Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor celebrated for a fifty-year career encompassing comedy and tragedy, hailed as one of the greatest and a national institution.
On the island
Eight records
Well, my first choice is a record that I met immediately after the war, but right at the beginning of my theatrical career when I played in the Fairy Queen at Covent Garden, and I met Constant Lambert, who was uh conducting, and I would like to hear some of his Rio Grande.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (Choral): III. Adagio molto e cantabile
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski
The second choice is uh uh I must have some Beethoven ready to think about things. This will be the Ninth Symphony and I'd like to hear some of the slow movement.
Anne Collins, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves
Well, I should like to hear Rural Britannia. When I was in Illustrious we were refitting in Durban. And uh there was a wonderful woman who used to sing. off the end of the jetty, the breakwater, to the ships as they went out to sea, and she stood there in this white flowing garment singing Rule Britannia and the illustrious with all the crew, you know, dressed over well, not dressed over all, but all the crew on deck and everything. ploughing out to sea past this. It it was a wonderful moment.
Ambrosian Singers, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britten
Well, this comes from that same time after the war. Another person that one used to meet uh having a lunchtime drink in the George was Constant Lambert. And uh He Conducted a performance of Purcell's Fairy Queen at Covent Garden. in which I played bottom. And he even wrote me a tiny little song to sing, because I personally didn't do that. So I danced and sang at Covent Garden in The Fairy Queen. So I should like to hear that, and which I think is the closing moments of of The Fairy Queen.
Hamlet: "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt"
Yes, well, I'd like to hear Burton's wonderful voice. What better than a piece of soliloquy from Hamlet, in which, in incidentally not in the production you're going to listen to now, but in which I played Polonius at the Olvick when he played Hamlet.
Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610): Nigra sum
Well, there will be times, I'm sure, when one wants to become a bit contemplative. and uh if not in a sort of vague way devotional. And I would like to hear some of Monteverdi's sixteen ten Vespers
Miss Money Spider (from The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast)
Fairly recently two Entertaining chaps called Roger Hand and Rob Edwards. Set to music William Plumer's poems of The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, which is a wonderful book and wonderful poems. And I won't inflict you with my voice, but Judy Dench and I appeared in this record, and I would like Judy Dench speaking the poem about Miss Money Spider.
Don Giovanni: "Là ci darem la mano"
Don Giovanni, Mozart, I must have I was going to say lots of Mozart, but you can't afford to let me have more than one two. L'Ace darem la mano. which I find very moving. It always makes me cry.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:49What exactly does that mean, "formerly in business"?
Well, I was in a firm in London called the Educational Supply Association for some, I think, uh four or five years. Immediately before I crept in through stage door.
Presenter asks
5:04What was the lure of acting to you?
I don't know. I suppose it's it's dressing up. Ever since one was a child, I'm still doing it. I think that's what it is, really. I'm being paid for it as well.
Presenter asks
6:59How do you make the break then from St. Pancras People's Theatre into the professional stage?
Well, I I went to the managing director of the firm that I was working with and I said, I don't think I'm giving you the best of my time and trouble and work. Because I'm doing too much of this acting lark. And he said, Have you got a job to go to? And I said, No, I haven't, but um I thought I ought to tell you and he said, 'Well, you can stay with us until you get a job in the theatre, and you can leave us at short notice'. And that's exactly what happened. I got a job as T boy and understudy and heaven knows what, to play at the Savoy Theatre. And I left the Educational Supply Association on Saturday and I was there at the first rehearsal on Monday morning.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
12:45What do you remember of [playing Macbeth for the first time]?
I did get some rather bad notices. I got some rather good notices, too. But I cherish the the worst notice, I think, that I've ever had. mister Michael Horden reminded us of nothing so much as an Armenian carpet seller. who wouldn't have been allowed in through the back port cullis of Duncinane.
Presenter asks
19:41Why was that [you turned down the part of Doctor Who]?
Well, because I didn't want to be typed. I've never wanted to be typed. And I think in a series like that, once you become so identified with a character, your own character goes and people can't believe that you can play other other other parts.
Presenter asks
24:27What is an actor?
He's a child, I think, uh who still enjoys dressing up. Like we all did as children, we've just gone on doing it. And I think as you get older You realize your own shortcomings, your own lack of personality, if you like, your own lack of uh making i an impression. And so you do it through other people. You do do it through King Lear.
“I never really had any ambition. I've always enjoyed acting. Ever since I was a child. And when I was formerly in business, as you just said, I used to do a lot of amateur acting. But it was never my ambition to become an actor professionally. I never thought about it.”
“I think it's very presumptuous of my fellow artistes to say that they never read notices. Well, A, I don't believe them. And B, I think it's very presumptuous of them to to say that because a great many critics know a great deal about the theatre. and you can learn a great deal.”
“I've got nothing up there at all. So I fill it with uh other people's brains. I fill it with Shakespeare's brains, or Sheridan's brains, or again Tom Stoppard's brains. And uh I think that's probably what keeps me ticking.”
“I sometimes feel terribly lonely. And uh I'm finding it a bit difficult to to run the home. I d realise now how hard wives work. I'm uh my cooking is improving and um the ironing, but I can't do the sleeves of the shirts. I find them very difficult.”