Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for playing Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine and voicing Wallace in the Oscar winning Wallace and Grommit animations.
On the island
Eight records
Iona Brown with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner
Because I let me tell you that one day few years ago, outside Saddlers Wells Theatre, I saw the great man himself, Vaughan Williams, and he was surrounded by young ladies who wanted his uh autograph or possibly some other favour. And uh I just stared at him and thought this This oak tree has written the most beautiful piece of English. symphonic writing that there has ever been. The lark ascending is perfection.
I was very fortunate, long after I'd become an out and out fan of his, to actually meet Richard Rogers. We were doing A Shot in the Dark, a play that his company, Williamson's, managed. He came Richard Rogers came to see the opening production and uh he approached me Shorter than me only just, but shorter than me, but so dapper, so smartly turned out, a pale I can see it now, a pale grey three-piece suit. And uh I said, uh mister Rogers, I'm sorry to, you know, stop you, but I just want to say thank you for your music. It has meant so much to me.
Well, he was a great jazz pianist that's the first thing to be said. And secondly, of course, he was a natural born comic. I mean, the opening bars of this we're going to play now says it all.
Oh, well, really, it's because of Gary Miller. The first musical that I did was called She Loves Me. Gary Miller was first of all, he was just a lovely chap, and it was my first musical, which he quickly found out, you know. And so he sort of coached me through it and helped me to behave on the stage when I wasn't actually doing anything.
Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 99: II. Andantino alla romanza
Well, first of all, because I like the piece very much. But I have a sort of quirky reason for telling it, and of course it my reason makes no sense at all, and that is that I've never actually heard it on the radio. And so I in the wildly mistaken idea that perhaps it's never been played, I thought I'd like to have it here. But it is a it's a charming, charming piece.
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130: IV. Alla danza tedesca
Yes. Well, I read a book and it was called Beethoven: The Romantic. And that very title, of course, intrigued me. One of the chapters, or two or three of the chapters, were devoted to the string quartets. And it was then that I started to collect them. And this opus a hundred and thirty, the Aladansa Tadesca N movement, is quite comfortable going. Uh don't think uh you you know, you don't feel it's very, very serious.
During the war, when I was in the RAF, we used to be in huts and so on, and we had Americans on the camp as well. So we used to get the American Forces Network, and I remember hearing this song All I remember is you. It's haunted me all this time.
Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82: III. Allegro moltoFavourite
Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Sibelius was introduced to me during the war by Flight Sergeant Davidson. He had practically everything that had been recorded of Sibelius on records, and so we started to play them. And of course I realized that this man was Ah, next to Beethoven. I have to put Beethoven first, but if I had to choose, he'd be the second. He just wrote stuff that was totally individual. Nobody has ever come near writing like Sibelius.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:11Did you always think there was something about [Last of the Summer Wine]?
Well, I had done Roy Clark the Author, I had done his first two television plays, which had no connection at all with Last of the Summer Wine, and indeed one in one of them I played a homosexual transvestite. Uh so, of course, when he came to write Clegg in Last the Summer Wine, I suppose I was the obvious choice.
Presenter asks
6:26What was the family home like? What can you remember of it?
Well, I know I was born in Twickenham, and my father was in the bank, Barclay's Bank, and I assume, I presume, that he was moved from the south of London to the north of London, because all my early days at school and all the rest of it were in North London, in the Palms Green Southgate area.
Presenter asks
9:07Is it true that you didn't actually want to leave school?
Yes, the school was Minchendon, and it was named after the Minchendon Oak in Southgate, which is in the Domesday book, and presumably still is. And uh the staff were good, we they taught us well and we never had any canings well maybe the odd caning, but you know, that was just to keep his arm in. Um and I thought, why leave? You know, why can't I just stay here? ... But when it came to it, uh headmaster, Mr AG Gibbs, lovely man, said, um, Peter, yes, yes, sir. Well, you you don't seem to be doing anything. Uh no, that's quite right, sir, quite right. Well, I'm afraid I'm afraid you'll have to leave. And so I did.
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Works of P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
I've choose the collected works of P G Woodhouse. The trouble is, of course, I can't read, so I don't know quite how I'd know. Perhaps there's a recorded version of it.
The luxury
When I was a boy the finite piece of mechano that you could buy was a number seven outfit. It came in a wooden cabinet, and I remember seeing it in Hamleys or one of those shops once. I can't remember how much it was when I was a boy, but it was be far beyond my father. But yeah, if I could take that with me to the desert island I'd be very happy.
Presenter asks
13:58It was whilst you were in the RAF then, Peter Salas, that you had your first taste of the stage. Can you tell me what happened?
Yes, I was teaching the theory of radio, and one day one of my class came to see me, and he said, Well, I'm going to put on a production of Hay Fever by Noel Cowd, and I'd like you to play the leading man. Will you do it? and I said, Yes.
Presenter asks
27:51How has [macular degeneration] affected you to do with your sight, obviously?
Well, I can't see to read. That's the simplest way of putting it. I just know, like sitting here now talking to you, I can't actually see you. If we if if uh you know, I if I were shown a picture of you tomorrow, I wouldn't know who you were. Do you see with me?
“As soon as I was on the stage I just felt So at home. I wasn't sharing off or anything, it was just self-confidence. I just knew that this is what I could do better than anything else.”
“I've never really been very ambitious. I was just fortunate to be the right size mentally and physically to fit into the sort of parts that they gave me. Oh no, I mean, you can't really be modest and play Hamlet, if you know what I mean.”
“I don't think of myself as mischievous. I think of myself as trying all the time to be smart, which of course is fatal. ... To put it rather crudely, I'm a smartass, or I try and be. I try and turn everything into a sort of a A joke.”