Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor and director, best known as Mozart in the National Theatre's 'Amadeus' and as Gareth in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'.
On the island
Eight records
Suite No. 3 in G major, Op. 55: I. Elégie
New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Antal Doráti
for me, it embodies everything that I think extraordinary about this composer, whom I love deeply.
Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Rudolf Kempe
Tan Huizer is intimately associated in my mind with my grandmother, who had been a singer herself
Concierto de Aranjuez: II. Adagio
Narciso Yepes with the Spanish National Orchestra, conducted by Ataúlfo Argenta
it evokes a period of my life. Uh my mother ever... had taken on a job as a school secretary in a very, very rum establishment indeed.
Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!, K. 418
Margaret Price with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by James Lockhart
when I discovered Mozart, which was such a profound dramatic experience, I started to listen to music not in terms of the the story that it told... but I've discovered musical form, harmony, counterpoint
Piano Concerto No. 2: II. Allegro
John Ogdon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Pritchard
the second one contains a movement which is... Just cheeky, crazy, funny. I defy anybody to listen to it without smiling.
I believe he has one of the most heart breakingly beautiful voices of the twentieth century.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: II. AdagioFavourite
Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Pablo Casals, and Paul Tortelier
this particular movement, the way we're about to hear a slow movement, was the music that I chose to... accompany her [Peggy Ramsey's] coffin as it came into the crematorium.
right in the middle of one, though, was this little Adaggio Amoroso for harp.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30Does the fact that you haven't fulfilled your destiny as an actor imply that you feel acting has let you down?
Well, certainly when I wrote that, I did have a feeling that somehow I hadn't quite fulfilled my destiny as an actor. … people were kind enough to say at the time of Mozart that I was, you know, going to be the very thing that I dreamt … Next Olivier, yes. And that was what I expected. … But it just simply didn't happen that way, and life has a way of not happening the way you expect it to.
Presenter asks
2:55Was it important for the gay part of you that Gareth [in Four Weddings and a Funeral] didn't die of AIDS, but of a heart attack?
Absolutely. … it was such a relief to discover that, as you say, that this gay man who was utterly life affirming and life enhancing, a huge, generous spirit, Was killed not by AIDS at all, but by Scottish dancing.
Presenter asks
7:08Why didn't you spot much earlier that acting was what you wanted to do, since you thought you wanted to be a lawyer?
Yes, I think the problem is really one of simply no l no of a lack of role models. You know, you look around when you're a suburban boy of, you know, twelve, thirteen or something like that, and you think, I don't know anybody who's become an actor. … How do you become an actor? You know, it's like wanting to be the Pope. And not knowing what I wanted to do, I just left school.
The keepsakes
The luxury
there's nothing more atrocious than long tendrils of hair coming out of one's nostrils
Presenter asks
11:29What did you learn from your mother?
Well, my mother is an extraordinarily focused woman who had the terrific challenge of not only bringing up me, which was a huge handful, because I was, to say the least, hyperactive as a child. I mean, I was just a tornado of unceasing energy and emotional extremes, always demanding attention, as we say in the acting business, on all the time.
Presenter asks
16:27How did you manage to become head boy at your grammar school when you had no sporting capacities?
Nobody was more surprised than me. … Because I mean, in my school, as in most schools, head boys are appointed for their sportive capacities, and I had none.
Presenter asks
30:03Why did Peggy Ramsey choose to have this passionate, non-consummated friendship with you?
Her romantic spirit and mine just absolutely meshed. And she'd had many tremendously passionate sexual relationships, and she brought exactly the same passion to our non-sexual relationship, although I don't even know if the phrase non-sexual is correct in that sense. It was non-consummated, that is indeed the precise term, but it was a meeting of all of us, you know, all of her and all of me.
“the wonder of acting is this capacity for transformation simply by by the power of the imagination. It's not really to do with makeup, makeup's a help, but something clicks inside you as an acting totally, and it must be a physical thing, and you'd simply change.”
“She and I were of exactly the same opinion. The childhood was a boring condition to be in. The sooner one could get out of it, the better.”
“when feeling, as I certainly did, very unlovely physically, you you brazen it out. I don't know, it's something in you compels you to come on stage and exhibit yourself in some kind of way.”