Joan Turner

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 1988

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway is comedian Joan Turner.

Favourite track: One Fine Day by Giacomo Puccini Book: Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales Luxury: Baked beans

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1988 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week could some say have been a great opera singer, but the world of grand theatrical gestures and high emotion was not for her.
0:37.0	Instead, she chose to make us laugh and did it so successfully that this year she celebrates 50 years in show business.
0:45.3	She was a household name in the 50s and 60s known as the Wacky Warbler,
0:49.8	or more sedately as the girl with a thousand voices.
0:53.4	Her voice spans four octaves.
0:55.9	Her humour has an even wider range.
0:58.5	She is Joan Turner.
0:59.9	50 years in show business, Joan.
1:01.8	Quite an achievement there.
1:03.4	I suppose it is, yes.
1:04.8	I probably the only person is still alive.
1:07.2	It's been 50 years of you business.
1:09.2	Why don't know?
1:10.2	Maybe I'm not.
1:11.2	Why do they call you the Wacky warbler that was the American
1:14.0	expression a wacky warbler is a crazy lady with a voice really and I didn't
1:19.7	really know I had a straight singing voice for much longer after that.
1:23.0	Because I remember, I mean I remember you much more on the telly I think in those very large
1:27.0	frufru frocks and the type bodices.
1:29.0	The first frufrofrofrok I wore was a BBC frock and it was with oh Richard Afton.
	...

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