Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A playwright, director, producer, and theatrical manager.
On the island
Eight records
Well, neither of my parents were in the theatrical business, but my father introduced me first of all to Sid Field in the variety theatre, and I did actually fall out of my seat as a 12-year-old watching Sid Field and Jerry Desmond. And he was also a great cinema goer, as was my mother. And I was raised on Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and the Marx brothers. And I think anybody who sees my plays today can see from whence they came.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Claudio Arrau with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Colin Davis
To remind you of the song of Norway. Indeed.
Hound DogFavourite
Synonymous with my own career, Elvis Presley started and of course became this amazing star and he transformed pop music. Then when he died, so young and so tragically like that ... we had recently taken over a theatre and we didn't know how to open it. We didn't have the first show. And one morning I woke up and said, We're going to do a show called Elvis about Elvis Presley. ... it was a huge success in the West End, and to see the effect it had on audiences was wonderful.
It's the curtain up music on all the plays that one's written since one realized that infidelity was a good thing to be on to. ... The other reason for wanting this record is because I've been very lucky in my own marriage. And there's been a lot of love in in that and within my own family.
Well, I think uh most appropriate would be a number from Charlie Girl, and one of my favorites from that was was Joe Brown singing My Favorite Occupation.
The Four Seasons: Winter (Second Movement)
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Karl Münchinger
I find it over-emotional. I tend not to to listen to it when she is, because one's likely to burst into tears. And actually, we used it in The production I was mentioning just now with Frances de la Tour duet for one ... and when she came to this speech with this music underneath it, I used to cry every single time.
It's from their playing our song, one of our big successes, and it's Gemma Craven singing I Still Believe in Love.
Well, this record I really would enjoy to have on the island, and I'd play it. At the Going Down of the Sun every evening, and it's The Laughing Policeman by Charles Penrose.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:37Could you endure loneliness on this island?
Yes, I I could endure loneliness, but I think I also have an inventive uh streak in me, and I think I'd always be working out ways of how to uh escape.
Presenter asks
0:37How important to you is music?
I tend not to listen to music overmuch because I find that it pulls on my emotional strings.
Presenter asks
2:48Whereabouts were you all going [when you were born]?
I was born in St Thomas' Hospital. ... We were living in Clapham at the time. I came from a very poor family. My father left Jarrow in the late twenties and met my mother, who was a cockney girl. And they had a very hard time of it, and they scrimped and scraped to send me to a good school because they were worried about me being brought up in Clapham.
Presenter asks
2:57Had you worked towards this [acting career]? I mean had you taught yourself to sing or to play the piano or anything of that sort?
The keepsakes
The book
Neil Simon
I'd take the complete works of Neil Simon. That would keep me amused. It's a lot of plays. But I think he is the finest modern comedy writer, and some of his plays he moves you to laughter, which is really the secret.
The luxury
I take a stone polisher. Because my mother-in-law gave me a stone polisher for Christmas several Christmases ago. ... And I want to get round to using this stone polisher, but I haven't yet found the time. And it seems like a very soothing hobby to have.
No, I just wanted to be an actor. I I I found very early on at school that if you made people laugh especially, that this was rather a a good thing.
Presenter asks
8:49How long did you stay with the [fit-up] company?
I stayed two years. ... We had a basic repertoire of about sixty plays. ... And we used to build the set in the morning, put the set up in the morning, borrow the props from the locals during lunch time, and then rehearse. ... the play in the afternoon, and then sold the tickets before the show started. ... I would have stayed there forever, but the the company finally went broke and I was paid five pounds a week.
Presenter asks
18:58How do you collaborate [with John Chapman]?
Well, we do it exactly the way you and I are doing it now. We sit opposite each other ... But we don't sit down until we know exactly what the story is going to be, and then we sit down and map it out in some detail. ... our plays are really concocted. ... more than written, and we would sit down pr and probably spend the first three weeks mapping it out carefully uh before we ever wrote a word. And then we just took it in turns to right. And we would talk it through. We b both John and I being actors, w we would act it through.
“I used to play the trumpet, and it very nearly blew my two front teeth out, and wh when I was a young man I was hoping to be uh either Clark Gable or Laurence Olivier. I didn't think I was going to sort of you know turn out to be a cross between Groucho Marks and Bob Hope.”
“I can remember one of my first dreadful remarks at at school was when I was asked you've done cube roots and squared roots, what haven't you done? And I said beat roots. And it seemed to get rather my sense of humor hasn't changed much ever since.”
“And as the producer I used to sometimes go in just to catch the end of the first act and I would stand at the back And when she came to this speech with this music underneath it, I used to cry every single time. And I used to think, This is ridiculous. I'm the produ what am I crying for? This is just a play. I I should be laughing'cause the house is full. And there I'd be with the tears streaming down my face. And of course th this is why the theatre will never die. You know, that there is no experience like it.”
“One was beginning to feel that comedy was kind of placed in a in a second division to tragedy. And in in my opinion, it's just the reverse side of the same coin. There isn't any difference.”