Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Head of the National Theatre and a prolific theatrical impresario, known for directing hundreds of productions.
On the island
Eight records
The Man That Got AwayFavourite
Because I think she's one of the great users of English, her diction is superb, and every song she sings she acts.
Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, D. 929 (Andante con moto)
I love chamber music. I listen to an awful lot of it. I like chamber music in a room on records, almost more than orchestral music. And I like fumbling through this one on the piano while playing a record.
Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Michael Tippett is a great friend and somebody I admire very much. ... I think he's quintessentially English, like Elgar, like the English countryside. And I'd like to sit on my desert island and think about Green England when I looked at all those sandy Rocks, it also is the music I used in a film I made about ten years ago about Suffolk called Akinfield.
Don Giovanni (Act 2 Trio: "Ah taci, ingiusto core")
Eberhard Wächter, Giuseppe Taddei, and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
I've been able to do all the Daponte operas that Mozart composed at Gleinborn. And I go on doing them there, and I love Mozart very much. I mean, life without Mozart's a bit like thinking of life without Shakespeare.
La Calisto (Duet: "Dolcissimi baci")
Janet Baker and James Bowman, conducted by Raymond Leppard
This opera I did in the realization by Raymond Lepard. At Glenbourne in nineteen seventy it was the beginning of a very happy relationship I had with Glenbourne. and the continuation of a friendship with Raymond Lepard. which goes back to university days. And it was also the beginning of a very, very rich collaboration with Janet Baker, so I would like to have that on my desert island.
No Man's Land (Excerpt from Act 2)
Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson
This was a play that I did the premiere of in the the early years of the National Theatre. It was a great success. The collaboration with them was something I will never forget.
Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, K. 361 "Gran Partita" (Adagio)
London Wind Soloists, conducted by Otto Klemperer
I can't have too much Mozart on my desert island, and it will also remind me of a wonderful collaboration with Peter Schaffer on his play Amadeus,'cause this music is there. In fact, I brought it into the play, I think. I've lived with this record since Otto Klemperer recorded it in the mid sixties.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39Would you welcome a spell away from it all on a desert island?
No. Not at all. You want to keep bashing away. Well, I love it.
Presenter asks
1:57Was acting more important than music [when you were young]?
Well, I think if I had my time again, I would like to have been a musician. ... In a way, I love the discipline of music and I love the form of music and ... I think if it hadn't been for the war years, where teaching was quite difficult, maybe I would have spent more time on music, but one had to decide whether it was music or academic scholarships almost.
Presenter asks
2:25Was there any theatre work [during your National Service in the RAF]?
Yes, I I taught economics and business management. ... Now, these fellows had BScs at the London School of Economics. I learnt, I think, then, one of the most invaluable gifts for a director, was how to keep the show on the road when you didn't know any of the answers.
The keepsakes
The book
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians
George Grove
I think I would take the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which uh perhaps you won't allow, because I think it's a good long read.
The luxury
Presenter asks
You used to get up at six o'clock in the morning ... in order to dictate your diary. Why did you do that?
When I went to the National, I made a resolve not to do what I'd done at Stratford, which was to keep no record of anything. ... So I thought, well, I've been given this task of trying to open the National Theatre. I'll keep notes each day just of what happened the day before. Just facts as I saw them, and I will dictate it. So I did, and very quickly it became a kind of therapy. ... It became a kind of confessional and it helped me enormously personally.
Presenter asks
20:07How long did it take you to get everything working reasonably well [at the National Theatre]?
Well, I think it was the better part of five years.
Presenter asks
25:26Could you look after yourself in rather straitened circumstances?
I think I could if I had to. I wouldn't like to. I've been spoilt all my life, from my mother onwards, who allowed me as a boy to have my nose in books or be practicing the piano, rather than making me help with the washing up. ... But if s survival depended on it, I would make out I'm ... Not marvellous in my hands, but fair.
“I learnt, I think, then, one of the most invaluable gifts for a director, was how to keep the show on the road when you didn't know any of the answers.”
“I still have the r remembrance of when I began doing that. I mean, I didn't know my job, but I did feel as if I was a duck on water. I never felt so happy in my life.”
“I think one of the interesting things about the seventies is that looking back even from nineteen eighty three, one can see what a very confused and sad ... A neurotic time they were in every respect. I don't think we really knew where we were going or what we were doing.”