Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, quiz master, cabaret performer and panel show host, best known for hosting the radio panel game Just a Minute.
On the island
Eight records
It's a wonderful world, and when you get to my age you realize what a wonderful world it is.
My next piece of music is the kind of music that I love to relax to... and what I'm fascinated by musicians is the way they improvise on a musical instrument.
I love language. And I love the way people use language... I'm always deeply impressed with how a singer can take the words of a good lyric and interpret them, and bring them alive
When I was doing Cabaret, one of the songs I used to come on to was a version of Coal Porter's Just One of Those Things. And Ella Fitzgerald, who is probably my favorite singer, has recorded this
New things were happening in the theatre, and there was a musical came over from America called Hare... And one of the songs from that musical, which has always been with me ever since, is The Age of Aquarius.
It is the signature tune for just a minute, Chopin's Minute Waltz. And if I was to listen to this, I would have so many wonderful memories coming flooding back.
Children Will ListenFavourite
emotional and nostalgic. Nostalgic because it comes from a Stephen Sontime musical, Into the Woods, which I had the pleasure of working in in in the nineties.
Yefim Bronfman, Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen
It's so rousing that you you get carried away and it stimulates you to carry on and go out and achieve something.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:41Do you find the role of straight man satisfying enough?
I obviously do. You can find that role in life. Quite young I did, because my brother was very charismatic and dominant, and uh I had this insecurity from my stutter and dyslexia... But I got my laughs by allowing myself to be put upon.
Presenter asks
3:36What sort of an upbringing was it [in Grantham]?
Well, it was a what they called upper middle class. And my father was a successful doctor. He's he's a lovely fellow, and I know his patients loved him very much.
Presenter asks
4:47How did you know that [you were the least favoured of the three children]?
I think it's true that my mother was somewhat irritated. I think I reminded her of her brother whom she didn't get on with. And when I showed these signs of wanting to be a performer, she freaked out because she thought everybody in the show business must be debased and depraved and I was so weak and ineffectual.
The keepsakes
The book
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Arthur Quiller-Couch
I love language, I love words, I love poetry. And it would be lovely just reminded all those great poets that I've read, you know. Blake was my favourite. and Browning and There's so many of them. They're they're all in it.
The luxury
a little portable radio with an endless supply of batteries
Well the other alternative is not useless, but it's more in the luxury field. And that is a little portable radio with an endless supply of batteries. You can say permanently tuned in to Radio Four.
Presenter asks
Did you feel emotional or upset by the fact your parents weren't connecting with you?
I think you're being a very clever psychiatrist at the moment. No, not at all. And I don't remember it... I think that my personality didn't gell very easily with my mother's. And while she obviously loved me and I I think I irritated her.
Presenter asks
16:10How did your parents then respond to this [your career], having for years said you mustn't do this?
Once I proved it to them I could do it. They came round and they were very supportive. I mean I I hadn't degenerated to becoming an alcoholic or finishing up in the gutter somewhere, so obviously I was okay.
Presenter asks
26:41Why is that [that you described Sale of the Century as a professional albatross]?
People looked upon quizzes as sort of down market entertainment, and the press were very condescending and dismissive about it... It went on so long, it took me a long time after the show finished to re establish myself as an actor-performer in my own right.
“the pleasure of getting an audience, reaction, and that uplift, especially when they laugh, Nothing replaces it, and if you Really love that. It inspires you to keep going, and that's probably why I'm still working at my advanced age.”
“I think that my personality didn't gell very easily with my mother's. And while she obviously loved me and I I think I irritated her. And I was always fooling around and I was being told off for fooling around. And when you're often told you're a bit foolish, your defence is to act foolish. And if it gets a laugh as well, you go on doing it.”
“It's the biggest effort of concentration of any job I do. And though I thoroughly enjoy it now, because it gives you a sort of faissant as you set off, but you're never confident in your profession if it's going to work.”