WEBVTT - Stephen Fry (Part 1) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.880 You've done all the Harry Potter, how guilty as charged? Yes, 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.320 my agent had read it, and so there's a children's 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:08.719 book and they'd like you to do it for an audio. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.680 And I said, it's okay, thinking, you know this half 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:14.720 a day's job, isn't it that the cat looks at 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:16.279 the dog, the dog looked at the cat. It was 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.360 nice the end, And that's a children's book. What could 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.200 be better? It turned out to be a full novel length. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.079 But I started reading it and I thought this is 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.720 about the good. So I agreed to do it. And 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.000 I turned up and there was Joe Rowling and if 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.080 she likes to remind you of this, I said, you know, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.040 I think this is just wonderful. People are gonna love it. 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:36.640 It's such a great thing. If she said, well, I 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:38.640 have to Chad, but I've actually I'd already written the 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.280 second one and it's going to be publised in two months. 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:49.400 And I said, good for you, Good for you? Why not? 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:57.000 You never know you might get lucky. Oh my god, Hello, 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.240 I'm Mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.039 loved prus questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.600 game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.840 so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.880 on anything. So I took the format of Prus's questionnaire 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.640 and adapted What I think are seven of the most 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.240 important questions you could ever ask someone. They are when 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.880 and where were you happiest? What is the quality you 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:31.160 like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.120 love for you? What question would you most like answered, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.840 What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.800 What would be your last meal? And can you tell 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.600 me something in your life that has grown out of 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.840 a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.400 we begin to see what makes us similar and what 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.960 makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.040 people who I am on a and humbled to have 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:07.320 had a chance to engage with. My guest today is author, actor, director, 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:13.200 and broadcaster intellectual explorer of rare talent, Stephen Fry. I 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.160 grew up watching Stephen in the two genius British comedy 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.360 series Blackadder and his show with Hugh Laurie. A bit 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.919 of Fry and Laurie, but he's also memorably played in 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.920 his Golden Globe nominated role as Oscar Wild in movie Wild, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.919 and he's been in numerous other fantastic films like Gossford 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.440 Park and A Fish Called Wonder. He's fearlessly explored his 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.800 own experience with bipolar disorder in the documentary The Secret 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.880 Life of a Manic Depressive, and since two thousand eleven, 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.240 has served as the president of the mental health charity Mind. 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.240 Stephen is a prolific writer to boot and has four 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:55.240 novels and three autobiographies in print. I was completely transported 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.760 by our conversation. Talking to him is like trying to 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.280 keep up with the shooting star. We talked about everything 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.280 from Sherlock Holmes to Amazonian tree frogs to the time 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.440 he went to prison for credit card theft. This is 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:14.480 the first half of a wonderful two part episode. When 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.560 I was thinking about the questions, because I really love 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.840 Proust's question, I've always loved it. I've always loved listening 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.000 to people's different answers. They do one in Vanity Fair, 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.679 don't they? That might have been where I first discovered it. 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.320 And then I went back and read this sort of 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:35.480 full narrative, and then some really fantastically Victorian responses. I 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.400 chose where and when you were happiest as the first question, 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.600 largely because we put such a premium on being happy. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.240 But I also think that happy nurse. Maybe it's just 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.800 from where I sit at fifty one. It includes so much. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.480 It's the balance to everything. So when I asked that question, 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.640 I mean it as largely as you can conceive it. Really. Yes, Well, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.680 I remember there was a time a few years ago, 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.880 maybe twenty, when I was desperately trying to give up 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.760 smoking and all kinds of other things, and I looked 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.640 into this, this thing called neurolinguistic programming. I'm sure you're 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.440 aware of it. It's a grand title for a way 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:23.080 of making your making your mind obey your will. If 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.440 you like you you want to do something like giving 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.360 up smoking, but something's getting in the way, both physical addiction, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.000 of course, and something else. We're all familiar with that. 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.599 It's not easy to will, but it's easy to will 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.120 to will. In other words, you want to want something, 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.760 but it's very hard for it anyway. Neuro linguistic programming 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.200 one of the things they do is they ask you 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.720 to remember a time, just a snapshot in your memory 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.479 when you know you were just unbounded in your happiness. 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.640 You think of something a sunny day on the beach 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.479 or in a park, maybe that you're very so your 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.880 mother's let you skip along to buy an ice cream, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.279 and you're looking down at the ducks with your brother 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.760 and everybody's with you, and you're content. You then do 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.680 something physical like pull out your ear lobe while enjoying 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.560 that memory, and you keep twisting your ema and you 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.719 do that several times until the idea of being All 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.400 you have to do is twist your ear lobe and 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.120 you will get that memory. And I have to say, 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.760 I still think to that moment in a park with 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.000 a with a with an ice cream, and I can 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:36.240 get what feels on the inside to be a beatific 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.680 smile to spread across my face, and I remember happiness. 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.520 And anyway, that's a thing, that's an exercise you do. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.000 So if ever I see you twisting your emb party, 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.200 I'll know that you're secretly thinking about the ducks and 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.800 the ice cream exactly. And the idea is you do 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.720 that when you want a cigarette or you want something 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.080 you know, because it fills you with the happiness and 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.520 possibly even with the self supplied drugs, you know, the 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.640 noor adrenaline, the serotone in, the metatone in all etcetera, etcetera, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.919 the endorphins and all that, and maybe it does work, 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.480 but that was an interesting time. But of course that's 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.000 a snapshot. It's a vertical moment of happiness, one little 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:22.400 drop of bliss. But I would say probably, And this 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.520 only works looking back because at the time you're young, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.200 and when you're young, you're never happy. You're always angst 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.760 written or wanting to be better looking, or wanting to 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:33.599 take someone to bed, or wanting to be asked to 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.760 go to bed, or or you know, just not feeling 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.000 clever enough or confident all the rest of it. But 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.960 those three years I had at university, and particularly the 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.320 last year when Hugh Laurie became my best friend and 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.599 we started writing comedy and realizing that we were doing 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.840 something that gave others pleasure. We could hear the laughter 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:58.720 and we felt just charged with optimism and and it 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.039 was just I you know, because we were very lucky, 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.680 you know, with me and Hugh and Emma Thompson and 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:10.080 Tony Slattery. Our year at university. It was a great 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.160 footlights collection. I mean honesty, I still have to pinch 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.360 myself to realize that. But for all kinds of extraordinary 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.160 provisional contingent things, it might never have happened. I might 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.160 have been a year earlier, two years earlier, or never 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.600 have got there. And who knows. Did Rowan Atkinson go 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.760 to Cambridge? He went to the other place, he went 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.000 to the other place. We'll not mention that, but I'll 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.600 tell you a scene which was one of the happiest 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.080 moments of my life, was we were performing our review 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.720 in Edinburgh. It happened to be that year in Edinbury 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.920 eighty one was the first year of a new award 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.320 called the Perrier Award, which was going to be given 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.400 to supposedly the best comedy show on the fringe, or 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.200 at least what the judges thought was the best one thing. 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.120 We were certain obvious that they wouldn't give it to 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.280 Boo Cambridge Nears snobs. You know all the horror of that. 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.840 But anyway, we were doing the show and we finished it. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.640 We bowed and there was cheers and applause and all 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.600 the things that you live for. And then suddenly the 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:16.480 applause went wild while we were bowing, and I saw 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.160 people looking what I thought behind me. So I turned 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:26.080 around and that was the figure Rowan Atkinson standing back 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.720 of the stage on our show. Now he was already 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.840 a household name because not the nine o'clock News had 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.800 had I think done too serious already and was a 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.640 huge hit. And he was holding something and he came forward, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:46.200 um ladies and a gentleman, and he announced that we 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.760 had won the Peri Award and handed it to us. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.839 And there were people waiting in our dressing room from 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.280 the BBC asking if they could show up our review 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.400 on BBC two and then the next nights, and people 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.440 from I t V, which developed into a series with 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.920 Robbie Coltrane and Ben Alton. And I mean, you know, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.760 I sort of resist telling this story because it cost 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.440 me as the luckiest bustard in the world, and we were. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:17.000 It's as if it's sometimes that I've heard younger comics 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.240 and actors saying this, that they could almost see the 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:27.440 door closing in the eighties and nineties on that sort 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.439 of thing, you know, graduate comedy from especially from Oxbridge, 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.040 just waltzing into the BBC. I think it's great. I 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:42.240 think so grateful that I grew up watching what you 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.280 chaps were doing, and that that was a cornerstone of 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.280 comedy for me, and growing up and seeing it's extraordinary 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.560 because I was old enough to really laugh and really 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.400 understand the jokes. But then to go and see what 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.160 everybody did, what Emma did, what Hugh Laurie did, what 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.760 you have done, what Rowan has done, what Simon Curtis 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.760 has done. It's it's so inspiring because that's all I 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:07.760 wanted to do, was be a performer. But I didn't 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.320 have a gang. I always wish they'd had a gang. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.320 I was about to say, when I'm asked, and as 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.599 I'm sure you are, by young drama students or teenagers 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.880 hoping to go into some aspects of the performing arts, 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:24.640 asked to give advice, I can only say, cluster around 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.400 your friends who have a similar ambition and make your 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.960 own shows, make your own whatever it is, and get 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.040 your friends to come and watch them. Because the more 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.640 you perform, even if it's barely to any kind of 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.400 paying audience, but the more you do it, the more 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.640 you get the confidence and the self belief and the 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.160 idea in your head that you're allowed to because you know, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.440 we all grew up watching these glamorous figures. You know. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.640 I saw Peter Cook and John Clees on the Parkinson 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.439 Show or Peter Sellers or whoever it might be, and 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.040 they were behind the glass in every sense. The idea 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:04.000 that one could from tread any aspect of their boards, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:08.080 as it were, was just out of sight, and slowly 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:12.200 because of writing with friends and kind of finding out 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.800 how audiences behave and feeling that one belongs on the stage, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.480 it gives one this fabulous idea that you could be 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.440 part of that huge family of people who are the clowns, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:31.240 the circus and the entertainers. I was constantly deputizing dolls 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.960 to be my audience, and they always loved everything I did. 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:41.240 Of course, that was a standing ovation, as my mother 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.679 used to say when I used to get my brother 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.720 to do plays behind the curtain as well, and my 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.840 mother used to say, without being aware of the preposterousness 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.600 of the remark, you were both the best thing in it. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.080 So you know what. My mother actually said something somewhat 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.360 similar after a particularly obscure film that I've done, and 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.200 she was like, gosh, you know, both people who see 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:26.440 that will love it. What relationship, real or fictionalized defines 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.280 love for you? In fact, will you say real and fictionalized, 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.240 because I want to hear about lovers and defining love 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.880 with fictionalized characters as well as the real one. Well, 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.840 I think first love is fictional love to some extent 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:46.080 good one. It's so overwhelming, it's expectations are so high, 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.480 it's consumes the self. It becomes so obsessive and infatuated. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.920 And when I was fourteen and a half fifteen, I 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.120 fell in love with a boy at school. And I 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.199 had no idea that I was capable of feeling such things. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.320 They weren't erotic. A part of them, I suppose, must 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.760 obviously been erotic, but they were mostly to do with 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:15.240 beauty and lyricism and absolute devotion. And every waking moment 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.440 was concerned with trying to follow the path that I 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.240 thought he would be taking between this school block and 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.040 that school block, or he had games that day and 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.600 so he'd be be on the ruggy field at this 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.720 time or cricket field at that time. And you know, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.120 my whole life has diverted into it. And I suddenly 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.560 realized that the thing I had hated as a child, 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:42.679 this propensity of films to wander off into kissing scenes 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.440 when there was a good adventure going. What mommy, why 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.360 are they kissing? You know? The Germans areund the corner 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.640 and though suddenly he's looking down into a face of 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.280 that smooching and wasting time, and what's it all about? 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.600 It just in all song lyrics were loving you, and 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.199 the Beatles were around. You know. My seventh birthday treat 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.280 was to go and see a hard day's night, you know, 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.960 and I love that. There was none of that sopping us. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.280 But the lyrics were all she loves you and love love, love, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.319 and all you need is love and love this and 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.280 love that. It made no sense, and the poems one 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.559 was being taught at school and all about love. Then 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.240 suddenly it hit me that it was the only thing 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.480 in the world that mattered, That nothing else had any 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.800 significance at all except this absolute loss of self into 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.400 the idea of someone else, and this understanding of why 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.640 beauty was so important. And it translated into a great 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.320 sort of dippy adoration of spring and trees and blossom 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.760 and birds. Did you get to tell him that you 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.600 loved him? He knew I never quite expressed it in 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.840 those ways. I think it's quite probably quite hard to 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:56.200 to hide a little rumpy pumpy tussle in the grass 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:01.160 once and that was good, oh it, But that was 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:05.600 fictional inasmuch as it was. It belonged to a Petrarchyan 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.960 idea of ideal love or Shakespearean's sonet idea or whatever, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.880 you know. It was absolutely nothing to do with what 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.280 I now think of his love, which is naturally me 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.280 and my husband, which is contentment, companionship. Yes, I mean 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.880 all the all the joy were of our first meeting 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.960 and realizing we were soul mates and made for each other, 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.600 and the happiness and the extra special pleasure that it 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.560 coincided exactly with the time when we could get married 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.080 legally in this country, which was so fabulous. I think 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.040 that's rather a good trajectory to begin with a fictionalized 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.640 reality and to wind up in really something. You know, 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.920 the marriage between two men or two women was a 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.200 complete fiction until very recently. I think that's a wonderful 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.440 path to have begun in that place and to have 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.360 wound up in this other place. I think that's a 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.520 beautiful bookend and should all be so lucky, And that 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.000 you've got rumpy pumpy like the yeah, but the fact 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.520 that it was actualized. There's an ideal devotion of you know, 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.640 sneaking around buildings, staring at your your love. That it 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.960 actually materialized into the long grass makes me very happy. 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.280 It was mainly happy, as you can imagine. Underneath it 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.720 was the misery of the realization that for him it 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.480 might have been an amusing episode, but for me it 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.640 was part of what I absolutely instinctively understood was my nature, 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:33.520 which was that I would only ever fall in other 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.280 people of my own sects, and that I was never 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.680 going to be therefore accepted by society. Because that same 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.280 knowledge had driven me to the library, because in those days, 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.480 of course, there was no online there was no affirmation 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:52.400 or vindication of sexuality available except in the forbidden by 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.800 ways of literature, not pornography, but stories like Oscar Wilde's 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:01.160 trial or various other people exiled to Rocco and Capri 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.359 in the Mediterranean, generally where a slightly more LuSE lifestyle 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:10.440 was acceptable, and otherwise it was skulking in the shadows, 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.520 and it was you know, it was the terrible fear 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.879 of the police, courts and and shame. Did you think 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.840 of that at fourteen and fifteen when you first fell 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.240 in love. I was aware that my whole interior life 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.320 would have to be a secret. At least I thought 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.479 that would would be a secret that I would never 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.919 be able to share with anyone except through books. You know. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.119 And for all the horrors we attribute to social media 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.199 and the email and the whole digital world, now, it 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.000 had that been available to me, it would have completely 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.160 altered the way I felt, because I would have been 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.440 more instantly to discover that I was not alone and 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.199 that I was not criminal, I was not creepy, I 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.680 was not a pervert. You should be punished because I 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.119 knew that although sex was important, it was really love 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.080 that was the massive thing. And that's, of course what 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.920 has been allowed by this acceptance and legislation and everything, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:14.960 is people can love each other. Yeah, exactly what is 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.359 the quality, at least about yourself? I give answers that 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.040 people can get very annoyed by because they sound like 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:26.639 false modesty or surd expectations. But I know that, as 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.600 far as other people canse, I'm not lazy, and yet 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.480 I still feel lazy in myself. I still feel there's 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.200 always more I could do. In my husband, it's driven 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.160 crazy by my need not to see a single red 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.760 notification badge in my email box. I have to answered everything, 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:44.879 I have to have done the thank you letters and 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.000 the bread and button letters, and I have to be 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.479 on top of things. And I always say to him 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.479 it's because I so hate it. I want to get 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.960 it out of the way. I'm the same with washing 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.840 up or anything. It's a peculiar, but that seems like 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:00.760 a very good thing. That it seem like a bad 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.480 thing at all. I wish I did the washing up. No, 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.639 I know it's not a bad thing. That it annoys me, 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.879 that I'm so that I'm so anxious about it, and 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:10.719 I can't be more relaxed. But you're right, it's not 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.040 the thing I hate about myself most. I think my 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:18.240 anxiety to please, my inability to rest until I feel 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.720 that everybody is unoffended by me and possibly even likes 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.200 me or is pleased with me, and it doesn't come 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.879 away with a wrong idea about me, or what I 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.720 think is a wrong idea about me. And I'm aware 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.520 that this desire to please is transparent. That's to say 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.240 others can see it. I mean, I've actually happened. I 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.800 don't seek them out but I've happened on the odd 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:46.600 phrase online or in the press saying his overwhelming desire 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.840 to be liked or whatever, and I think, yeah, that 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.119 they're right, and it's you know, the people I most 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.200 like aren't like me. I suppose that's the way I 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.840 should put it, that you know, they it's not that 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.200 they absolutely don't care who to what people think about 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.800 them and are sort of quite happy to be cruel 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:09.760 and unkind or dismissive or not to answer letters or whatever. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.080 It's not that, it's just that it doesn't seem to 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.399 possess them quite as it does me. I don't know 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.080 where it comes from, but it's a it's a desire 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.720 to please. It's that little Jack Horner, what a good 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.359 boy am I? Sort of thing that I know is 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:30.680 very obvious in me. Well, I think you're great. I've 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.080 done it. Can't cross that off the list, take at 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:50.200 least until tomorrow. What person, place, or experience has most 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:57.760 altered your life? Well, I think I would go back 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.199 to an occasion my screw up in the country and 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.720 quite a large house. It's not Tonton Abbey, but you know, 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.720 it was big and it was very old fashioned. It 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.040 wasn't on the mains water. We had sort of pump 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.080 house somewhere in in the back to pump up the water, 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.920 and the bread man would come on a horse and cart. 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:18.960 You know. When I was young, it was a very 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.479 rural and peculiar and fun sort of life I supposed 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.840 to grow up in. But one thing my purchase did 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.280 not like was television. There was one kept in a 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.639 cupboard somewhere, was a tiny little thing, and if if 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.520 a member of the royal family married or got or died, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:37.199 or Winston Churchill's funerals say, or the moon landing, the 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.399 television would be got out and sat in a corner 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.080 and told to behave itself, and then put away again. 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.000 But occasionally my father that the stable block of the 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.639 house had been converted to a laboratory for my father 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.119 physicist inventor sort of figure, and so he would sometimes 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.520 spend days over that would be like Sherlock Combs, you know, 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:57.919 just completely lost amongst his equipment. And and then I 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.439 would especially was raining and there's nothing else to do, 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.040 I would take the television out and secretly watch it. 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.080 One afternoon a Sunday afternoon, I turned it on and 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.520 it something had just started, and people were talking to 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.720 each other in the most extraordinary way. I've never heard 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:17.480 anything like it. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it wasn't contemporary. 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.199 I was not old enough to recognize it, but I 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:24.040 was old enough to recognize that it was stunning. And 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.879 I watched it with my mouth open because of the 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:31.320 way people were speaking. And it finished with a curtain dropping, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.199 so the camera had sort of been inside in a 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.280 real world. And then at the end it pulled back 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.320 and the curtain fell, as if to suggest that it 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.800 was a play. So I rushed off to see my mother, 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:42.720 and there was a particular line in it. You know 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.520 how something When a movie is really good, you remember 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.399 almost every detail of it, and when a movie is 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:54.560 colossal garbage, you cannot remember a single scene. And I 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.120 remembered so much of this just watching at once, including 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.119 this speech where a man whom I subsequently discovered was 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.119 the actor Michael Dennison says to a woman whom I 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.399 subsequently discovered was the actress Dorothy Tutin. He said, I 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.439 hope I will not in any way offend you if 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:10.800 I say that. You seem to me to be the 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:15.359 visible personification of absolute perfection. And I thought that was 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:18.959 the most extraordinary line I've ever It was funny because 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.760 of course, if you declare love to someone, you don't 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.840 use Latin at words like visible personification of absolute perfection. 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.280 You say I love you. You're gorgeous, you know that's what. 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.560 But and yet it was a beautiful compliment and courtly. 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:34.760 And so I ran to my mother and said, mother, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:36.399 I hope I shan't offend it if I say that. 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:37.600 You seemed to me to be, in every way the 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.720 visible personification of absolute perfection. She said, what are you 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:42.800 talking about. I said, I've seen this thing, and I 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:45.399 explained it. She said, oh, that was the importance of 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.919 being earnest. And I said, well, what is it? And 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.199