25 August 1965
Presenter: Roy Plomley
A recording of approximately half of this program survives. A complete transcript also exists, and was reworked into an article in the Doctor Who Magazine Summer Special 1994. The DWM version removes or paraphrases Roy Plomley’s questions, so that Hartnell’s words read like a magazine interview rather than a radio transcript.
Presented here is a new transcript of the surviving half, and DWM’s writeup of the missing half, to give an idea of the full program, along with a guide to the best ways to experience the music he selected.
Included at the end is a list of people and productions Hartnell mentions, to aid in finding more information about his early career. The episode’s introduction is not present on the recording or transcript. The recording begins with Hartnell describing his first chosen song..
[Start of recording]
Hartnell: Well, this man’s voice is so rich. To me he is completely in harmony with the whole of nature and it sounds just like liquid poetry.
Record 1
Paul Robeson
Trees
Plomley: Paul Robeson. What’s your second choice?
Hartnell: The second choice is Borodin’s Pohnsian Dances.
Plomley: Why’d you choose this?
Hartnell: Well I think it’s delightful. It starts on a resounding note and it fades away into mere nothingness.
Record 2
Alexander Borodin
Polovtsian Dances from ‘Prince Igor’
Performer: London Symphony Orchestra.
Conductor: Antal Doráti
Plomley: Antal Dorati conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Bill, where were you born?
Hartnell: North Devon, Seaton.
Plomley: You come from an old Devon family?
Hartnell: Yes, I do; yes, a very old family. Three hundred years of us.
Plomley: Any tradition of theatre in the family?
Hartnell: None whatsoever.
Plomley: Was the theatre your first ambition?
Hartnell: Not it wasn’t, actually – horses were. Racehorses.
Plomley: So what did you do about it?
Hartnell: Well, I ran away from school at an early age. Having written to Stanley Wootoon at Treadwell House, Epsom, I got myself a job there as an apprentice with him, to ride and become a jockey. After, I suppose a year or so, I suddenly started to put on weight and Stanley Wootton said it wouldn’t do, and he thought I ought to get out and take up another profession. So my second desire, immediate desire was the theatre. Naturally I wanted to couple the two, but there it was — I was unable to do so.
Plomley: How did the theatre come into your life? Had you seen a lot as a child?
Hartnell: I suppose I associated myself with a lot of reading matter over a period — Shakespeare and other playwrights. And I was always in school concerts and things like that. I was just mad keen on the theatre and horses, and those were the two things that I wanted in life. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.
Plomley: What was your first job in the theatre?
Hartnell: My first job in the theatre was luckily to be with Sir Frank Benson, a Shakespearian actor and teacher whom we all called, of course, Pa Benson.
Plomley: How long did you stay with him?
Hartnell: Three years.
Plomley: And have you appeared in Shakespeare since?
Hartnell: No I haven’t. But I still want to.
Plomley: Have you ever been asked to use your skill as an expert horseman in a film?
Hartnell: Never.
Plomley: This is showbusiness.
Hartnell: Never! (laughs)
Plomley: When you left the Benson company, what did you do?
Hartnell: Well, I was like any other actor I suppose. I had to take a job on tour and earn my living the best way I could, which I did. I was on tour doing once-nightly and twice-nightly shows for fourpence a week and living in back rooms, you know.
Plomley: When did you first appear in the West End?
Hartnell: Oh that was a very modest entrance on my part. I think I was understudy when I first appeared, and, you know, general dogsbody.
Plomley: Who did you understudy?
Hartnell: Well, I understudied such personalities as Ernest Truex in Good Morning, Bill, which is a Robert Courtneidge production, and Ralph Lynn in his light comedies and farces.
Lawrence Grossmith, Charlie Heslop, Flanagan and Allen of course, I have, Bud and Ches —
Plomley: Both of them?
Hartnell: Yes, both of them. And the Cochran show, home and abroad. And played a small part in it.
Plomley: So this was the pattern for the first few years. Steady, fairly odd-spaced..
Hartnell: And stage management, and assistant stage manager, you know. Learning to paint scenery, and all the [indistinct] of association with the theatre.
Plomley: Well let’s break off with another record. Number 3, what next?
Hartnell I’d like to hear the Kreutzer Sonata with the superb violinist player, Menuhin.
Plomley: Why’d you choose this?
Hartnell: Because I just love this man. I think he’s a great genius, and I love his music, I love his conducting… anything about him.
Record 3
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’
Performers: Yehudi Menuhin & Hephzibah Menuhin.
Plomley: Part of the Second Movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, played by Yehudi Menuhin, with his sister Hepzibah accompanying him. What was your first film appearance, Bill?
Hartnell: That I can’t remember, the very first. But I must admit that I was two years in the crowd before I was ever allowed to appear in a film.
Plomley: Yes, and you did quite a number of ‘quota quickies’ in the bad old days
Hartnell: Oh yes, numerous.films, ‘quickies’ of those days. If you had ten pages of dialogue in one take and if you fluffed … well, you had to ad lib and carry on.
Plomley: Yes, no retakes.
Hartnell: Nope — couldn’t afford it.
Plomley: What do you look back on as your first big break, your big opportunity in films?
Hartnell: Well, that I should say would be Carol Reed’s’ film, The Way Ahead.
Plomley: In which you played the tough Sergeant?
Hartnell: I played the tough sergeant, yes, Herbert.
Plomley: That’s an excellent film, that. It made a great impact. It’s still being shown, I believe, as a training film.
Hartnell: Yes, so I believe.
Plomley: And ‘The Way Ahead’ led to you being typecast for years.
Hartnell: Yes.
Plomley: If anyone wanted a tough Sergeant, send for Hartnell.
Hartnell: Yes, absolutely, yes.
Plomley: In your own army career, before you were invalided out during the war, were you a Sergeant?
Hartnell: No, I wasn’t. Wasn’t even a Corporal.
(Both laugh)
Plomley: Which of your tough performances do you like to remember, apart from ‘The Way Ahead’?
Hartnell: One other film, which I was very glad to be in was — Richard Todd played the lead in it, it was made by Wilcox, and it was called Yangtse Incident. I was the coxswain of the boat, and it was the actual story of the Amethyst.
Plomley: You were also being a tough character on the stage as well as the screen.
Hartnell: (Laughs) Yes. Quite often, yes. Are you talking about Seagulls Over Sorrento?
Plomley: That went on for a long time.
Hartnell: Yes, four years.
Plomley: You were, what, a tough petty officer?
Hartnell: That’s right, yes.
Plomley: Let’s have record number 4. What now?
Hartnell: Well, let’s have Elemento Concerto, recording by Jack Payne. It’s the whole story of the Battle of El Alamein, in music.
Record 4
Albert Arlen
El Alamein Concerto
Performer: Peggy Cochrane
with Jack Payne & His Orchestra
Plomley: The closing passage of the El Alamein Concerto by Albert Arlen. Peggy Cochrane as soloist, with Jack Payne and his Orchestra. Now, Bill, this tough Sergeant image of yours, as well as persisting in the theatre and in films, also extended into television.
Hartnell: Yes.
Plomley: They gave you a rather awkward squad to look after.
Hartnell: Yes, I’m afraid they did.
Plomley: So, The Army Game.
Hartnell: The Army Game, yes.
Plomley: How long were you with them?
Hartnell: Well, I stayed with it for the first year, and then I thought I would give it a rest and then try and do something else. I was away from it for two years, back making films.. And then I, quite by accident, met the producer again in a train, going home one evening, and he asked me if I’d come back to the show. So I said “Yes — at a price”, and he agreed and I went back for another year.
Plomley: Lately you’ve made an enormous success in a television part that’s very very different.
Hartnell: Yes, very different, very different.
Plomley: Doctor Who. How did this happen? How did tough Hartnell become this gentle absent-minded professor?
Hartnell: All my life I’ve wanted to play an older character in films, or a play, and I’ve never been allowed to. Except on just the one occasion, prior to being offered this part in Doctor Who. After the second reading, I was given this part of the old boy in Sporting Life, where the lead was played by and shared with Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts — both superb artists. I was just playing this sort of bone idle, out of work, on the dole, ill old man called Dad, who had a great ambition in life himself, in his earlier days to be a rugger player, and to be a good professional player, and make a success of his life. And unfortunately he ended up, as it were, in the gutter, and rather an ill and useless old man. But in this boy he saw something of himself. Therefore, I think he used his influence with the club managers and associates to give him a chance.
[End of recording]
[Beginning of DWM transcript]
“It so turned out that, after playing Doctor Who for several months, my producer Verity Lambert, a very charming and lovable person, finally confessed to me that she’d seen the film and she had decided that there was her Doctor Who.”
Two years into his latest role, Bill was finding the strain of making around forty episodes a year demanding, but felt the hard work had its compensations. “I love playing to children, because you can’t pull the wool over their eyes. Nothing gives me greater delight because I think they are the greatest critics in the world. When they write to me you know it’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They sometimes demand over and above what I can provide, but I send them a photograph, sign it, and answer some of their letters. One little child wrote to me not so long ago, saying how much she liked the show. She ended up by saying ‘When I grow up I will marry.’ She was aged four and-a-half!”
Further typecasting, this time as the ‘absent-minded professor’, was now of no concern to Bill, who was in his element. “Doctor Who leaves me no time to do anything else, and I think I’ll be doing it for many years. They’ve pretty well given me carte blanche and as a matter of fact Verity has said ‘when the time comes we will give you a bath-chair free.’ I said ‘I might take you up on that one day!’
On the subject of hobbies that might come in useful on a desert island, Bill was rather less positive. “I don’t really have any hobbies. I think my hobbies are reading and fishing. Fishing might be useful.” Although, of course, a rod would have to be constructed. “I think I can be effective with my hands now and again. I’m not a tradesman but I can use my hands.”
Would he be proficient enough to build a raft and escape from the desert island? “Well now that’s a different cup of tea isn’t it? First of all one must find out whether the island is surrounded by sharks. I wouldn’t want to be torn to pieces by sharks. I should want an even chance to get away. If I could make a boat and know that perhaps in contact of land of, what a hundred to one thousand miles and I was able to fish well then I perhaps make a raft or some kind and take a chance.”
Visitors to the BBC’s mythical desert island are also allowed one luxury and one book, as long as it isn’t the Bible or by Shakespeare Bill had definite preferences in mind for both items. “One luxury. Well I shouldn’t need any clothes, and I don’t think I should need any other humans around me. I should need something of material value. So we’ll cut out the thought of alcohol and we’ll just put it down to cigarettes. Yes, I think a waterproof box of cigarettes — which may prevent me from going entirely mad. The one book that I would like to keep by me because of my utter loneliness is The English Social History by G.M. Trevelyan. When he was quite young this man was a master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Professor of History. The book covers the six centuries from Chaucer to Queen Victoria and is a fund of information on the whole social life and outlook of this country.”
Hartnell’s final four choices of Desert Island Disc:
Record 5
Louis Armstrong
Lawd, You Made the Night Too Long
“This is one of Louis Armstrong’s early records. I remember him from when I was quite young. I think he’s what I’d call the kingpin of jazz”
Although it’s possible a re-recording was used, it’s likely they would have listened to the 1932 original, reissued amongst other places on this 1991 CD set.
Record 6
Sergey Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor
Performers: Benno Moiseiwitsch
with Philharmonia Orchestra.
Conductor: Hugo Rignold.
“I find it very powerful and very moving, and since there’s nobody else on the island we can make as much noise as we like I presume.”
This specific recording is available on CD from Naxos Direct, although the entire piece is about 30 minutes long, so we assume they likely listened to the last 2m48s, which starts quietly (so a good point to cut in) but certainly ends with “as much noise as we like”!
Record 7
Flanagan and Allen
Underneath the Arches
Performers: Bud Flanagan & Chesney Allen
with Victoria Palace Orchestra
Director: Freddie Bretherton
“I chose this because of my associations with Flanagan and Allen in the early days. This is full of comedy and patter.”
This song has been recorded and released many times. The safest way to obtain and listen to a guaranteed version of the Victoria Palace recording is on the 1957 EP Together Again.
Record 8
(“Castaway’s Favourite”)
The Spring Song from ‘A King in New York‘
Orchestra conducted by Charlie Chaplin.
“This to me is quite something. This is full of the pathos and humour that is completely this man, Charlie Chaplin. If I had to choose just one record to take to the island with me it would have to be this one.”
This doesn’t seem to have had a digital release, although the 1957 vinyl is still fairly easy to come by.
Mentioned by Hartnell
Films
| Title | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| The Way Ahead | 1944 | Carol Reed |
| This Sporting Life | 1963 | Lindsay Anderson |
| Yangste Incident | 1957 | Michael Anderson |
| Seagulls Over Sorrento | 1954 | Jon Boulting & Roy Boulting |
Stage
| Title | Year | Producer |
|---|---|---|
| Good Morning, Bill | 1927 | Robert Courtneidge |
| Happy Returns | 1938 | Charles Cochran |
Television
| Title | Year | Network |
|---|---|---|
| The Army Game | 1957-1961 | ITV |
| Doctor Who | 1963-1966 | BBC |
People
| Name | Job Title | Example of work with Hartnell |
|---|---|---|
| Stanley Thomas Wootton | Horse Trainer | |
| Sir Francis Robert Benson | Actor, Producer | Various Shakespeare plays |
| Ernest Truex | Actor | Play: Good Morning, Bill |
| Roubert Courtneidge | Producer | Play: Good Morning, Bill |
| Ralph Lynn | Actor | Play: Nap Hand |
| Lawrence Grossmith | Actor | Play: Good Morning, Bill |
| Charles Heslop | Actor | Film: The Petervill Diamond |
| Bud Flanagan | Musical Comedian | Revue: Happy Returns |
| Chesney Allen | Musical Comedian | Revue: Happy Returns |
| Sir Charles B Cochran | Showman | Revue: Happy Returns |
| Carol Reed | Director | Film: Odd Man Out |
| Richard Harris | Actor | Film: This Sporting Life |
| Rachel Roberts | Actor | Film: This Sporting Life |
| Verity Lambery | Producer | TV: Doctor Who |
