Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Actor known for Siegfried Farnan in All Creatures Great and Small and the Minister of Magic in Harry Potter.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, D. 125: II. Andante
After the trauma of being shipwrecked and cast up delighted, as I said a moment ago, I would be to be on a desert island I will need, I think, something to calm my nerves ... Symphony Number Two, particularly if we can hear it, the second movement, the Andante and variations, is the most calming piece of music.
Two Ladies in the Shade of the Banana Tree
Truman Capote and Harold Arlen
This is a very romantically associated record. It's uh a musical called The House of Flowers ... I'd like to have it with me to remind me of New York and to remind me of meeting Sally and starting to pursue her across the Atlantic
Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Lorin Maazel
Record number three is a very, very theatrical Choice, I think it's the most theatrical piece of music that I know, and I must have something with me to remind me of theatre when there is no theatre on my island.
The music that Walton wrote for the beginning of the kind of jolly part the the leading up to the the wedding, at the end, the happy end of the play, after all the battle is done, was actually taken from an Auvergne folk song And the original in medieval French and local, very local French, is on That Splendid Record by Vittoria de Rosin-Giles. That I would want to have with me.
Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102
David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by George Szell
The Brahms double concerto for violin and and cello seems to me to represent ... more About The relationship of two creatures. Call it, if you like, how a marriage can come to be, how a friendship can work, how a cooperation through battle and uh disagreement can be made to work in human terms.
24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1: No. 9 in E major
I'd like to have with me something for the solo violin. played by an absolute master, an unequalled player in my view.
Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
In that hot climate And because I love Almost everything he wrote. I would want to hear something very northern. Very cold something by Sebelius.
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130: V. CavatinaFavourite
My last disc must be something by. Beat heaven. ... my favourite of all the quartets is I think at the moment, anyway, it may change, I suppose. A's number one hundred and thirty, B major. And my favorite movement. Is the fifth movement, the Cavatina
A most wonderful number sung by Pearl Bailey from a production in uh in 1955 in New York, which was a complete flop. It was um directed by Peter Brooke, A House of Flowers.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: II. Allegretto
BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Because when I was still at school. I got permission to go to a concert, I think it was in Leicester, where the London Philharmonic was playing uh the Bruch. Violin concerto number one, followed by the Beethoven seventh. and I was so entranced by it that I went and saw them afterwards, and they said they were short of money, so I went back, and in my house at school I managed to raise a small, a tiny sum of money, which I sent to them in an envelope. And they were so thrilled they said we're coming to play at your school. Would you like to choose the programme? So away I went, and I chose the Bruch Wahlen concerto, followed by the Beethoven Sevens, and they kindly played it. It was simply thrilling.
Anyhow, that extraordinary lady who who recorded and over recorded herself and then over recorded again. And this um makes me think of uh a time when uh I was passionately in love and played it again and again and again. But also it has a connection because the one uh the piece I want played is called The Long Ships and this has a Scandinavian connection and uh I have uh deep connections with Scandinavia.
Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14: II. Un bal
Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Semyon Bychkov
The uh the waltz from the beginning of the I suppose you'd call it the second movement of Berlioz. I love Berlioz. His uh Symphonie Fantastique.
Suite Française, FP 80: V. Sicilienne
Orchestre National de France, conducted by Charles Dutoit
But this piece, which is by Francis Poulanc from his Petit Suite Francaise, was written specifically for the theatre, which is one of the reasons why it's included. Also, it makes me cry every time I hear it. The play was called Larine Margot.
Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Op. 104: IV. Allegro molto
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle
I love Sibelius and this particular piece. There's a touch of the Sebelius and the stretching forests and lakes of his Finland, and then suddenly he turns in this piece sort of back to the eighteenth century. It's wonderful.
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130: II. Presto
Beethoven again, two Beethovens. But are you surprised? It's a string quartet in B flat, and an extraordinary, unusual, rather like the Sebelius, in the midst of a very heavy, deeply passionate, philosophical Peace. comes this extraordinary little dance movement.
Westminster Abbey Choir, BBC Singers and London Brass, conducted by Martin Baker
This is the sort of final bit of a work called De Profundis, which is composed by a nephew of mine, John Hardy, who's a very fine composer. And I think it's very appropriate for somebody who's obviously going to perish on the Desert Island, because nobody would think it worthwhile to come and rescue an old man of my years.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:36Can you think of any one consolation for being ruined on a desert island?
Yes. I would very much at this moment like to be marooned on a desert island. I'm uh Fairly tired after doing thirteen episodes of my current television series ... if Nature took a hand and threw me up on a desert island I should be extremely grateful. It would be a great consolation.
Presenter asks
1:13Is there any precedent in your family for the theatre or the art in general?
No. No, there isn't. None at all.
Presenter asks
5:57What happened to you when you came down [from Oxford]?
I went straight to Stratford.
Presenter asks
22:48What are your qualifications for being a castaway? Could you put up a hut?
Yes, I think I could put up a hut. Um I've never tried that Boy Scout business of making fire without a box of matches, I'm ashamed to say. But I believe it. It surely can work. I suppose I could make fires. Uh I could look after myself reasonably well, I fancy.
The keepsakes
The book
The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose
Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy
I'm going to take along a book which I of which I'm the co-author... it's an enormous book, a sort of book of reference... for the whole history of famous longbow... and there's so much in all of it which really I need to go back on because it's been half my life.
The luxury
Young Lady in Profile by Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis
I want the one, partly because I think it's absolutely beautiful and partly because I grew up with a copy of it at home.
Presenter asks
4:00Do you think it's a good idea for television to go back [to All Creatures Great and Small], or would you rather, as an actor, see them do new and fresh stuff?
Well, I think it's an interesting idea, and they won't let go now that they've at last realized it was a success. They won't take their teeth out of it.
Presenter asks
8:21How do you manage to nail [playing Winston Churchill] without it either being an impersonation or a parody? Where do you begin with that?
I've fought and fought and fought not to do it. But um I suggested masses of other people who might have done it.
Presenter asks
12:00Being a passionate person can be a difficult thing to live with, has it sort of ruled you through your life, do you think?
Oh yes, it's hell. Absolute hell.
Presenter asks
12:30What were you doing to worry your parents to that degree [to seek advice from a psychiatrist]?
I suppose being rebellious, tiresome, um exploding, you know, all sorts of things. It's no use moaning about them now, it's too late, anyway.
Presenter asks
20:30You left Oxford determined to become an actor. Where had that passion really begun?
I think at the beginning I think I emerged as an actor. Really. I think I was dissatisfied with what I'd found. and uh decided to become other people. ... I didn't think much of myself. ... I said, I want to be another one, a different one. I don't know, I don't know. I just love the idea of being other people.
Presenter asks
34:05Do you ever get lonely?
No. No, I don't. I never have succumbed much to loneliness. Now I've got abreast of uh the problem of being with myself. I quite approve of what has emerged. The thing that I am has so many interests. There's never a dull moment.
“I've always tried to pretend I was somebody else when I was by myself. I'd be impersonating other people.”
“I think if I'm proud of anything in my career, it's uh having survived the uh galaire onto which I married.”
“I constantly wake up in the morning to be thankful that I am alive.”
“the great joy of acting is getting into the part, whatever it is. That's why I love playing. ... parts of people who've actually lived, like Henry V., Winston Churchill, whatever it may be, you know because finding one's way in by whatever methods into the character set you feel you know him you feel you know how he walked whatever.”
“I think at the beginning I think I emerged as an actor. Really. I think I was dissatisfied with what I'd found. and uh decided to become other people.”
“I've said many, many foolish things in my life, and that I think is probably among the most foolish. Because in fact the more accretions that an actor can achieve, the better actor he's likely to be.”