0:00:14 > 0:00:17APPLAUSE
0:00:17 > 0:00:20Thank you. Hello and welcome to My Life In Books,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23a chance for our guests to talk about their favourite reads
0:00:23 > 0:00:25and why they're important.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29With me tonight, actor Phil Davis, famous for playing shifty characters,
0:00:29 > 0:00:34men on the make, in fact, adding spice to any role he takes on.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Alongside him, Rosie Boycott, whose life reads better than any novel.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40Founder of Spare Rib at 21,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43later, editor of three national newspapers,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46and now the Mayor of London's food adviser.
0:00:46 > 0:00:47Thank you both for coming.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50APPLAUSE
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Two very different backgrounds.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57Phil you started life as an Essex boy...
0:00:57 > 0:01:00- On a council estate in Essex, yes. - Yeah.
0:01:00 > 0:01:01What did your dad do?
0:01:01 > 0:01:04My dad worked in a soap factory and my mum, worked,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07when she did work, in a hospital canteen.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09And were there books in the house?
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Not many. And my mum and dad didn't read to me when I was a kid,
0:01:12 > 0:01:14although I was encouraged.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16Rosie, your start was very different, wasn't it?
0:01:16 > 0:01:21My dad was in the Army, so my first five years were spent
0:01:21 > 0:01:23being taken around the world as a baby.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27Then, when he came out of the Army in 1956,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30it's quite difficult now to imagine, but here's a bloke
0:01:30 > 0:01:35who's around 40 with no job. He'd been to Sandhurst after school.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38He had no ability to do anything apart from being the army,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42so, my parents found themselves living in a very small house
0:01:42 > 0:01:44in Essex, in fact, in Harlow.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48My father had jobs in Selfridge's selling sheets and Christmas decorations
0:01:48 > 0:01:51while he studied to be an accountant.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54We were very, very short of money, is my memory.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57Was he reading to you at this stage?
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Yes, he always read to me, always read me books.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02He kept reading to me, actually, until I was quite old.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06My father read me Lorna Doone when I was a teenager,
0:02:06 > 0:02:11and it gave me a love of being read to and indeed, of reading to people.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14I think it's an incredible privilege.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16It's a wonderful way to hear words.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19By the time your father had qualified as an accountant,
0:02:19 > 0:02:21things were looking up.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24They were looking up because I remember having enough money,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27or them having enough money, for me to go and have riding lessons.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30- Impressive! - Source of pride, that picture!
0:02:30 > 0:02:33I'm a little bit older, there. I'm probably 11 or 12, maybe.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36I had borrowed this horse. It was called Pinto.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39Not surprisingly, your first choice of book is...
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Black Beauty, for anyone who hasn't read it, is an extraordinary
0:02:45 > 0:02:48story about a horse from the point of view of a horse.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50At the moment, people are saying
0:02:50 > 0:02:53that Michael Morpurgo wrote War Horse,
0:02:53 > 0:02:55wrote about Joey, and that was the first story
0:02:55 > 0:02:57written from the point of view of a horse, but in fact,
0:02:57 > 0:03:02Anna Sewell, long time before that, wrote the story of Black beauty.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06It's the tale of a horse's life, in a particular moment in England,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10about 100 years ago and how the horse goes from very good times
0:03:10 > 0:03:14and changes owners and is moved around,
0:03:14 > 0:03:16and then has very bad times. What's fascinating,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19I think, about the way she writes it, is that the horse
0:03:19 > 0:03:21is like a blank canvas,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24onto which you can imprint all of human behaviour.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26So, in a sense, the horse, like a child
0:03:26 > 0:03:30begins as a completely innocent, well-meaning animal,
0:03:30 > 0:03:34who will learn from a good master and become broken by a bad master.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37- Read us an extract. - Yes. It's very powerful.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40I re-read it again the last few days. It still makes me cry.
0:03:40 > 0:03:41This is a very moving passage
0:03:41 > 0:03:46and Black Beauty is now working as a horse
0:03:46 > 0:03:48drawing a cab in London.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52"One day, whilst our cab and many others were waiting outside
0:03:52 > 0:03:54"one of the parks where a band was playing,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57"a shabby old cab drove up beside ours.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59"The horse was an old, worn-out chestnut,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03"with an ill-kept coat and bones that showed plainly through it.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07"The knees knuckled over and the four legs were very unsteady.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10"I'd been eating some hay and the wind rolled a little lock of it
0:04:10 > 0:04:14"that way and the poor creature put out her long, thin neck and picked it up,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17"and then turned round and looked about for some more.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19"There was a hopeless look in the dull eye,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22"that I couldn't help noticing. And then,
0:04:22 > 0:04:25"as I was thinking where I had seen that horse before,
0:04:25 > 0:04:28"she looked full at me and said, 'Black Beauty, is that you?'
0:04:28 > 0:04:30- "It was Ginger." - APPLAUSE
0:04:30 > 0:04:33I'm glad horses could talk in those days.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36They chat to each other. They weren't chatting to you and me.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41- Phil, no riding lessons for you, growing up.- No. Nothing like that.
0:04:41 > 0:04:46I mean, it wasn't a particularly harsh or deprived background,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49money was tight but we made it through.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53We've got a picture of you as a little boy. A beautiful blonde you are!
0:04:53 > 0:04:56- In Trafalgar Square. - Trafalgar Square. Day out?- Day out.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Up in London, feeding the pigeons.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02And your first choice of book is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06- Tell me about why.- Well, this was the first grown-up book
0:05:06 > 0:05:09I ever read. I came across it about 14 or 15.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11It wasn't a set text at school.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15I just read it off my own bat. It was given to me as a birthday present.
0:05:15 > 0:05:20And it resonated with me in a way no novel has, before or since.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22It sort of rang me like a bell.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25This story of an unexceptional boy,
0:05:25 > 0:05:29plucked out of one background and put into another.
0:05:29 > 0:05:34Bearing in mind that I had a desperate obsession to be an actor.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38I wanted so much to be an actor, before I'd ever seen a play.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41He's not the nicest person, the lead character.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45No, he's not, he's not. He's presented, warts and all.
0:05:45 > 0:05:50But Dickens gets inside his head, the psychology of the character,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54I think its very acute and very well drawn. And, of course,
0:05:54 > 0:05:58he's desperate for a different kind of life, in the same way that I was.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01This makes his relationship with Joe Gargery,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04to whom he's apprenticed as a blacksmith, very, very complicated,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07because he's very fond of Joe, loves him dearly.
0:06:07 > 0:06:12But he's desperate to get away and I felt the same, and so it resonated.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14- Will you read an extract?- I will.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18This is... he's having a conversation with Biddy, a housekeeper,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22after his sister is too ill to look after the household.
0:06:22 > 0:06:28" 'Biddy', said I, after binding her to secrecy, 'I want to be a gentleman.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31" 'I wouldn't if I was you', she returned.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33" 'Biddy', said I, with some severity,
0:06:33 > 0:06:37" 'I've particular reasons for wanting to be a gentleman.'
0:06:37 > 0:06:41" 'Well, you know best, Pip, but don't you think you're happier as you are?'
0:06:41 > 0:06:45" 'Biddy', I exclaimed, impatiently, 'I'm not at all happy as I am.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47" 'I'm disgusted with my calling
0:06:47 > 0:06:51" 'and with my life. I've never taken to either since I was bounced.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56" 'Don't be absurd.' 'Was I absurd?', said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58" 'I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to be.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02" 'I only want you to do well and to be comfortable.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05" 'Well, then understand once and for all
0:07:05 > 0:07:09" 'that I never shall or can be comfortable or anything but miserable,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13" 'unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the one I lead now.' "
0:07:13 > 0:07:15APPLAUSE
0:07:15 > 0:07:19Wonderful. Thank you. In fact, you've managed, through the years,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21to be in quite a lot of Dickens, haven't you?
0:07:21 > 0:07:24The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist...
0:07:24 > 0:07:26Oliver Twist, Nicolas Nickleby.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31Dickens has kept cropping up, and more recently, Bleak House,
0:07:31 > 0:07:33the BBC's version of Bleak House.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37Wonderful as Smallweed, a nasty
0:07:37 > 0:07:38greedy old man, the moneylender.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42Yes, very fierce. But, you know, bear in mind, he has a disability.
0:07:42 > 0:07:47He can't walk. So he has to go everywhere carried by these servants.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49I wondered how a man like that, a money lender,
0:07:49 > 0:07:53who would have enemies, would cope, because life
0:07:53 > 0:07:57was very harsh and cruel in Victorian London and so, I think his ferocity
0:07:57 > 0:08:03was something of a front, to protect himself from the rest of the world.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05Let's have a look.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09Mr Smallweed, very good of you to trouble yourself.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13Honoured, Mr Tulkinghorn, privileged, deeply gratified. Set me down gently.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Gently!
0:08:15 > 0:08:18Off, out, way outside!
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Savages!
0:08:21 > 0:08:23I'm half killed!
0:08:23 > 0:08:28If you'd be so kind as to ask your man to shake me up a bit.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39Ooph!
0:08:39 > 0:08:41BONES CRACK
0:08:41 > 0:08:42Much obliged.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47APPLAUSE
0:08:47 > 0:08:51While Phil is lost in Great Expectations
0:08:51 > 0:08:53you were at Cheltenham Ladies College.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57Yes, I was indeed there. I didn't last the course, you might say,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00I didn't get on with Cheltenham very well.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02I had a very chequered education.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05I went to Cramers, got chucked out, did this, did that,
0:09:05 > 0:09:07but in the end, I did manage to get some A-levels
0:09:07 > 0:09:13and was accepted into Kent University to do pure maths,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16of course, which I knew I probably wouldn't stay in.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18You took a gap year before?
0:09:18 > 0:09:20I took a gap year. Yes, the success of the A-levels
0:09:20 > 0:09:24meant that my parents said you can go hitchhike round America,
0:09:24 > 0:09:29because by that point, I was becoming obsessed with all things American.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32- Tell us about your second choice. - My second choice is...
0:09:34 > 0:09:36..which I read just before I went,
0:09:36 > 0:09:38and finished reading while I was there.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41It's a wonderful book. It's a story
0:09:41 > 0:09:44of the travels of two men.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47It's based on the real lives of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.
0:09:47 > 0:09:52In the book they're called Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty.
0:09:52 > 0:09:53It's really just about journeys.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57But what it's also about at heart, it's about longing for something.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59It's about longing for something bigger,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02about the search for spirituality, a search for completion,
0:10:02 > 0:10:05a search for... The expression "kind of far out" came up,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08and how far could you go, how far could you push yourself?
0:10:08 > 0:10:09What could you do?
0:10:09 > 0:10:13And this is set in the '50s,
0:10:13 > 0:10:17at the start of a kind of restlessness that I think America absolutely epitomised,
0:10:17 > 0:10:19because it had that sense that you could take
0:10:19 > 0:10:21great geographical journeys.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23And I liked following the fact that they are...
0:10:23 > 0:10:26We were hitchhiking on parts of Route 66
0:10:26 > 0:10:30and different routes, but I went with two friends who were boys,
0:10:30 > 0:10:32who were just platonic friends,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36and we flew to New York and our parents had bought us Greyhound bus tickets
0:10:36 > 0:10:39because they thought this was a very safe way to travel.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42We took the Greyhound bus tickets over one night, then, I have to say,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45got rid of them, and hitchhiked the rest of the way.
0:10:45 > 0:10:46Playing hippies?
0:10:46 > 0:10:48We were not playing.
0:10:48 > 0:10:49We were!
0:10:49 > 0:10:52I remember eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
0:10:52 > 0:10:56overlooking Big Sur, listening to the Grateful Dead
0:10:56 > 0:10:58and thinking, "Life was OK."
0:10:58 > 0:11:04Phil, did you hit the '60s knowing what the '60s were?
0:11:04 > 0:11:08No, not really. The '60s happened to me in the '70s, really.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12- But, um, I mean, I was 16 in 1969.- Yeah.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17Still at school and a rock music fanatic,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20but I was a strange, something of a melancholy, boy, really,
0:11:20 > 0:11:23cos I was longing to get going as an actor, you know?
0:11:23 > 0:11:25But you were acting at school?
0:11:25 > 0:11:28Yeah, I was in lots of school plays and amateur dramatics
0:11:28 > 0:11:31and stuff we would get together ourselves.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Here's a picture of you. Can you remember...?
0:11:33 > 0:11:36I can't remember the play. I remember the girl!
0:11:36 > 0:11:37Isn't she pretty?
0:11:37 > 0:11:39I knew you'd remember the name of the girl!
0:11:39 > 0:11:42That was Margaret Fender. I wonder if she's watching?
0:11:42 > 0:11:45And the book you've chosen next is...
0:11:45 > 0:11:48I'm delighted by this -
0:11:51 > 0:11:53Why this one?
0:11:53 > 0:11:54I always loved poetry, you know?
0:11:54 > 0:11:57I love reading out loud, and so I love poetry.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00But when I discovered this, it dropped like a bomb,
0:12:00 > 0:12:05because this was Liverpool, like The Beatles.
0:12:05 > 0:12:11This was accessible, funny, irreverent, like song lyrics.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15And we loved it, but it did get me into some trouble.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18Occasionally, we were allowed to do the school assembly.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Instead of reading from the Bible, we were allowed to read poetry.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24You know, published poetry.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27My friend handed me this and said, "Will you read this one? Schoolboy."
0:12:27 > 0:12:31And I hadn't read it. And I opened the page and the first line is,
0:12:31 > 0:12:33"Before playtime, let us Consider the possibilities
0:12:33 > 0:12:36"Of getting stoned on milk"
0:12:36 > 0:12:40And there's this verse about halfway through the poem.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42It goes, "Girls, still mysterious
0:12:42 > 0:12:44"Arithmetic-thighed
0:12:44 > 0:12:47"Breasts measured in thumbprints Not inches
0:12:47 > 0:12:50"Literature's just another way out
0:12:50 > 0:12:53"History is full of absurd mistakes
0:12:53 > 0:12:57"King Arthur, if he ever existed Would only have farted
0:12:57 > 0:13:00"And excused himself From the Round Table in a hurry"
0:13:00 > 0:13:03There was a big roar of laughter and the headmaster said,
0:13:03 > 0:13:05"Davis, that's enough."
0:13:06 > 0:13:08But I loved this book and I love it still.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11And it sort of dropped like a bomb in our schooldays.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16There was a published book of poetry using the same language that we used.
0:13:16 > 0:13:22You, meanwhile, had given up on Kent University and pure maths.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25Did that seem like a brave move?
0:13:25 > 0:13:27No, it seemed like an inevitable move.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30I remember leaving one late February day,
0:13:30 > 0:13:34and I had a very old, blue Hillman, and I drove to London and I slept
0:13:34 > 0:13:38in the Hillman for about three weeks in the Gloucester Road.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40And by that time I had managed to find a job
0:13:40 > 0:13:43on an alternative newspaper called Friends,
0:13:43 > 0:13:45and I felt like I'd arrived home.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47I thought, "This is extraordinary,
0:13:47 > 0:13:49"you can get paid to be a journalist!"
0:13:49 > 0:13:52OK, we didn't actually get paid on the underground press,
0:13:52 > 0:13:56but you got given some free meals and the odd free book.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59And it was quite soon after that that the feminist movement
0:13:59 > 0:14:04was beginning, and a group of us who worked in the underground press
0:14:04 > 0:14:06started having meetings, started thinking about,
0:14:06 > 0:14:11"Well, this is an alternative life but, actually, it's only an alternative life for the guys."
0:14:11 > 0:14:15And the girls are meant to carry on being secretaries,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17as well as being sexually available.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20That was their alternative bit. And this wasn't good enough.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24So you founded Spare Rib, the two of you. You and Marsha Rowe.
0:14:24 > 0:14:29Yes, and we had a very small office in Soho, just off Carnaby Street.
0:14:29 > 0:14:35Not surprisingly, your next choice is...
0:14:35 > 0:14:40Being a child of the '50s and coming into your own in the '70s,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43yours was a generation who really appreciated this book.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46We really appreciated it, and I particularly appreciated this
0:14:46 > 0:14:49because Germaine had worked on Oz Magazine,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52so she also had a sense of the underground press.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55And what I loved particularly about Germaine and her spirit
0:14:55 > 0:14:57was that she was about life.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00And there was a lot of feminist writing at that time which was,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05well, quite frankly, very heavy, and very academic and rather dry.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09And Germaine allowed you to have a really good time as women.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12It wasn't just about, "Let's also get equal pay,
0:15:12 > 0:15:16"let's embrace the idea that you can have sexual desire."
0:15:16 > 0:15:20It took in the whole thing and it was immensely exciting.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22Were you already campaigning?
0:15:22 > 0:15:24No. Well, yes, I was, but I mean,
0:15:24 > 0:15:27The Female Eunuch had already come out.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30We started with Spare Rib and we were at the time
0:15:30 > 0:15:33with the campaigns for equal pay, for the right to abortion,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35for the end of discrimination,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37so there were campaigns going everywhere.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40We were constantly on marches. I've enjoyed marching ever since.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44It is a very angry... When I read it now,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47it's a very angry anti-male book.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49I don't... I disagree with you.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52I think it's angry and I think it's important that it was angry,
0:15:52 > 0:15:55and indeed, talking to people today,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00women of my age wanting to put together and look at new feminism,
0:16:00 > 0:16:02the fact that there's still lots you can do.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05Anger's disappeared, and yet, exactly the same.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07You know, we still have unequal pay.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10The same number of women are killed in domestic violence.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14All sorts of discriminations still go on, not to mention the things
0:16:14 > 0:16:17that ought to be done about women all round the world.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19And it was very influential, not just to me,
0:16:19 > 0:16:21but to vast numbers of people.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24Were you an early feminist, Phil?
0:16:24 > 0:16:26I'm afraid I wasn't, no.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29I met a lot of early feminists in the theatre when I first started working.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32How did you train, not being able to go to drama school?
0:16:32 > 0:16:36I was really lucky, because I answered an advert in The Stage
0:16:36 > 0:16:39in 1972, and a theatre director called Joan Littlewood,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42fantastic theatre director, she took me on.
0:16:42 > 0:16:47Working with her for the first year of my career was a real advantage not having trained,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51because she worked in such an idiosyncratic manner,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53and it taught me a wonderful kind of pragmatism.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57I never felt uncomfortable if I didn't quite know what was going on.
0:16:57 > 0:16:59It got you onto the London stage.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01It did, it was my first break.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04But I was off then, and my career had begun.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07You played in a play by Barrie Keeffe called Gotcha,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11that then was a Play For Today on the BBC.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13- You were an angry young man, really, weren't you?- I was.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15This was 1977.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18It was like the theatrical equivalent of a punk record.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21It was set in a big comprehensive school
0:17:21 > 0:17:24and a kid leaves on his last day with a terrible report,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27and he's going to hit the real world like a wall.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30And he holds a teacher and the headmaster hostage.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34Wonderful part for me, and it launched my career, really.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36It runs in the family, dunnit?
0:17:36 > 0:17:39Yeah, my grandma was mad.
0:17:39 > 0:17:40Old Grandma!
0:17:40 > 0:17:43Right round the bleedin' bend, she went.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47Had to look her up in a room no bigger than this.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49I used to go and see her.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53I says to her once, I says, "Why are you in 'ere then, Gran?"
0:17:53 > 0:17:55She said, "They say I'm mad."
0:17:55 > 0:17:57I said, "Why's that?"
0:17:59 > 0:18:01She says, "Cos I go up the shops with no clothes on."
0:18:01 > 0:18:04I said, "Don't you get cold?"
0:18:04 > 0:18:05"Oh, no!" she says.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07"I only do it in heat waves."
0:18:07 > 0:18:09APPLAUSE
0:18:09 > 0:18:11Brilliant.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13- You're very tasty there.- Yes!
0:18:13 > 0:18:15- Love the hair.- Very tasty!
0:18:15 > 0:18:18Yeah, it's terrible what happened to me!
0:18:18 > 0:18:22- Age, you know?- Then, Mike Leigh and you came together, didn't you?
0:18:22 > 0:18:26I came across Mike Leigh, who was a massive influence on me
0:18:26 > 0:18:29and really changed the way I thought about myself as an actor because,
0:18:29 > 0:18:34previously, I'd always kind of imagined the characters I played
0:18:34 > 0:18:37were just various versions of me.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39But with Mike, you start with no script
0:18:39 > 0:18:45and you make these characters up, collaboratively, with Mike.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50You invent a fictional character in the same way you would in a novel and the world around it.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54Suddenly, I thought, "Wait a minute. I can do anyone, I can do anything."
0:18:54 > 0:18:56Cos you did Who's Who with him.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58I did Who's Who and Grown-Ups. And High Hopes.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01And then, very famously, Vera Drake.
0:19:01 > 0:19:05- Very famously, Vera Drake, the most recent one. Yes.- Yeah.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09The next choice of book, which is Any Human Heart, by William Boyd,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11that is something you read while preparing
0:19:11 > 0:19:12for Vera Drake?
0:19:12 > 0:19:16It was, yes, because Vera Drake was set in 1950.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20Of course, one was playing a character who was born just at the turn of the century,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23and so all the research I was doing
0:19:23 > 0:19:27on what life was like at that time was very much the same
0:19:27 > 0:19:30kind of journey that Logan Mountstuart,
0:19:30 > 0:19:34the main character in Any Human Heart, was taking.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37The defining event in the lives of people
0:19:37 > 0:19:39of that generation was the Second World War.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42But this is a wonderful novel.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45It takes the form of a journal, and this is a man who was at Oxford
0:19:45 > 0:19:48and at the school in Oxford in the '20s, and was working around London
0:19:48 > 0:19:52and a friend of his had an art gallery in Paris,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55and he comes across all these real characters, you know?
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Evelyn Waugh, he meets James Joyce, he meets Virginia Woolf,
0:19:58 > 0:19:59he meets Picasso.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02- His life is very messy and very complicated.- Yeah.
0:20:02 > 0:20:04He has an unhappy marriage,
0:20:04 > 0:20:07finally falls in love with someone, has a child with her
0:20:07 > 0:20:11and the war blights it because he's in prison in Switzerland -
0:20:11 > 0:20:14they imagine he's dead, then they're killed by a bomb.
0:20:14 > 0:20:15It's a very messy life,
0:20:15 > 0:20:20but you get a picture of what life was like in the 20th century.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22They'll read this in 100 years and say,
0:20:22 > 0:20:23"That was what it was like."
0:20:23 > 0:20:27For people of that class in that time, it's very accurate, and a wonderful story.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30When you were cast as Stanley Drake,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34did you know much about what was going to happen in the movie?
0:20:34 > 0:20:35No, I didn't.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39I mean, we invented this character, these characters, this family.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43But I'd been working for about four and a half months.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48I had no idea that Vera Drake had been off doing backstreet abortions.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Until one day, we were doing an improvisation.
0:20:52 > 0:20:57We were celebrating the engagement of the Drakes' daughter to Reg.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00And we'd been at it for about six and a half hours -
0:21:00 > 0:21:01we had real tea and that -
0:21:01 > 0:21:03and suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06I answered it and there were these actors
0:21:06 > 0:21:08dressed as policemen, come to arrest her.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10And I didn't know why.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13And I could see by her face something was seriously wrong.
0:21:13 > 0:21:14And then we went downstairs
0:21:14 > 0:21:17and they'd transformed the rest of the rehearsal rooms
0:21:17 > 0:21:20into a police station, with all these policemen around.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23They kept me waiting for about two and a half hours
0:21:23 > 0:21:26and finally let me in to see her, all the time in character.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28And then she told me what she'd been doing,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30and that was the first time that I, Phil Davis,
0:21:30 > 0:21:35knew what she'd been up to, of course what the film was about to be about.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40And Mike Leigh's vision of it, does that encourage you to be more real?
0:21:40 > 0:21:44This was an improvisation, but when we came to film that sequence,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I knew everything about the character -
0:21:47 > 0:21:48I knew what the fears were,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51all the things he didn't quite say but nearly said.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55all that subtextual stuff that you normally have to lay on to a script,
0:21:55 > 0:21:57a text, was all there for me.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59And so it was very easy to act it,
0:21:59 > 0:22:01cos it was based on this improvisation,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04which by then had taken on a kind of quasi-reality.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06- It's a great performance. - Thank you.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10Rosie, you go right back in time for your final choice, don't you?
0:22:10 > 0:22:13The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
0:22:13 > 0:22:14Why this?
0:22:14 > 0:22:17There's so many reasons why this.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20- I left Spare Rib because I fell in love.- Yeah.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22Which was a very feminist thing to do(!)
0:22:22 > 0:22:24LAUGHTER
0:22:24 > 0:22:25I fell in love with Steinbeck's son.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28And I didn't know much about John Steinbeck then,
0:22:28 > 0:22:30I think I'd read The Pearl
0:22:30 > 0:22:33and I think I'd probably read some of the Cannery Row books,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36but I hadn't read a lot and I fell completely in love,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38really for the first time in my life.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42He had a great friend who arrived in England
0:22:42 > 0:22:46and he was dying of cancer, he was 30.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49He went to an acupuncturist in Ladbroke Grove.
0:22:49 > 0:22:50The acupuncturist said,
0:22:50 > 0:22:54"Why don't you go to India to see a guru called Sai Baba?
0:22:54 > 0:22:56"He performs miracles."
0:22:56 > 0:22:59He came back and he said, "Will you come with me?
0:22:59 > 0:23:01"Will you guys come with me?"
0:23:01 > 0:23:03I don't suppose one would do it now, but we just said,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05"Yes, of course we will."
0:23:05 > 0:23:08The following day, we booked tickets for India and we were off.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12And for the next six months, we lived in an ashram in southern India,
0:23:12 > 0:23:13where Steve slowly died.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17We took his ashes, which were returned from the crematorium
0:23:17 > 0:23:19in an Ovaltine can that was this large,
0:23:19 > 0:23:21which was all very, very strange.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23We bought a motorbike in Delhi
0:23:23 > 0:23:27and we set off on the motorbike into northern India, up the Ganges,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30and ended up in Kathmandu, where we started smoking opium.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33And in the time of that,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37we read each other every single John Steinbeck book
0:23:37 > 0:23:38that we could purchase in Kathmandu,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41which over the course of a few months was pretty much all of them.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And we'd lie around all day and read aloud.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Would you have read Steinbeck if it hadn't have been for his son?
0:23:47 > 0:23:52I hope so, because I think Steinbeck is an extraordinarily wonderful writer.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54I like many things about it -
0:23:54 > 0:23:58I love fiction that is based with wonderful journalism.
0:23:58 > 0:23:59I really want books about now,
0:23:59 > 0:24:03I want books about the crash, I want books about what it's like,
0:24:03 > 0:24:07you know, living in this society at this moment.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11The thing about this book is it began with 13, I think, articles
0:24:11 > 0:24:13that were written for the San Francisco Chronicle
0:24:13 > 0:24:17about the plight of the migrant workers in the Salinas Valley.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20These were mainly Mexican workers that had come up
0:24:20 > 0:24:22and were working for the farmers.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24For some of them, they did strike big,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28but for the Joads in this book, they ended up being exploited
0:24:28 > 0:24:30and working in very hard circumstances.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34What's incredible about is that nothing has actually changed -
0:24:34 > 0:24:38you still have migrant workers, they're still being exploited, they're still on the land.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40You know, we have the same situation here.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43So this book for me, as someone who's been a campaigning journalist
0:24:43 > 0:24:46as well as very involved in environmental issues,
0:24:46 > 0:24:48it's completely relevant.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50We know things but still carry on and do them.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52What's interesting about your life...
0:24:52 > 0:24:55Well, many things are, but it's the peaks and troughs, isn't it?
0:24:55 > 0:24:58Because having led this hippy life, heroin, drugs,
0:24:58 > 0:25:03you went to jail at one point because you were found with...
0:25:03 > 0:25:04Not with heroin...
0:25:04 > 0:25:06No, with a bit of marijuana, actually,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09not even a great deal of marijuana, but...
0:25:09 > 0:25:11But you then sort of come back and go straight -
0:25:11 > 0:25:16you edit three national newspapers, you give up drugs, you give up alcohol.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19And eventually, you give up Fleet Street, don't you?
0:25:19 > 0:25:20Yes, I do.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22And then another trough.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26Yeah, another trough. Yes, I fell off the wagon.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29I got drunk, on and off, for about two years,
0:25:29 > 0:25:33in the time of which I managed to have an incredibly bad car accident.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35I came out the other side,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38I really got restored through gardening, through growing.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42Gardening and growing is probably our best therapy that the world knows.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45And now I work for Boris Johnson, and one of things
0:25:45 > 0:25:49I do is to create community vegetable gardens in London.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53- We're just about to open our 1,500th.- Fantastic.
0:25:53 > 0:25:55We've got 50,000 volunteers.
0:25:55 > 0:25:56I've got beautiful stories.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58There's a street that I was visiting the other day,
0:25:58 > 0:26:01and they started with one community garden -
0:26:01 > 0:26:05they took a bloke's garden cos he wasn't very well, couldn't garden -
0:26:05 > 0:26:07taken over by three families.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Two more gardens. Now they have an orchard.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13In two years, from nobody knowing each other, they all know each other.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15I'm really proud of that.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18And the other important thing is that Charlie,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22who you went on that first trip with before going to university, you've re-met.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25We re-met after 27 years, and we're now married.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28- There you are - happiness. - I know, things can happen.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30Phil, you also go back in time for your final book.
0:26:30 > 0:26:35- It's The Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.- Yes.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37- Why's...? - Yes, my brother gave me this in 1972.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41Whenever he discovered anything - any new band or any new album,
0:26:41 > 0:26:43he'd pass it on to me, and he gave me this.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45It's a very complicated story,
0:26:45 > 0:26:48but if you're interested in the big questions -
0:26:48 > 0:26:52you know, "Why are we here? What's the meaning of life?" -
0:26:52 > 0:26:54then this book has got all the answers.
0:26:54 > 0:27:00And the central conceit of the book is that the human race has evolved...
0:27:01 > 0:27:07..so that a piece of metal can be delivered to a robot
0:27:07 > 0:27:10who's living on Titan, which is a moon of Saturn,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14so he can continue his journey a trillion miles away,
0:27:14 > 0:27:17on the other side of another universe,
0:27:17 > 0:27:19because he has a very important message.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22And that message is, "Greetings."
0:27:22 > 0:27:23LAUGHTER
0:27:23 > 0:27:27So the human race have evolved specifically so that this can happen.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30There's a wonderful character called Winston Niles Rumfoord,
0:27:30 > 0:27:34who drives his spaceship into a chronosynclastic infundibulum...
0:27:34 > 0:27:37This is very complicated, I know! I won't try to explain what that is.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40Think of a black hole where funny things can happen.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42He's manipulating history and events.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46And it is so imaginative, and it is so funny.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49It's not really a sci-fi story, it's a satire.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51He's a wonderful writer, Kurt Vonnegut.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53Have you read much of his work?
0:27:53 > 0:27:57Yes, I've read Cat's Cradle, and Fahrenheit 451's very good.
0:27:57 > 0:28:03OK. Time has run out, so thank you very much, Rosie Boycott and Phil Davis.
0:28:03 > 0:28:06APPLAUSE
0:28:08 > 0:28:09And just to remind you,
0:28:09 > 0:28:13details from this series are, of course, on the BBC website...
0:28:17 > 0:28:20You can also hear our guests read a passage
0:28:20 > 0:28:22from their favourite children's book.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26And please join me again tomorrow. Good night.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30APPLAUSE
0:28:50 > 0:28:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd