Hello, I'm Krestey 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 1989, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an actor. He achieved fame playing the part of the volatile and somewhat unreliable landlord of an East End pub,

so much so that he became universally known as Dirty Den.

But he's now left the tribulations of television soap behind him

and set out to prove his versatility as an actor. He's a man used to the challenge of change.

His present great success came in the wake of more

than a decade in jail for a crime he committed as a teenage soldier.

He is, of course, Leslie Grantham.

And how Leslie are you coping with life without

den? Is it a relief to be rid of him?

Quite a relief. It's nice to be able to not suffer the trials and

tribulations of going to

Elstree every day and also the treadmill of doing a soap opera.

Which is practically seven days a week really, isn't it?

Six days basically working on one day learning your lines and therefore you don't spend much time with the wife and family.

You must have been in practically every episode of East Enders in its four years,

for existence?

410 out of 418. Really? Yeah. for done in at your own request? Yes, I asked to leave November 1987 and they then asked me if I would stay on and do a spinoff with

the Nita who a couple of weeks after I put my

notice in asked to leave as well and I said no because I felt that there wasn't

anywhere that Den could go whether it was with Ang or with any other character.

...