Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actor-manager, known for his work in theatre.
On the island
Eight records
I think the first one stems from a period when I was very, very keen on jazz. I I still am. But I was born at a time when I was just a little too early for pop music. And when I was at uh college at the Polytechnic Regent Street, we were very much into jazz.
Beim Schlafengehen (from Four Last Songs)
the one that we were all in love with the person who is going to sing on the next record that I chose was Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, and we all thought she was quite wonderful. I I still think she was one of the greatest leader singers ever.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
a beautiful piece of uh string writing which I associate with my early days of touring because it was one of the records that I hurriedly bundled into my suitcase as I set off.
a tribute really to a friend, Judy Dench, who I remember telling me just after she opened one of my favourite musicals ever, Cabaret, that she was sitting with the window open in her dressing room just before the first night at a preview, and she heard two ladies talking who were looking at the boards at the front of the theatre and one said, Judy Dench in a musical, that will never run.
simply because I love Mozart and uh I've always had a a great passion for the magic flute. and particularly for the extraordinary character of Papageno, his first song.
Bagatelle in B-flat major, Op. 119 No. 11Favourite
I I love the piano and I I I love Beethoven and uh his burgatelles seem to me the m the most extraordinary sort of concise and dramatic pieces
Gloria in excelsis Deo (from Mass in B minor, BWV 232)
Münchener Bach-Chor & Münchener Bach-Orchester
I feel that if I'm on the desert island there are going to be moments when I'm going to feel lonely and miserable, and I'm going to be in need of some joyful music. And I though not a religious person, I I can't think of anything more uplifting than a a piece of the B minor Mass Bach.
Symphony No. 94 in G major, 'Surprise'
We've got to have a bit of Beecham. His Mozart, of course, was amazing, but so also was his Haydn, I think.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:23Did you take it for granted that you were going into the [acting] profession?
No, I didn't. I I rather took it for granted that I wouldn't.
Presenter asks
4:39What was your parents' attitude? Did they expect you to follow the tradition?
They rather wished I wouldn't, because they'd at various times, of course, the theatre having been at a harder time in their day. thought that perhaps they owed it to me to give me a slightly easier life than they had had.
Presenter asks
14:17Was there a temptation to settle down with the RSC as one of the great national companies?
I've always fought against being tied down to any long contract, particularly I think with a company which is moving in a certain sort of direction among the same sort of people. I I I was there for two years and I enjoyed my two years and I I thought that was enough and I w I wanted to see some other people and do some other things.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
Did you find thinking yourself into such a regal part [as King Edward VII] had any kind of effect on you?
Um I think I may have got a little bombastic. But you don't expect people to open the door for you and call you sir all the time. I did at one occasion. Yes, I was buying some toothpaste in a chemist's during the lunch hour of a rehearsal, and I suddenly realised that everybody was looking at me, and why everybody was looking at me was because I was expecting somebody to open the door for me. I hadn't opened a door for myself in twelve minutes.
Presenter asks
25:12These biographical performances raise a special problem: how accurately does one impersonate?
I think that there's a responsibility towards a great deal of accuracy among people who lived within the living memory of the people who are liable to go and see it. On the other hand, I think one has to remember two things. First of all, you are not actually playing the person, you are playing somebody else's conception of the person, which is in a sense edited. Also you mustn't forget, I think, that your personality is the instrument, the only instrument through which you are able to play that character. And therefore it is slightly a question of finding facets of of the person's character which correspond in some way, or can be made and forced to correspond to characteristics of your own.
Presenter asks
31:18Do you have confidence that you could look after yourself on a desert island?
Yes, I think so. I think um Given a few facilities, you know, trees and um something I could use as a tool, I build myself some kind of shelter.
“I went in in all to thirteen schools. This was uh largely because of the same situation of of living among a theatrical family that kept moving around.”
“I think that there's a responsibility towards a great deal of accuracy among people who lived within the living memory of the people who are liable to go and see it. On the other hand, I think one has to remember two things. First of all, you are not actually playing the person, you are playing somebody else's conception of the person, which is in a sense edited.”
“I think a typewriter, probably. I think I might sit down and write that play that I've always meant to write.”