Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Stage actor acclaimed as the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation.
On the island
Eight records
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046
Concerto Italiano, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini
I had to have a a bit of Bach, and this is sort of early morning this is breakfast music.
The Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
My family's all being rather good at Christmas, and um this is a carol. It'll be memories of Christmas memories of my mem memories of um North Wiltshire too.
Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major ('Symphony of a Thousand')
I remember hearing this for the very first time ... dad put on this tape ... and it was the first score I bought for my own pleasure rather than for O level or A level.
Members of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields
This is just the happiest piece of music ever written, really. It sort of uh reminds me of my time at the R S C when I first started.
Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60Favourite
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner
I came back to him in about ten years ago and he's just the best and almost every piece that he wrote at one point takes your breath away.
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
Joshua Bell, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen
Um this is about sort of bleakness and Northern Europe, which I've always wanted to visit, and I've I've never got up to the Arctic Circle, which I'd love to do.
Capriol Suite (arranged for piano duet)
A great delight of my life is um even now when I haven't practised for years is playing piano duets and um and almost invariably in a in a big company there's somebody who can play.
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Oh, it's all been a bit Germanic so far, so I wanted something sensual and and I love the late nineteenth century French stroke Spanish stuff.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58Simon Russell Beale, initially was an English teacher who spotted your talent for acting. What happened?
Brian Worthington, who was a great teacher and a very strict teacher and a very puritanical intellect ... I met him when I went to senior school when I was thirteen, and he cast me as Desdemona and ... got me to fall in love with Shakespeare.
Presenter asks
2:58It seems a significant contradiction that somebody who is able to put themselves out live on stage every night in front of hundreds of people with high expectations at the same time lacks confidence. That doesn't quite make sense.
I think that's an absolute classic actor's thing of low self-esteem and huge ego. ... It's sometimes to do with the exact opposite, somehow.
Presenter asks
4:51You've said several times, I believe, that you feel that you're almost born middle aged. What do you mean by it?
I think what I meant by it is that I've always taken work very seriously and I I think I'm a bit of a prodder in in terms of, you know, everything has to be perfect. ... if I made a mistake on the last word of a page, then the whole page had to be rewritten. All that sort of rather obsessive stuff. Yes, and a perfectionist.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Can I have a daily crossword flown in? I mean, not flown in, pigeoned. Yes. Any particular crossword that I have? Well, actually there's a particular setter which anybody who does crosswords will knows is the g the master, which is um Aricaria. So if I could have a daily Aricaria crossword.
Presenter asks
5:29This studious little boy from the age of seven was schooled in England whilst your family were living abroad. What was the situation?
I was left with my grandparents in Newport and South Wales. When I was just about to turn eight, and the whole rest of them lucky things went off to Singapore. ... because they I'd got into the choir school and mum and dad obviously thought that was the best place for me to be educated.
Presenter asks
24:29You were rehearsing [Hamlet] at a time when you had recently lost your own mother. So did that, inevitably it must have, I'm sure, have been involved in part of the character you developed?
Must have done. Must have done, mustn't it? ... She didn't survive to see it. It became my tribute to her really to be honest. ... on the first night I ... asked the cast if they'd mind having if I put a photograph of her in ... just in the wings ... it was the one time I've never felt nervous really about it 'cause I thought actually you know something this is this is peanuts compared to the big things in life really and this is my my thanks to her.
Presenter asks
27:46You have had success in television, but you've chosen not really to work in front of the camera. Why is that?
I think I mean now it's probably is a matter of choice, but I think at the beginning it was probably sort of chance. I mean I I'm afraid I'm I'm I'm a bit greedy about parts and they kept ... saying, Okay, would you like to do Richard III? Okay, would you like to do The Seagull? And I can't resist it. And it just there wasn't space for the film things. I love being control, I suppose. And I love gauging an audience's response.
“I think that's an absolute classic actor's thing of low self-esteem and huge ego.”
“I just remember the physical sensation of of reading out aloud. Being somehow thrilling. It might have been a bit to do with showing off, I suppose. And and I never stopped wanting to read out loud in class.”
“I have this little this tick, which is that I I try to wipe away all preconceptions about a part before I do it, which is actually more difficult than it sounds. Try and just make no presuppositions about the part you're playing.”