Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian, writer, musician, actor and painter, best known for his comedy and writing.
On the island
Eight records
Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra
I think it's a wonderful piece of arranging and composing here.
I just felt it was terribly Irish and I was delighted to think that somebody could write such an Irish tune as that in the twentieth century.
De Bussy is one of my favorite composers because he's a miniaturist, like does things in small little packets.
YesterdayFavourite
McCartney, I find one of the most um beguiling commercial singers. He doesn't try anything awkward, his voice haunting, and uh it's at its best singing uh his composition Yesterday.
Symphony No. 6 (Last Movement)
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
In an age of brutalism, to find a man who has all the seeds of the romantic school of music, with a tremendous almost with the breadth of Mahler's feeling, all combined in one.
sung by who I think is the best down-the-line singer of our day, Frank Sinatra.
Stanley Black and the London Symphony Orchestra
Greek, one from his lyric suite, which I I believe he wrote for his wife as a wedding present.
Ed Welsh, a friend of mine, was a wonderful composer, and he wrote a theme for a record we made. The theme is the the Snow Goose theme, which I find delightful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:14How old were you when you came to England [from India]?
Fourteen.
Presenter asks
3:19Did [England] look like home or did it look cold and grey?
It looked cold and grey and awful and terrible and it still does. Uh you get used to it, just like uh if you've always had bare feet. Even a terrible pair of boots you can get used to in the end.
Presenter asks
3:39What did you want to be as a schoolboy?
I wanted to be a fighter pilot. … we came to England for that reason in mind and uh I sat for the exam at Kingsway and I I failed because uh uh I was helpless at mathematics.
Presenter asks
7:41Where did the word Goon come from?
from the Popeye cartoon at the time. Popeye had these long creatures called goons, who had no faces, just two eyes, and they had torx bubbles with rubbish inside, you know.
The keepsakes
The book
Alvin Toffler
It's about three hundred pages, I think. It's a it's just predicting what the course of the world might be like, what a hellhole it might be if we carry on eating the earth alive as we are. It says you've got to conserve the energy of the earth, and uh what eats the energy is people. Less people, more energy left.
The luxury
Well, I mean, well, I've got a Barclay card there, and now I'm saving money.
Presenter asks
11:41Peter [Sellers] and Harry [Secombe] soared up to international stardom, leaving you a bit behind. Did that worry you at the time?
Yes, it did. When it all finished, I was sort of an unemployed scriptwriter. And Peter, of course, had done well in the the film world and Harry had done well on the stage. And I had no confidence at all. I still have very very l lack of confidence. And I thought I'd got to do something.
Presenter asks
17:50Which causes are most precious to you at this moment?
The one which I found one I'm most concerned about is world population. And that's the one which least work is being done on. I mean, the the earth is a lifeboat. There's enough room for so many people in a lifeboat. And nobody's piloting this lifeboat in in any sensible form at the moment.
“I'm a clown, really, though. I think I'm a jobbing clown. That's what I am.”
“I think the spirit of man must go on, yes. I think I broke my heart when I saw it being mutilated the week after we'd spent three years repairing it.”
“I don't think man can live entirely on his own, uh forever … I think eventually um you'd get haunted by being on your own. I think you'd become impossible to live with, like all of us.”