09/11/1987 Wogan

BBC Four Collections -

specially chosen programmes from the BBC Archive.

For this Collection,

Sir Michael Parkinson

has selected BBC interviews

with influential figures

of the 20th century.

More programmes on this theme

and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

APPLAUSE

CHEERING

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

Oh, now.

Oh, you mustn't.

Shush.

WOMAN: Whoo! Terry, woof!

Woof, woof, indeed.

A thinking man's audience we have in tonight.

Good evening. Now, as two of my guests tonight

are expected on the stage at the Savoy Theatre within the hour,

Horatio, we're getting straight on with the show tonight.

"Thank goodness for that," they mutter.

Ingrates, all of you.

I bring them in out of the rain and all they do is hurl abuse.

LAUGHTER Not even money!

Now, later on there's music and a natter with Boy George,

with whom no-one comes nattier.

- WOMAN: Whoo-hoo! - Whoo! There's Roger Cook.

Not the intrepid, fearless investigator

who'd like to get the crooks to sing,

but the Roger Cook who wrote I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing.

That's a Radio 2 link.

And there's also the splendid Roy Kinnear.

Pardon?

Did that really say that?

LAUGHTER

Anyway, first, a man who played three American Presidents.

Of course, he was only acting.

Sometimes, I wish the present one was.

LAUGHTER

But the man you're about to meet has also been

Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid, Michelangelo, Julius Caesar

and somebody even greater than those giants of history - Jason Colby.

LAUGHTER

The erstwhile charioteer, parter of seas, bearer of tablets,

is currently in London as A Man For All Seasons.

We're delighted to welcome Charlton Heston.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well, Sir Thomas... Sir Thomas More.

How do you like to be addressed?

As Sir Thomas, or...

- Tommy's all right. - Tommy.

What, Mr Heston, or...

- Chuck is fine. - Chuck.

You're not crazy about Charlton.

No, my mother calls me Charlton

and Mr Cecil B DeMille used to call me Charlton, but I...

It's...kind of an odd name, isn't it?

Yeah.

See, if we were broadcasting this in the States,

where my mother might hear me, I wouldn't dare say that.

You'll have to...

People would have to call you Charlton.

- No, my mother, though. - Yes, yes, quite.

Well, we've a football team here of that ilk, as well.

- Bobby Charlton. - Bobby Charlton.

Not a football team in himself, but almost.

- Almost. - That's a fabulous costume.

Thank you. It's...

You get out of bed of a morning and leap straight into it?

Yes, just get right into it, so I get into the part, you know.

Does it help?

Do you feel Sir Thomas More coming over you?

Yes, that's really true.

I've played a lot of these fellows

that wear dresses and things like that.

- And...funny wigs and... - You have, haven't you?

Oh, yes, I've gone...

on the screen I've gone years without ever putting a pair of trousers on.

LAUGHTER

Must be... You've nowhere to put things.

That's very difficult. Yes, you're quite right.

No pockets.

I've often thought I wouldn't like to be a woman for the same reason.

Chain mail is...has its drawbacks.

So do togas and gowns. They are kinda spiffy, though, isn't it?

It is, really, but I mean, do you like dressing up?

Do you like the costuming part of acting?

I like to play, er...real great men of the past.

I've done perhaps more than most of my fellows,

and it's an interesting challenge

to play Thomas More in what is surely an English masterpiece.

And to play it here in London in the first production

since Paul Scofield's memorable creation of the part in 1960 is -

as an American actor - I think, an honour, truly.

And we've got a marvellous company,

we're having a magnificent time over at the Savoy.

You had extremely good critiques

and some, what I thought, very...cutting ones,

which were based not so much on your performance,

but based on the fact that...

The play, which is outrageous, really.

This Man For All Seasons is undeniably a great play,

and will be performed for generations beyond us.

Funny, Irving Wardle in The Times said that he didn't think the part of

Sir Thomas More was all that great,

but that you gave the definitive performance.

Well, he was very generous, but...

Other people have said...

They seem unable to accept you in that part,

mainly, it seems, not because of the great roles that you did on film,

but mainly because of the Jason Colby part.

That keeps being dragged up. Does that annoy you?

No, not really.

I'll tell you the most important thing

I ever learned about notices and critics,

and I was grateful for Mr Wardle's kind words

and the things other people said, but...

I was doing a play with Laurence Olivier

a number of years ago, many, many years ago,

when I was young and green.

And we got in, perhaps deserved, just terrible notices

and we were going to close at the end of the week, which we did.

So I found myself, at two o'clock in the morning, all alone,

the opening-night party having disappeared, and I was with Olivier

and a bottle of brandy

and I was striving for an attitude of detachment

and I said, "Well, I suppose you learn to dismiss the bad notices."

And he took my wrist and said, "Chuck, what's much more important

"and much harder, you have to learn to dismiss the good ones."

- And that is true. - Yes.

- That's really true. - You seem...

You have to do the work for the work, you know?

- Yeah. - That's, er...

You love acting, don't you?

It's my life, yes.

Is that why you didn't pursue a career in politics,

which I think you could easily have done?

Er, I think so, yes.

Er...indeed, I know so.

However seriously I considered it -

and it wasn't very serious, the thing of running for the senate,

but I thought, "My word, I'll never be able to act again."

Never to play Macbeth again, never to play Sir Thomas More again.

I didn't know at the time I was going to get another chance at it,

I'd done it a couple of times.

But all those marvellous parts that... I couldn't give it up.

I couldn't bear it.

What about the part of the President of America?

- I've done that three times. - Of course you have!

Yes, I've been President three times.

- Of course you have. - Yes.

But, er, it seems to us - or seems to me -

looking as we get into the run-up for the American election,

that nobody seems particularly convincing as a candidate.

Nobody seems... At least, the American public don't seem convinced.

I think they need another film star. I think...

I tell you...

If Clint Eastwood doesn't go for it, I think you should.

No, I... No, absolutely not.

I think we've got some good candidates and it's...

We have a rather clumsy process of sorting them out, you know.

It's gonna take, what, the better part of the next 12 months

to arrive at who's going to be nominated by either party

and it always seems a...big kerfuffle at the beginning,

and people drop out,

and stumble and put their feet wrong and so on.

Um, but, er, we haven't been at it as long as you people have here,

but we're, er, we're still there.

Is it an enormous attraction for you to do theatre

- as distinct from film? - Absolutely. Absolutely.

But does your film and television work subsidise your theatre work?

Well, but...

I don't...

I don't denigrate work on the screen.

I love it, I would be very, very sorry to give up either,

and as long as people keep giving me jobs, I won't.

My ideal is to switch from one to the other,

which is roughly what I've been doing over the years.

I was here two years ago on the stage

in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.

Now I'm back in A Man For All Seasons and...frankly,

I would, on the stage,

just as soon act either in Los Angeles,

where I can sleep in my own bed,

or here in London.

I've acted on Broadway, and this is the greatest city in the world

and the capital of the English-speaking theatre

and you're up to your neck in marvellous actors to work with.

Is that not intimidating? Do you get intimidated?

No, you can't. You know, for example,

Paul Scofield created Thomas More on the stage and on the screen.

Won the Academy Award on the screen,

it's considered the definitive performance,

but I've followed Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson

and Michael Redgrave in Shakespearean parts on stage

and why not?

That's what great parts are for - to be played again and again.

This part will be played by somebody after me, and somebody after him

and somebody after him. It'll go on.

And you got the... What was the big break?

The big break, what was your first film?

Was it black and white?

The first film was a black-and-white film.

I had done a 16mm version of Julius Caesar before that,

kind of a semi-amateur version.

And then I did a sort of what they used to call film noir...

..called Dark City. Then the second picture I did was for DeMille,

about the circus, and that won the Academy Award and then so on,

and then Ten Commandments and so on and so on.

And here we are, sitting here,

and I'm wearing a dress and you're wearing a grey suit.

LAUGHTER

A fine way to treat a great leader of men.

Have people tended to treat you with more than your due deference,

because of the nature of the roles that you've played?

That's an interesting question, Terry. I don't know.

Maybe it's either that or because I'm 6' 3" and I have a broken nose

- and a deep voice. - Oh, yeah.

You're pretty intimidating. But have you...

I think that may be true.

What about its effect on you?

Has it made you feel that you should be

treated with more than... due deference?

No. I tell you what, playing men like Sir Thomas More and, er,

Richelieu and Jefferson and Jackson and all those formidable -

truly formidable - individuals just gives you a sense of the dimension

of your own smaller dimension.

I remember when I was going to play Michelangelo

in The Agony And The Ecstasy, and a British journalist...

Michelangelo was physically quite short - he was about 5' 6", I think.

And he said, "Don't you think you're a bit tall to play Michelangelo?"

I said, "No, I think I'm a bit small."

Yeah. In a different kind of way.

- Yes, indeed. - Yeah.

So, when you finish here now, you go back to the States with the play,

or are you taking it on tour?

Well, we close here, January 9th at the Savoy.

Then we are, I'm happy to announce on your programme,

reopening the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, which has been closed.

It's one of the oldest and most beautiful theatres in London -

in Britain, I'm told.

And we reopen it...the week after we close here in January,

and then I believe we're doing a week in Brighton

and then maybe one more week, then I'll go back.

- Yes. - But it's been...

is now, and looks to go on being, a marvellous experience.

I've filmed in London, I've acted on the stage in London,

I've toured as a private citizen here and done speeches

and all kinds of things. It's...

- I'm very glad to be back. - Well, it's good to see you.

You're working with an old chum of yours, aren't you?

- Yes, Roy Kinnear. - Whatever happened to him?

I don't know. He's gone off a bit, you know.

- Has he? - Yes, he has.

LAUGHTER

Yes.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!

Well, of course, it's a pity that you have to work with somebody like that.

Roy, sh, sh!

Sorry to interrupt a fascinating interview.

- We're talking here. - It's a fascinating...

- It's fascinating me... - Roy!

..but look, we've only got 15 minutes

- to get to the Savoy. - 15 minutes.

No, no. I've... I've got your coat here.

Please, now, look. You cannot... Ladies and gentlemen, Roy Kinnear.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Please, please, could you...

COMMENTS DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE

I told you earlier he'd get nervous.

We've only got 15 minutes.

15 minutes, so could you ask the questions a bit quicker?

- Faster. Faster. - Do you like working with him?

- Yes, I do. - Do you like working with him?

- Yes, he's marvellous. - He's very big for you, isn't he?

- Well, no, he's about my size. - Is he?

Well, I cut him down to size in the end.

Ha-ha(!)

What part could you possibly be playing

in this intellectual piece by Robert Bolt?

Well, I play bits and bobs, you know.

All different characters. All different.

I mean, they all look exactly the same, but...

But I wear a different hat sometimes. I take this hat off.

Do you? Terrific. Very good. Very good.

And then put that on again. Ah-ha! You don't know who it is, do you?

Have you worked with...

Yes, Roy and I worked together in The Three Musketeers,

had a marvellous time.

- I know, Roy, it'll be all right. - What time does the curtain go up?

- 7.30, it's all right. - Plenty of time.

15 minutes to get to the West End.

There'll be dozens of people disappointed if we don't get there!

- They will. - See, Roy starts the play, so...

Do you?

And then it goes downhill after that.

LAUGHTER

So...are you... What are you doing?

Dressing, perhaps? Are you a dresser?

A bit... Well, I do sometimes.

I have a pair of slippers I put on Chuck.

Sometimes he puts them on.

I'm not very good on props, that's my trouble,

well, apart from other things.

And, um, I, er...

I usually put the wrong foot in the wrong shoe,

and he goes around like that.

What we've now done, we've taped inside the left-hand slipper "L"

and the right-hand slipper "R".

Clever.

That is a bit of a... That'll help.

- Until I'm facing the other way. - One doesn't know where to go.

Do you think there's a future for you in epic movies of any kind?

If they ever made them, there would be.

That perhaps something would rub off.

- Charioteer. - Oh, yes. That's very true.

I played, actually, in an epic movie once.

I played a...erm... a gladiator instructor.

Spartacus, was it?

No, no, no, no. I played it.

Oh.

LAUGHTER

So, is that it? I mean, have you

- finished all the questions? - We were hoping we could go on...

- I've got your coat here, Chuck. - We were hoping that, perhaps,

- the interview could go on a bit... - No, I'm sorry.

Could we just go?

This is the kind of coat Boy George might like.

What do you mean, Boy George? It's Boy Roy here.

- But I said... - Could I just...

- I thought if we could go on... - Come on, get it on.

The great thing is, the disguise is complete.

..with the interview a little bit longer...

- Higher. - ..we might...

- Up more, up more. - No, no.

There you go. There we go.

Because, if we don't go now,

I'm afraid we'll never get there. Are you ready?

- Yes. - No-one'll recognise you in that.

That's fine.

- We can slip out, no-one'll know. - Slip out, no-one'll know.

Yes, quite. Well, thank you. - Go that way.

- Thank you for taking my guest off. - It was nothing. It was nothing.

Charlton Heston, ladies and gentlemen!

Roy Kinnear! Men for all seasons.

APPLAUSE

As Roy Kinnear's common man...

CHEERING

Thank you.

It's the first time I've ever had applause

for the beginning of an announcement.

And they don't come much commoner.

..Charlton Heston's Thomas More gallop off into the night

in the direction of London's glittering theatre land,

we have some music.

Here to sing his new single,

and we'll be having a little bit of a chat after it,

ladies and gentlemen, a new one called To Be Reborn,

let's welcome Boy George.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# Get off your knees

# Don't apologise

# Cos I ain't got time

# For no more lies

# You know the answer

# I gave it to you

# But you carry on

# With the things that you do

# Yes, I have tried

# I, I could live

# I could die I could be reborn in your arms

# Oh, baby, little baby

# I, oh, I, I could laugh I could cry, I could sigh

# If you're there to keep me warm

# To keep me warm, warm, warm

- # Talk to me - # Talk to me

# Open your eyes

- # Talk to me - # Talk to me

# Lose the disguise

# We had good love

# Most of the time

# Give it back

# That love is mine

# Give it back

# Just one more time

# I, I could live

# I could die I could be reborn in your arms

# Oh, baby, little baby

# I, oh, I, I could laugh I could cry, I could sigh

# If you're there to keep me warm

# To keep me warm, warm

# Yeah, I

# I know the answer

# What can we do?

# I know the answer, yeah

# So do you

# I gave you love

# I gave it to you

# I gave you love

# Something new

# I gave you love

# I, I, I, I

# I, I

# I could live, I could die

# I could be reborn in your arms

# Oh, baby, little baby

# I, oh, I

# I could laugh I could cry, I could sigh

# If you're there to keep me warm

# To keep me warm... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Hello. - Nice one.

- Shh! - Shh!

- Settle down. - Please.

They don't want to hear you speak, you see.

They'd probably like you to sing again,

but I mean I know you can talk.

And look at you.

This is the filthy-rich look.

I was going to say,

you could easily double for Sir Thomas More in that.

Apart from the...apart from that in the middle, there.

The Mercedes-Benz. Yeah, I know. Well...

Did you make that yourself?

Oh, no, of course not.

Look at it, it's terrific.

- You've gone into gold, obviously. - Yeah.

You've liquidised all your assets and gone into gold.

This is all very cheap stuff.

I mean, what I do, what I try to do is wear things that my fans can copy,

you know. I mean, I just wear junk.

LAUGHTER

What was that?

LAUGHTER

Tell me about this record. It's a slight change of pace for you,

isn't it, from what you've been doing?

Well, yeah, it's a sort of bluesy ballad, you know.

I suppose it's a Christmas record, if you like, you know.

You're going for the Christmas charts.

Well, I just hope to have a hit, really, one way or the other.

Well, the last time we chatted and the last time you sang

on this show for me, you had a number one, didn't you?

Yeah.

- So maybe it'll do it again. - I hope so.

You look very well. You've put on a lot of weight, obviously.

Yeah, I'm what you call an all-round entertainer.

I mean that as a compliment,

because you have gone through your thin days, but you look...

- Is weight a problem with you? - No, no.

As I said before, I'm an all-round entertainer. I love it.

But, I mean, I've actually got a fat skeleton.

- Yeah. - It's true.

No, that's my... That's my excuse, as well.

There were stories about you going off to a health club to slim down.

No, I actually went there for my mental health.

- That could get really complicated. - Yes, it is, I know.

No, I just went there for a rest, really, you know, from all the...

Cos I was working very hard earlier on in the year, so I just went off...

It's a great place to go and have a rest, the health farm, cos you just,

I mean...

This whole idea of being a slob is quite nice, isn't it, for a while?

Story of my life.

Do you have to watch what you eat a lot?

Not really, it's just that my dad, right, he was an Army cook, my dad.

So when he cooks food, he cooks for 50 people, even though

there's three people eating.

You know, so it's one of those things.

Yeah, but you've always been a big fellow anyway - you're a large chap.

I'm a big boy. I've got these...

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER

That struck a nerve.

I've got this fabulous badge and it says,

"The bigger they are, the harder they hit."

CHEERING

Do you...

Tell me, do you miss the old band at all, or the solo career,

have you settled to that now?

Well, you know, obviously you do get lonely,

cos when you've been in a band for, like, four years...

It doesn't sound very long, but it's like a sort of weird marriage.

And I do miss them, you know, but I still see the rest of Culture Club,

despite what you read in the papers.

I do see them and I'm very friendly with them. It's great.

They're all doing their own things now, which is great.

But I'm actually just about to go on a tour of Europe,

so I'm sort of concentrating on my solo thing at the moment.

That would be one way to lose weight anyway.

We're getting a kind of sneak preview of one of the outfits, then?

Yeah, this is my opening outfit.

Very nice. Now, don't go.

- Will you stay with us for a while? - Yeah.

Good, cos there is somebody I'm sure you want to meet.

My final guest tonight was a bit of a...

I suppose a Boy George in his day.

He was a bit of a Blue Mink anyway.

You dangled past me there!

LAUGHTER

But he gave up singing songs to write songs and, with Roger Greenaway,

created - after Lennon and McCartney - what's been regarded

as the most successful song-writing team in the world.

1,000 songs, 70 hits.

He's living in Nashville now, we're glad to welcome him back.

Roger Cook.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MUSIC: "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (I Perfect Harmony)"

With the old little ukulele in your hand there.

Actually, it means never wash a guitar.

That's the truth.

What is that? What is that? A banjolele, a ukulele?

No, this is a ukulele.

I think it's the only one in the world that's got a cutaway.

I had it made for me. Makes me feel like a rock star.

What does a ukulele sound... Give us a burst.

Cos old George Formby... MIMICS FORMBY: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.

It sounds better when it's in tune.

But you're supposed to strum it, aren't you? Heh-heh-heh-heh!

With me ukulele in me 'and!

TERRY: Go on.

Course, if it's in tune,

it sounds wonderful - you've got to take my word for it.

I met you in the old days, God bless us, when I was a boy broadcaster.

The old days!

And you were with Roger Greenaway and you were a singing duo

as well as an enormously successful song-writing duo.

David and Jonathan, yes.

David and Jonathan.

They were good days, they were happy days.

And they were days where you couldn't seem to go wrong -

everything you wrote was a hit!

Just about, for a while, yeah.

Lovely stuff - I loved the money.

LAUGHTER

- Don't we all? - The money and fame was wonderful.

And then you joined up... You formed a group called Blue Mink.

I didn't form it, I was invited into the band.

With Madeline Bell.

- Yes. - And Barry Morgan.

- Barry Morgan. - Barry Morgan's our drummer here,

you know, we keep him on a chain...

DRUM ROLL

- Still getting work, Barry? - You're fired!

You're fired, Barry.

..on a chain down in the basement.

We throw raw meat to him every so often.

- He deserves it. - Yeah.

You remember Blue Mink.

Actually I did a cover of Melting Pot,

which is one of my favourite songs.

Which I love. Listen, I gotta tell you a story.

You appeared in Nashville, Tennessee.

My little girl, Katie, went with her mum.

It got to when you sang, she started crying, "I'm so proud of my daddy."

I was thrilled to bits, I was a star!

But that song was... I mean, as pop songs go,

it's very difficult to write

a good pop song with a real good meaning,

and that song was, like, such a fierce song.

It was a little ambitious at the time, yeah.

It was great. I actually bumped into

Madeline Bell a couple of weeks ago and I always

hear her on the TV singing, was it,

# Cook, cook-ability That's the beauty of gas. #

- That's Madeline Bell, is it? - It is, I'm sure it is, yeah.

CHEERING

That is Madeline.

We've members of the gas board with us!

Yeah.

- Ooh, yeah. - Carry on.

Carry on as if undaunted, it was Melting Pot...

- Melting Pot, yeah. -..which was a pleaser.

Would you like to hear a little bit of it?

- Have you tuned up the old ukulele? - No, not really.

CHEERING

God, that's awful. Never mind.

# Take a pinch... # Oh, I'll get it in the right key.

- Sorry, Harry. - We've got loads of time.

# Take a pinch of white man

BOY GEORGE: # Mm

- # Wrap it up in black skin - # Oh, yeah

# Then you add a touch of blue blood

# And a little bitty bit of Red Indian boy... #

It's too high for me!

- Come on, Madeline. - Too high for the ukulele?

- Yeah. - Melting Pot.

I think we've had enough of that.

CHEERING

Were your favourite songs always the most successful,

or did you have things that you thought,

"I wish that'd been a hit cos I loved it"?

Had you any real idea what was going to be a hit and what wasn't?

Funnily enough, at times you did, and at other times you didn't.

I couldn't see the success of I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing,

not in a million years.

That turned out to be the biggest one.

Apparently they still sing that in American schools

as a kind of school anthem.

D'you know what they do to it in America?

This is the honest truth, they sing...

PLAYS: "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing"

# Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

# That saved a wretch like me

# Once I was... # Whatever it was.

But they sing the words of Amazing Grace.

- What a lovely voice. - Thanks, mate.

APPLAUSE

You sang numbers of your own songs as David and Jonathan,

but in the main, the successes were for other people.

It was for other people, yeah.

Did you write them specifically for other people?

Would you write for, say, Boy George if he'd been around then?

You bet your life. I love that new song, by the way.

- Thank you. - I think that's a smash.

Thank you.

I think probably everybody here agrees with you.

CHEERING

What I tend to do, I'll write a song,

then once I've got the song, if it reminds me

of somebody in particular, any kind of artist,

then I'll sit down and try and demo it that way.

That's what I did with Don Williams with a lot of success in America.

But you gave it up. You gave up the performing yourself. Why was that?

It got kind of boring, it really did.

I had a family and I wasn't seeing much of my family.

And living out of a suitcase from hotel to hotel,

it was clubs in those days,

you know, the Wakefield Theatre Club and the Batley Variety Club and that.

It got really... It got down, it just got awful.

There were six of us trying to rush around like one person, you know,

and it didn't really work after about five years.

You couldn't give up performing, could you?

Not at all, no. My whole life is a performance.

All-round entertainer!

I would say, life is one big rehearsal.

But when's the show?

BULB EXPLODES I don't know.

LAUGHTER

- It was something you said. - I told you I was psychic!

A discerning music lover?!

The ghost of old singers here.

- Making light of it, yeah(!) - Yeah.

But you write most of your own stuff as well, don't you?

Yeah.

Would you ever write for anybody else?

I actually did write a song once for the Beach Boys - shock, gasp, horror!

But they really freaked me out, they were so mad.

Sorry. But they all had psychiatrists and I just found it a bit unnerving.

I thought, I might end up like that one day.

- Never! - I actually worked with them

which was quite an accolade at the time.

That's wonderful, yeah.

But I mean, I'd love to write for other people,

you know, but I mean I never get asked.

I suppose they figure that you're writing your own stuff. Maybe...

Nobody would have ever written for you

when you were teaming up with Greenaway, because they figured...

- Not really, no. - ..you could write your own hits.

Exactly. Why bother? I wish they had.

And then you went to Nashville. Why?

I went there because I'd had so much success in London,

and it's a small circle of music so everybody knows...

And people got a little blase and I felt

I wasn't really getting through to people any more.

This was about 1975.

So I thought, "I need a challenge,

"I need to go somewhere where I'm going to have to work hard

"to become a hit songwriter again."

So I went to Nashville and, sure enough,

I worked very hard for two years.

And it paid off, I had about five number ones very quickly.

Yeah, but you hadn't written any country music, had you?

Not up till then. We'd had some country hits

because country people had covered our pop hits.

Where did you come from originally? Bristol?

Bristol.

WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: Down there, my dear!

Your accent's extraordinary, it's a combination of Bristol,

then occasionally there's the old Tennessee twang there that creeps in.

I've slipped into saying things like, "Ta-ta, y'all."

How about you and country music?

Have you ever been tempted to do a country song, or is it a bit too...

Actually, I had an ambition to do a duet with Dolly Parton.

LAUGHTER

No, don't laugh!

- Yeah, don't laugh. - I wanted to do a duet with her.

She phoned me one day when I was in the bath and, erm...

Seriously! She said to me, "Hi there, Boy,

"if you ever want to know where to get

"some nice wigs and dresses, you just call me up, son,

"I'll show you where to get them."

A pretty fierce lady, you know.

- She's terrific. - I'd love to work with her.

- That'd be a great duet. - I know. It'd be great.

I'd have to fill out a bit, wouldn't I?

LAUGHTER

If Freddie Mercury can work with Montserrat Caballe,

there's absolutely no reason why you can't work with Dolly Parton.

I mean, country songs are a bit kind of macho, aren't they?

- They're very... - I don't know that they're macho,

but they reflect a kind of real-life thing.

We're more into fantasy in England, with our approach to pop.

I think it'd be quite macho for me to do Stand By Your Man.

APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER

Well, yes!

- Or Blanket On The Ground. - Yeah.

You'd look good in a cowboy hat, though.

- I've got a few. - A big Stetson, yeah.

I was thinking of you more in the Kenny Rogers song.

Those are ladies' songs, you can't be singing like Billie Jo Spears

and people like that.

Why ever not, Terry, why ever not?

I see you as more butch, singing more butch songs.

There's optimism, then, in the world.

A song for him will be, If He Breaks Your Heart, I'll Break His Nose.

Yes, it's the old motto, the bigger you are, the harder you hit.

They have some great titles.

What's that one about kicking Jesus over the goalpost?

Drop Kick Me, Jesus (Through The Goalposts Of Life), yeah.

- What a title. - Kind of cute.

Yeah.

Roger, did you need to work again when you went to Nashville?

You'd had it made.

Why didn't you just find a quiet quay in the Bahamas?

Well, two divorces will make you get up and go out and work again.

I suppose they will, yeah.

Divorce in America, let me tell you about it one day.

- That's a musical. - Yeah.

Are you rich enough to retire now?

No, not at all, no.

But you must've made millions.

Yeah, I've got a few bob.

LAUGHTER ROGER: A few bob.

TERRY: You haven't got enough to retire?

I wouldn't want to retire anyway, it's just... What would I do?

You know, breed pigs(?)

What about the average songwriter? Do you think...?

We can't generalise about things like this,

but do you think they're getting better or worse, or about the same?

I think they just change styles, that's all, from time to time.

I think some people...

I mean, some people are clever at copying other songs.

Cos there's a lot of that in the charts at the moment.

You hear things and you think, "I've heard that before somewhere."

You get a lot of that at the moment.

There's great songwriters around. George Michael's a great songwriter.

Will you...

Would you like...? Obviously you'd like your songs to be remembered.

In all modesty, honestly,

do you think your songs will be remembered in years to come?

Or is our society just going to burn up things like that?

I think the best ones will be remembered.

- I think so. - 20 years down the line,

somebody will cut them again, you know, and they'll be remembered.

You wouldn't like another go at Melting Pot, would you?

It's in the wrong key for me.

It is, I'm going to do it in another key.

You'll do it in another key. In the meantime, what we'll do is we'll say

good night, thank you all for joining us.

Our thanks particularly to Boy George, Roger Cook, Charlton Heston,

Roy Kinnear, everybody who joined us. Thank you for joining us.

Leave us with Melting Pot, if you will.

We'll do this in C this time.

- Should be E flat. - E flat?

Get away with you!

That's technical.

# Take a pinch of white man

# Oh, yeah

BOTH: # And wrap it up in black skin

# Add a touch of blue blood

# And a little bitty bit of Red Indian boy

# Whoa, yeah... #

ROGER: Do you remember the next bit?

# ..Curly black kinkies... #

Sorry, Madeline.

# ..Mixed with yellow Chinkies

# You gotta lump it all together

# And you got a recipe for a get-along scene

# What a beautiful dream

# If it could only come true You know, you know

# What we need is a great big melting pot

# Big enough to take the world and all it's got

# And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more

# And turn out coffee-coloured people by the score... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

DROWNED OUT BY CHEERING AND APPLAUSE