Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A comic actor who rose to fame in the BBC series 'Toottie Frutti' after early appearances in 'The Comic Strip' and 'The Young Ones'.
On the island
Eight records
my mum, who's a uh a pianist, used to play it when I was wee and I can remember crawling around under the old Bestein and the that wonderful noise.
the first time I'd ever heard anybody improvising. I everything before that had been written down and … I heard Armstrong playing and just thought it was just I can remember the feeling of first listening to somebody improvising and thinking it was just magic.
Letter from AmericaFavourite
I just love this. … it's sort of become a second national anthem in Scotland. … it's really about what's happened to Scotland since the clearances
Sanctus (from Fauré's Requiem, Op. 48)
It's a wonderful piece of work. … it's a curious mixture of music, because on the one hand it is very holy, because it's all about the transition when you die between being a human being and being a spirit. Uh but it's also very sexy, very sensuous
John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards
reminds me of a very happy time in my life when I was in New York, um, hanging about with a lot of underground filmmakers
on our first date I turned up in an open car. … it's kind of our song.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:22You make a very strong differentiation between being a comic actor and a comedian. What is the distinction?
Well, it's not really because of any sort of snobbery … I just think that being a comedian is such a different thing really. A comedian really is somebody who stands up alone on the stage and offers the world his sensibility, which is an enormously brave thing to do. And I get up on the stage and hide behind sensibilities that are usually written by other people. And I think it's a fair distinction.
Presenter asks
2:19Do you suffer when you work? Your sister said she could see the anguish behind the mask.
I get very nervous. I think all performers do, get very, very nervous before they perform. … you have these terrible sort of nightmares about what might happen and of course anything could happen. … There's always the possibility you're going to completely forget what you're doing. It does happen. I mean, it happened to Olivier, for goodness sake, so it can happen to the rest of us.
Presenter asks
5:38What did your parents expect of you, this chap who made everybody laugh? What did they think you were going to do with yourself?
I don't know, really. I suppose they expected me to do something respectable, like be a lawyer or something like that.
The keepsakes
The book
Raymond Chandler
I'd be missing the cities... So I think it would have to be Raymond Chandler.
Presenter asks
9:38When did you make the big leap into deciding that you could charge people to see you perform?
I suppose in the sort of mid seventies really, I joined a company, the San Quentin Theatre Workshop … I think my sister fixed it up. They were looking for somebody who could play an American Heavy. … So I think I was doing my Marlon Brown impersonation in a bar and this fellow said, 'How would you like to do that for six nights a week and get paid for it?' And I thought, 'Aye, that'll do.' So it wasn't really planned at all.
Presenter asks
30:33What really worries you?
I suppose I worry about dying and things like that, like most people do.
“I think it's a fiercely brave thing to do.”
“I can remember crawling around under the old Bestein and the that wonderful noise. Most people don't realize that you actually get the best noise out of a grand piano if you lie underneath it.”
“I'm the grand old man with alternative commodeur.”
“I'm too big to get into a racing car. That's about the only size thing that's really deeply upset me.”
“The courage to be ordinary, as they say. And it's come to me late in life.”