Stephen Frears

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2004

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the film director Stephen Frears. His film credits include My Beautiful Launderette, When Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity and, most recently, Dirty Pretty Things. He is one of Britain's most talented and well-known directors, achieving success with his Hollywood work as much as for low budget, British productions. He was born in Leicester in 1941 and, despite studying law at Cambridge, was not tempted to train to be a lawyer, and instead sought employment at the ground-breaking Royal Court Theatre in London. He left the Royal Court in the 1960s to work with the highly acclaimed Czech film-maker Karel Reisz. His television work has included many collaborations with Alan Bennett, but it wasn't until the 1980s that he became famous with a film that was initially destined for television, which was so successful it was released to cinemas. It was 'My Beautiful Launderette' - starring a then unknown Daniel Day Lewis and examining the racial and sexual tensions of Thatcher's Britain. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: I'm Against It by Grouch Marx Book: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Luxury: A painting by his wife

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kesti Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons
0:06.0	We've had to shorten the music
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004 and the presenter was Sue Lolley
0:14.0	Music
0:29.0	Mike Oswe this week is a film director
0:31.0	He learned his trade as a drama director at the BBC in the great years of the well-made television play
0:37.0	often written by Alan Bennett or Tom Stoppard
0:40.0	His first feature Gumshoe with Albert Finney was produced more than 30 years ago
0:45.0	Since then he's made big hits and some flops with many of Hollywood's top names
0:50.0	Dangerous liaisons and high fidelity at two of his best known
0:53.0	His great gift is his ability to tell a story and adapt a script deftly and clearly
1:00.0	He has a light touch but he runs deep
1:02.0	Films to me he says are like golden moments when you create a family
1:07.0	He is Stephen Freers
1:09.0	So you cast yourself do you Stephen as the patriarch in all of this sort of leading the tribe on set?
1:14.0	Well I've become a grown older and become the patriarch
1:17.0	Once I was the prodigal or not I was the oldest son I was like a child on these sets
1:22.0	And then when I woke up and discovered I was the oldest
1:25.0	But it's where you feel at home you like that sense of family of everybody
1:29.0	Camera men actors all coming together
1:31.0	Yes it seems to me you get to make the film and then you get the family that makes the film
1:36.0	So it's a sort of double helping of being God
	...

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