John Gunter
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 1983
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John Gunter has been a set designer in the theatre for many years, but his astounding sets for two productions at the National Theatre - Guys and Dolls and The Rivals - have focused attention on him. In conversation with Roy Plomley, he talks about his career as a designer and of its many problems, and he chooses the eight records he would take to the mythical island.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Symphony No 1 in B Flat Minor by William Walton Book: The complete works by Flann O'Brien Luxury: More William Walton records
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1983 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. On I desert island this week is the stage designer John Gunter. |
| 0:34.0 | John do you think you have the right temperament to be cast away alone? |
| 0:38.0 | State designers tend to be hidden away in sort of attics and so maybe one can almost down one's own company up to a point. |
| 0:45.2 | Is music important? Oh certainly I mean I work an awful lot with background music |
| 0:50.8 | God forbid I shouldn't really talk about the classics like that, but one does actually work an awful lot with music as a background and a solace to what you're doing. |
| 0:58.0 | Do you play an instrument? |
| 0:59.0 | No, not an hour, I used to years and years ago. |
| 1:03.3 | I started off from the violin and because they thought I was so bad at that, they decided to put |
| 1:08.1 | me on to the viola. |
| 1:10.1 | God knows they thought that that was a simpler instrument to play and I soon then gave that one up as well. |
| 1:15.6 | Have you a big collection of records? |
| 1:17.6 | Not a vast collection of records, but there are some very treasured records. |
| 1:22.6 | Looking at the list of H you've chosen, is there any common denominator, do you think? |
| 1:27.8 | I don't think so. I suppose the only thing one could say about them, that a lot of them |
| 1:32.4 | have a very dramatic |
| 1:33.3 | quality about them I think it's there probably one would say there's a theatricality |
| 1:37.3 | there somewhere. What's the first one? The first one is Waltons, First Symphony and it's conducted by Bernard Heitig and it's the beginning of the piece. |
| 1:47.6 | Why do you choose it? The articleity? No, I mean actually I love Walton, I always have, and if I had a chance I would choose many others of his, |
| 1:55.8 | but I had to plumb for one and this would be it. The Oh, The The The opening of Walton's First Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heitink. |
| 3:01.0 | Are you a Londoner, John? I was born outside London in Bilareki. In Essex. An artistic family using that word in in quotes? In in quotes yes my mother started to train as an |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.