Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Comedian and entertainer, best known as one half of the iconic TV duo The Two Ronnies.
On the island
Eight records
It has strong family and childhood and Scottish and Edinburgh associations for everything actually.
I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
It was very important because I was happy at home and in Edinburgh and these sort of early years when my dad used to take us, the three of us, all to the very long Messiah in the middle of New Year's Day.
Opening Medley from Noël Coward's Cabaret
I'd like to have the memory of that with me if I might.
I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)
It brings back memories of my first record player.
Overture from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
I remember her being super in the show and I love the music and I loved every new turn.
It's just terribly contemporary noise for me and means home now with the two children and Anne and it's just a very very no noise in our house you know and I would like to take that with me.
My first piece of music is Fred Astaire singing Change Partners and Dance With Me and of course to this day I just adore watching him.
The next record well, the next record is of my father again. I keep talking about my dad. My mum of course played a huge part as well, but he used to take us to the Usher Hall to see very often the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. And this hymn was sung at all our christenings and at my mum and dad's funeral...
Mel Tormé & The Marty Paich Dek-Tette
Mel Tormy I have listened to all my life since I bought my first my own Wii Record player and I had Mel Tormy, uh big LP, in a Blue World it was called, and I've listened to everything Mel Tormi ever sang.
The next piece of music is oh, my goodness me, yes, dear Dan, Danny LaRue, who has been part of, as I said, our lives for so long, a godfather to one of our daughters.
Music, Maestro, PleaseFavourite
The next piece of music, well of course, is Darling Anne, who as I've already said, I mean gave up so much of her life and her talent and she still sings remarkably well to this day...
I love this the show, Condide, and I love the thrilling overture written by Bernstein.
This goes back, ee, this artist, Bobby Short, goes back. Oh, a long way. Uh I saw him at the Pizza on the Park when he came over here this season, but uh he was always a chic, the gentleman was, Bobby Shaw.
My final re oh, well, yeah, uh, Tony Newley, who was a dear friend and, um, who I met when I was in a film.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:33What did you do when you left school? Did you go to the theatre straight away?
No, I didn't. No, because of one's kind of rather cautious upbringing. Uh in Edinburgh. And it's a very cautious tone, to have a cautious upbringing in everybody's doubly cautious. Yeah, my mum and dad thought I should go into something more secure. In an ideal world, they would have loved me to be in a doctor or a minister. But we ended up with the civil service and I was a permanent civil servant in as much as the civil service thought I was permanent. Well, I was worked in the Department of Agriculture issuing animal feeding staffs coupons when they were rationing feeding stuffs for animals, you know, sending out coupons for proteins for farrowing sos.
Presenter asks
12:45What was the big break?
The big break was, I suppose, David Frost asking me to take part in the Frost Report on BBC. Well, David had seen me in Winston's club and had seen me at Daniel Rouge, where I moved on to after Winston's. Danny opened his own club and rang me up one day and said, you know, I'd seen you in the club and I'm going to do the series for BBC television. Would you like to be in it? Or I would like you to be in it. And strangely enough, had Twang been a success, I doubt very much if I could have.
Presenter asks
16:12Now, you're on this island, Ronnie. How could you manage? Could you look after yourself?
The keepsakes
The book
Alan Bennett
I've read about ten or eleven pages of it so far and I might as well carry on reading it
Um, I'm not terribly practical with sort of building or do it yourself or anything, although I suppose I would, you know, be able to weave a few leaves and things into a roof or a bed or a sheet or something like that. But I might be able to cook all right myself. ... Uh n no, not very much, no, not really? Although I have a g bit of a garden, so I might know a little bit about it, but uh but if you if you had to do all these things. If I had to do, I'd prefer to yes, tell my hand. Have a go here.
Presenter asks
19:57If you were allowed to choose one male companion to share your exile, who would you choose?
Well, that's terribly difficult. I suppose it would be my brother, really. I say I hope it didn't turn reluctant. I mean, he knows me, if he doesn't mind my sentencing to show my life on the desert, he knows me very well and knows all my annoying habits and I know his and he's a big, capable, stoutly built chap and uh You would be able to teach me the golf as well.
Presenter asks
1:31Were the monologues you performed on television as rambling as they appeared, or were they carefully crafted?
Carefully, carefully crafted, carefully written in the first case by Spike Mullins, and then later by David Renwick. ... They're only two writers who really supplied the whole series, really.
Presenter asks
3:22What was happening down at the church hall when you were a teenager?
We were rehearsing a pantomime and I was playing The Wicked Aunt and it was the turning point, of course, in my life ... this role in the pantomime was a real warning beacon to me that there's this is what I wanted to do.
Presenter asks
10:13At what age did your family become conscious that you had stopped growing?
Well, my aunt sent away for this course, of course, you know, two guineas for a magazine, and I had to repeat every day, every day, and every way I'm getting taller and taller ... And then my mum took me to a child specialist in Murray Place, Edinburgh, so she must have worried about it but there was no kind of congenital serious problem to worry about...
Presenter asks
17:17What happened when you lost your first baby, Andrew, at just six weeks old?
They noticed there was a sort of heart problem. ... they tried to do a little operation but um it didn't work and we lost him six weeks ... old
Presenter asks
25:49Can you explain the moment on stage when you were gripped by fear?
Ron and I were doing this very successful season at the Palladium ... and one Saturday afternoon I suddenly got a balance problem when I was on the stage. And it was quite frightening ... The thought of falling over was ever present.
“I felt comfortable enough to consider I had a flair for it.”
“I wasn't built for that sort of thing.”
“I'm not extremely fond of having flower put over my head or pouring a lot of things up the back.”
“I would be concentrating a good deal of my thought and devising a method of getting some sign to signal somewhere or creating some sort of craft that would get me somewhere.”
“I always think I'm the last person to seem to feel I'm small. I'm behaving everywhere like an extremely tall, normal person.”
“About two weeks ago I was walking down the street and a taxi driver passed. lowered his window. kissed the palm of his hand and blew the kiss. Towards me now that is really touching. really moving, you know.”
“I don't think I'd be very, very good. I'd enjoy the first afternoon perhaps. I think I'd be quite practical. I'd try to make the best of it. I maybe might be quite good at catching fish and cooking them. But I wouldn't be happy.”