Kathy Burke
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2010
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From Lady Gaga to The Specials. Actor and director Kathy Burke shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young.
She became a household name for her comedy performances, working with Harry Enfield to create the characters Kevin and Perry. She won critical acclaim for serious roles and picked up the Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of an abused wife in the film "Nil By Mouth".
Kathy's early life had been tumultuous - her mother died before she was two and her father was often drunk, leaving her older brother to run the family home. She was a teenager when she discovered acting and, she says, it was the saving of her. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2010.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My castaway this week is Cassie Burke, an actor, writer and director. She has the rare talent of winning over critics whilst also appealing to the masses. |
| 0:44.0 | She bagged the best actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of the wife of a violent alcoholic in Gary Oldman's film Nill by mouth, |
| 0:52.0 | and worked alongside Harry Enfield to create Kevin and Perry |
| 0:55.6 | and Wayne and Wenetta Slob. Her speciality it seems is bringing characters to our |
| 1:00.5 | attention who rarely have the spotlight shone upon them. She has a |
| 1:04.9 | lack of vanity that is rare of her younger self she says I had this lavish way about |
| 1:09.9 | me with my deep voice and telling jokes all the time. I was Berkey, the little fella in a skirt. |
| 1:16.3 | It's a description that makes her sound unfeminine, but that's a simplification. She shows according |
| 1:21.4 | to Stephen Fry that it is possible to be a woman without going |
| 1:25.5 | old mincy and weird. Do you know that he's had that, don't you? Do you know that he's had that, |
| 1:28.9 | about you? Do you like that? Well Stephen Fry is saying my name is quite nice. He said that he was on |
| 1:35.2 | room 101 and he said there should be a special room that we put all the nice things in and |
| 1:39.5 | that you should go in it. Oh well that makes me for a little bit sick. Okay that's a good place to start. |
| 1:49.3 | Lack of vanity, you seem to possess that. That's how you seem to us the public. |
| 1:54.0 | Do you not mind presenting yourself in a way that you know most actresses would shy away from |
| 2:00.0 | you know somebody who's got sort of snot hanging out their nose or dressed as a boil that sort of stuff |
| 2:03.9 | and what's on your face? Well no when I was acting I didn't mind at all really. To me it was more fun putting some |
| 2:10.9 | scabs on and greasing the hair rather than washing the hair and |
| 2:14.9 | distressing the clothes rather than making sure the clothes were nice and pristine. |
... |
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