Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Acclaimed actor, first Indian on Broadway and in major UK roles. Best known for TV and film including The Jewel in the Crown, My Beautiful Laundrette, and A Pas
On the island
Eight records
So I thought what a wonderful opportunity to actually sing something from Indian classical music.
The reason for that is that Cliff Richard comes from the same town, Lucknow, where, you know, the chess players was filmed in Lucknow. And our family, that was sort of our became our home.
I ended the whole day by a a moonlight picnic in Delhi where they were playing the music claire d'allune.
I like fusions and blends of different cultures. And she to me is a beautiful blend of white and black culture.
Phir Mujhe Deeda-E-Tar Yaad Aaya
Yet again I remembered her eyes full of tears, and it is sung by a lady called Lata Mangishkar.
Honky Tonk Train BluesFavourite
I discovered Mead Lux Lewis and Boogie Woogie and the blues when I was at Lahabad University, and I had an Anglo-Indian girlfriend who had been married to an American soldier.
this Jennifer and I when we go to Rustington to see her father and her late mother. We used to listen to this record and in the Sussex Downs somehow it sounded very, very nice.
I discovered this wonderful black American singer. Through Rob Walker. John Lee Hooker and his performan The Hobo Bro.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:59Do [the descriptions of a rogue or entrepreneur] bear any resemblance to the real Saeed Jaffrey?
The the mischief part of it is probably there. But um I suppose naughty but nice. Then I d I don't know. It's up to you. A bit of a rogue. … I don't know whether I am a bit of a rogue. … I'm not an entrepreneur. Uh money has been the least important object in my life.
Presenter asks
5:47Your parents, Saeed Jaffrey, didn't fully approve of your becoming an actor, did they?
No, um well, my mother wanted me to be an ambassador. or some at some t point. And in fact, when we were doing the passage to India, it was at the Ambassador Theatre on Broadway, and I'd got reviews. So I sent all these reviews to my parents, and my mother wrote back, and she said, you know, if you had listened to me and joined the Indian Foreign Service, you might have been an ambassador. So I wrote back and I said, in a modest way, mummy, I am, but in a different way.
Presenter asks
9:32How long did it finally take you to win your parents over? Was there a moment when they were finally persuaded you'd made the right choice?
Well, they knew that I was going to follow my own instinct about it. And uh nineteen seventy three I was in Lucknow … I did a one-man show and I invited my father … And during the interval I said and this programme written tonight is devoted to the man who had total faith in me and let me do what I wanted to do, and that is my father who was sitting over there. And after that he was just so thrilled by that. And then he kept a log book of all the things that appeared in the press about me and everything like that. He was very proud.
The keepsakes
The book
Mirza Ghalib
would be something that I could find new meanings and new nuances the more I read them.
Presenter asks
11:47Six years after [your marriage to Madhur] the marriage came to an end and I think you were pretty devastated when it did, weren't you?
Yes, I was. And fortunately a part brought me to the part of Hindu god Brahma brought me to England. Madhur then, you know, stayed on in New York and m married a chap that she um a black musician. And the children s obviously stayed with her and I moved to to London. And made London my home.
Presenter asks
14:29When did things begin to take off for you [in England]?
1974. And I don't regret all those years of struggle. You know, thank God radio was my my ally.
Presenter asks
22:34What's your philosophy of acting, Saeed? Do you approach each role in much the same way just as professionally, obviously and properly? Or does it require something different from you each time?
You know, everything goes into the computer. you know, the human computer. accents and gestures and all these sort of things. So here again I have to thank the governor, because by and large when I read a script, The Governor just sort of presses the right button. And so out of the vast experience that one has had of observing people and listening to people all over the world. Um come to character.
“I think it's very important to retain the curiosity of a child for any artist. Ah, however old. and also the soul that the governor gave you. If you have these two, then you can't go wrong.”
“I've always believed that there's been um a love affair between England and uh and India. And which was somewhat restricted when the Raj came along. When the clerks and people came along and tried to boss India. And so it wasn't destroyed, it just sort of went underground. But after we got our independence, the love affair came back again.”
“I would try to escape yet. … I couldn't bear to be on your own for too long. Um no, I couldn't. I I need an audience.”