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 a theatrical producer. He spent the last 30 years walking the

tightrope between artistic merit and box office appeal. The critics have

applauded his patronage of modern British playwrights like John Mortimer, Joe Orton, Tom Stoppard and Alan Eggborn.

The coach parties have loved his taste for popular entertainment such as Crown Matrimonial

and his first great hit, There's a Girl in My Soup.

He's produced about 120 plays, that's an average of four a year,

and he's had his share of flops.

But optimism always persuades him that the next first night will be a good one. He is Michael Codron.

Michael, that that string of writers, all of whom began with you, is so impressive, Mortimer,

Orton, Stoppard, 8, Frain as well, I think.

Is that good judgment or there must be an element of luck?

Both, I think really, and the fact that I've known them for such a long time, we've grown up together, and I think what they write reflects

my taste.

But they weren't always, of course, successful in the beginning, were they?

Harold Pinter's the birthday party was a dreadful flop wasn't it?

Yes, but has since become a classic, hasn't it?

I mean, that was one of the misfortunes, I think, of trying a play out and having to rely on critics who perhaps weren't aware that this was a new talent.

But you lost money on it? Yes indeed. It ran for a week, I think. It ran for a week, yes.

But then came the caretaker which was a hit?

...