambition. And I think I spent most of my summer time as a boy, anyway, playing cricket either at school or at Longsight Cricket Club, with um a burning desire to get to Old Trafford and uh be taken on by Lancashire. Well, the war interrupted uh not only my ambitions, but of course cricket as well.
Presenter asks
4:19You were an actor for a while, weren't you? Was that [immediately after you came out of the service?]
I had a dodgy career as an actor in more ways than one. I did a little acting during the war and then I was in rep up in Lancashire, places like Bolton, St Ann's. … I went back to it after the war for a short time, but during that period I realized that I wasn't really very good at the acting and that I'd better try something else. So I had the good fortune to be offered a place at Oxford University.
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
I would take Kipling. I would take Kipling's poems because I find them, I've always found them the most dramatically exciting. I find there's such a marvellous variety of.
The luxury
a still (for distilling whiskey)
I'm a a whiskey drinker and uh I would certainly want to take a still with me so that I could I've been hoping that the the island did contain barley, I would be able to make my own [whisky].
Presenter asks
5:30[Your novel] raised a bit of dust. What was it about?
Yes, it caused a considerable controversy. It was written about my early teaching days in tough secondary modern schools and it was really meant to be an attack upon the conditions in those schools. … I was very concerned that the book should … aim to expose the brutality which uh still to my great surprise still went on in schools, the the amount of corporal punishment that was used in schools at a time when people said it didn't really exist or it was banned.
Presenter asks
10:10How many productions have you done [with the National Youth Theatre]?
W with the National Youth Theatre, I should think it's about one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty. … we used to concentrate on Shakespeare, but now in the mid sixties we um again we had a … a very major piece of luck because … I came across a writer called Peter Terson, who was writing very good plays at Stoke, and he was interested in writing for our organisation, and so he wrote a play, which in the end grew into a very famous entertainment called Ziggazaga, which was basically about football hooliganism.
Presenter asks
17:39Could you look after yourself on this island? Are you a practical person?
I'm very impractical in the sense of making things, so that uh I would uh be hard put to actually devise methods of making things, but I do adapt pretty well to circumstances, and so I'm pretty sure I would I would make out.
“Writing was a big ambition. Uh playing cricket was an even bigger ambition.”
“I was very concerned that the book should … aim to expose the brutality which uh still to my great surprise still went on in schools, the the amount of corporal punishment that was used in schools at a time when people said it didn't really exist or it was banned.”
“It really began w simply with the boys from Alain's school, about a hundred of them, and uh four from Dulwich College, which was up the road. An all-male company.”
“I would certainly want to take a still with me so that I could … I've been hoping that the the island did contain barley, I would be able to make my own [whisky].”
“I would probably sink into a state of soporific alcoholism, I should think, and give up hope. When the ship did come by, I probably wouldn't even notice it.”