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 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

This week, our cast away is the actress Helen Mirren.

Helen, how much does music mean in your life?

My parents were both very musical.

In fact, my father used to play the viola in a large London orchestra in his very early days,

yes, before he realized he couldn't keep a family on it.

But I didn't inherit the musical bend to my father at all.

I'm really pretty ignorant about music.

Do you sing?

Horribly, yes.

He had occasion to sing in the theatre.

Oh, yes, I have.

Yes, I learnt the meaning of the word bottle.

And also, I learnt how that you can actually sway an audience,

that you can do something that, in fact, you patently and obviously can't do,

just by sheer force of your mind effort there.

And I can't sing at all, but I had to sing in a play called Teeth and Smiles.

The group that used to play behind me, it was a rock and roll group.

You say, come on, Helen, now don't lose your bottle.

And I said, no, no, I won't lose my bottle.

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