YouSaid · the spoken record

Miriam Margolyes

lines on the record: 51
first: 2008-09-28
most recent: 2008-09-28
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

“Well, it would have to be the Bible, and it must be the King James version of the Bible. I can't read Hebrew to my shame, and I won't have anything to do with the revised version. It's just not good enough. And what else have I got to do”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, well my final choice is Schubert's trout quintet this was the first piece of music that I ever listened to with my partner she made me sit down and listen to it so it's all about her and me as well as Schubert.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I see well no I for food Oh gosh no there won't be there won't be a shop Oh Crikey Well, I don't know what I'd do will there be berries and nuts and things probably”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I'm confident when I'm with people. People give me confidence they don't frighten me, but if I stop to think about it for too long, then I get nervous, and then I need reassurance, and the way I reassure myself is to say something shocking, because I suppose for a moment it gives me back the power, because I'm in charge, and I'm a control freak, that's probably it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's part of wanting to shock, I suppose, and also I like to confront the things that other people don't seem prepared to and it's a compulsion a little bit it's a kind of verbal tourette, I suppose and it makes me laugh I think knickers and lavatories and things like that are hugely funny and breasts I just love the whole physical part of life it's hysterically funny”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's their skill. I know very few people who can do that now my great friend Patricia Hodge is one of them, and she is, for me, the reincarnation of Gertie Lawrence.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the famous scene on the balcony from private lives with Noel Coward and Gertie Lawrence. This is an example of complete utter excellence and control, and I will never tire of hearing it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do because it caused the person that I loved most in the world a pain she could not bear, and I have to take the responsibility for that. I didn't do it to hurt her I did it because we always spoke everything to each other, we always said everything that was what we had a completely open loving relationship together. But I should have been aware that that was something I could not say, and I really do regret it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think that was part of it, and also because it was shameful in the sixties people just you weren't supposed to have that sort of thing it was not proper you know it's just nonsense I mean it's just like anything else if you're gay or straight it really shouldn't matter and people should pull themselves together about it I want to be somebody that people admire as an actress, and when I got the OBE it was for services to drama. It wasn't for services to sex.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I realised that telling people things that they can't deal with is an indulgence, and so I advise people who may be in the same position as me and find that they are homosexual, that they should just keep it to themselves. I don't agree with actors talking about their sex life. I've done it now because it doesn't matter any more, but when I was younger I wouldn't talk about it at all. But if it can help somebody, then I would speak, but I was I was very shocked by what happened to my mother, and indeed that started the long period of her terrible illness and the blackest time of my life. The only good thing was that I had my partner in my life, and she is still there.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I suppose I really came to terms with things in nineteen sixty seven. I don't know how old I was then if I was born in forty one you can perhaps work it out I can't but anyway I was in my late twenties so it was a bit late for that sort of thing and I know when I told my mother that I had had an affair with a woman she had a stroke about three days later and You know, that's pretty shocking for me to have to deal with.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've chosen the Colnidrip prayer, and as with most of the records that I've chosen, it's about representation of bits of my life. And I've mentioned many times probably that I'm Jewish, and that's very important to me. I have to mention also that I reject many of the things that I see in the Jewish world, and I passionately object to the way that Israel is dealing with Palestine. I have been castigated by many Jews who feel that I am betraying my people, and I can't help it. I have to say what I believe, and I am a proud Jew, but I am also an ashamed Jew. And I'm chosen, I've chosen the Colnidre because being Jewish and the fine ethics of the religion, they do inform my life, and I could never be without them, so that's the reason for Colnidre.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it talk about two years and I used to then go for what Margaret called top ups. She was terrific, she said to me. You splash your yellow wellies in the puddles, and your what she called show business people talented toddlers talented toddler. She said your emotional age is about seven, but if we're very lucky we'll get it to be twelve but that will be a triumph.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be honest, the reason that I went to the therapist was because I was having marital difficulties. But because I've been with my partner for forty years now, but we did go through a bump, and I needed to be put together again, and I am now. I sometimes jokingly say that I think I'm perfect when I don't really think I'm perfect, but I'm not far off.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always overwhelmed, I'm totally scared still. I'm a frightened little muffin, actually, and all this big talk and swaggering about is just to cover up a real terror, I think. I'm really afraid. and afraid of failure, and I do what I can to overcome that.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My next choice is my friend Martin Jarvis reading part of Violet Elizabeth Take's control. by Richmond Crompton and he is a great voice artist how can I put it? He tugs us in and we live with him in that world and it's just an example of voice work at its absolute best.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think actors always want more, I think we're greedy I would like to be at the national I would love to have the parts that say Joan Ploughwright has in fact she really gets in my way”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes I spend a lot of time in corsets because I seem to be in a lot of period stuff and I realise that I'm just a fat lady and what can I say? I mean here I am I stand before you”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, we are, and I am obsessed with the way I look I love my face, I think it's fabulous, but I don't like my body, and it's up to me to do something about it, and I've been fat all my life. But there it is, I've just got this endomorphic frame.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did, I checked on the sales, actually, and what was embarrassing was that the chap who was behind the counters said when I said I was sexy, Sonya, he looked round quickly and he said and I realized that he didn't want anyone to know that I was sexy sonia because I don't look great and it might have turned them off their fancy. Well, you see,”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm very glad. Every now and again people remind me of it, and I am a bit embarrassed because I don't approve of pornography actually.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How embarrassing Yes, I was asked to do for money, of course, and it wasn't that much when I think I got about two hundred and fifty quid, but I was asked to do an audio recording. I would like to make that clear it's not a it wasn't in vision, and the title of the record was Sexy Sonya Leaves from My Schoolgirl Diary, and it was”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I have a man in my life, and his name is Charles Dickens. I love the world he creates, I love the power of the prose, and the characters that he created, and he created over two thousand characters ebulliant and just full of life, I think he is just remarkable, and I couldn't be on a desert island without him, so I have chosen a piece from great expectations where the great Miss Havisham is displayed.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, well I think it was partly because my parents told me that I mustn't and also of course I didn't know then that I was gay which I am and I didn't know what to do with myself so it was I was tearing around at rather frustrated I did have a boyfriend and we did I think what we call heavy necking I think that's what it's called petting or something like that but nothing much happened you know it was rather unfulfilling but I did do lots of productions”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At that time girls were not welcome in footlights we weren't allowed to belong, actually we were just there on sufferance, and I didn't like any of those footlights boys and they didn't like me, and it makes me sound like a crabby old bitch, which I may well be, but I didn't like them they weren't interested in girls they didn't sleep with, and I certainly wasn't in that department because at Cambridge I didn't have sex at Cambridge. You just didn't do it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, as you see quite clearly I have not separated myself from my parents, and I probably never will No, I was a little bit embarrassed but they loved it, and I'm glad that they enjoyed it, and I'm glad they came.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I always felt that Cambridge belonged to me personally it was my Cambridge. It was a thrilling time, and my parents used to come up to visit me so much that people thought they were actually part of the student body. They loved going there. Did you like them?”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a Jewish household, so of course achievement was important because that's how you pulled yourself out of the depths. My parents wanted me to go to university, but the reason that they wanted me to go to university was because you'll meet the right people, and you will be able to talk to anybody about anything. And that was something that my mother was very sensitive about because she felt she was educationally challenged and she couldn't, but they wanted me to be in some kind of social elite that comes from being excluded they were outsiders, and I think they felt they'd been submerged.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've chosen the Arya Queen of the Night from the Magic Flute. It's very it's very much to do with my worship of the voice. I just can't believe that any human being can make this noise, and I love listening to it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's better, dear It was the fulfilment of all her hopes in that way I fulfilled my parents' hopes, yes. I got into Newham College, Cambridge, and that's really when my life started”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it's true my father was the doctor to his parents, and my father spoke Yiddish and his parents were from Riga, and they only spoke Yiddish they didn't speak English, and my mother, who was this brilliant lady, she invited him to supper one day and and she asked him would you sponsor Miriam for university entrance? Oh, I was a lawyer no problem of all. You could never understand the thing he said actually. I mean, I know he was brilliant, but you had to read it rather than listen to it. And he did, of course, Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't dream of saying no to somebody who was sponsored by Isabel Lynn, so I got in to both of them.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I did. There was a program on television called face to face, and one day Augustus John was on that program, and I just thought what a gorgeous man he was about I suppose he must have been in his eighties then shortly before he died, and I wrote to him, and said Would you like me to model for you? And he got his wife Durelia to ring my parents and check the right. And she said Well, do come you should talk like that. She was very, very far back. And he said, Do come. By the way, it is in the nude. Is that all right? And so I was taken there by my parents, and I took off my clothes very expertly, and he wanted me to go up and down a ladder I don't know why, but I did, and he'd do a sketches of me, and we talked a lot, and I remember very well that he said You see that picture on the wall”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I was a rather amazing Brutus I remember my toga kept slipping off and causing consternation to the parents in the front row”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course Look, acting is just paid show off stuff that's what I'm doing showing off and it is fun, it's lovely, and I hope it I can go on getting paid for it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do. Want to be like I desperately want to be liked, I'll do almost anything to be liked. I mean it's a bit serious.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I was I think I was amusing I was the form wag and people laughed at me and I realised that laughter was like love and I can't get enough of it.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think I did, and I still do. I mean, I like to be a bit cheeky, I know I do, which has got to be slapped down, and I hope you will if it reappears again. But it was a very happy time of my life, and I loved those girls, and I still do.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a very naughty schoolgirl, very naughty indeed, I was always being sent out and sent to Miss Stack's office, who was our headmistress, and she was rather severe she had been the head of studies at Holloway Prison, and I think some of the techniques were brought back to the Oxford High School. I was quite frightened of her, but not frightened enough to”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that is Jerusalem which was the anthem that we sang at school, and to me it symbolizes that part of my life, my school, and the English part of me because I am very English, I've got this funny posh English voice. So Jerusalem is for the other bit of me. You know, that makes me think of a woman I had an affair with once. She was a member of the Women's Institute and they sing it there and she said whenever I hear those words arrows of desire I think of you.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And of course I haven't, alas but he was a man who found it difficult to be joyous, whereas my mother was a very joyous person. They had an excellent marriage, and we were a real family, but I wasn't the daughter that they should have had, probably, and I've always felt a little bit that I've disappointed them, you know, I didn't marry, I didn't have children. But I am an OBE.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, he had the qualities of being Jewish and being Scottish together, which is quite a formidable combination. He was a very somber”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My mother was frightened of childbirth because my cousins or her cousins had died in childbirth in South Africa, so I think that she really was afraid to have children, and I know I was conceived in an air raid, which may have had an effect one way or another, but she never did it again she never had children again, I don't know about the rest.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I'm trying to be objective about my parents when I had therapy many, many years ago in order to put me back together again I was a bit fragmented, and by the way I'm absolutely together now my therapist said that I must be objective about my parents and you know it's the hardest thing for me to be objective about my mother and father whom I adored and for me to make any criticism of mummy feels like treachery but I suspect she could have been a little bit vulgar, as indeed am I but she was shrewd and clever I you know I feel it difficult to say anything about her because she was a wonderful person.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was always mummy and daddy. It was North Oxford, you see, and North Oxford means a great deal to me It was where I was born, and it was where I went to school at the Oxford High School from nineteen forty five to nineteen sixty when I went up to Cambridge, and my school was really the focus of my life in Oxford.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bringing, was it? Well, of course we would never have said mum and dad, that's very mummy would call that common. I'm sure it was a bit of a social climber. Well, I'm not”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amer You mentioned that voice was important to me, and one of the first voices that I remember was impinging on my life was Dylan Thomas, and the richness of his voice and the particularity of his vision excites me, and this particular bit that I've chosen I think it's just wonderfully done, and you're pulled into that world that he creates with that rich, sonorous, amused voice.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's not antipathy to music because I do listen to music, but I don't by I have to call them records it's not called records anymore because that's what I always call them records I don't understand all this noisy banging sort of music is it called garage I mean for me garage is where you keep your car I don't understand me”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, because nobody says so, she said rather wistfully now I think there's a lot more to do, and I'm sixty seven and if I'm lucky I have another ten years or so, if I'm lucky, then I look back on what I've done and what I've achieved, and it's not enough.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, honestly, I think I'm underused and undervalued, and perhaps slightly despised. I've got a good voice, and my whole life really is based on voice and on understanding voices and searching for people's backgrounds using voice as my starting off point. But no, I wanted more out of my skills. I wanted to do Shakespeare, I wanted to be at the national, I wanted to be admired as an actress, and I think at the moment I'm just kind of smiled at as an actress, and I want to touch people and I want to hurt and astonish, I think, and I haven't done that yet, but maybe I will.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well under certain circumstances I don't know I It never seems to me that I have the career that I want, but I think all actors say that. I'm not happy with what I've given to the world. I'm sorry.”
2008-09-28 · Desert Island Discs · Miriam Margolyes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source