Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Theatre director who led the Royal Shakespeare Company from 28 and later the National Theatre, renowned for classics and musicals.
On the island
Eight records
Sonata for Viola and Piano in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1
Pinchas Zukerman and Daniel Barenboim
I adored the music of Brahms. He was revolutionary, particularly in his chamber music.
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes: Dawn
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Bernard Haitink
They describe a Suffolk environment so wonderfully. So when I came to do Peter Grimes, the opera, I felt very, very close to the world that he was describing.
Bess, You Is My Woman Now (from Porgy and Bess)
Willard White and Cynthia Haymon with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle
I did a production of Porky and Bess at Glimborn and it was one of the happiest experiences of my professional career.
It brings back to me the world of being on stage with a guitar, entertaining an audience and trying to draw them in as an individual performer.
Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra, conducted by Guy Wolfenden
I suppose, appropriately enough, the next record that I must have with me is music by the composer Guy Wolfenden for the whole of the time that I ran the company.
None of us could have predicted what happened. Of course it it changed the lives of all of the creative people involved with it. I I would want to be reminded of that very important strand of of my work and all of those relationships.
Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Gearóid Grant
Sean is an Irish composer who extraordinarily combines Celtic and Gaelic influence with a wonderful ability to orchestrate in the Western tradition.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125: Ode to JoyFavourite
Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Simon Rattle
It was recorded within the walls of the concentration camp at Maathausen. It was a symbol of endurance, of our abiding knowledge that however slowly the human species does get better. And I think I would want the comfort of that knowledge.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:59How did you write the lyrics to Memory for Cats?
I was truly delighted to be approached by Andrew Lloyd Webber to be involved with the cats project, because, curiously, I knew the collected works of T.S. Eliot pretty well. I had studied them at university. And therefore, when he said that he wanted to make a work out of the children's poems, I was intrigued. And then we came across this fragment about a cat called Grizabella. This little poem clearly had a sense of mortality, of how life changes, of how this cat was once revered and idolised as something glamorous and was now a pariah. So it became vital to include that poem. Time was ticking away, and in absolute desperation, I locked myself away one weekend, wrote a lyric. I showed it to Andrew at the end of that weekend. And he said, let's go with it. It was never in my mind that what I was creating or what I had written was a pop lyric. It was an enormous surprise.
Presenter asks
7:41How did your schoolteacher, Peter Hewitt, help you get to Cambridge?
He was an almighty influence. It wasn't just inspirational, it was practical too. And I got to the sixth form. He said he thought it was vital that I worked for an open scholarship examination to go either to Oxford or Cambridge. I had to go to see the headmaster to ask for a grant from the Poor Boys Fund to be able to take an open scholarship exam at Cambridge and had to stay there for a week and it was pretty expensive business. And the headmaster said he thought that my results today hadn't justified that expenditure. I came away from that interview and told Pete what had been said and he marched straight into the headmaster's office and I believe what he threatened to do was to resign if that decision wasn't overturned. And so the grant was made and I did take the exam and I did get a scholarship and I did go to Cambridge. So it was a completely life-changing moment.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
You can live through the multiplicity of character and foible and behaviour and you always end up by believing in humankind.
The luxury
A photograph of my wife and children
I would want one photograph of my wife and all the children. I would want on a daily basis to be able to say this is what I am trying to survive for. I could be comforted by the knowledge of the continued existence of the people I most believe in.
Presenter asks
10:19What did you get from the radio in your family home?
Family m myth has it that when I was five I was saying I wanted to be an actor. I had never been anywhere near a theater, and therefore the idea of people becoming other people had reached me via the radio. It was the... unifying thing in the room. As as now people huddle round television sets. We actually did sit round and face the radio and listen to the radio. It was quite a big thing actually. It was a very big thing.
Presenter asks
20:14What was the production which finally established your reputation [at the RSC]?
I'd come across this very rare text called The Revengers' Tragedy. And I knew that it hadn't had a professional production for hundreds of years. But most of the leading actors in the company passed, and therefore I had to cast it with people who were very, very hungry for opportunity, but who weren't thought of as leading actors in the company. And so, you know, it was just very, very lucky, wasn't it, that the people that I got to work with were Ian Richardson, Alan Howard, Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley. I mean, all these young actors who then went on to define their generation. It was a hit. It was a gigantic hit.
Presenter asks
27:26What's your answer to the charge that you make a personal fortune from musicals transferring from the National Theatre?
It's completely erroneous. Um I have personally earned absolutely nothing whatsoever from the musicals that I've transferred. I've given absolutely every cent of it to the National Teeth. That's a personal decision of mine.
“I've never seen the problem. I've never seen any distinction. They're all different strands of the same rope. I don't have any problem about saying a classical theatre company should be working on a Shakespeare text and then the following week working on one of the great works of the American musical theatre.”
“I recall to this day a sense of almost choking excitement that something was about to happen. And indeed, when that small pit orchestra began to play together, it was, well, it was a life-changing moment.”
“In every age there is a going form, and clearly at the end of the twentieth century, the beginning of the twenty first century, cinema is the going form.”