Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Actress best known for her long-running role as Jill Archer in the radio soap The Archers.
On the island
Eight records
I did have the most amazing love affair with American musicals… I've always been stage struck, so Shakespeare is my greatest love.
The Shepherd's Song (from Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68)
I'd never seen him cry, and I thought this is what I want to be part of.
My very first musical memory of live music was a brass band in Derby… I was so excited I followed them and they had to drag me back.
Yes, very special memories. Of first love and of that wonderful giddying time of being in London.
Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew
It is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
I want to have one French record, and it's going to be a happy one because of what happened in Paris recently.
I noticed that most of my stuff's been male-orientated and I'm really quite a feminist, so I'm determined to have a woman's voice.
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 - IV. AllegrettoFavourite
Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein
which just overwhelms me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04How does it feel to be part of the Archers?
You don't ask yourself how it feels, you just do it. After a lot of years, it's just second nature, really, plus nerves.
Presenter asks
6:35What have been your favourite storylines in The Archers over the years?
I like them all. I'm really pleased about the the Titchener story, because I think that this business about bullying wives and being nasty to wives. It's time it was aired, and I'm fairly glad that we're doing it. My favourite, very, very favourite story was in the olden days I wasn't allowed anywhere near the animals really. But one day a golden eagle came into the yard at Brookfield, and Giles was the first person to see it. And that was quite thrilling, 'cause I'm a bit of a bird watcher.
Presenter asks
24:44How on earth did you cope with your husband's death and bringing up your son?
I was really more concerned with what it would do to him, and of course he was he wouldn't say. And then you see the guilt of being old and having a child. So the guilt became worse because not only had you to bring up this child with no money, but you had to stay alive because you didn't want to make him an orphan.
The keepsakes
The book
a Discworld novel featuring Granny Weatherwax
Terry Pratchett
I'd like to have a cup of tea with Granny Weatherwax when I'm on the island.
The luxury
because I will want to attract some living thing to me while I'm there.
Presenter asks
27:40How often do you find yourself having to defend The Archers in public?
I don't ever defend it, but I do listen and everybody knows I listen and they know I take it very seriously, so that I don't think they'd ever dare criticise it to me. We actors, of course, knock it a bit sometimes in the green room, but in the nicest, gentlest way.
Presenter asks
29:16Have you ever seriously considered leaving The Archers?
Well, of course I couldn't now, because I couldn't do anything else. Now there was a look in your eye that showed me that you had seriously cared. You see, I did go from time to time when they gave me a bit of time off… I went when Charles was about two, three… I have a loyalty to the programme.
“I'd never seen him cry, and I thought this is what I want to be part of.”
“It was all to do with these things that I at the cinema, you see, I lived in this fantasy world about love.”
“I was totally useless.”
“You must not go under.”
“I just think women are wonderful.”
“I would miss terribly laughter, and I would terribly miss people.”