WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:25.300 Right, first question. Oh, it's quite one for everyone. Can you recall how each of you 00:25.300 --> 00:33.100 got the acting parts for Mission to the Unknown? Oh, good heavens above. That's 35 years ago. 00:33.100 --> 00:41.700 And I suppose that my agent was rung up by Derek Martinez, who directed it, did he not? 00:41.700 --> 00:50.100 That's right, he did. And so he was bold enough to ask for me, and my agent was silly enough 00:50.100 --> 00:57.100 to send me along. But wasn't I grateful, because it's one of the most interesting episodes, 00:57.100 --> 01:03.900 and the only one that hasn't got a Doctor Who. Yeah, that's true. Well, I don't know 01:03.900 --> 01:08.300 why I was chosen to be a plant, because I don't have very much to do in it. You've got 01:08.300 --> 01:11.900 green fingers. But yes, I must say, yes, they probably knew I was quite a good gardener. 01:11.900 --> 01:18.500 I did specialise in dying rather a lot. I remember my daughter said to me, you like 01:18.500 --> 01:23.600 being in Doctor Who, Daddy, don't you, because you get killed in the seams. She pronounced 01:23.600 --> 01:29.500 it seams. Oh, seams, yes. It's very uncomfortable to be killed in the seams. So I was obviously 01:29.500 --> 01:33.700 always killed in the seams. Yeah, your turn. Yeah, well, I was up in Edinburgh doing the 01:33.700 --> 01:40.700 Edinburgh Festival, and we were doing the Scottish play, Maccas, and I was playing Mac 01:40.700 --> 01:45.900 Duff, and I had some time off. And I'd been in Doctor Who before, and so they phoned me 01:45.900 --> 01:50.500 and sort of said, are you free for a week, because we'd filmed our bits in one week. 01:50.500 --> 01:53.500 And I said, well, yeah, I've got some, it was a three-week rehearsal period, I think, 01:53.500 --> 01:57.900 so I had a middle week off. And so I whipped down to London and did the Doctor Who, and 01:57.900 --> 02:03.500 then whipped back up to Edinburgh and continued doing the Barn. So that's how I came on. Well, 02:03.500 --> 02:08.500 you were lucky to have two jobs at once, weren't you? No, but that was the last time I worked. 02:08.500 --> 02:14.700 I'm so grateful for this tonight. Here we go, the next question for Edward. What was 02:14.700 --> 02:19.300 it like playing the mysterious special agent Mark Corey and being hero of the show for 02:19.300 --> 02:23.500 a week? Well, I never thought that I was the hero of the show for a week. I thought you 02:23.500 --> 02:28.300 were the hero of the show for a week. Oh, stop it. You were the hero. Or Jeremy. No, 02:28.300 --> 02:35.300 I wasn't. No, I like being, I don't think I was all that mysterious, but I suppose as 02:35.300 --> 02:41.900 the episode drew on, it became clear that I wasn't exactly what I seemed to be at the 02:41.900 --> 02:46.900 beginning. And then I became frightfully grumpy and cross with everybody and killed most of 02:46.900 --> 02:50.900 you. In fact, I did. I killed you all. You shot me. I killed you all. You were trained 02:50.900 --> 02:53.700 to kill, weren't you? Oh, yes, I was trained to kill, yes, exactly. You were a sort of 02:53.700 --> 03:00.700 CIA undercover man. I was. I was Dick Barton, the reverse side of Dick Barton, really. Dick 03:00.700 --> 03:07.900 Barton's special agent. So I was Snowy then. Not a pretty side. Fairly Northern. Yeah, 03:07.900 --> 03:13.500 I put a bit of Northern in. But I was certainly the most efficient killer of the lot, apart 03:13.500 --> 03:17.900 from the Daleks, who of course killed me, but then I did actually slip a tape recorder. 03:17.900 --> 03:23.900 So I was very pleased with myself about that. What was it, sort of 1906, say, you know that 03:23.900 --> 03:30.900 tape recorder from Dixon's? I didn't think Dixon's existed. It was Curry's, wasn't it? 03:30.900 --> 03:33.900 Yeah, but I love the line in it, it said, this looks like an ordinary tape recorder, 03:33.900 --> 03:40.900 really, if you know what I mean. And that was the thing about the wrench, you know, 03:40.900 --> 03:45.900 they gave us to repair the spaceship, I was banging away with this hammer and chisel and 03:45.900 --> 03:49.900 a wrench, you know. And I said, come on, we should have some sort of... At least some 03:49.900 --> 03:54.900 kind of surgical influence. Laser gun or something. I'd forgotten that, because that big shot 03:54.900 --> 04:00.900 of that wrench. Unbelievable. But we did have quite nifty guns, didn't we? I mean, we were 04:00.900 --> 04:06.900 quite up to date. Oh, well that was quite up to date. Yeah, that was. It was. It was 04:06.900 --> 04:13.900 just, I couldn't believe it, you know, these old Model T Ford repair kit. Anyway, that's 04:13.900 --> 04:22.900 that one. Next, to you, Edward. Oh, yes, me. This is a biscuit tin, by the way. Question 04:22.900 --> 04:28.900 of a berry. Oh, right, right. You only really appeared in several... What? You only really 04:28.900 --> 04:33.900 appeared in several scenes of Mission to the Unknown. Do you have any memories from your 04:33.900 --> 04:41.900 brief appearance? Yes. Oh, gosh. Well, it seemed to be endless in this, because to grow into 04:41.900 --> 04:47.900 a plant requires a bit of fluff on a hand. Then it requires a bit more fluff. You go 04:47.900 --> 04:52.900 back into the make-up room, a bit more fluff on the feet, and it seemed to be endlessly 04:52.900 --> 04:56.900 going backwards and forwards, getting a different bit of fluff on. It seemed to take a long 04:56.900 --> 05:02.900 time. Fluffing your lines a bit. Yes, that's right. I hardly had any, did I? But I... I 05:02.900 --> 05:09.900 must, I must appeal. Yes, appeal. Watching that, which is extraordinary, because the 05:09.900 --> 05:16.900 face was taken from another thing. But I remember, and I hope this isn't... I'm sure this is 05:16.900 --> 05:23.900 right. I remember in a make-up room, because they put me in, because I was in and out, 05:23.900 --> 05:28.900 I was constantly going in and having this fluff put everywhere, and costumes. And I 05:28.900 --> 05:37.900 remember Susan Hanchard being in a chair, being made up. Not too pleased, I don't think, 05:37.900 --> 05:44.900 that this fluffy individual was next door doing a one-line part. She was doing something 05:44.900 --> 05:48.900 else, was she? I think so. She was a lovely lady. Yes, lovely lady. Oh, she was smashing 05:48.900 --> 05:53.900 it. But I doubt she would have been doing Forsyth. Why we were watching that, I don't 05:53.900 --> 05:57.900 know. Was it Forsyth? But why would I be in the same room? But there you are. Maybe you 05:57.900 --> 06:04.900 asked for it. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's my, that's all I have to, that I can remember. 06:04.900 --> 06:08.900 Right, Jeremy, it's your turn to do it. I'm sorry, we first met, I think, wasn't it, on 06:08.900 --> 06:11.900 that? That's right. I was watching you, actually. Shall I read you a question for everyone? 06:11.900 --> 06:18.900 Yes. Any recollections of the director, Derek Martinus, or of the producer, Verity Lambert? 06:18.900 --> 06:24.900 Yes. Go on, then. Of course, Verity. Yes, because I remember when I was first approached 06:24.900 --> 06:31.900 for the, because I did the first, very first adventure of Doctor Who, when we were, we 06:31.900 --> 06:37.900 went back to caveman times. That was the very start of the whole thing. And I remember her 06:37.900 --> 06:44.900 and Boris Hussain, who was the young director. And it was his first, his first telly. And 06:44.900 --> 06:50.900 they took me out to lunch and sort of said, you know, we've got this new thing called 06:50.900 --> 06:54.900 Doctor Who. And I thought, Doctor what? Doctor Who? Doctor No, because that was obviously 06:54.900 --> 06:59.900 the, they said, no, no, no, this is new, it's Doctor Who. That's the James Bond thing, Doctor 06:59.900 --> 07:06.900 No. And, you know, would you, because I like being in it, etc. And then they broke it gently, 07:06.900 --> 07:13.900 and wanted me in the caveman outfit, all dressed in, you know, in skins and gum as well. And 07:13.900 --> 07:18.900 also, did I know of any other actor that would, because they had fights of the death right 07:18.900 --> 07:24.900 there between myself. I was a leader of one faction. We were trying to find fire. And 07:24.900 --> 07:31.900 he who finds, rediscovers fire. It was like this. It was great performance. Desperate. 07:31.900 --> 07:40.900 We'll lead the tribe, you see. And so, Derek, he went and did as a national theatre player 07:40.900 --> 07:46.900 in the end. But we had this fight. No, Derek Newark. Derek Newark, thank you. Derek Ware. 07:46.900 --> 07:51.900 No, Derek Newark. No, Derek Ware arranged the fight. Derek Newark, yeah. It's because 07:51.900 --> 07:55.900 Derek and I were about the same size, and we were so literate with each other. So we 07:55.900 --> 08:03.900 played rival leaders of the, and they filmed this fight to the death. And we tried to make 08:03.900 --> 08:08.900 this animal. I said, look, these are animals. We have this script. And these scripts used 08:08.900 --> 08:13.900 to be so long in those days. I said, the most erudite cavemen you've ever. So we cut a lot 08:13.900 --> 08:17.900 of this, and sort of just, you know, use grunts. Let's be careful of frightening the children. 08:17.900 --> 08:21.900 Oh, is that what it is? That's right, yeah. First of all, he obviously kills me. He sort 08:21.900 --> 08:29.900 of gets this great stone and bashes my head in. Charming. Yeah, first of all. And then 08:29.900 --> 08:34.900 Garrotts made a house, and I was thinking, oh great, and I screamed. And I cut the screams 08:34.900 --> 08:38.900 of frightening the children. They're already behind the sofa with Doctor Who anyway. And 08:38.900 --> 08:44.900 then we had these skins, and we were just wearing, and underneath, because we were tossing 08:44.900 --> 08:47.900 and turning all over the place in this animal fight we were having. And so for modesty's 08:47.900 --> 08:52.900 sake, we had these sort of little fur bikini pants on, you see. And junior points of view 08:52.900 --> 08:57.900 used to actually ring up and sort of ask for it to be shown, just that that bit of the 08:57.900 --> 09:02.900 fight. And they used to stop the action to see what the well-dressed cavemen are wearing, 09:02.900 --> 09:07.900 you know. These little white front shorts with a bit of fur on them. So that was quite 09:07.900 --> 09:15.900 fun. But I don't know what the question was. It was about Verity. Oh, Verity, of course. 09:15.900 --> 09:22.900 Yeah, Verity. Well, that was her first. It was Verity's first show as a producer, because 09:22.900 --> 09:29.900 she'd been working over on the other side for ITV as a production assistant to one of 09:29.900 --> 09:39.900 the leading directors over there. And so it was all new people actually. She was great. 09:39.900 --> 09:43.900 But you could sense she, because she's now one of the most powerful people in television, 09:43.900 --> 09:47.900 you could sense even then as a young woman, she knew where she was going. She had a mind, 09:47.900 --> 09:53.900 quite a strong mind. And she started, even though it was her first job, she started to 09:53.900 --> 09:57.900 guide the thing, you know. Because I mean, nobody knew it was going to sort of turn out 09:57.900 --> 10:06.900 the way it did. And the success was in it. But that's my first memory of Verity. Did 10:06.900 --> 10:11.900 you work with Derek again? Derek Martin was no. No, I didn't. No, no, I don't think any 10:11.900 --> 10:19.900 of us did, did we? That was it. Oh, God. No, I didn't. But I did work with the late, lamented 10:19.900 --> 10:23.900 Derek Newark. Oh, yes, yes, because you see, he's not with us now, Derek. No, he's gone. 10:23.900 --> 10:28.900 He's gone. Yes. Oh, yeah. Because he actually went on to be a leading national theatre player. 10:28.900 --> 10:33.900 Oh, he did. But Verity produced a thing, and I had two names at that time, Jack Barry and 10:33.900 --> 10:39.900 Barry Jackson. Jack Barry was a fighter engine, and I did the fights, which he was the producer 10:39.900 --> 10:43.900 on Adam Adamant. Oh, I did one of those. Do you remember? Yeah, I did one of those, yeah. 10:43.900 --> 10:49.900 And that's where we would have met again. Ah. Yeah, she was a producer on that, which 10:49.900 --> 10:54.900 was Gerald Harper. Yeah, that's right. I did a fencing fight with her. I shall draw a veil 10:54.900 --> 11:03.900 over that. Right, let's do another. Oh, God, I haven't drawn one. Okay. Question for everyone. 11:03.900 --> 11:10.900 What is it like doing virtually live TV? Were there any retakes? Have you ever done live 11:10.900 --> 11:19.900 TV? Oh, the answer is yes, and it was pretty frightening. But I mean, I don't know, somehow 11:19.900 --> 11:25.900 or other, you squeeze the lines out of your brain and go on with it. But I mean, but Doctor 11:25.900 --> 11:31.900 Who wasn't live, but it might just as well have been, because there was very little capability 11:31.900 --> 11:36.900 of editing, or it was very expensive. That's right. And so you really had to do it in one. 11:36.900 --> 11:42.900 Yes. They could go back on a block of sort of half an hour, but they hadn't learned, 11:42.900 --> 11:46.900 because the sound was so far away from the vision at that time. I think there couldn't, 11:46.900 --> 11:50.900 there's something about editing, they couldn't do it for quite a long time. No, so you might 11:50.900 --> 11:56.900 just as well have been. Yeah, absolutely. And if you weren't reliable and kept on decoupling, 11:56.900 --> 12:02.900 you wouldn't be asking. Some people like that live effect, in fact they use that in Zepcars 12:02.900 --> 12:13.900 and softly, deliberately to try and, but I remember doing Henry V at, before White City, 12:13.900 --> 12:19.900 before the Television Centre was made, things were shot down here in Hammersmith, in Riverside 12:19.900 --> 12:25.900 Studios. Oh, that's right, yes. And I remember we were doing Henry V where he arrives back 12:25.900 --> 12:32.900 at Southampton. The director was displeased in rehearsal because we were all a bit floppy. 12:32.900 --> 12:40.900 And he said, come on, this has affected history for four or five hundred years. Grandfathers 12:40.900 --> 12:45.900 talked about it, great-grandfathers talked about it, whole families remember this extraordinary 12:45.900 --> 12:51.900 battle of Agincourt. For Christ's sake, somebody really think of a line, think of a line to 12:51.900 --> 12:56.900 say when Harry comes back and he arrives in Southampton. Everyone must think of something 12:56.900 --> 13:01.900 to shout at Harry. So we were all thinking, no, Harry, and all this sort of thing went 13:01.900 --> 13:06.900 on, it was live, and it was Robert Hardy playing Henry V. And he came off the boat and we were 13:06.900 --> 13:10.900 all shouting, and all this sort of thing went on with our special lines that we thought. 13:10.900 --> 13:16.900 And then there was the inevitable little silence in a little space, and this action said, 13:16.900 --> 13:24.900 lovely fight, Prince. Oh, yes. You know, we were all shouting, but it was just that little 13:24.900 --> 13:30.900 time. Oh, wonderful. And the other memory of live television is we were skating battlements 13:30.900 --> 13:36.900 in some one of the battle sequences. It was in Coonleyville, Agincourt. And we were climbing 13:36.900 --> 13:41.900 up these ladders up to this tower, and they were throwing these boulders down, which of 13:41.900 --> 13:46.900 course were made of polystyrene. And I was going up with a spear, like this, a bit like 13:46.900 --> 13:50.900 the character in this. I was going up with a spear, and this huge polystyrene, about 13:50.900 --> 13:59.900 300 pounds in weight, went on top of my spear, like a great big lollipop. So I looked so 13:59.900 --> 14:05.900 stupid at the top of this ladder. So I whispered, rather like in that thing in the Scottish 14:05.900 --> 14:10.900 play, the boots boys in Kick Me, Kick Me, you know, in that story. I said to the guy, 14:10.900 --> 14:15.900 it s like I m at the top of the ladder, struggling with it. I was going, Oh! Making it look heavy. 14:15.900 --> 14:21.900 And I said, Push it, push it. He pushed the ladder, and I went, Oh! But it was very funny. 14:21.900 --> 14:27.900 I d love to have seen it. I d love to have seen it. Anyway, that s my memory of Coonleyville. 14:27.900 --> 14:34.900 When we first entered, it was live telly anyway, black and white type folks. But it was, and 14:34.900 --> 14:39.900 we were used to just appearing on stage, and they used to shoot stuff, as if it was a stage 14:39.900 --> 14:43.900 play anyway, used to rehearse it like a stage play, and then used to go on, and they used 14:43.900 --> 14:48.900 to, most of the time, shoot it from A to Z, just like a stage, instead of coming and going 14:48.900 --> 14:56.900 to bits. In an act. Three acts. That s three acts, yeah. And I remember one guy died on 14:56.900 --> 15:05.900 television, live. Oh Lord, in that, in the underground. It was a sort of post Third World 15:05.900 --> 15:09.900 War, wasn t it? In the underground. But he, I mean, he actually died, but he actually 15:09.900 --> 15:18.900 physically. And this is macabre, but luckily, it was for ITV. And they had, obviously, the 15:18.900 --> 15:24.900 adverts. And so there was a break. Oh my goodness. And the director, the guy slipped out of that, 15:24.900 --> 15:28.900 just, you know, died. And so they raced down, you know, went and took a two and a half minute 15:28.900 --> 15:32.900 break, and sort of said, Right, I ll, okay, okay, right, shift him out of the way. I ll 15:32.900 --> 15:37.900 do it from the floor. I ll call the shots from the floor. And actors, you say this, 15:37.900 --> 15:41.900 you say that, you say that, you say this, and cover for him. Right, we re on studio. 15:41.900 --> 15:47.900 And studio, three, two, one. Amazing. And the actors did it. Now it happened with Charlie 15:47.900 --> 15:54.900 Drake, in a sequence, I happened to know there were two stuntmen. There was a huge man. The 15:54.900 --> 15:58.900 bigger they are, it seems they got, the higher their voice. But he used to talk like that. 15:58.900 --> 16:02.900 He used to talk, you know, he used to talk, Hello, Jack, he said. And he was a huge man. 16:02.900 --> 16:07.900 They had this fight with Charlie Drake, which ended up with Charlie Drake going out of the 16:07.900 --> 16:14.900 window, doing one of his dives. And Charlie Drake got knocked out on the corner of a bookshelf 16:14.900 --> 16:19.900 during this. Oh, that s right. And he was completely knocked out. Yeah. And so these 16:19.900 --> 16:23.900 stuntmen were slightly different now. They re now ex-Marines, and they re very sharp 16:23.900 --> 16:28.900 SAS men. But in those days, it was like, we were a bit like that, you know. And they looked 16:28.900 --> 16:31.900 at the count, they looked at the count, these guys were in the middle of this fight, but 16:31.900 --> 16:37.900 suddenly there s nobody, no protagonist. But he s on the floor, knocked out. And they look 16:37.900 --> 16:41.900 at one another, and the cameras are on them, it s all live. And the guy thinks the camera 16:41.900 --> 16:46.900 might be cutting here, they had monitors around, you see. And he was going down, like that, 16:46.900 --> 16:51.900 pointing down, like that, pointing for the director, whoever it was, Charlie, on the 16:51.900 --> 16:56.900 floor. And then, presence of mind, after a few minutes of this sort of boring, he picked 16:56.900 --> 17:01.900 him up, and he thought, well, the end of the scene was seeing him going out the window, 17:01.900 --> 17:06.900 so I ll throw him out the window. So he picked him up like this, and because Charlie was 17:06.900 --> 17:10.900 small, and Stan was a huge man, he picked him up like that. And as he got him right 17:10.900 --> 17:15.900 to his ear, so he could whisper to him, he said, You re going out the window, Charlie. 17:15.900 --> 17:22.900 You re going out the window. And threw him out the window. Of course, Charlie was hospitalised 17:22.900 --> 17:26.900 because of that. Yeah, he tells that story. Oh dear, oh dear. But in those days, if you 17:26.900 --> 17:32.900 did, like an armchair theatre, on a Sunday, or Sunday night theatre, as it used to be 17:32.900 --> 17:37.900 called as well, if it was repeated on a Thursday, they didn t film it, because it was live, 17:37.900 --> 17:42.900 you came back and just repeated it again. You did the show again. But you re used to 17:42.900 --> 17:46.900 doing that, because we were theatre actors. The floor manager had a button, you know, 17:46.900 --> 17:52.900 it looked like a, yeah, and it cut out, the whole station cut out. So you d all be talking, 17:52.900 --> 17:57.900 and then it would be absolutely dead silent, you could hear, it was a palpable silence. 17:57.900 --> 18:02.900 And the station was dead, and she d say, You re lying, and then click, and on it, and on 18:02.900 --> 18:10.900 it again. But in the Z cars, they had Brian Blessed, and they had half a car in the studio, 18:10.900 --> 18:17.900 and people were sort of shaking it a bit, you know, the stagehands, and he was in the 18:17.900 --> 18:23.900 car with Jock, with Joe Brady, and there d be back projection going on, you see, and 18:23.900 --> 18:28.900 they d drive along. And then, it was supposed to come to an end, and the scene came to an 18:28.900 --> 18:32.900 end, and Jock s supposed to say, Well, get out, and Brian noticed that the back projection 18:32.900 --> 18:38.900 was still going. Oh, I wouldn t get out, just get the jock out. We re still going 40 miles 18:38.900 --> 18:46.900 from here. Oh, yeah, that s right. The thing about those boys is that nobody, I think one 18:46.900 --> 18:52.900 of them, or one or two of the four, had a driving license. So the guy who, I can t remember 18:52.900 --> 18:57.900 his name now, he was a smashing chap, who rented the cars to the BBC, he used to lie 18:57.900 --> 19:03.900 down, used to lie down and do the gear change. That s it, yeah. When they were shooting down 19:03.900 --> 19:09.900 the road, he actually used to do it all underneath their knees. I remember shooting, because 19:09.900 --> 19:14.900 my first take was Deadline Midnight, and that was live, and then we filmed it later, but, 19:14.900 --> 19:21.900 and Peter Vaughan, and we were supposed to be in Treadwick reporting it, and he was playing 19:21.900 --> 19:27.900 the editor, and I was phoning in my story, and then it s supposed to come to the part 19:27.900 --> 19:31.900 where he answers me, and I noticed, I looked across the studio, and his camera was sort 19:31.900 --> 19:35.900 of like this, you see, the cameraman, I don t have thought, well, I ve got nothing to 19:35.900 --> 19:38.900 shoot at the moment. So you just had to keep talking, you just kept talking and talking 19:38.900 --> 19:42.900 and talking until somebody found the cameraman and, grrr, and started to get me. Totally 19:42.900 --> 19:45.900 was on. And the other thing was, unless they wanted you, it was the other thing, wasn t 19:45.900 --> 19:50.900 it, where you, you come to a scene, and they wanted you to maybe appear the next day in 19:50.900 --> 19:55.900 something, in a different clothes and things, and so you d be having a two-hander, and the 19:55.900 --> 20:00.900 camera would come past you, and onto that person s face as a close-up, and as soon as 20:00.900 --> 20:04.900 the camera went past, you rushed, belt changed, like hell, across the studio, people dragging 20:04.900 --> 20:08.900 sort of stuff off you, putting a raincoat on you, you know, and a hat, and then you 20:08.900 --> 20:12.900 d be on the phone and stuff. And sometimes doing a scene with the wardrobe person just 20:12.900 --> 20:18.900 doing up the, you know, the flies. That s right, yes, yes. Anyway. In Tale of Two Cities, 20:18.900 --> 20:23.900 there was the story with the Bastille, there was a fighter ranger, it might have been you, 20:23.900 --> 20:26.900 no, I don t think it was. No, I didn t think it was. He had a white shirt on, and he was, 20:26.900 --> 20:32.900 he was frankly good at the sword game. I d hear he died about seven times, you know, 20:32.900 --> 20:39.900 and then later he d be up, fighting, and then he d be up, killing somebody else, and then 20:39.900 --> 20:47.900 he d be up, and then up he d get, and then there was lots of explosions and smoke and 20:47.900 --> 20:55.900 stuff, and then they cut from Storming Bastille to some cosy little tea party in Sussex. And 20:55.900 --> 21:07.900 there we all were. Because the Bastille was just next door. Oh, the smoke was, what, oh, 21:07.900 --> 21:15.900 really, really. Oh, dear, that was live television. But then it went into semi-live, didn t it? 21:15.900 --> 21:21.900 I remember, because I was in the street, in Coronation Street for a bit, and I remember 21:21.900 --> 21:26.900 it was still scary. And there was very, very little time, they had time for one retake, 21:26.900 --> 21:30.900 that s all, because you d just do two shows a week. And I always remember Graham Hotherfield, 21:30.900 --> 21:35.900 who s gone now, but as we were counting down, and he was feeling, Right, gotta get it right, 21:35.900 --> 21:40.900 gotta get it right, please, gotta get it right. Suddenly you hear this voice, suddenly going, 21:40.900 --> 21:48.900 Goodbye, the real world. I d be all, Graham, yes. Isn t it time we Yeah, another question, 21:48.900 --> 21:56.900 please. Oh, question for Barry and myself. Edward recalled watching Mission to the Unknown 21:56.900 --> 22:02.900 with his son on his knee. Did the rest of you watch the episode sitting on No, no, can 22:02.900 --> 22:06.900 t be sitting on Edward s knee now. Did the rest of you watch the episode when it was 22:06.900 --> 22:10.900 originally transmitted? I didn t, so I go, That s my answer, I m afraid. That s a quick 22:10.900 --> 22:13.900 answer. Let s have another question. Right, another question, please. Right, okay, somebody 22:13.900 --> 22:19.900 else, please. Right, I ll do one. No, I m afraid I didn t, that s the first time I ve 22:19.900 --> 22:26.900 seen that one. Question for Edward and Jeremy. What was it like working with the Daleks, 22:26.900 --> 22:34.900 scary or silly? Ah, yeah, originally, like you said in your preamble to this reconstruction, 22:34.900 --> 22:41.900 you looked and you saw the in rehearsal, they used to actually take the top off the Dalek 22:41.900 --> 22:47.900 and they used to sort of, but there is a Father Christmas children out there, there is a Father 22:47.900 --> 22:51.900 Christmas, but they used to sort of, and sit and sit. No, they didn t even have that. Oh, 22:51.900 --> 22:55.900 well, I remember that. They were just squat. I remember that. So, okay. Not in our episode. 22:55.900 --> 23:00.900 Well, anyway, and they sat and trundled around with their feet, they used to, because they 23:00.900 --> 23:04.900 were on casters, the actual bottom half, and they used to trundle around with their feet 23:04.900 --> 23:10.900 with their arm out while Peter Hawkins or whoever s doing the voices, you know, from 23:10.900 --> 23:15.900 the sidelines. And I thought, wow, you know, I ve never thought the Daleks particularly 23:15.900 --> 23:20.900 scary. And honestly, truly, when I was lying there, I don t think it s shown in here, but 23:20.900 --> 23:25.900 I was lying there dead after you sort of zapped me, I don t know, half into a bargain plant, 23:25.900 --> 23:32.900 suddenly the Daleks appeared, just trundling, but obviously all done up, made up when they 23:32.900 --> 23:40.900 were shooting it. And I really felt, uh-uh, spooky, uh-uh, I can see what it is, yes, 23:40.900 --> 23:46.900 just like that. I can t quite, I just think of the jungle floor with those casters, thinking 23:46.900 --> 23:51.900 how difficult it would be. Yeah, oh yeah. Okay, another? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I 23:51.900 --> 23:55.900 said what I wanted to say. That s right, on the, yeah. Okay, question for everyone, did 23:55.900 --> 24:02.900 you see much filming of the alien delegate scenes in the studio or rehearsals? I saw 24:02.900 --> 24:07.900 none. No. We didn t. I think that was all complete disappearance. Yes, you see, if you 24:07.900 --> 24:12.900 re not in a, if you re not in a particular scene, you wouldn t be called for that day. 24:12.900 --> 24:17.900 I mean, that s, that s if it was filmed, that s how it would, obviously if it was done with, 24:17.900 --> 24:22.900 in live television, on a block, you re all there. You re all there. Rather like a play, 24:22.900 --> 24:28.900 you know, performances are very separated, aren t they? Or were they? Yes, yes, yes, 24:28.900 --> 24:32.900 even in those days they started, they started, if you re talking about them, they probably 24:32.900 --> 24:36.900 started to separate them. Yes. Rather than, or what do you call them? Possibly. Yeah. 24:36.900 --> 24:42.900 But it was as much like a film, making a film. Yes. Well, we used to pre, they used to call 24:42.900 --> 24:50.900 it pre-filming, then, after that, they pre-filmed everything and then shot in the studio, didn 24:50.900 --> 24:54.900 t they? Yeah. That s right. So then they put it all together. That s right. Yeah, we filmed 24:54.900 --> 24:59.900 the fight at Ealing. Yeah. I remember, but I knew Bob Cartland, the actor who played 24:59.900 --> 25:06.900 Mr Big in, but I never, the first time seeing it tonight, because we ve just seen the show, 25:06.900 --> 25:10.900 your reconstruction of it, and it s the first time I thought, my God, I didn t realise that 25:10.900 --> 25:15.900 Bob had actually done that part. Yeah. I mean, you can be in a film nowadays and you re all 25:15.900 --> 25:26.900 in the same film, but you never meet anybody. Okay. Oh, right, right. Weeks apart. Barry. 25:26.900 --> 25:31.900 Question for everyone. Was it explained to you in advance that the episode was a prequel 25:31.900 --> 25:39.900 to the epic 12-part Dalek master plan? And the answer is certainly not, as far as I was 25:39.900 --> 25:46.900 concerned. No. Well, I knew it was a, yeah. I tend not to do that. I mean, were you told 25:46.900 --> 25:51.900 it? No, I just told it was actually a link. Oh, you were told it. I was told this is a 25:51.900 --> 26:00.900 link between one episode and the others, and that s why Dr Who, who was William Harden, 26:00.900 --> 26:04.900 Bill Harden, wasn t in it, because I thought, Oh, I ll see Bill again, because, and that 26:04.900 --> 26:09.900 obviously is the other adventurer. So you were privy to that kind of information because 26:09.900 --> 26:13.900 you were a bit of a star when you were in it, having done the first one. I mean, what? 26:13.900 --> 26:18.900 It s his. It s his. You haven t changed, have you, Barry? In 35 years. That s a bit of a 26:18.900 --> 26:24.900 bitch. Question for Barry. Hello, Barry. You appeared in two other Dr Who stories. Firstly, 26:24.900 --> 26:31.900 alongside William Hartnell in The Romans. Secondly, alongside Tom Baker in The Armageddon 26:31.900 --> 26:36.900 and The Last Jedi. Tell us about these two actors and any recollections you may have. 26:36.900 --> 26:40.900 I ve got a recollection. Tell us about these two actors. I do. I ve got a recollection 26:40.900 --> 26:48.900 of William Hartnell because he sort of got, if he tried, he would go, What? What? What? 26:48.900 --> 26:54.900 for the other actors. So, if you were on with him, you had to cover all the time. And I 26:54.900 --> 26:59.900 remember doing a scene with him, because I d had my tongue cut out and was an assassin. 26:59.900 --> 27:05.900 So, I just remember, because I was like, That character there. And I remember him going 27:05.900 --> 27:11.900 to me, we were on a road scene, and I remember him going, What? What? What? to me. He dried. 27:11.900 --> 27:20.900 And I went, And I loved doing that. Well, you ve built your world up. Much, much longer. 27:20.900 --> 27:29.900 Much longer. I ve seen him every hour. I mean, he was, he was, sorry, go on. No, no. I was 27:29.900 --> 27:31.900 just, I ll just flash through the question. Yeah, sure. Because the other thing was The 27:31.900 --> 27:36.900 Armageddon factor. Yes, with Tom. And I read this script, the script came through and I 27:36.900 --> 27:43.900 thought, and there s this description, was that Tom Baker is in this cave, I think he 27:43.900 --> 27:48.900 s sort of in a cave, and there s a sort of scrabbling, and through a hole in this cave 27:48.900 --> 27:54.900 appears this great shock of red hair. And I thought, Yeah, I ll do it. Because I wanted 27:54.900 --> 28:00.900 a great big shock of red hair. A great big wig of red hair. Because if you re going like 28:00.900 --> 28:05.900 us, you know, you tend to, you want to be like him. Not like him. You want to have really 28:05.900 --> 28:12.900 nice hair. So, that s why I accepted the role. I mean, I have to say, it was a nice part 28:12.900 --> 28:18.900 of the script. I was a time lord. But this thing really, I was so excited. I went to 28:18.900 --> 28:21.900 the read through. And there was nothing said to me at all. And at the end of the read through, 28:21.900 --> 28:28.900 we read four episodes, I think, I said to the director, I m trying to remember his name, 28:28.900 --> 28:34.900 I can t remember his name. But I said to him, Mike, you know, what about the wig? I had 28:34.900 --> 28:39.900 nobody in make-up talk to me. He said, Oh, you re right, love as you are. And I was stuck. 28:39.900 --> 28:46.900 I was so disappointed. And that s my story of Drax, the Armageddon fighter. Yeah, Bill, 28:46.900 --> 28:50.900 I mean, he was, that s the first time I met him. But he was quite an experienced actor. 28:50.900 --> 28:57.900 Oh, he ve been in many, many films. Tons of films. And I think it s to his credit that 28:57.900 --> 29:04.900 he took it very seriously. He was a bit irascible. Who, Bill? Bill, yeah. But he took the actual 29:04.900 --> 29:09.900 part of Doctor Who, Bill Hartnell, very seriously, I thought, indeed. I mean, he was almost like 29:09.900 --> 29:14.900 the guardian of the series. Yes, he was very serious about it, wasn t he? Oh, yes, especially 29:14.900 --> 29:18.900 so. No, there wasn t like Patrick Chan, who had a sort of twinkle about him. Yeah, that 29:18.900 --> 29:23.900 s right. No, Bill was sort of, he thought, you know, that was Andy. A lot of people think 29:23.900 --> 29:31.900 of William Hartnell only as Doctor Who. But in fact, I mean, there are so many like William 29:31.900 --> 29:38.900 Hartnell, who had great screen careers, film screen careers, a long career. Enormous. All 29:38.900 --> 29:45.900 war films. All war films. Even pages. Yeah, yeah. But, and they think that Sporting Life 29:45.900 --> 29:51.900 suddenly came only when Doctor Who came along. That s right. In fact, it was towards the 29:51.900 --> 29:57.900 end of his career. Yeah. Bit like John Limousiere in the West. Yeah. I mean, he s the grandfather 29:57.900 --> 30:01.900 of my agent. Anyway, so I ve got to say nice things about him. Oh, right. So I guess. No, 30:01.900 --> 30:05.900 he was. He was nice. The question for everyone, when you come Doctor Who in the 60s, did you 30:05.900 --> 30:11.900 expect to still be alive? Oh, no, indeed you said, still be of interest 35 years later. 30:11.900 --> 30:16.900 Absolutely not. I mean, that s one of the great phenomena, isn t it? Isn t it? Yeah. 30:16.900 --> 30:20.900 It s absolutely amazing. I think I m colour-blind. And generations and generations, I mean, there 30:20.900 --> 30:27.900 s three generations who have taken an interest. But it s like anything like that. I mean, 30:27.900 --> 30:31.900 what, Coronation Street. It started off as six episodes or something, didn t it? Florizel 30:31.900 --> 30:36.900 Street, they were going to call it one day. But you don t really know if it s going to 30:36.900 --> 30:42.900 really take off until suddenly, obviously the ratings start to come in and it builds 30:42.900 --> 30:47.900 upon itself, you know. Well, the company that we did this, the Age of Kings, Violet Carson 30:47.900 --> 30:52.900 was playing various parts in that. And Sean Conlon too, was the other one. Violet Carson 30:52.900 --> 30:57.900 said to me, I don t, she used to play the piano for children. That s right, yes. And 30:57.900 --> 31:04.900 for Wilfred Pickle, go on. I think I m going to stop now. But I do have an interview in 31:04.900 --> 31:11.900 Manchester next week for a new series. A new series, it ll just be very interesting to 31:11.900 --> 31:17.900 see. I don t know what ll happen. That s what I know. Yeah. Coronation Street. So yes, you 31:17.900 --> 31:21.900 know, there was no idea. And I don t think the BBC did. No. Again, started off. But I 31:21.900 --> 31:27.900 said, as I was saying earlier, I was in Birmingham on tour and a play last year and some guys 31:27.900 --> 31:34.900 in a pub were enthralled because they ran, they had a Doctor Who club. So it s so popular. 31:34.900 --> 31:40.900 When you go to these conventions, sci-fi conventions, well, I don t. But some actors do. And sit 31:40.900 --> 31:44.900 there signing and make it, and they actually make it. They have them in America as well, 31:44.900 --> 31:48.900 you know, in the States. Oh, do they? So yeah. Because I was out in the States. I was out 31:48.900 --> 31:54.900 in San Francisco and I was working out there and I had some time off. So I decided to do 31:54.900 --> 32:00.900 the tourist thing and I went to this like cowboy ghost town thing they set up. And I 32:00.900 --> 32:04.900 went in and I had a look somewhere, all the memorabilia, and suddenly the guy looked at 32:04.900 --> 32:10.900 me, and this is a few years later, you know, and he s looked at me and said, Hey, hey, 32:10.900 --> 32:16.900 hey, Mark just standing sideways, you know, with the old profile. And he took me into 32:16.900 --> 32:20.900 the back and there were pictures of Doctor Who and, you know, and the first episode of 32:20.900 --> 32:24.900 course. He said, You were in the first episode of Doctor Who. And he got pictures of himself 32:24.900 --> 32:28.900 dressed up as Doctor Who or whatever, you know. And that was in the States. And you 32:28.900 --> 32:34.900 re talking about 20 years later. So, you know, all my hair had gone and everything. It s amazing. 32:34.900 --> 32:44.900 Yeah. Okay. Right. Question for Edward. If you d been asked by the BBC to reprise your 32:44.900 --> 32:51.900 role of Mark Horry, would you have done so? Oh, absolutely, yes. The best thing that any 32:51.900 --> 32:57.900 actor can do is to be asked and do a part that he s already played. Because you can 32:57.900 --> 33:05.900 always do it better. I mean, the first time round is, well, hopefully, alright. But you 33:05.900 --> 33:12.900 could have done it better. Yes, of course you could. Well, you shot me. But you always 33:12.900 --> 33:18.900 learn from that experience to go back to it. And I have been able to reprise one or two 33:18.900 --> 33:25.900 roles over a long period. And it s always wonderful to go back to a role because you 33:25.900 --> 33:34.900 just, you can t in time scale preparing the episode, for instance, of Mission Impossible 33:34.900 --> 33:38.900 or what was it called? Yeah, Mission to the Unknown. Mission to the Unknown. In that time 33:38.900 --> 33:49.900 scale, you can only do what you can do. But afterwards, long after the thing, all that 33:49.900 --> 33:56.900 brief but very concentrated piece of experience and rehearsal and work just sort of filters 33:56.900 --> 34:03.900 down into you. And so when you come back to it, not that I was ever asked to, but if I 34:03.900 --> 34:10.900 were to be asked to do it a couple of years later, all that would have been a basis upon 34:10.900 --> 34:19.900 which to do it. And certainly when I played Demetrius at Stratford with Charles Laubner 34:19.900 --> 34:26.900 and Albert Finney, and then I did it again on a recording. And it was like a holiday 34:26.900 --> 34:33.900 because you knew so much more about it. The basic work had been done. You had your four 34:33.900 --> 34:39.900 weeks rehearsal and you had the experience of playing it. But next time round, provided 34:39.900 --> 34:45.900 that you're still young enough to play it, all that is still there, plus what you still 34:45.900 --> 34:50.900 know, or what you rather have learnt since as an actor generally, not thinking about 34:50.900 --> 34:56.900 that part. So it's always better to go and have another go. Provided that you're young 34:56.900 --> 35:03.900 enough. I'd have to be asked to do it now. Yes, the John Gilbert played Hamlet many years 35:03.900 --> 35:10.900 ago. Yes, yes he did. But I don't think he ever was too old to play Hamlet because he 35:10.900 --> 35:16.900 stopped doing it early enough. But apparently his Richard of Bordeaux was something which 35:16.900 --> 35:23.900 he reprised in South Africa and he was terribly, terribly disappointed in it because he was 35:23.900 --> 35:29.900 simply too old for it. But there's that story of John Gilbert actually. I worked with him, 35:29.900 --> 35:35.900 a lovely guy, a lovely man. He was playing Hamlet, that's right. He was sort of talking 35:35.900 --> 35:43.900 to Harry Andrews and saying, oh, it's lovely, you'll make a lovely Horatio. He said, but 35:43.900 --> 35:47.900 the man who played it before, oh God, he was not very good. Harry Andrews said, well, it's 35:47.900 --> 35:53.900 a John. I played it. Oh, but John, you've improved so much, he said. He's improved so 35:53.900 --> 36:00.900 much. He's so indiscreet. He used to say, I'm so indiscreet. And he knew he was indiscreet. 36:00.900 --> 36:08.900 I played, I was in Heartbreak House and he was in it. Well, he was it, he was in Heartbreak 36:08.900 --> 36:12.900 House. And he said, the only thing he ever said to me was, I love what you're doing but 36:12.900 --> 36:20.900 speak up. It was a wonderful brick he dropped when he was in a film, isn't it? And there 36:20.900 --> 36:27.900 was a social occasion and some young lady sat next to him and said, oh, oh, I thought 36:27.900 --> 36:34.900 you were that terrible actress, Mercedes McCambridge. And she said, well, I am Mercedes McCambridge. 36:34.900 --> 36:42.900 He says, no, no, no, not that Mercedes. Another Mercedes McCambridge. Yeah, no, he's lovely. 36:42.900 --> 36:45.900 He was a great wonder. He was wonderful. 36:45.900 --> 36:51.900 Yeah, a question for everyone. Did any of you retain any keepsakes from Doctor Who or 36:51.900 --> 36:55.900 any other acting work you have been involved with? 36:55.900 --> 37:04.900 I'm not a memorabilia person at all. I don't think I have anything. I certainly haven't 37:04.900 --> 37:11.900 got anything from that or indeed anything else. The only things that I keep are good 37:11.900 --> 37:16.900 clothes and I didn't have any particularly good clothes, I seem to remember. 37:16.900 --> 37:18.900 They don't do it now, do they? 37:18.900 --> 37:25.900 No, they don't. I mean, no, you can buy them for sometimes a quarter or a third the price. 37:25.900 --> 37:30.900 I have got a pair of shoes and a suit, but not from that. 37:30.900 --> 37:40.900 I kept my, because I, I've only got one photograph from Doctor Who, as I came in, in my, in 37:40.900 --> 37:49.900 my, in my skin. But from, I used to play in the Musketeers, we did three Musketeers on 37:49.900 --> 37:56.900 the box years ago. Brian Blessed was Portos and Jeremy Brett was Battalion and I played 37:56.900 --> 38:04.900 Atos. Gary Watson played Animes. And I kept my hat, I've still got the two Musketeer hats 38:04.900 --> 38:07.900 with all the, and a couple of swords. 38:07.900 --> 38:08.900 When do you model them? 38:08.900 --> 38:10.900 They're stuck up there. 38:10.900 --> 38:12.900 Good. 38:12.900 --> 38:21.900 And yeah, I kept one or two things like when I played Maccas, the orb, you know. It was 38:21.900 --> 38:27.900 actually, it's sad now, because it was actually a ball with a bit of polystyrene around it 38:27.900 --> 38:31.900 and painted gold and everything. Of course the ball has sort of actually deflated, rather 38:31.900 --> 38:33.900 sadly, the orb now. 38:33.900 --> 38:38.900 A few scripts. Funny enough, no Doctor Who scripts, except the one we've got now, which 38:38.900 --> 38:45.900 is very nice. One or two scripts from the time. That's all I can think of. But nothing 38:45.900 --> 38:50.900 from Doctor Who, I'm afraid. Because in a way, it was just another job, you see. You 38:50.900 --> 38:53.900 thought, well, okay, good, got four weeks work or five weeks, whatever the, however 38:53.900 --> 38:55.900 long it took to shoot the first film. 38:55.900 --> 38:58.900 Yes, have we known, I mean, there are many things, have we known about those cigarette 38:58.900 --> 39:00.900 cards or when we were children, whatever. 39:00.900 --> 39:07.900 Yes, I worked on Hard Day's Night, the first Beatles film. And if I'd have known, because 39:07.900 --> 39:11.900 I went to school with two of the Beatles, and so we were chatting, I was on it quite 39:11.900 --> 39:15.900 a bit, and we were chatting about the old school days. If I'd have known, I'd have 39:15.900 --> 39:17.900 taken my tape recorder. 39:17.900 --> 39:18.900 What? 39:18.900 --> 39:21.900 Yeah. Because I was there when they were plonking out, because they used to, between takes, 39:21.900 --> 39:23.900 they used to sort of plonk out a few. 39:23.900 --> 39:24.900 Francis? 39:24.900 --> 39:26.900 No, they used to sort of start composing. 39:26.900 --> 39:30.900 They're composing, they're really. 39:30.900 --> 39:32.900 I think, I'm not sure, but it was one of them, maybe this is apocryphal, maybe it wasn't 39:32.900 --> 39:37.900 this one, but I'm sure it was. I wanna hold your hand. What do you think about this then? 39:37.900 --> 39:42.900 I wanna, yeah, that'll work, won't it, like, you know. And so they said, yeah, I thought, 39:42.900 --> 39:45.900 God, now, you know. With a few quips. 39:45.900 --> 39:47.900 That's a nice one. 39:47.900 --> 39:48.900 Yeah. 39:48.900 --> 39:49.900 I'm reading these. 39:49.900 --> 39:53.900 All right, question for everyone. What inspired each of you to become actors, and did you 39:53.900 --> 39:57.900 have a little, a role model or a childhood hero? 39:57.900 --> 40:00.900 Yeah. Sir Lawrence Olivier. 40:00.900 --> 40:01.900 Was that, yeah. 40:01.900 --> 40:02.900 Yeah. 40:02.900 --> 40:03.900 Yeah. 40:03.900 --> 40:08.900 So I went to see those films, Hamlet and Henry V, and I thought, oh. But really, I mean, 40:08.900 --> 40:15.900 in Nativity Play. And I could read before I went to school, and so if you're good at 40:15.900 --> 40:21.900 something and you get praise for it as a kid, then of course you do. And we went to school, 40:21.900 --> 40:26.900 what, about four, four and a half in those days. No, it was three and a half when I could 40:26.900 --> 40:32.900 read. And so obviously, the teacher, if there was any reading to be done, you know, in syllabus, 40:32.900 --> 40:37.900 they'd think, oh, this is the easy bit, just give it to him, you know. And I used to, and 40:37.900 --> 40:41.900 from that, and I used to, I'm frightened of water. I used to hate swimming, and I, they 40:41.900 --> 40:47.900 used to go swimming. And I got out of it as many times as I could, sick notes and God 40:47.900 --> 40:53.900 forbid. And, because I found out that those that stayed behind actually did little playwrights. 40:53.900 --> 40:58.900 And because I could read, I got sort of, I played the greening, you know. Coming to tease 40:58.900 --> 41:04.900 the toys at night. And so that was really, and I thought, I like this. And anyway, that's 41:04.900 --> 41:08.900 why I really started. So it was either going to be a professional football. In Liverpool, 41:08.900 --> 41:15.900 yeah. In Liverpool, yeah. My first part was as a wise man in the Nativity Play. I had 41:15.900 --> 41:20.900 these pointed hats, I must have been about four, five, maybe four or five, these pointed 41:20.900 --> 41:25.900 hats. A cloak, of course I didn't know how to take a cloak off, you know. Here's my cloak 41:25.900 --> 41:30.900 to keep you warm, right up the top of that. I brought the house down. I can't remember 41:30.900 --> 41:35.900 that. A bit of red face. Your mum's told you that. Yes, probably. But that's, I remember, 41:35.900 --> 41:39.900 that's the earliest memory I've got of it. What about your earliest memory? I haven't 41:39.900 --> 41:45.900 got an earliest memory, but I couldn't have done anything else. Why do you say that? Well, 41:45.900 --> 41:51.900 not that I was a very good actor, I was very bad at everything else. But my mother did 41:51.900 --> 41:56.900 say, she said, you know, she had bells pulsing towards the end of How I Wished You Were Dead 41:56.900 --> 42:01.900 all day. She said, you know, one of the reasons why you're an actor, I suppose, she said, 42:01.900 --> 42:10.900 when I was a little girl, we used to do, we used to have to perform, and when I was, when 42:10.900 --> 42:17.900 she was a little girl, we're talking about 1898, and all the lads used to chayak, you 42:17.900 --> 42:23.900 know, they used to, she was born in Howe, they used to rib us, you know, and I had to 42:23.900 --> 42:32.900 stand up and I had to do this poem, and the poem went, There was a bee sat on the wall 42:32.900 --> 42:46.900 and it went buzz, and that was all. And you? Well, I remember, I wrote an essay when I 42:46.900 --> 42:52.900 was nine, it exists somewhere, why I want to be an actor. So I obviously, I came from 42:52.900 --> 42:56.900 a family of actors, and I was a little bit of a drama teacher in the home, really, and 42:56.900 --> 42:57.900 I spoke a lot of that. So my parents wanted me to be a bit more middle class, so I was 42:57.900 --> 43:02.900 sent to a drama teacher and that s really, and I think it s for her inspiration that 43:02.900 --> 43:11.900 I did that. And then I became a, I did some radio in 51 as a, you know, children s zone 43:11.900 --> 43:19.900 and stuff like that, and that s how it all started really. For me. Right. Question for 43:19.900 --> 43:26.900 you. What was your first film or TV appearance? Edward. There s a wonderful story. Now, who 43:26.900 --> 43:33.900 s that very camp person who used to be in all the Carry On films? Kenneth Rhodes? No, 43:33.900 --> 43:44.900 no, no. Oh, yes. But it doesn t really matter because he was quite a senior gentleman, and 43:44.900 --> 43:50.900 he was being interviewed. Haltry. Charles Haltry. Charles, well, remember, Charles Haltry 43:50.900 --> 43:57.900 was being interviewed, and he was being very charming to the interviewer, and in the end 43:57.900 --> 44:07.900 the interviewer said, No, Mr. Haltry, would you tell me when you did your first movie? 44:07.900 --> 44:12.900 He said, Oh, now that s a very outrageous question, and that s very personal. I m not 44:12.900 --> 44:18.900 going to tell you that, but I can tell you that my first talkie was in 1932. Oh, wow. 44:18.900 --> 44:24.900 Yes. What was the question? You were saying, What was your first film or TV appearance? 44:24.900 --> 44:29.900 Oh, yes, well, I can remember that. That was, that was the Romans. 1898. No, no, it was 44:29.900 --> 44:38.900 your mum. The Romans bring a Mrs. Stone, and my son had just been born, and I had one day 44:38.900 --> 44:47.900 on this film, Vivien Leigh, with Vivien Leigh and Robert Beatty, and I had to have a monkey, 44:47.900 --> 44:54.900 and I had to cuddle and befriend this monkey. It was a Humboldt s wooly monkey from a pet 44:54.900 --> 45:00.900 shop. It wasn t trained or anything. Oh, my. And so it was a bit peed all over, and it 45:00.900 --> 45:11.900 was nipped by a maraschino cherry, and it was a lady monkey. And I was the gigolo of 45:11.900 --> 45:17.900 Mabors Villas, and this monkey was absolutely, it was so possessive and so jealous and bit 45:17.900 --> 45:22.900 everybody inside. And all the ladies. Who came near the. Oh, yes, everybody was rushing 45:22.900 --> 45:28.900 off to the nurse, and having derris dust or whatever it was on their still bites. But 45:28.900 --> 45:36.900 this monkey thought the world of me. My first TV was Deadline Midnight, where we had a 45:36.900 --> 45:42.900 series about newspaper. I ve spoken about this before. The series about newspaper people, 45:42.900 --> 45:51.900 which ITV started, ATV, out at Highbury Barn with the ATV studios. In fact, I opened ATV 45:51.900 --> 45:56.900 studios, because we moved from Highbury Barn to the new ATV studios out at Elstree. And 45:56.900 --> 46:01.900 about twenty odd years later, I closed ATV studios with another desperate, awful series. 46:01.900 --> 46:08.900 But Deadline Midnight. Funny enough, I went round on the Mirror, I went round the Mirror 46:08.900 --> 46:13.900 with a young Desmond Wilcox, because he was a reporter on the Mirror at that time, and 46:13.900 --> 46:20.900 to get some experience, work experience before Stanislavski stuff, you know. I went round 46:20.900 --> 46:24.900 with him on some stories. He was quite a tough cookie. I mean, I based, he was like a foot 46:24.900 --> 46:30.900 in the door, tough reporter actually. And I based the character on Desmond Wilcox. And 46:30.900 --> 46:34.900 then of course he went into television and was married to Esther Haxel. But that was 46:34.900 --> 46:43.900 my first TV. The Insect play, and I played an ant. Patrick Troughton played another ant. 46:43.900 --> 46:55.900 Richard Wordsworth played another ant. Anna Cropper played the mayfly. It was full of 46:55.900 --> 46:59.900 extraordinary, it was an amazing play. We did that at Riverside. She managed to build 46:59.900 --> 47:06.900 a road. She was. It was about 110 degrees inside the studio. Oh, I remember it. It was 47:06.900 --> 47:11.900 so hot, it was extraordinary. We were in, in those days they didn t have, when you were 47:11.900 --> 47:16.900 in costume, we were in ant costumes. You know what it s like, and it s felt in those days. 47:16.900 --> 47:22.900 It s not, you don t have a built in fan like you would now. And we were all dying, really 47:22.900 --> 47:28.900 nearly dying, passing out. That s what I remember. Anyway, that was my first, my first. Filming, 47:28.900 --> 47:34.900 I can t remember. Big grown up films, big films. Commonly, Rotten to the Corpse, John 47:34.900 --> 47:38.900 Belding. You must have done those, the B films and stuff like that. No, I didn t do any of 47:38.900 --> 47:43.900 those. No, I never cast Ronnie Curtis. He used to come in casting me. I d just sort 47:43.900 --> 47:49.900 of, er, squint and he d say, You, and you, and you, and the rest of you can go, bugger 47:49.900 --> 47:54.900 off. Er, yeah, because Mike Kane used to be around at that time as well. Sort of looking 47:54.900 --> 48:01.900 for work, you know. But, er, yeah, I used to do some of those movies. Er, but, I don 48:01.900 --> 48:07.900 t know, it s mostly television really. I, I actually, I m, my living, I m theatre of 48:07.900 --> 48:12.900 course, you know. You talk, yes, you, you ve got to be talking. When was the, when was 48:12.900 --> 48:17.900 2001 made? It s only been. Oh, that s, that s, that s some time ago. I went with Pitchcock. 48:17.900 --> 48:22.900 I went up for that. I went up for one of the monkeys in that. Oh, did you? And it was because 48:22.900 --> 48:27.900 I would, my mum had said to me, Why don t you buy a cine camera? I said, I d love one. 48:27.900 --> 48:33.900 Anyway, I had another agent, er, I had an agent for a cabaret actor in those days, for 48:33.900 --> 48:38.900 this Jack Barry character. He used to tumble, I used to teach tumbling and stuff. And, er, 48:38.900 --> 48:43.900 they said, there s a day s shooting down by Cliffordship Pitcher down at, at, not at Pinewood, 48:43.900 --> 48:49.900 it would have been at MGM Studios. So I went down to be hanging from a, a roof and dropping 48:49.900 --> 48:54.900 into a tub of, whatever it was. The boys were going by on their bikes in Greece or wherever 48:54.900 --> 48:59.900 they were and knocked this chap who s, knocked his ladder and I fell into this thing, Robert 48:59.900 --> 49:05.900 Moore, he was there, I remember. But, er, this booker who was a circus agent said, While 49:05.900 --> 49:10.900 you re there, go and see, I want you to come and see the, er, 2001 set which I m doing 49:10.900 --> 49:15.900 all the harnesses for. And I saw the, that extraordinary scene where the man is walking 49:15.900 --> 49:21.900 around the spaceship and it s mark, like mile, a mile, a long walk, isn t it? Yeah, there 49:21.900 --> 49:28.900 we are. Coast, coaster. Kubrick was the first to have monitors, to use monitors, er, and 49:28.900 --> 49:32.900 he was in a box somewhere else. I won t see you. And through this gap, there were these 49:32.900 --> 49:37.900 drums, they were about two, I think about two hundred feet across. They might have been 49:37.900 --> 49:41.900 more, but in the big bonds, one of the big stages, not, it wouldn t be the bonds, this 49:41.900 --> 49:46.900 is Pinewood, but there were huge, two huge drums and they would, they were, there was 49:46.900 --> 49:54.900 a gap like that, a very thin gap and an extraordinary piece of steel through it, titanium, you know, 49:54.900 --> 49:59.900 something really strong, er, on the, and the camera was on the other side of that, so the 49:59.900 --> 50:04.900 two drums were moving. And the guy was able to walk towards the camera and the drum moved 50:04.900 --> 50:09.900 and then this guy, this circus agent who d harnessed all these people, were working and 50:09.900 --> 50:14.900 harnessed and going upside down. Amazing scene. But then we went up, I went up for this, er, 50:14.900 --> 50:20.900 one of these monkeys and Kubrick went along the road and, em, and then we were recalled. 50:20.900 --> 50:27.900 Er, and then they, they came through, this agent, said, er, do you want to do this? And 50:27.900 --> 50:33.900 I said, I, no, I don t think I do. Cause, er, and anyway, I m really glad I didn t, 50:33.900 --> 50:37.900 although it would have been really nice in retrospect to maybe have played it, but apparently 50:37.900 --> 50:44.900 that, or two, was in costumes, in monkey costumes in Wales and in, in a, in a heat wave. So 50:44.900 --> 50:47.900 they had people passing out and Kubrick was a, you know, I don t know whether you d ever 50:47.900 --> 50:51.900 know. I wasn t there, no. Well, he, he wasn t so much a martian, he just would say, you 50:51.900 --> 50:56.900 know, if he was very quiet he would say, sack that guy, he was a proper, you know, he was 50:56.900 --> 51:02.900 just a, he was an amazing director. Cause I worked on another, another, another airplane. 51:02.900 --> 51:08.900 Yes, he d say, Kubrick actually said this on, er, one of the films. Er, it was Lin, 51:08.900 --> 51:12.900 it was Dale, like a Barry Lyndon, and he says it in the first assistant, and we were filming 51:12.900 --> 51:17.900 in Glastonbury, and it was very near Yelverton where Chris Charles learnt to fly a helicopter 51:17.900 --> 51:22.900 and all that. It was a very important, er, er, airplane, er, what is it, not marines, 51:22.900 --> 51:28.900 what do they call it? The, er, the navy flying. Royal Marines? Royal, well, something else. 51:28.900 --> 51:32.900 No, it was the Fleet Air Arm. Fleet Air Arm, whatever it is, anyway, they trained there. 51:32.900 --> 51:38.900 And, er, planes going constantly, and Kubrick said, er, well, what s that plane? And the 51:38.900 --> 51:42.900 first assistant said, well, you know, we re near, you know, he said, Kubrick. And, er, 51:42.900 --> 51:47.900 he, the guy, the first assistant had to go and ask them to fly in some other area, that 51:47.900 --> 51:51.900 s how powerful he was. Sorry, we ve digressed. No, no, yeah. Let s have another. Yeah, that 51:51.900 --> 51:57.900 was, that was fine. Another question, another question. Yeah, okay. Erm, question for everyone. 51:57.900 --> 52:03.900 Apart from Mission to the Unknown, which piece of your own acting work are you most proud 52:03.900 --> 52:09.900 of? I m not particularly proud of Mission Unknown. Oops, shouldn t say that. Erm, I was 52:09.900 --> 52:15.900 rather stiff in Mission Unknown. I don t know. Find something else, do you? Erm, yeah. Find 52:15.900 --> 52:20.900 something for you. This is for everyone though. I know, you find yours. Oh, I see another, 52:20.900 --> 52:26.900 oh, I see, sorry. Something you re really proud of. Oh, I know, Maccas, I suppose. Er, you 52:26.900 --> 52:33.900 know, Scottish Gentleman, erm, and, erm, where did you do that? Sergeant Musgrave. Erm, up 52:33.900 --> 52:39.900 in, erm, that was Dundee, I did that. I played Macduff in the festival and then I, six weeks 52:39.900 --> 52:44.900 later, they came along and said, We saw you playing Macduff, thinking you d make a good 52:44.900 --> 52:52.900 man, er, Macbeth. We d like to die. That s right, yes, yes, yes. So we, er, yeah, I did 52:52.900 --> 52:58.900 and Musgrave, I enjoyed playing Musgrave. And a lot of comedies and, I don t know, lots 52:58.900 --> 53:02.900 of stuff. Weekly Rep was great. I used to enjoy it. I enjoyed it. Get away. Yeah, get 53:02.900 --> 53:06.900 away. Well, looking back in retrospect probably, but, had some good times. Playing a week, 53:06.900 --> 53:12.900 hairy times. I used to love doing the comedies. Erm, cos I ve fairly seldom get to play comedy 53:12.900 --> 53:16.900 I m, er, looking where I did. Who was that? Well, I, Cross, wait. Villain, yeah, villain 53:16.900 --> 53:19.900 for that. Erm, could, could some good parts. I mean, you know, I used to sort of do the 53:19.900 --> 53:25.900 Avengers, er, villain for that week in the Avengers, so whatever. Erm, but, erm, very 53:25.900 --> 53:29.900 seldom. I played a comedy with, er, Roy Kinnear, which was quite funny. Oh, yeah. What a lovely 53:29.900 --> 53:33.900 man. Oh, God, he was, he s impossible. Oh, he s funny. He s wonderful. He s that twinkle. 53:33.900 --> 53:37.900 Cos, yeah, you, you sort of work with him and, and you d be, you know, trying to, so, 53:37.900 --> 53:41.900 and, er, suddenly he d start to twitch in the corner of his mouth and you, next minute 53:41.900 --> 53:45.900 the tears would be pouring down your face. We had to stop rehearsal and I said, I can 53:45.900 --> 53:49.900 t, I said, I m so sorry, like, you know. Said, the director said, no, it s all right, that 53:49.900 --> 53:52.900 s great, this looking girl, you know, we ll, we ll practice for the day, we ll come back 53:52.900 --> 53:56.900 tomorrow. Cos they re on the variety side, you know. You know how we re all reaching 53:56.900 --> 54:00.900 for our glasses to read these sort of things? Er, well, I remember, er, Mark and Roy Kinnear 54:00.900 --> 54:05.900 was in this, driving the car and, er, and, er, I remember reaching for the glass and 54:05.900 --> 54:10.900 he just went and produced this weird magnifying glass which he d obviously, he just went, 54:10.900 --> 54:15.900 you know, with the magnifying glass in that lovely way. Question for everyone, what have 54:15.900 --> 54:19.900 each of you, well, what was that last question? Well, it s something about, er. I think it 54:19.900 --> 54:23.900 was, we didn t have your favourite thing, or. Oh, sorry, pardon, actually, yeah. Apart 54:23.900 --> 54:27.900 from Mission to the Unknown, which piece of your own acting work are you most proud of? 54:27.900 --> 54:32.900 Er, well, I did a thing called Horace for, er, sort of sub-normal Yorkshire character 54:32.900 --> 54:37.900 in a series. That s right. Well, it was a BBC Two play first and then I did a series. 54:37.900 --> 54:44.900 I love, love doing that. Yeah. Erm, and, you know, er, strangely when you look back, there 54:44.900 --> 54:49.900 s, there s only, for me anyway, there s only a ha, ha, it s when I see something or when 54:49.900 --> 54:54.900 I s, I m hardly ever surprised. You know, you know, you re the trickster. Yeah. And 54:54.900 --> 54:58.900 when you are surprised, it s a lovely thing to see. Something, when you surprise, even 54:58.900 --> 55:03.900 when you ve done a take and it surprised you, it s a, it s a, it s a good moment. Mm-hm. 55:03.900 --> 55:10.900 And that s what we, erm, that sort of spontaneous, it s just a surprise and that s when you, 55:10.900 --> 55:15.900 normally, er, you just, when you re watching television, er, yeah, I ve seen it before, 55:15.900 --> 55:20.900 on tricks, yeah, I know that, mm, yeah, then occasionally you see something and for me 55:20.900 --> 55:26.900 it s about five, not many more than about, out of two hundred or so, but it s about five 55:26.900 --> 55:32.900 things that, that have surprised me. Erm, but generally we re not, we re like, like 55:32.900 --> 55:36.900 anybody, we re just trying to be better, like you said. Yeah. We re always trying to be 55:36.900 --> 55:40.900 better. Even when you re in a play, every night in a play, it s extraordinary how it 55:40.900 --> 55:46.900 wanders off the mark sometimes. Or you can go for almost six months and still be pursuing 55:46.900 --> 55:52.900 that, that perfect performance, can t you? Yeah. And that s what I find, it s fascinating 55:52.900 --> 55:57.900 and it s hard because you can never quite, you can never achieve it, but never quite 55:57.900 --> 56:02.900 get it. No, it s like, the great golfer will say, well, that was a sixty-three, but I could 56:02.900 --> 56:07.900 have, it could have been a sixty-two or a sixty-five. Yeah. Yeah. And there is, and, 56:07.900 --> 56:12.900 and, and, even less and even less and even less, and there is no perfect, perfect thing. 56:12.900 --> 56:16.900 As you say, that was a hundred, a hundred and one and I might get it down to ninety-eight. 56:16.900 --> 56:20.900 Yes, well, yes, for sure. But it s very difficult in, in television and filming because there 56:20.900 --> 56:25.900 are, there are forty people out there who are all dealing with their own part of the 56:25.900 --> 56:31.900 game and there s you here and, and till you all gel together and it takes a while for 56:31.900 --> 56:35.900 the camera to, to get it right, the sound to get it right and everybody else to get 56:35.900 --> 56:40.900 it right, by then you may well have died in your performance, you know, after, and it 56:40.900 --> 56:45.900 s very difficult for them all to come up together. Yeah. And it s very, it s a very interesting 56:45.900 --> 56:49.900 industry, you know, the film and television industry. I can t take any pride in any of 56:49.900 --> 56:55.900 the, any of the stuff that I do on the screen. I m quite proud of some of the stuff I ve 56:55.900 --> 56:59.900 done on the radio because I m very self-conscious on the screen and in front of the camera. 56:59.900 --> 57:06.900 On the radio, the microphone, I, I have no self-consciousness at all and in the theatre 57:06.900 --> 57:10.900 I have very little self-consciousness. So I can t really say because I ve never seen 57:10.900 --> 57:15.900 it or heard. Well, some of the stuff I have heard and some of the stuff I ve been quite, 57:15.900 --> 57:24.900 quite happy with but the best work I ve done, the most work I ve done is on stage and I 57:24.900 --> 57:29.900 only have feedback from that. Yeah, that s right, there s no filming. Somehow, I think, 57:29.900 --> 57:33.900 thank God, you know, I was talking about those two parts. I d probably hate to see them actually. 57:33.900 --> 57:38.900 I know. On screen now, you think, oh no. When I did a film for a punk, er, which was the 57:38.900 --> 57:42.900 Skullcrest, which Warners took over, you know, with Mr Lull, and I mean it was a part of 57:42.900 --> 57:48.900 a lifetime in a way because Ian Holm was going to do it originally. And I, I mean I, I was 57:48.900 --> 57:55.900 committed to doing it, er, but I sort of didn t like the script really. And I was struggling 57:55.900 --> 58:02.900 because the character wasn t at all, erm, animated, you know, and I found it, it was 58:02.900 --> 58:09.900 a wonderful part of play and people liked it but I, I hated watching it. Mm. I just 58:09.900 --> 58:13.900 hated the character, the character was so boring. For me. Yeah. And so it s, it s very 58:13.900 --> 58:17.900 difficult to actually You re a very bad judge of your own work. One is a very bad judge 58:17.900 --> 58:22.900 of one s own work, too, I think. Yeah. Mm. Because you see so much of yourself and you 58:22.900 --> 58:30.900 don t see, er, yourself as others see you. Mm. Go on. Go on. Alright, I, I seem to be 58:30.900 --> 58:34.900 beating them out. Er, question for everyone. Tell us about any hobbies or interests that 58:34.900 --> 58:42.900 you have for publication. That one can talk about. Barry Jackson, er, er, is a tumbler. 58:42.900 --> 58:47.900 No, no, was a tumbler. Was a tumbler. He s an old man now. Transvestite. Transvestite. 58:47.900 --> 58:54.900 Have you stopped that now? No. I did play a transvestite. I did. I played a sort of 58:54.900 --> 59:02.900 transvestite. I ve, er, when this thing Horace came out, er, I knew that I would be uncastable 59:02.900 --> 59:07.900 because this character was like, he was going, Just got a joke. I ve got a joke for you. 59:07.900 --> 59:11.900 And he was just like that sort of character. So I thought, there s no way, because in this 59:11.900 --> 59:17.900 business, if they see you playing something and they like it, so if they cast you in other 59:17.900 --> 59:21.900 things that are similar, and I remember the only thing that I got off from the BBC Two 59:21.900 --> 59:27.900 Horace, which is the character that I created in Seventy, I was offered to do, er, sub, 59:27.900 --> 59:34.900 there aren t many sub-normals around, I was offered to do an insane character in an asylum. 59:34.900 --> 59:40.900 I was asked to do another deaf mute in something else. It s was, it s extraordinary how they 59:40.900 --> 59:45.900 relate to you. And so I knew when I had, I knew, I knew that when I d done that, when 59:45.900 --> 59:49.900 I d done Horace, that I had to be a trans, that I had, I took this job as a transvestite. 59:49.900 --> 59:54.900 What s that say? It s just a, it s just a little asterisk. I say yes, and the, the, 59:54.900 --> 59:58.900 the question is twisted round to when I was playing this. I m sorry. It s my fault that 59:58.900 --> 01:00:01.900 you re a transvestite. What do we do as a hobby? Tell us about any hobbies or interests 01:00:01.900 --> 01:00:05.900 that you ve had. Well, I, I, yeah, I like timber, wood. Yeah, do that s right. And I 01:00:05.900 --> 01:00:10.900 ve got two allotments. I grow my own vegetables. I ve done for years. So that s me really gardening 01:00:10.900 --> 01:00:14.900 and carpentry. I used to play footy for years and years and years, the Sunday football team. 01:00:14.900 --> 01:00:19.900 Thought I was George Best or something, but I was Dreadball. Er, I used to run our Sunday 01:00:19.900 --> 01:00:25.900 football team. Er, and that was, when you re on the pitch, you really thought it was 01:00:25.900 --> 01:00:30.900 Wembley, the way it was going. Er, and then it went to squash, er, which I enjoyed until 01:00:30.900 --> 01:00:38.900 I got a ball in the eye. Er, and then finally golf, which is, er, I, yeah, yeah, yeah, I 01:00:38.900 --> 01:00:41.900 mean it s all consuming I think, you know, and it s, it s ridiculous. I never used to, 01:00:41.900 --> 01:00:46.900 you know, used to, I think, oh, no, that s for old, I suppose, yes, I m an old man, but 01:00:46.900 --> 01:00:51.900 that s for old, old guys, you know. But it s the most difficult game I ve ever had to 01:00:51.900 --> 01:00:55.900 play. God, it s difficult. But it s a lovely game. Fascinating. It s great. Because you 01:00:55.900 --> 01:00:58.900 cannot think about anything else while you re playing it. Yeah. And so it does empty 01:00:58.900 --> 01:01:03.900 you. It s a wonderfully cathartic game. Yeah. And I can work with wood, so it s, it s, it 01:01:03.900 --> 01:01:08.900 s satisfying to actually, to make or build something out of, out of wood, whether you, 01:01:08.900 --> 01:01:13.900 whether it s a cupboard or a staircase or whatever, you know, or something, a garden. 01:01:13.900 --> 01:01:24.900 But yeah, there are, I suppose. I do, er, watercolours too. Ah, yes. So then the camera, 01:01:24.900 --> 01:01:31.900 camera pan round to his watercolours. An insect. No, no, no, no, and I play golf and I. Do 01:01:31.900 --> 01:01:37.900 you play, you play golf, do you, as well? Yeah. That s great. Also, also, I like working 01:01:37.900 --> 01:01:44.900 with wood too. What s your handicap golf age? Er, my youth efficiency. Eighteen. Oh, that 01:01:44.900 --> 01:01:49.900 s not bad. No, no, I don t play to it. Round a proper course, eighteen, that s not bad 01:01:49.900 --> 01:01:57.900 at all. No, no, no, I don t play to it. I don t play to it. Where, er, who s it? Er, 01:01:57.900 --> 01:02:04.900 before Moppen and Wise, was Ben Warris and Jimmy Jules. Jimmy Jules. Yeah. Great double 01:02:04.900 --> 01:02:11.900 act. Yeah. And I worked with Ben Warris. I play Archie Rice in a, in a, on tour. And, 01:02:11.900 --> 01:02:18.900 er, and Ben Warris was my dad. Yeah. Er, amazing presence, although I couldn t remember the 01:02:18.900 --> 01:02:23.900 lines, but he was an amazing presence on stage. It was a privilege to be with him. But he 01:02:23.900 --> 01:02:28.900 had, every theatre we were in, he had wonderful stories. And one of his just golf stories. 01:02:28.900 --> 01:02:34.900 They played golf of course. All comedians play golf. Yes, they do. And, and that s how 01:02:34.900 --> 01:02:39.900 Al Reed became Al Reed because he, Al Reed could afford, you know, to play golf. And 01:02:39.900 --> 01:02:44.900 he had a sausage factory, didn t he? So anyway. So he did. So he did. Tommy Cooper felt very 01:02:44.900 --> 01:02:51.900 left out. And, er, Ben Warris and, er, used to, Tommy, they used to get Tommy into the 01:02:51.900 --> 01:02:55.900 dressing room for a laugh. And they used to say, Come on, Tommy. Come on, Tommy. What 01:02:55.900 --> 01:03:00.900 s your, show us your tricks. What have you got, sir? And Tommy Cooper would do these 01:03:00.900 --> 01:03:06.900 tricks and, you know, and they would fail. So they said, You know, it s silly being a 01:03:06.900 --> 01:03:10.900 straight, you ve got to do this act. They were very good at picking people up and telling 01:03:10.900 --> 01:03:14.900 them what they should do for their act. In fact, Morcombe and Wise, they said to Morcombe 01:03:14.900 --> 01:03:19.900 and Wise, Er, sharpen up, buy your decent suits, your slovenly, you know, they were, 01:03:19.900 --> 01:03:25.900 they re on the bottom of the, the, the bill that they were top of. Er, and he, they were 01:03:25.900 --> 01:03:29.900 an amazing act, Ben Warris and, but, er, they said, so Tommy felt very left out because 01:03:29.900 --> 01:03:34.900 everyone was playing golf at the time. Tommy didn t get up too well in the morning. And, 01:03:34.900 --> 01:03:40.900 but, anyway, Tommy went off and got some plus fours in the clubs. You know, as you can imagine, 01:03:40.900 --> 01:03:47.900 he got, getting, you know, getting, and he, he knew where they were, the club. And, er, 01:03:47.900 --> 01:03:52.900 he got there and there s nobody there. And he s, er, with all his, all his stuff on, 01:03:52.900 --> 01:03:57.900 all his stuff looking silly. And people peak out on the top of his big head and his big 01:03:57.900 --> 01:04:03.900 feet and his big back clubs. And there s nobody there. Well, in the distance, they re all 01:04:03.900 --> 01:04:07.900 coming back because they ve been there since eight o clock. But it s eleven o clock and 01:04:07.900 --> 01:04:16.900 they re all finished. And it s another trick gone wrong. He said, I m not playing this 01:04:16.900 --> 01:04:23.900 game. And he went off. And that s their story of, er, Tommy Cooper. Tommy Cooper. Wonderful. 01:04:23.900 --> 01:04:29.900 Gosh, we do, I do, I digress. No, it s, it d be interesting. It knows stories well enough. 01:04:29.900 --> 01:04:35.900 If you really were marooned on a jungle planet like Kemble in Mission to the Unknown. Kemble, 01:04:35.900 --> 01:04:42.900 is that the name? Erm, what luxury would each of you most desire? Gosh, I d love to say 01:04:42.900 --> 01:04:46.900 like Spike Milligan about your club. About Memphis. He said that and there s an island 01:04:46.900 --> 01:04:52.900 there s, I m not that, er, that s a, it s a tough one. Sudbrook Park. Is what? Sudbrook 01:04:52.900 --> 01:05:00.900 Park on a set of golf clubs. Oh, I see. And a jungle planet. If I wasn t allowed, wasn 01:05:00.900 --> 01:05:06.900 t allowed that, I d just take an eight iron and an endless supply of golf balls, you know. 01:05:06.900 --> 01:05:12.900 Oh, I don t know. I don t know. I don t know. I don t want to. I m a bit serious. I d probably 01:05:12.900 --> 01:05:20.900 take an axe. An axe. Oh, yeah. To make a canoe. To get off the island. Er, er, this is, this 01:05:20.900 --> 01:05:27.900 is the last one, I think. Not the bad one, the last one. Any unfulfilled ambitions? Oh, 01:05:27.900 --> 01:05:34.900 well, I m the last person to ask about ambitions because I have none and never have had any, 01:05:34.900 --> 01:05:40.900 and so I still don t. I m not, I, I, I think as an actor, it s very different when you 01:05:40.900 --> 01:05:48.900 say it, but, er, actors and, always want to work and the problem with acting is that you, 01:05:48.900 --> 01:05:54.900 you know, that you, we re largely unemployed or we don t work as much as we would like. 01:05:54.900 --> 01:05:57.900 Speak for yourself. Well, okay, I do speak for myself. No, no, that s all right. But 01:05:57.900 --> 01:06:01.900 it s true in a sense, isn t it? Yeah, yeah. And we would all have liked to have worked 01:06:01.900 --> 01:06:06.900 more, I would love to have worked more and it s all a little bit, er, it s all a bit 01:06:06.900 --> 01:06:14.900 of history now for me. So I, again, I don t think I have very much ambition in that, 01:06:14.900 --> 01:06:20.900 in that way because I ve seen so much of it. What about you, Simon? I d like to be an actor. 01:06:20.900 --> 01:06:24.900 You d like to be an actor. One day, one day I ll be an actor. No, I don t, I m not keen 01:06:24.900 --> 01:06:28.900 on acting. I haven t been for eight years actually. I like directing very, very much 01:06:28.900 --> 01:06:35.900 and teaching. I ve been doing a lot of drama teaching and it s nice to sort of see faces 01:06:35.900 --> 01:06:39.900 appearing, young faces appearing on the box that you think, Ah, that s one of my students 01:06:39.900 --> 01:06:42.900 or, you know, and so that s, that s good. I mean I have a terrible ambition now because 01:06:42.900 --> 01:06:48.900 I wanted to play, er, always wanted to play Hamlet and I was never chosen to play Hamlet. 01:06:48.900 --> 01:06:53.900 I ve been in three productions and Ian Richardson s Hamlet I was in, actually, at Birmingham 01:06:53.900 --> 01:06:58.900 when I directed his first Hamlet. And, er, I thought when I was a young actor, I was 01:06:58.900 --> 01:07:02.900 The old ref. This is Ian, Ian, er, The old ref. The old ref, that s right, yeah. And, 01:07:02.900 --> 01:07:07.900 er, I was a young actor who had gone up there and I was playing that terrible part at the 01:07:07.900 --> 01:07:11.900 end, er, 14 Broths, you know, waiting out the play to come out. It s 14 Broths. The 01:07:11.900 --> 01:07:16.900 young prince who comes out at the end. And I, and Ian was getting, er, there was a lot 01:07:16.900 --> 01:07:20.900 of colds going round again. He was getting more and more flu on his voice and I was thinking, 01:07:20.900 --> 01:07:26.900 so I started to learn Hamlet. You told me about it. I thought er, you were you were 01:07:26.900 --> 01:07:27.900 you were doing it. You were trying to understand. Oh no, no, no understanding, you see, and 01:07:27.900 --> 01:07:33.900 I thought there s no understudies. And, and, you know, I, I, I know the part and, er, you 01:07:33.900 --> 01:07:38.900 know, if Ian s off, they ll sort of say, Oh my God, and I ll say Oh, I know the part. 01:07:38.900 --> 01:07:44.900 No, never happened. It was never off. No. I played Claudius, which is not a bad second 01:07:44.900 --> 01:07:47.900 prize. You know, the king. Very good second prize. Yeah, I enjoyed it. But, er, obviously, 01:07:47.900 --> 01:07:52.780 So obviously, you know, but yeah, it's not sort of a burning ambition, but apart from 01:07:52.780 --> 01:07:55.860 that, I don't know, you're always looking ahead really, aren't you? 01:07:55.860 --> 01:07:57.780 I remember Sybil Thorndyke when she was about 90. 01:07:57.780 --> 01:07:58.780 You didn't understand it either. 01:07:58.780 --> 01:07:59.780 No, that's not good enough. 01:07:59.780 --> 01:08:05.220 But I always remember her giving a speech. 01:08:05.220 --> 01:08:09.900 She was opening Leatherhead Theatre, the Thorndyke Theatre at Leatherhead. 01:08:09.900 --> 01:08:13.640 And I don't know, she must have been about 80, 80 something then I suppose. 01:08:13.640 --> 01:08:17.140 But her speech was all about the future and looking forward. 01:08:17.140 --> 01:08:21.540 Not about the past, not what parts I've played, and you know, I'm glad this theatre's named 01:08:21.540 --> 01:08:23.860 after me because of the traditions of the theatre. 01:08:23.860 --> 01:08:27.780 It was all what she was going to play in the future. 01:08:27.780 --> 01:08:30.260 So therefore it's unfulfilled ambition all the time. 01:08:30.260 --> 01:08:33.260 You're always looking, I suppose, to direct. 01:08:33.260 --> 01:08:34.260 For me, it's to direct. 01:08:34.260 --> 01:08:39.260 She was a wonderful, she was wonderfully naive and she was always looking to the future. 01:08:39.260 --> 01:08:43.260 She studied Greek and Latin and write till the very end of her life. 01:08:43.260 --> 01:08:48.260 There was a wonderful story that somebody told me, they were sitting in the theatre, 01:08:48.260 --> 01:08:54.260 I don't know what theatre it was, somewhere, a stone theatre, in the Maffinay, and they 01:08:54.260 --> 01:09:01.260 were suddenly aware that it was Sybil Thorndyke and Lewis Casson sitting there in front of 01:09:01.260 --> 01:09:02.260 them. 01:09:02.260 --> 01:09:11.260 And the lights went down and Sybil said, Oh, I do love a play. 01:09:11.260 --> 01:09:21.700 And I said oh good Sir, sorry, I can't go on now, I've gone to too much and won't be 01:09:21.700 --> 01:09:23.660 moving on no more. 01:09:23.660 --> 01:09:32.920 So I picked up the aye theatre and rove over to Belgium, the way that language got along 01:09:32.920 --> 01:09:37.700 with audio in until now, so I'm not terribly hooked now, I'm not entirely that stuff, so 01:09:37.700 --> 01:09:38.700 but anyway. 01:09:38.700 --> 01:09:46.400 best, or that, yes. I'd love to see something really well, something I don't, a master or 01:09:46.400 --> 01:09:50.100 mistress or whatever you like to call it, of their craft, and to see it, even if it's 01:09:50.100 --> 01:09:56.700 woodwork or whatever, to see these. And painting, I'd love to be able to paint. I'd play a musical 01:09:56.700 --> 01:09:57.800 instrument. I can't. 01:09:57.800 --> 01:09:58.800 So would I. 01:09:58.800 --> 01:09:59.800 Yeah. 01:09:59.800 --> 01:10:00.800 Oh come on. 01:10:00.800 --> 01:10:04.700 But I'd love to play a musical instrument. I've never made any instruments. But yes, 01:10:04.700 --> 01:10:12.700 but yeah, woodwork I can. Good question. 01:10:12.700 --> 01:10:29.700 Oh all right, I'll come back to it.