Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Illustrator whose drawings brought to life characters in classic children's books like James and the Giant Peach and The BFG.
On the island
Eight records
String Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters"Favourite
I when I discovered Janacek, I suppose it was when I was a student, I thought it was wonderful because it sounds like what drawing feels like.
it's got that sort of wonderful spirit of poise and vivacity and energy which I admire in a lot of French music.
it gathers up both the sense of reading Shakespeare, of being at Cambridge, of encountering new kinds of music, and so it takes me back to that time, as well as being, I think, very good to listen to now as well.
Dawn (from Four Sea Interludes)
I like it because it's got that sense of flatness and water that I associate with the marshes that I spend a lot of my time in.
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
if I wanted to be reminded of a party at the RCA, I mean any of those parties at the RCA in the late sixties and seventies, this would do it for me.
it might be nice to um have a hint of memory of the weather back home. So this is Flanders and Swan, who I remember seeing on the stage in the fifties and sixties, and this is very terse and to the point.
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Casals, who again um plays it, as I say, as though he was playing it with some wonderfully scratchy implement.
It seemed just right. I went out of the Petit Palais one day, was lucky enough to get in a taxi, got into the taxi, and this was playing on the radio.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:54Is it a pen you use when you're drawing?
It's mostly a pen I use. I use an assortment of things. What I like best is a scratchy pen. It's it's an old-fashioned writing pen, and it's called a waverly nib. And you can feel it when you're drawing. You know, you can feel the shapes that you're making. That's what I mostly use, but I mean, as I get older and do it more often, I sometimes use reed pens or I use a quill.
Presenter asks
2:12Have you always drawn? Is there a sense in which you're sort of compelled from some sort of inward force to get it out on paper?
I suppose so. I mean, with hindsight. I mean, when I was a small boy, I just used to draw because I liked doing funny drawings. You know, and I didn't think. that it was drawing or drawing was a special activity. And then it was later on that I realized that what I really liked was drawing.
Presenter asks
2:40So were you a little boy with a lot of hijinks? Was there mischief in you?
No, this is vicarious. I mean, this is this is instead, you know, I mean the the pictures are full of people running about and jumping and dancing, something I do very badly indeed if I ever do it. And no, it it I can imagine those things happening and I actually kind of mime them when I'm drawing them.
The keepsakes
The book
A big volume with a lot of Dickens in it
Charles Dickens
Or perhaps if there's a big volume with a lot of Dickens in it, that's probably what I would have to settle for.
The luxury
Everlasting supply of watercolour paper
what I really want is an everlasting supply of arsh watercolour paper. But of course, I don't regard that as a luxury. It's a necessity.
Presenter asks
11:18What did your parents make of [you going to university]?
I think they oh no, they were pleased. They were pleased about that. Um I don't think they had quite the sense of of what it meant really, I think, you know. I mean, I think they were pleased for me. And of course, having passed through the thirties, which was a a a difficult time for employment, I mean, they they were anxious that my brother and I should have reliable jobs.
Presenter asks
13:37Did you start really having a good time [at university]?
I started having a good time in one way because I was reading a lot of books, but I wasn't it was curious. I think I was rather we were at a rather serious college, at least I felt one ought to be serious. And so I didn't do a lot of things by way of parties and theatricals and things of that kind. I think I was probably regarded as a bit of a disappointment as a student in that department.
Presenter asks
21:25How does the collaboration work [between the writer and the illustrator]?
Well, it's it's it's fascinating because I mean sometimes people say to you, No, you must enjoy doing your own work best, you know, but really I like collaborating with people. And what you do first of all is you collaborate with what they've written. So you read it intensely and you read it several times and you try and get the atmosphere of what that is, and then you do some drawings and try and draw what you feel is there, and where it should go, and which bits you should draw.
“if you're relaxed, you draw much better because you're thinking about what that is, what that gesture is that that person is making. You're not thinking about am I going to spoil it, you know, which is which is the important thing, I think.”
“I turned down the job [at Punch] ... I was getting out of jokes, and I wanted to get, I mean, somewhere in me, I wanted to be a book illustrator, you know, kind of thing.”
“I think doing it twice, which effectively what I did [with the BFG drawings], was like cooking something twice, you know. I think the flavours got better.”