Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A great British actor, best known for his stage and screen performances.
On the island
Eight records
I've been playing this record all these years on my little grammar phone, and on one side certainly is T for two. I've never turned the record over.
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110
I think some of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Look, I'd like you, if you could, to play me a little Schnabel.
Ella Fitzgerald with the Chick Webb Orchestra
Ella Fitzgerald and Al Feldman
I fell in love with a very popular record indeed. That is Ella Fitzgerald singing A Tiskit, a Tasket.
There Grew a Little Flower (from Ruddigore)
Christine Palmer and Donald Adams
I have a piece of treacle tart on one side, and on the other side, there grew a little flower on a great oak tree from Radiga.
Chopin Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1
Parkman was called the Med Musician... But his playing was far from mad, it was very, very beautiful and liquid.
Chopin Nocturne No. 17 in B, Op. 62, No. 1
To my mind there They're in great contrast and very beautiful players.
The Cruise of the U.S.S. Codfish
I'm sure I wanted to laugh when I was on the island there. And there's a record that it's made me laugh. For years. I just wanted to have another giggle.
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622Favourite
Jack Brymer, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
Perhaps it is my very favorite, and I don't know if the BBC will go along with me in this, but I'd like to say that if any of you don't like this record, we'll give you your money back.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:36Could you endure solitude, do you think?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that I could. People go mad if they're alive. Perhaps I'm mad already.
Presenter asks
6:42What was your first ambition as a boy? What did you want to be?
Oh, well, I mean, take it steadily, an engine driver, of course Perpetually pretending to be an engine driver.
Presenter asks
7:11What happened to you when you left school?
Oh, well when I left school I went into an insurance office... I was terrible... I was absolutely frightful I used to put the wrong Checks in the wrong envelope. And uh I was a terrible scourge to them.
Presenter asks
8:20How did you set about [going on the stage]?
Well, I joined a little repertory theatre at Brighton. And then, of course, when I did go on the stage and got a job there in a Shakespeare company, they told me exactly the same. They said, you're never going to be an actor, you know, this doesn't suit you, this profession... But just by some chance, just before they gave me the sack, I learnt a little bit of the trick.
The keepsakes
The book
Henry James
I'd like some strangers even if they were imaginary, some company... perhaps I'd pick Henry James, because still, although I've read all Henry James, still there are very many puzzles, twists, turns and mazes in his mind, which I've certainly not quite anything like fathomed yet.
The luxury
a pipe and a supply of tobacco
I'd stick to my pipe, I'm afraid. I'd hardly do without my pipe.
Presenter asks
13:04Have you tried deliberately to mould your career rather than take things as they come up?
Well, I tried to mold it. I tried to find changes. Yes, if I've been in one kind of a play, I look very anxiously for a difference, a different play. Yes, I do try. Sometimes I've been lucky enough to get that change.
Presenter asks
13:39How do you take to working in a theatre [the National Theatre] with such a vast administration?
No, Hand, I rather like it. I think I'm rather more of a trooper than a general. I don't mind joining the army. I don't mind just doing Things with a lot of other people are rather like it.
“There is a trick about acting in a way, an access to it, in the same way there's a trick about riding a bicycle, which seems so impossible when you try. But when you've found the trick of getting the balance, it works.”
“I'm a very ordinary man. But when I say, for instance, another thing about restaurants or something like that, and I say I'm very fond of treacle tart, and so I am, and nobody says there's anything mad or dull or ordinary about that.”
“I've been trying to give up smoking for fifty years. And I've got along fairly well without actually giving it up. And if I stay on the the island, I shall be trying to give it up every day.”