YouSaid · the spoken record

Andrew Davies

lines on the record: 47
first: 2007-08-05
most recent: 2007-08-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think it had to be the Chris Barber, strangely enough, because it might get depressed and it would all always, you know, wake me up in the morning.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's no, I just wouldn't read Proust. I know I tried before. Yeah, probably a Dickens, great expectations. I could reread that a lot of times.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The last record is Fore's Requiem, the Last Movement in Paradisum. It's not that I'm religious or anything like that, it's just blissfully serene piece of music, and I imagine putting it on last thing at night and the mosquitoes would come round and listen, and we'd all be at peace together.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel as if it is, I feel as if it is, but maybe if I started doing it, I'd find it wouldn't work. But I do literally dream about going home to the little house in Rubina, where I grew up, and I go up to my own bedroom I had as a boy, and I've got this pile of exercise books, and I write a novel in a weekend. And it's wonderful. So in a sense, there's something that I need to write, and maybe a bit of solitude would help for that.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah no, I don't think there is, though I'm sure I'll, you know, discover some rarely good ones. What I really want to do, and I'm so pleased I'm going to this desert island, is I really ought to do some original work. So, you know, I got paper and pens and nobody tempting me with offers of lucrative adaptations. You know, I can write the great novel about growing up in Wales or something.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“God, that would be terrible I worry more about my own expectations, usually by the time I've handed something in. I'm pretty confident about it. So if they did say that to me, my first reaction would be That's not right, it's perfectly good, you know Let's see if I can get you sacked”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Writings. I think it is now I used to be one of those guys, like most guys apparently, who think about sex about forty times a minute. And now it's writing and it's food that I think about my next meal and what I'd like to eat.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I do, I think I do, really my wife might say when I'm flopped in front of the television. I suppose I can serve it quite a beard. We have very quiet evenings these days, and then I kind of go to town and get excited.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great contrast to the last female voice it's Francoise Ardi and La Maison Grandi, which the house where I grew up, and I love her little sort of whispery voice, and she was a kind of you know ideal fantasy French girlfriend for me when I was young I used to think in another life it could have been me and Francoise.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She did a very good job, incidentally. Wonderful, wonderful Emma I'm just doing my own sentence and sensibility now. They're just finished filming it. So everybody can see it and see what Emma Thompson got wrong.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am a bet. I mean, some of them do escape my grasp, you know, but not many, and I do seem to get first choice, and I am greedy. I read a word.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's only a few of them really, I think, and there is a lot of sex implied in Maul Flanders, and she is for part of the story of prostitute. She has five husbands, one of whom is her own brother. I mean, she didn't know that when she married him, obviously, and she went right off him when she found out. So, I mean, Defoe didn't write sex scenes, because if he had in those days it would be regarded as a genre pornographic novel, which there were quite a few. But when the sex is implicit in the narrative, you know, I think we ought to turn it into scenes.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, indeed, nothing wrong with that. I like to celebrate life. And I always think it balances out all those serial killers and people that so many people seem to be churning out. I don't really like either doing those things or watching them.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh God, yes, be wonderful, wonderful. About ten years ago Leonard Cohen was doing I'm your man with these amazing backing singers, and I thought you know that's not a bad life for a sixty year old man. But unfortunately, you know, I never seemed to get around to doing it.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All my friends say Pantry, you can't have this, but I'm totally unrepentant. It's Bonnie Tyler and totally clips of the heart. I just love female singers who just belt it out, sort of yell their guts out, and what's more Bonnie Tyler comes from Cardiff and you can hear it.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh absolutely, and I find it hard to imagine how people would read things without seeing all the pictures, and I do sympathize with those people who say no, you know, it's not like your adaptation at all, you know, she's got fair hair and blue eyes and you look in the text and there's no description of her at all. It's just people have a very firm picture in their heads of what something looks like.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, it did, but I didn't worry about that at all because I think in a way I'm quite an irresponsible sort of person. I just thought, you know, well, if it flops, you know, somebody else's headache and I can still go on being a teacher.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yet it was, and it was a big toss up whether it was going to work or not. I mean, they were going to see if Middlemarch worked and if it didn't, then it would like be years and years before they tried again.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, pretty much so I had a head start on other people. I'd also had my private thoughts about them for a long time, which is like rather subversive thoughts about, say, Middlemarch, which most serious literary people reckon it's the greatest novel in the English language. But I thought it could have done with cutting because she writes these beautiful scenes that tell you everything and you think, oh, I've just sussed out what's the matter with Dorothea. And then she writes three more pages pointing out.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's Sam the Jimmy Jufrey Trio and it's the train and the river and I first saw that when I went to see this film Jazz on a summer's day and I thought God I've never heard anything like this before and I don't think I've heard anything quite like it since either.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've grown not to mind when I first started writing for Taru, I was desperately suspicious and you know, I was very reluctant to change a single word. But no, I think as I got older I'm probably easier to deal with”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They do. As soon as I've written the first draft of a script, I'll be having meetings with the producer and the script editor, and they'll usually have, you know, quite a lot of suggestions about how the thing could be better.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“or my experiences by and large with absolute contempt really they don't even bother to tell you they've sacked you. Your agent meets some other agent who says my client's writing that script now.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yet I do find it a slight niggle. I mean, you know, like most writers in the business, I've written a lot more film screenplays than have been made into films. And funny, some of my best experiences have been working on films that never got made. I've spent a long time working with Robert Altman, which was such a thrill and it was such fun to work with for a film about Rossini that never got made. And film is just so chancy. What I like about television is, you know, if the thing gets commissioned, there's usually a date when they're going to put it out and it happens. Film's always having these little hold up things. And they haven't got the stars or a bit of the money, isn't there? So they'll have another look at the script. Let's get another rider, and you get treated as a”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, the opening theme to on the waterfront. I think a lot of the most important things to us, favourite films are things that you saw when you were eighteen to twenty one, that sort of age, and I was just so knocked out by on the waterfront. It's such a romantic film, and there's some absolutely wonderfully written scenes in that that made me think, yeah, I'd love to write a movie like that.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got this job at Coventry Teachers Training College, which eventually got swallowed by Warwick University. But I thought what a wonderful, soft job it was. You know, you didn't have to keep order, all the students were keen, and they were mostly, you know, lovely, intelligent young women most of them. And it was only about fifteen hours a week or something like that. So bags of time for writing. So I just thought, you know, this is what I'll do for the rest of my life. And also we wanted to have kids and a dog. So then we bought a tally. And then I was immediately entranced and got very inspired by the likes of Dennis Potter. And I just thought yeah, I could do this as well, because I was already getting radio plays on by then. So I thought, yeah, I can see how to do this.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes, yes, having ups and downs, but yes, I think I made a very good choice. She was sitting on Tom Courtney's knee when I first made my move. He did an English degree before he went on to be an actor, and she was going out with him, and I had a sort of sense that I could take her from him. I didn't think he was much more interested in being an actor, I think. So anyway, yes, I made my move, and here we still are.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not at all, not at all then'cause we never had a television by the end of university I was more or less shacked up with Diana, whom I'm still married to. And we just used to go out every night virtually”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you were in Wales? Well, it wasn't as dramatic as Dylan Thomas's. Yeah, it's probably their difference. But it was great. I mean, University Corridge London is right in the heart of London. You can walk into Soho in ten minutes. And in those days, it was all very innocent because it was coffee bars. But it didn't matter. You sort of didn't really need alcohol. They were crammed with nurses and they were all very jolly places and you can make friends there and pick up girls and so I thought that was great.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yeah, the next one really sort of comes very much from university days, Chris Barber's Hiawatha rag, and every time I hear it A I remember being eighteen years old and B, you know, it just makes me feel frisky, you know.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh through reading Dill Toms himself, in fact, because he led this very rackety London life in between sort of London where he spent all his time sort of drinking and going to wild parties and Wales where he was solitary and wrote his great poems. I thought this would be a good sort of life if I could avoid dying of drink in my thirties. Like he did indeed.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well yeah in a way it is true because I didn't know anybody who was a writer and so he was a bit of an inspiration to me really.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because really big boys, you know, with deep voices and stubble would come up to me and say you're the one that wrote that poem. And I say yes bloody good”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah I did really'cause first of all, just in a very conventional sort of way, you know,'cause I was good and clever a little boy and enjoyed writing stories and being praised by the teacher. But then this rather weird thing happened which was I wrote a sort of sex poem when I was eleven about our French teacher who it was called Mrs. Irwin who was extremely beautiful. So I made up this poem about her and the head of modern languages. I'll quote you a little bit out of it when he kissed her she kissed him back. He took her knickers off and put them in a sack not very good but it had to rhyme. She took his underpants and put them in her bag. He said excuse him moi, but could I have a shag and there was much more of it than this and it sort of circulated in Sammy's dat all round the school.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes it was there wasn't very much to do at all rather old fashioned boyish things like going bird nesting, going for long walks and tobogganing in the winter and all that kind of thing and it was quite dominated by the chapel and when you were growing up it was where the girls were you know you'd go to the evening service and then it was dark you'd walk home with one of them or two of them or you know whatever your luck was really”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yeah this is Britain's misabravis which you know I didn't hear till I was in my twenties, but I was completely blown away with it. I just love treble voices when I was a little kid. I had a very nice voice myself until my voice broke you know I used to win competitions and old ladies would say always a lovely voice, Lee Scott, you know and my grandson has now got a very good voice and he sings in Manchester Cathedral choir and you know I like to think of him singing this really because I think it's such a fabulous piece of music.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, for a bit, but now most of them wouldn't come back for a second time. What did she do? I don't know. She just kind of frees them out and make them feel very scared and uncomfortable. We had a school reunion. I must make this whole thing about my mother fifty years after, so we're all sixty year olds, completely unprompted. Kaplan said, God your mother was awful, wasn't she? We never like going around there.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, what it was was I mean I Views of my own and things I wanted to do, like going out with girls and reading the nearest thing to dirty books you could get in the early fifties which is not very much, I can tell you. She'd always find things discover things because she'd always go through my stuff.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, totally, yes. But, I mean, but that was only the bad side. And I suppose when she was merry and gay, that was all right.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She did when I was little. I think she'd preferred me probably to stay about five years old and totally in love with her because she was somebody who sort of herself very much liked to be the centre of attention.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes there was my dad was a teacher he taught French at Cardiff High School for boys but he was yeah he was also very kind of literary and there were plenty of books about and I do remember my dad as being very very good at playing you know we used to play cricket and the strip of grass outside our house”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first one is Beethoven's violin concerto. I've chosen this, partly because it's a wonderful piece of music, but partly because I can remember my dad used to sing Beethoven all the time round the house. We didn't even have a record player or a gramophone, so we got all his music off the radio, and he'd make up little words to it. Where is my bunny? Where is my teddy? Where is my teddy? And where is my bunny? Where is and so on, you know, when he was carrying me or my brother about, and it was very nice to grow up with that.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm absolutely sure I got the character right. I mean, I know it's arrogant, but you kind of have to be if you're doing this kind of thing. And I suppose my ultimate defence is there the book still is, you know, and if you didn't like my adaptation, well, you know, get hold of the book and make your own adaptation in your head, which is what most good readers do anyway.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't worry about it at all. I love to do it. I love to make up scenes that weren't in the book and convince people that Jane Austen wrote them. I like the sense of people ruffling through the book trying to find their favourite scene and it's not there. But I particularly wanted to write a very pro Darcy adaptation and in the book she never writes any scenes where you see Darcy on his own or Darcy with other men it was a restriction she made for herself. So I thought well what would Darcy be doing now? How's he feeling? How's he dealing with Elizabeth's rejection? And so I'd write quite a few scenes like that so the audience got a kind of identification with him.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it was a bit of a mistake really because I wanted him to dive in with nothing on all. But for some reason I don't know what it was. It was decided or he decided that he was going to dive in with his shirt and his breeches on, and then that gave us that scene. And I'd always thought of that wet shirt scene as just a rather amusing, embarrassing scene because there's Darcy, you know, in a state that he wouldn't normally want to be seen in trying to be pleasant and polite to Elizabeth, but in fact half England's womanhood was going crazy about his wet shirt. Yes, exactly cuckoo.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I don't mind it. I always like to think that people might notice that one of the things I'm very good at doing is finding the humour and the jokes and the way the humour in those old 19th century books still works today. But it's the sex that everybody picks on.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely, because there's no point in doing them unless you can make them enjoyable and relevant for now. Wanting to get on falling in love, falling in lust, needing to get money all the same things.”
2007-08-05 · Desert Island Discs · Andrew Davies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source