WEBVTT - Ian McKellen 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.160 This episode is brought to you by Me and M, 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.920 the British modern luxury clothing label designed for busy women. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.319 Founded and designed in London. Me and M is about 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.960 intelligence style. Much thought and care are put into the 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.640 design process, so every piece is flattering, functional and made 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.520 to last forever. Me and M is well known for 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.960 its trousers and how I got to know the brand. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.079 It's my go to for styles that are comfortable enough 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.480 to wear in the kitchen or the restaurant, also polished 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.000 enough for meetings. Me and M is available online and 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.720 its stores across London, Edinburgh, New York. If you're in London, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.000 I'd really recommend heading to their beautiful, brand new flagship 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.440 store in Marlevin, which opens on the twenty ninth of October. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.720 I'm often asked who was the inspiration for Ruthie's Table 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.640 four and the answer is easy. It all began with 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.920 Ian McKellen. For some years, Richard and I invited a 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.279 collection of actors to give performances in our home. On 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.280 his night, Ian gave a soliloquy from King Lear, sang 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:06.440 a beautiful song by Sondheim, shared an anecdote about Christmas pantomimes, 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.280 and read a poem by Orden. For the surprise finale, 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.480 he sat on a stool with the River Cafe cookbook 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.800 and read the recipe for Rebelita, a traditional Tuscan soup 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.800 compelling as any story, poem, sonnet or song. We were 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.880 all spellbound. Fifteen years later and an idea for a 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.760 podcast was born. In is known to everyone as different 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.680 characters Macbeth, king Lear, Hamlet, Gandolf. I know him as 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.760 my inspiration and also as my friend. I have so 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.720 many happy memories of Ian Sunday lunches at the River Cafe, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.640 going to Paris together, and on my birthday one year, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.120 he even sang my favorite Coporter song, You're the Top. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.680 I a bride proper confined those rondapots, but it bas 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:10.560 a hard bottom. Oh that's the sweetest thing I ever heard. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.280 It's true, it's true. Do you remember those nights? And 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.960 I have a photograph of you with the cookbook reading 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.079 it on the steps. I think, right, yes. 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.120 What I've been inspired by those experience is to do 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.200 something similar here what is that? And above the room 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.320 above where we are now, I can get in seventy 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.000 chairs and I put them on tears so that everyone 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.960 gets a good view, and I got a very nice piano. 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:45.080 The professionals like to come and play undress. Schiff has 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:52.000 played in my room upstairs. Joshua Bell comes and plays 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.200 the violin. Just the fundraisers for various things. But I 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:58.680 don't think I would have done it if I hadn't 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.960 seen that you could turn your home into a concert 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:02.000 all And it's. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.080 The intimacy of performance is something special. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.400 When you can hear the pennis breathing and hear their 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.919 fingers or their nails on the on the keyboard, it's wonderful. 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.560 So what we do is that we ask our guests 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.239 to read a recipe from one of our books. But 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:27.639 you've chosen, oh, that's fine. I can take it and 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.280 I might learn something because the recipe you're reading is 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:31.480 very British, isn't it. 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.320 I'm not a cook, but here we are. This is 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.360 Queen of Puddings and it was what my mother used 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.280 to make. The ingredients for this are two ounces, and 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.000 I like aunces rather than drums. I don't understand graunds. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.520 So two ounces of soft white breadcrumbs, two eggs, two 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.440 ounces of caster sugar, jam, trances of stultanas. I don't 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.360 put sultans in. Ten fluid ounces of milk, an ounce 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.840 of butter, bit of grated rind of a lemon, and 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.280 that's it. It says here. You boil the milk with 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.120 the butter, and you pour on the bread crumbs, and 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.480 you add the sugar and the rind, and you stir thoroughly. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.719 You beat the egg yolks and you beat each into 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.960 buttered pie dish, and you refrigerate for forty minutes. I 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.800 don't suppose I'd do that. Then you bake it at 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:28.520 a level four and gas middle shelf until delicately springy. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.240 I do like that in recipes when there's something really 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.279 homely means what it says, you whip the egg whites 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:39.600 very stiffly. That's to make a meringue. You put the 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.720 jam on top of the bread crumbs, you pipe or 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.640 fork the egg whites over the top, and you bake 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:52.360 in the oven for ten minutes. Couldn't be easier, and 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.560 it's absolutely delicious. But it was something you could manage 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:56.279 during the war. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.200 Well, let's talk about that. Because you were born in 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.440 nineteen thirty nine, I was just before the war in 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:07.000 Lancas in Lancashire, do you have a first food memory. 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:07.679 Do you remember? 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.520 Well, we were living in Wigan, which is in Lancashire, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.000 a coal mining town. The big towns nearby like Manchester 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.400 and Liverpool were bombed regularly and the only bombs we 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.360 ever saw were there was very few that were discarded 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.760 before the Germans flew back east, so there were only 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.760 two bombs in the whole of the war in Wigan. 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.600 So safe it was it that we had evacuee. We 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:37.119 had a family. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.240 It was considered a safe place to take children. 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.520 Yes, and how my mother managed I don't know, suddenly 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.920 having to share the tiny kitchen with another woman who 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.120 had two children. How we all fitted into our house. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.440 I don't know what was the house like to describe 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.320 your house, It had. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.200 Four bedrooms, but it was a semi detached house in 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.320 the street and near the center of Wigan, with a 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.640 lovely aspect in both front over the park and at 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.040 the back over the cricket club. Bit squeezed inside. I suppose, well, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.200 we all shared beds. I can't really remember. 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.159 But food, do you remember the kitchen? 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.640 We asked the kitchen was that we had a fire 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.960 which heated the oven, no fridge of course, there was 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.760 a little little room which we called the pantry, which 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.200 was relatively cool. 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.680 But this would be if you were born in thirty nine, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.760 so you're aware your memories of food in your house 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.920 and the kitchen. You would have been about four or five, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.000 which was about nineteen forty four forty five. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.200 I was very aware of the rationing. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:46.520 What was it like? 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.320 My mother liked to bake. In order to bake, you 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:55.640 needed sugar, you needed fat, and the rationing was two 0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:01.000 ounces of butter a week per person and four ounces 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.880 of margarine and one egg. Now there was dried egg 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.120 which was the equivalent of three eggs. You had that 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:14.360 for a week, so she could bake with that sugar. Again, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.680 severely irrations and the way we got round things that's 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.880 probably illegal. We used to swap our rations for tea 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.480 and coffee which we didn't drink, and took from those 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:36.040 people who desperately needed that fix sugar or fat. And 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.480 it was always my job. On a Saturday, when the 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.080 groceries arrived, I would take half a pound of butter, 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.800 which was for four of us double that amount of margarine, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.560 put it in a big bowl, take the top off 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.680 the milk that was always cream on top of them 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.800 and put those three bits of fat together and in 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.239 front of the fire, warmed it and beat it until 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.280 it was a paste butter. 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:01.480 The butter in mind, that was the. 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.480 Butter for the week, and it always ran out on 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:05.200 a Thursday. 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.280 If your mother would make would she bake, would say, okay, children, 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.440 we're not having butter on toast. We're going to save 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.240 the butter. We're not going to fry something in butter. 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.000 We're going to save it for the cake. 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:18.760 Butter. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.440 Yes, And that went to what year was that. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.680 Right through the wall. But I don't ever remember being hungry. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:29.720 You weren't hungry, or a sense of denial. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.400 And there was always a pudding. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.839 There was. So you were living in a house with 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.640 your mother, your father, and your sister and yourself. So 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:39.400 there were four of you. 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.400 There are four of us, and then three arrived mother 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.880 and two children. They were just with us for a year. 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.680 I don't remember any arguments. I remember the lad teaching 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.520 me how to tie my shoelaces. There was a pattern 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:00.520 of life like washing was always done on a Monday. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:03.520 Tuesday was ironing. 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.480 Mother was cooking all yeah, your mother was cooking. 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.800 She was a cook. I don't remember my father ever 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.480 cooking anything apart from and you. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.599 Did you go in the kitchen? Would you say the 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:16.079 whole time? 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:17.800 Can I have the bowl? Can I have the bowl? 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.480 And there was a pattern with the food there because 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.320 we went to church on Sunday and she didn't want 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.640 to cook on a Sunday. We always had a roast, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.120 but we had it on a Saturday, so that was 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.600 our big meal of the of the week. On Sunday 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:40.120 we would have the cold meat. And on Monday always 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.960 we had the minced meat and turned into shepherd's pie. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.720 And then we got to get through Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.000 and that's when it would be baked beans on toast 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.280 as the main meal, which we called the tea. We 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:00.560 might manage a salad with a bit of ham, maybe 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.440 two ounces a week. And there was probably a Friday 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.520 or two where we didn't have quite enough to eat, 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:08.719 but I didn't really notice that. 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.079 Was it a solitary life? Did you feel that you 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.760 had friend Your mother had friends and you had friends 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.559 and people. Oh, yes, she was a very social You 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.280 said that you enjoyed being with people, and so they 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.280 were all those friends. Was your father a preacher. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:28.439 He was a lay preacher. So we were very We 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:29.520 were very Christian. 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.040 You grew up in a house that loved culture as well. 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.120 That there was piano music, there was, you know, we 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:36.679 did think of it as culture. 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.600 We thought of it as a lovely pastime. Dad played 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.520 the piano and my sister learned the piano. I learned 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:50.160 the piano for a bit. Visitors, always dropping by, close friends, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.360 everything within walking distance, you know, no car bikes we 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.600 had and once a year or twice a year, close 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.559 together in the autumn, we'd go BlackBerry. That was a 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:07.280 great thrill. You could get food for free off the bushes. 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.079 Stra did your mother ever make summer pudding with the 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:11.840 black currants? 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.520 Summer pudding? I love soup because all you needed in 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.840 that was a bit of sugar and you could probably 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.680 use saccharin and some bread crumbs. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:23.920 Make it in the river cafe. You have to come. 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.079 We make it with currants raspberries. Now this is not 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.960 a rationing summer pudding, but in Valpolicella, and we cook 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.120 it the berries and the currants down, and then we 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:38.040 line a beautiful bowl with bread slices of bread, and 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.920 then you put the fruit in and then you close 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:42.559 it with the bread and you press it down and 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.199 then we leave it and then you demold it, and 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.719 it is one of my favorite. The British do a 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.360 lot of puddings with bread, don't they The one the 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.720 recipe you they like using up the bread. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:02.400 But you know, there was every thing was rationed. I 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.000 can remember the first banana. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:05.000 When was that. 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.360 That'd been about nineteen forty four. 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:08.400 Where were you? 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.679 I was at home and missus Baron next door came 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:14.920 in and she said, I've got something to show you, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.520 a banana. When i'd heard about bananas, I knew they 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.000 weren't straight. And she came in with this four inch 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.839 banana and we were all allowed to hold it and 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.439 imagine what it might be like inside, and then it 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.920 was explained that you peeled up. There was the banana. 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.160 Missus Baron mashed it up, and the five kids, Jeane 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.559 and I and the three next door shared a banana sandwich. 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.000 It was probably quite a healthy diet. 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.959 Well, they say that you didn't have sugar, you didn't 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.560 your teeth, you didn't have sweets, and you had them. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:55.120 People weren't overweight. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.400 You would see sometimes rolling out of a pub. We 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.560 never went public entrink, some woman with a huge ass, 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.920 and I was riveted by it. I would follow them 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.000 down the street. I've never seen anything like. No, you're right. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:19.320 We were all things, but I suppose it's healthy. Sometimes 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.199 it was very exciting school. We went to school and 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:28.280 food parcels arrived from North America think I think Canada, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.640 And I remember bringing back I couldn't believe it, a 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:37.480 huge two pound bag of cocoa powder, and presented it 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.800 to my mother. I loved her so much. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:42.920 What was she like here? 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:51.559 Ah, she was beauty, she was pretty, nature, was very gentle. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.760 She had a rather flamboyant younger sister who she was 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.280 the one who made the jokes. But it was my 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.600 mother who was all was laughing. But she loved going 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.640 to the theater and so did that. And she did 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.800 a little bit of acting when she was a kid 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.040 in church socials and so on. And I suppose she 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:20.320 was crazy about me, her little boy. Long after the war, 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.520 when we'd moved from Wigan to Bolton, she was only 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:29.120 forty four and got breast cats. I wasn't told I was. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.600 I was eleven or twelve, and I went off on 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.080 a school camp for a couple of weeks and she 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.920 was by that time sleeping downstairs. She couldn't manage to 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:48.000 walk upstead. And while I was away she died. And 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:53.360 I've not got over it yet. So when she died, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.000 I was berefed, really, and I didn't know I was berefed. 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.480 And my father very generous, not just for his own sake. 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.360 He remarried and I think party to give me a mother. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.760 And my stepmother, Gladys, was very good at that job 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:14.920 and the reasonable cook herself. What was she like? She 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:20.160 was short, she was from Liverpool, she'd been a secretary 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.200 I think all her life, and in her early forties 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:28.760 finally married handsome Dennis McCallum. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.200 Every year, The River Cafe curates holiday gift boxes filled 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:42.560 with Italian ingredients. Are extra virgin olive oil bottled exclusively 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.200 for the River Cafe, Paula Petrelli, tomatoes from Pulia, Tuscan 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.040 chocolates and candied sweets from Genoa. One of our best 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.840 boxes in the international box, which also has River Cafe 0:15:55.240 --> 0:16:01.200 Limited Edition, jam Chipriani, Ultra Fine Taglerini, Pasta Cafe Cantucci 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.240 and a Bella Freud candle water. On our website, shop 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:14.600 the River Cafe, dout co UK or call me an seven. Sorry, Okay, thanks. 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.600 Do you think that the rationing and the discipline and 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.520 the lack of food has stayed with you all your life? 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.440 Do you still think about wastage or about excess? 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.680 Oh? I saw. Well. One way in which is certainly 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.760 effected my life is my parents were teetotal. They'd taken 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.520 the pledge, which is what people did in the twenties, 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.800 swore off drink and we didn't drink tea or coffee, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.320 so the only thing we drank was water out of 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.600 the tap, but in life water and I never developed 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.160 a taste for alcohol. And three years ago all was 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:57.920 at four and now I stopped drinking alcohol altogether, So 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.880 that really stayed with me, I do. I was deeply 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.600 shocked when I first went to America and saw the 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:11.159 size of portions of people at the food will be 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.880 put on your plate as a kid, and you will 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.320 eat it whether you enjoy it or not. It's not 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.920 the point. You must finish everything. Think of the starving 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.520 children in China, we were told. And the day I 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.119 knew I was an adult was when I went to 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.520 Cambridge and on the first day in my little gown, 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.200 sat with other boys in the dining hall and was 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:42.080 waited on by people, and we had venice venison goodness. Say, now, 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.000 this is way after the war, and cabbage. I think 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.800 it was on the side, and I had my way 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.760 through the venice and I didn't much like it, and 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.560 I decided I wouldn't finish the cabbage, and I left 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.680 it on the table on the plate. I'd never until 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.720 I was the age eighteen left anything on my plate, 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.879 and I knew away from home i'd done that, and 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.159 that I was now an adult. I apparently spoke in 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.000 a funny way. I mean, I was mocked for my accent. 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:10.520 What's the accent? 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.720 Like? What was it? Something like this? Really it would 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.760 be a little bit broader than I allow myself to be. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.600 But I could never say the word one. I always 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:27.639 said one one. Well, horrible little boys from public school 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.800 would point at me and mock me, and so I 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.560 tried to speak like they did, rather posh and didn't succeed. 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.960 Of late, I've let my own accent come back and 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:38.919 feel much happier. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.080 Yeah, and so at Cambridge you were exposed to vedicine 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.280 and meals in the college, but you also did you 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.320 have enough money to go to restaurants in Cambridge? Would 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:51.960 you go out with your friends to a pub and 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:53.560 eat well? 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.240 What the great discovery at Cambridge was the Indian restaurant 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.879 And I used to have egg curry was half a 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.560 hard boiled egg with a curry delicious, So that that's 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.239 the first time I really went to have as an 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:10.719 adult and independent. 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.600 So you were acting in Cambridge, we were there, Jacoby 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:16.399 and Camber. 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:19.879 I Swift, a lot, a lot of people who went 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.040 into the businesses. We spent those of us who are 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.360 really keen spent all our time acting rather than studying. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.240 I never learned how to be a good student. 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.480 What were you studying? What was the course? You went into? 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:34.280 English literature? 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.359 And so we were able to direct? Did you act? 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:40.560 Did you didn't direct? 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.040 Do you have any education in acting? Did you have none? 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.399 I've just done at school. Yes. Before I went to 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:55.040 Cambridge I played him with the fifth Prince hal in 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:59.160 the earlier and in the fourth I played girls part. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.359 We also had at miniature theater. It was called just 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:04.960 down the road from the school, the theater that held 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:11.560 about fifty audience members and we did constant programs of 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.600 one act place all the time, and if you did 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:16.240 that you were allowed to miss. 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.000 Pt And what was it like when you left Cambridge 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.760 came you went? Did you have a domestic situation where 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:25.640 you had to cook for yourself? 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.360 Well? Yes, I went straight off and got a job 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:34.560 in a repertory company. Most major cities had a repertory company, 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:36.880 the big group of actors who stayed together for a year. 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.880 It did a different play every two weeks or three weeks. 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.840 And Coventry was such a place at the Belgrade Theater 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:48.200 in company and I was in that company. It was 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:53.240 all very post war, an optimistic. Coventry had been appalling 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.040 the bomb, of course, but the center of the town 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:01.800 rebuilt with a theater, a modern theater with little flats attached, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.399 and I paid half my weekly salary to pay for 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.640 this flat. Just across the car park was the Hole 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.240 in the Wall pub, which is about now in twenty 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.200 twenty four to close down forever more. But big part 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.320 of our lives. We always went there after the show 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.680 you did, and we were allowed to stay there after 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.160 hours and drink with the policeman. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:24.560 Is that something you still do now? Do you like 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.080 to go after a performance? 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.920 Do you go out with friends, and now I don't 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:30.520 go out to pubs because I don't drink. 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.440 So now, but do you go to restaurants after night theater? 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:39.280 Yes, I do, but not as a matter of course. No, 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.800 I'm happy to get back home and make myself a sandwich, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.040 so I'd probably at things on toast all the time. 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:49.720 And we we couldn't afford to go to a restaurant. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.879 You didn't go to any local restaurants, No, no, no, 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:53.840 yeah no. 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:59.399 But when I first came to live in London in 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:05.119 ninety six six four, in the King's Road, the unfashionable 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:08.600 end in those days, near World's End, I was living 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:12.000 with some friends, sharing flat with three or four other people, 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.560 and we did sometimes go out to a restaurant. Yes, 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.439 it was a thrill, felt terribly grown up. 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.800 And of course at that time being gay was still illegal, 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:23.240 wasn't it. 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.080 Yes, yes, oh yes. I went right through Cambridge and 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:33.840 right through my twenties in a country where you could 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.600 be imprisoned for making love, but because it was just 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:46.960 what it was, you didn't. I lived with my boyfriend 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.720 in our own flat in London, and he was a 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.520 good cook, and that's when I began to start cooking properly, 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.040 as long as my job to do the roast easy, 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:03.160 isn't it a roast? But we lived very perfectly openly. 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:07.040 Everybody knew we lived together. We always went out together. 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.160 We wouldn't hold hands, of course in public, that would 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:14.320 be to draw attention. I didn't talk to the family 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.399 about being gay, but I didn't feel that I was 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.359 living a repressed life. I had to rather be taught that. 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.440 It was only when the government wanted to pass a 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:31.080 law to restrict how much schools could discuss homosexuality that 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:34.480 I realized that I was being treated by the law 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.399 as a second class citizen, and this particularly law was 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:41.240 going to make it worse. That I got annoyed and 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:46.040 angry and joined in the fight to stop Section twenty eight, 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.720 and then and then the other laws that already existed. 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:51.000 And then stonewall Yes. 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.359 Which we did through the lobby group Stonewall that. 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:58.919 Brought you into an engaged with your success as an 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:03.240 actor and being traveling. Did you travel to other countries? 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.320 Did you arrive in France or Italy or Germany? And 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:09.920 think this is also completely as. 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.760 Far as food is concerned, food, food. 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:15.720 Or culture or just being in a foreign country. What 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:16.520 did that make you? 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:22.800 Yes, think again, in my childhood, a visit abroad was 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:23.959