Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for playing Phil Archer in the long-running radio drama serial The Archers for 50 years.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Well, it's Benjamin Britton, and one of the thrills about Britton is that very early in my life I realized this was a young, new, English major composer, so This particular piece is also written by somebody I was very interested in, W. H. Auden. And so it's a it's a happy marriage, but it's a poem I was never very taken with. But suddenly Ben Britton's setting of it, I think, is absolutely magical.
Symphony No. 94 in G Major, 'Surprise': III. Menuetto
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham)
At the time I didn't think it was anything extraordinary, but the school orchestra came to take part in the school orchestra competition, and there were two set pieces. And I played the piano.
Where Is the Life That Late I Led?
I saw a couple of minotti operas and The original production of Coalporter's Kiss Me Kate. And the audience in New York, when this um the song we're going to hear now, whereas the life that late I led they they they got every single line, and I s I couldn't believe that the whole theatre it must have been wonderful to play to, because they got every single point.
Concerto in D Minor for Two Pianos: II. Larghetto
I love so much of his work because He starts and and suddenly realises, well, things aren't as bad as they might be. I mean, the piece we're going to hear, you think, Ah, Mozart and then he says, Ha ha, gotcha No, it's not, it's it's m it's me, it's Poolag It's joyous, it's it's peachy it on that desert island I shall need this sort of uplift.
Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat Minor: IV. Maestoso - Brioso ed ardentemente
Philharmonia Orchestra (conducted by the composer)
I always get boo goosebumps when I hear the very first part of this of this last movement of of Walton's first symphony.
Symphony of Psalms: III. Alleluia. Laudate Dominum
English Bach Festival Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Leonard Bernstein)
I've always been interested in Stravinsky, but this particular work happened almost by accident. I heard it. Just before I had those heart attacks. and when I was in intensive care, I was allowed to have a little radio... and I listened to the symphony itself. which I've always found enormously comforting.
Sir Adrian Bolt, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Richard Lewis
I've been enchanted by it. It's a it's really a kind of talk or lecture by Adrian Bolt describing all the choral works of Elgar with musical illustrations. and uh if I'm not cheating slightly, I'd like to hear Adrian Bolt's splendid voice and uh Perhaps one or even two excerpts from Elgar
String Quintet in C Major, D. 956: II. AdagioFavourite
This young man was doomed. He was a sick man. He knew he was dying. And the music just seems to happen. He doesn't seem to have to struggle for it. It's there. And I think in those Inevitable bleak, black moments one'll get on the island. I won't be able to say, Oh yes, Schubert knew.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:57Can you really be so ambivalent about somebody [Phil Archer] you've spent fifty years with?
That's how I started off, in fact. I resigned after three months. I didn't think this was going to be my life at all.
Presenter asks
1:56Why didn't you want to go on with it [The Archers] then in the beginning?
Well, I wanted to be a serious writer. I wanted to see my name in lights in the West End. I'd started by wanting to be one of those Oxford or Cambridge Dons who have a very comfortable life and occasionally pop up to town and direct Olivia or Gielgud, then go back again.
Presenter asks
2:52But tell me, do you like him? Do you like Phil Archer?
I suppose I must do. I yes, I must like him, because if he's asked to do things that I don't think he would do, I I I'm upset, you know, I get a bit hurt
Presenter asks
11:33How did you afford [university]?
The keepsakes
The book
Aldous Huxley
It's his attempt to find the essence of most of the major religions of the world in the form of extracts from their writings and his very dry, unemotional commentary on them.
The luxury
There's a thing called an orrery... I could play for hours with it, and also study the southern sky... and perhaps make a little bit more sense of the universe.
I did something which is very common now, but was unheard of then, which was I worked my way through college. Also, because of the war, there was a thing called fire watching. If you signed on before seven o'clock, you got four and sixpence, and your supper, and a bed. So I didn't need any digs, and I slept in the Air Aid Warden's post.
Presenter asks
23:01Did you approve of the fact that this [the death of Grace Archer] was a brilliant piece of competitive scheduling?
No, I don't see it as as that at all, though there was a much more compelling reason, I think. Gradually more and more opinions were coming up that the archers were getting cosy, and then the dreaded word predictable came. And we weren't going to have that. And they decided they would kill off one of the most favorite characters.
Presenter asks
24:14How did the actress who played Grace take it?
She wasn't very happy. In fact, she was extremely unhappy. She met me with trembling hands, because we weren't given the scripts until just before we recorded them. And she said, They've done it. They've done it. They've killed me. and was terribly upset.
“I put him on when I go into the studio and hang him on the hook when I leave. I've never really got that close to him.”
“I did something which is very common now, but was unheard of then, which was I worked my way through college.”
“I never met any of them. I I don't think I've ever ever met any of my grandchildren. They're merely a disembodied voice that comes out of microphone.”
“I've lived alone from choice for a greater part of my life. Of course it's it's it's been qualified aloneness. In other words, I'm always popping into the studio or or whatever, whereas on a desert island you literally are alone. But I think I could I can cope with that.”