Hello, I'm Christy Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1987, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Our castaway is my common consent, one of our finest and most exciting actors.

Born in South Africa, he came to Britain to learn his craft,

and was promptly turned down by Rada.

The reput, Frinton on C, took pity on him, and that was a start of a remarkable career.

He became well known to television audiences when he took the lead in Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man.

But he established his special talents with his stage performers of Richard III.

First created three years ago, it's forever burned on the memory of anyone lucky enough to see it.

It was a performance celebrated by its creator in a fascinating book called The Year of the King.

Our castaway is Anthony Scherne.

Anthony, you're on this desert island, do you think it'd be any good at it?

I mean, do you like the aspect or the prospect of loneliness?

No, no, not at all. I'll be absolutely hopeless.

I mean, you can't be brought up in South Africa as a white South African,

and have any sense of how to look after yourself.

So, no, I don't think I'll survive very long at all.

No practical talents whatsoever.

No practical talents at all, and also a terrible, hyperchondriac.

So, if I didn't get ill, if I didn't catch some terrible stomach-bargue or chill or something from the sea,

I'd imagine that I had, and it would be very miserable, anyway.

...