Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for his stage and film work, including a role in 'Bent' on Broadway.
On the island
Eight records
Siegfried's Funeral March (from Götterdämmerung)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
I find that Wagner gets me going, he energizes me. In fact, this is the piece of music I was once I was playing in Bent on Broadway. Before going on, I'd put it on in my dressing room. And to the sounds of these enormous noises, these energizing, thrilling noises, I'd rush on stage and do my stuff.
The Christmas Day Speech (from Henry V)
I remember seeing it as a child in our local cinema and literally falling out of my seat with astonishment and pleasure, being totally thrilled. And I suppose it's one of those seminal influences, wanting to do what one saw up there.
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622: II. AdagioFavourite
Alfred Prinz, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Karl Böhm
I remember hearing this record. Once by moonlight, when I was very young, we were doing Romeo and Juliet down in Cornwall at the Minack Theatre, and someone had put this on and it floated out over the starry night. And it it was so beautiful, it was the quintessence of beauty, that I broke down and cried
I saw Callas giving this her last performance as Tusker in London at Covent Garden. Again an event I shall never forget. I also I'm crazy about the human voice. I'm mad about her voice, and I think on a desert island to have at your disposal the quintessence of beauty as distilled by the human voice will be quite wonderful.
On one's desert island one will think back to one's roots and to England, and one will need to laugh and to be silly and light hearted occasionally. And uh there's one song I love. I mean I thought of no card, but there's one song that makes me laugh every time I hear it.
Send in the Clowns (from A Little Night Music)
I've chosen this for several reasons. Because it represents a lot of friends. Glynnis is a friend... Hal Prince is an old old friend of mine... And Steve Sondheim, again is a New York friend. And I'd love to have the Broadway musical represented somewhere in this list. And I think this song, it makes me tingle. It's wonderful.
Beim Schlafengehen (from Four Last Songs)
I'm a huge, huge fan of Kirite Kanawa, and of her recording of one of Strauss's last songs
I wanted to have something by the Beatles for sentimental reasons that, you know, in this having lived through through the sixties in London, somehow their music was the quintessence of that experience... What John Lennon sang in that wonderful song of his, Imagine, is so important. And the message is vital.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34Could you take solitude?
A certain amount of it. I I think, yes, I would. I'd love to. You could adjust. Yes, I was a loner, very much a loner as a child, and I I enjoyed being alone. But since I got married I haven't been alone. I don't know whether I could really uh readapt to it.
Presenter asks
1:19How long did it take you to make out your list for the Desert Island?
I thought that unless I did it off the top of my head, almost subconsciously, I'd never turn up with a list at all. So it took me, I think, a minute.
Presenter asks
3:59Did you see a lot of theatre as a child?
Yes, I remember seeing a lot of school plays and then when I lived in Bromley in Kent it was near enough to London to be able to commute out and see a lot of things and I remember, you know, going to the Old Vic as a child and seeing astonishing things.
Presenter asks
5:28The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
I think one would never get bored. It's one of those things I've been saving up to do, like gardening and golf, astronomy.
Had you at that time, as a teenager, made up your mind that [acting] was what you wanted to do?
Oh, by no means no... I think at university I knew that it was something that I had to do professionally. I had to get it out of my system, or I couldn't live with myself unless I'd put it to the test.
Presenter asks
13:00Did you find [Franco Zeffirelli] difficult to work with?
Not exactly difficult. Demanding, yes. And I love directors who direct and demand. But fundamentally I think what works so well is that when Zeffarelli is working with Anglo-Saxon actors is that they tend to damp down his slightly operatic excess, and at the same time he's capable of bringing out something over and above the English reserve.
Presenter asks
26:07Where did you film [Robinson Crusoe]?
Just about everywhere you can think of, where there's a desert island... Half of it was spent in Tunisia, on the island of Jerba. And then the other half glorious, crazy half was in the Caribbean, going from one island to the other, from Guadeloupe to Martinique to Saint Lucia. Dominica. and a month on a tiny trip of an island called uh Union in the Grenadines.
“I think at university I knew that it was something that I had to do professionally. I had to get it out of my system, or I couldn't live with myself unless I'd put it to the test.”
“As long as you're carrying something, it means you're welcome.”
“having played a lot of polite, shy, introspective Englishman teachers for a long time I I seemed to corner the market in them. And I've always tried to kind of ring the changes wherever possible.”