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Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, broadcaster and campaigner best known for playing Baldrick in Blackadder and presenting Channel Four's Time Team.
On the island
Eight records
The Night They Drove Old Dixie DownFavourite
the band who do that more than anybody for me are called the band... there's always that surge in my tummy when I hear the opening chords.
I'd want on my island something that reflected the coolness of the way my dad played.
From the moment the overture started, I thought, This is the world that I want to inhabit.
I thought it was sublime, and I needed to honour it, so I just sat down on the middle of the floor.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11: II. Romance (Larghetto)
I think it would really do me in having this piece of music on the island with me because Louise wouldn't be with me, but uh I'd want it anyway.
I just have this really strong memory of when my daughter Laura was tiny... I wouldn't want to forget that moment.
every time she's on the radio I it just makes me feel really good.
Every now and then an artist arrives and when I hear them I think I'm really proud to be British.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:35When you read that first Blackadder script, what did you think?
Much of it. It was about a week to go before the pilot was due to be made, and it was only about eight lines of dialogue, and none of them were funny, but it was with these incredible people... So suddenly to get this script, on one hand I thought, what a lousy part. And on the other hand, I thought, I'd love to work with these people. And they'd only given it to me because everybody else had turned it down. It was a sort of act of desperation, I think.
Presenter asks
5:13What was the point when you and the rest of the cast knew Blackadder was a red hot hit?
Well, for me I think it wasn't until the repeats of the second series... John Lloyd, who produced the series, on the very first day of shooting episode one had said to me, So, what's it going to be like for you when you're famous? And I thought he was taking the mick, but he could sort of seen into the future. And I suddenly After Series Two thought, My life has changed. People recognize who I am. It was extraordinary.
Presenter asks
8:49Have you always carried that [being an only child] with you? Do you think that's a really intrinsic part of your character?
Yes, I do. I do. I would probably like it not to be quite as intrinsic as it obviously is, but uh there is a little part of me that probably thinks I'm the centre of the universe. And the upside to that is what? Confidence. Right. The upside is enormous confidence.
The keepsakes
The book
George Eliot
I've always wanted to be really good and really honourable, and about five minutes in, every time I've failed completely. And I know George Eliot did as well, but she wrote this book about how to live a good life and about how it's those small acts of kindness and understanding and sympathy that really make for a good life.
The luxury
a good mattress and a good pillow
When you're away as I am two thirds of the year, what is it that you want? What is it that makes you really happy? And the answer is a good mattress and a good pillow.
Presenter asks
14:17Do you have a chip on either shoulder about not being as clever as you'd like to be?
Oh, I think I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about not being as clever as I'd like to be. I think whenever I see myself in a documentary telling everybody what's what, I think there's somebody who actually doesn't know what's what, but wants everyone to think he does.
Presenter asks
16:14That must have been a very big decision to make, to include your mother's experience in the Alzheimer's documentary.
I was very lucky that my kids were around at the time and so I was able to talk through it all with them and I wouldn't have wanted to continue with that documentary without my kids' support. And also my mum's support... I was talking to my mum about it all the time, and my mum, who had always loved amateur dramatics, suddenly had her own documentary in her last days. And even right up to the last moments, she knew that she was being filmed and she loved it, that all the attention was on her, and she remained dignified, and I wouldn't have let her be less than absolutely dignified. And I thought she was fantastic in that.
Presenter asks
29:01Did you find a terrific sense of entitlement among the Blackadder cast?
An enormous sense of entitlement. I am still terribly fond of them. But yes, they they were dripping with gifts, verbal gifts, literary gifts. They all knew what seemed to me to be the right people. They had an enormous confidence.
“I always feel that with your work you spend most of the time putting up the scaffolding and then the scary moment comes when you take all the scaffolding down and you appear in front of the camera and just try and look relaxed without any of the support that you've built up.”
“I always thought that kind of success was from a Judy Garland movie, but it really happened to me.”
“I genuinely think that in one hundred and fifty years' time, people will look back on the way we look after our elderly now, in the way that we look back on child labour.”
“What's the point of coming into this world unless you want to change it a little bit?”
“I think I would probably end up barking mad. I think I'd be like Ben Gunn when the ship finally arrived, cackling with laughter, not having shaved for two years, totally unable to recognise reality from uh fiction.”