Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Theatre producer and director best known for founding the Liverpool Everyman theatre.
On the island
Eight records
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Pierre Fournier, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by George Szell
This is the Dvojac cello concerto, I suppose simply because it's the first music I can remember. I heard it all day long. My father was a cellist, and he was endlessly playing this particular one, because perhaps it is the most beautiful.
At that time, when we're talking now about the early sixties, it was a city of tremendous excitement. The Beatles and the Beat groups in general were in full flood, and we felt that it was the right place to go because it was so alive, in order to begin a theatre, and therefore this record is Michelle by the Beatles, and again it brings back that whole period.
New York Pro Musica, directed by Noah Greenberg
Well, record number three is an odd one. It's the play of Daniel. I include it because it affected all my musical thinking as far as the drama was concerned, as far as Shakespeare was concerned, and I used to bore composers like Guy Wolfenden and Ian Kellum to death by saying yes, but look, it's just like this bit on the play of Daniel. Um it's a wonderful piece. It's a twelfth century opera, they think perhaps the first ever. It has all the sounds that seem to me to link between the human voice speaking in a play and its musical support.
String Quartet in C major, Op. 54, No. 2Favourite
Record number four is perhaps my favorite of all, which is Haydn, it's the string quartet, and I suppose the most calming music I know. The job itself has its moments of uh tension, and I find this seventy year old composer seems to put together the kind of notes that would calm anybody or anything. Uh it certainly does me.
Otello (Act III: "Dio! mi potevi scagliar tutti i mali")
Well, record number five is in fact Verdi Zotello. For me, I think, I believe, the greatest and most satisfying of of the operas. I find it an astonishing insight into the Shakespeare play, not so much by the librettis, Boito, but by Verdi himself. And uh this is with Placidot simply because uh I enjoyed working with him and uh it was a very, very happy time, and I would like to have his voice with me on any desert island.
John Williams, with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim
Well the next one is a very simple choice really. It's the well known Concerto de Arangueth, and uh I suppose I've chosen it because over the last few years I have found it one of the most calming, the most lyrical pieces of music, and perhaps that needs some explanation. I know that very often in my work it is described as excessive or aggressive or provocative. I don't think so. But I do know that when I can go home and listen to something like this, one is immediately calmed, and in a profession which is not known for calm, you start to value very highly music that has that ability.
Royal Shakespeare Company, featuring Susan Fleetwood
Well, record number seven is, I suppose, a sentimental record. It's uh Murder in the Cathedral by TS Eliot. It was the very first professional play that I ever did, and I did it at the Liverpool Everyman. Subsequently I've done it with the RSC at the Aldwich in 1972 and again in Paris in 1978. Each time I've done it differently, I'm haunted by it. I think it's one of the great pieces of dramatic writing and one of the great pieces of poetry. And this particular version is the one done by the RSC and therefore of course it's got the voices of a great number of friends Richard Pascoe, Alan Howard, Norman Rodway, Tony Church, Brewster Mason, Susan Fleetwood, many, many friends. And I would like to have that with me so that I could be reminded of people with whom I have lived and worked over the last fifteen years.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Jacqueline du Pré, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Well the last record is again a cello concerto. this time the um the Elga. And I don't think it is the most perfect of the cello concertos, but it is the most English, and I think on this desert island Certainly as somebody who works a great deal abroad, as I do, there is always an astonishing pleasure in coming back to England and being reminded of it. It is still is a superbly and very beautiful island, and this piece reminds me of it probably more than any other piece of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:38Have you any skill at music yourself?
Just a little once upon a time I I played the cello, or at least I took lessons, and uh for a long time was destined to be a cellist. Fortunately for music I I didn't continue. But I still love the instrument.
Presenter asks
2:49What had you in mind [when reading English at Birmingham University]? How were you going to use it?
I thought I'd um go into the diplomatic corps. … But that was my ambition and I very much wanted to do that. And then I was told that really I wasn't suitable material for that kind of a career. So I then thought, well, perhaps I could become a lecturer and teach in a university. … and very much wished to do that. And then my tutor said, Your temperament is really not right for libraries. So at the last minute, and as an afterthought, I applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Presenter asks
5:17Did the building [for the Liverpool Everyman] already exist, or did you have to create it?
Yes, it existed. It was um I think a Methodist uh church hall and therefore basically wood and uh a beautiful acoustic and quite right for a theatre. And it was situated on Hope Street. … we had to convert it and people from the university helped us and the people of Liverpool helped us enormously.
The keepsakes
The book
The largest possible dictionary of the English language
It seems to me that all we know of peoples, their emotions, their feelings, their hopes, their aspirations, their thought processes, are all in the words. And if you look at a dictionary of the English language, it's like looking at a history of Europe. It's full of words from the Scandinavian, from the French, from the Latin, the Greek, the German, and so on, and the Celtic. I think I'd be very happy poring around in that.
The luxury
I'd like to take a cello. I did study it once. Start all over again. And I think I'd like to start all over again.
Presenter asks
10:40What went wrong [in 1974 when you thought of quitting the theatre altogether]?
Well, I suppose it wasn't so much quitting the theatre altogether. It it was quitting the theatre in England and emigrating and moving abroad and working in a different theatrical medium where I suppose Governments and subsidies and treasuries were more understanding of what theatre could do or might do.
Presenter asks
15:59How did [directing at the Comédie-Française] come about?
By chance, really, Pierre Dux was the new Administrateur Général, and he wished to open the doors, in fact, to foreigners who had never worked there. And he had Robert Hirsch, a brilliant leading actor, and felt that he ought to do a Richard the Third. And they then started looking for a director and went to Peter Daubeny, and after all the leading directors of that time had said no, it finally got down to me, and I said yes.
“I think finally one has to choose memories sometimes and things that one knows temperamentally will be of use on a desert island.”
“I desperately needed to learn. I'd used up everything I knew. Um in fact I used it up in one year, but I stayed for two. And I felt time had come that I had to go back to school and learn.”
“I don't think plays can exist outside their particular audiences, and a good house and a good night, almost any show, can be quite wonderful. And Bad weather or a bad night or an uneasy audience, and any however good the show can be not so satisfying.”
“The only thing that worries me about the desert island is I think the first thing I would do is to dig a hole so that whenever a ship went by I could get inside it and hide, so that there would be no hope or chance of rescue of any kind. I would take enormous pains to remain utterly hidden.”