For its reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1979 and the presenter will be... Roy Plumly. On our desert island this week is a singularly successful pair of writers for film and television in the theatre. I only have to... Mention the likely lads and pottage. It's Dick Clement and Ian Laffrenny. Right, gentlemen, the rules. Four records each, right? Yes. And, Dick, do you think your tastes differ to the extent that, er... Respective discs and only be played at opposite ends of the island or do you agree fairly well musically? We have our different...

But I think we'll come to terms actually. I thought at one time that I might have to choose a record that... Would get rid of Ian, because we might be tired of each other's coming out of Wildwood, but I've decided not to be mean and beastly, and I think we can get records that will be very compatible. - Expect any trouble? - No, I've been pleasantly surprised at Mr. Clement's. By Count Basie. When I was very young, I was 18, I went to America on a scholarship. I had a year in Connecticut and New York and one of the first things... Enjoyed doing was listening to Count Basie which I used to do in a club called Birdland the same Birdland which came from Lullaby of Birdland yeah

to go and listen to him and he sat about as far away from me playing the piano as you are now and And for-- If you nursed a drink all evening, you could actually sit and listen to this wonderful band for about a dollar fifty. You could hear a lot of Basie. For one Moscow mule I used to drink, I think, actually. Longing for a second one when I was broke, but I listened to this marvellous music. Ian, can you live with this one? Yes, the first record player I had. And the first album that went with it was in fact a Camp AC album.

The atomic Mr. Basie, little darling. Ian, your turn. But first a few facts. You're from the north, aren't you? Yes, I'm from near Newcastle. - Le Freine, of course, French? - Yep. Hugo knows who they were. But originally the Channel Islands. And you're from Whitley Bay? What did you do when you left school? What was your first job? My first job was with a building company and then I was a tobacco salesman. Hmm. I never considered it a job. I always considered it was filling in time to do something else. Did you know what you wanted to do? My only ambition in life is to have an MGB. Did you get one? No. I bought a Jaguar though, after the like of that. We haven't got there yet. You're jumping the gun. When did you decide that you wanted a right? Well...

I'm not really sure, but in fact, the first time I actually started thinking about writing was really after I met Dick. It is a place you leave, but I love Newcastle, I like the map, but it was something everyone did. So you London you with no idea of what I was going to do. Yes, and what did you do? In fact when you got here? Worked in market research and in fact when I started writing I took my mother's advice which was writing some you do when you've got settled in a worthwhile job. And I continue to work in mock research through the first... Three series of the Likey Lads and indeed a film. - Yes, we keep jumping ahead to the...

Jams. The Uxbury Jams in Notting Hill. Quite by chance we tread on each other's foot or did somebody introduce you? Someone introduced us. and... A roadmap of Nigeria on the wall, which I was very impressed by. Let's have your first break. Well my first record, when I suppose I'm going back, making the point reminiscent, is that I was brought up really to like jazz when I was at school. Very eclectic, I mean I would have all sorts of records. But for a period through that period in the 50s, most of the music I listened to was jazz. And I would choose the Billie Holiday record. Good also because it's just her artistry is quite timeless. I'll be around no matter how

Billie Holiday, I'll be around. Dick, your turn again. You're a southerner. Yes, I'm from Southend. And what happened to you when you left school? I had this year in America, which I referred to, I went over and had an extra year at school there, which was very valuable. Because at the time it wasn't so easy to travel as it is now. Yes, you seem to spend it in Harlem at Birdland, but... Time. I spent some of it there but I got around 20 different states. Was that under your own steam by Greyhound bus or were you... Some of the time, yes. I remember being on a Greyhound bus once, getting on a bus from Tulsa to Philadelphia and thinking, Now, who shall I sit next to, because this is going to be a long and arduous journey?

And I immediately sussed out that there were no ladies on board that I could sit next to because that was my first choice. Right. And it came down to three people. I chose the man who had a tie on because I thought he looked the least likely to bore the pants off me for the rest of the journey. And as we were driving out of Tulsa, he turned to me and said, Are you saved, brother? Who came back here and what? Well, I did my national service. Where? In the Air Force, mostly in Britain. A weekend in Canada halfway through and then I came straight out of that and joined the BBC. With a view to what? Well, it actually provided an environment where there were a lot of other people trying the same thing. I mean, there were lots of other people who were fairly overqualified. For the jobs they were actually doing, but there was a great fecundity of talent around

People who were very nice to be with and sooner or later you could try out different things and I got attached to the African service where I started writing scripts. Remember that the aftermath of it was that in fact I was on night shifts a lot of the time so I was free during the day. He and his two friends were temporarily out of work so they were available to play cards so that the first weeks of our relationship were mostly playing hearts during the day. In the Oxbridge Arms or whatever it was? It wasn't actually, it tended to be at their flat next door to an Indian restaurant, so the smell of curry was wafting through the window. It's endlessly wonderful sense of sin playing cards in the middle of the day. I never do it now never have a chance Glad to hear you've been saved. That talk on the Greyhound bus really did you a bit of good. Let's have record number three. Well, it's by Aretha Franklin. I don't hear...

But as much of her now as I used to, but particularly in the 60s, I can remember being very moved by her because I thought she had a marvellous sense of emotion and I would like to hear her singing naturally. ♪ To claim it ♪ Aretha Franklin, you make me feel like a natural woman. So, if you're a natural woman, To have met? What happened next year? We started to write together. We just started to write a television play and we sent it off and we got a nice polite letter. But it was encouraging.

Yes. And then really, I suppose the next thing that happened was, can I say the like-alads now? You can say the like to that now. Because Dick got an attachment to do a television training course and at the end of the course they give you a tiny budget. In which to produce and make a 20 minute program. And most people, I suppose, used to choose musicians, didn't they, or a quartet. Dick thought it would be a bit more ambitious, and so he and I wrote a piece of situation comedy. And I mean-- It's just such a lucky break, you still can't quite believe it when I tell it. After he made this one day in the BBC, I think, was it Dennis Maine Wilson? Yes. He was having a meeting with Marty Feldman, who was then a successful writer at the BBC, with Barry Tuke. I've got to go and see these test exercises. And Marty went with them, actually. And Marty said, I think that's very good. I think these people can write.

We should keep them down. Keep them out of the way. And they came to us and then they gave Dick the gig as a trainee director. And then they actually said, Do you think there's a series here? We of course said yes. And the Commissioner's Series for BBC Two had just started. And Frank... Miro told us subsequently that he had just taken the job then as head of comedy. And one of the remarks he heard when he was given the schedule of programs was, We also have a thing called the Likely Lads. It'll do nothing, but it's cheap. And under those sort of circumstances, the program is made and in fact... Somebody died, Dick actually also direct and produced them. So the two of us having never done anything before, Did a series and I don't think anybody ever came down to see what we were doing. Dick, how did you bring this into budget with such a tiny budget because it doesn't work a very... I mean you had to location shooting in the north. That's all I think well. We never went north. We went to Halston. I think

Actually, I mean, but a walk from the BBC television centre, but it still looks quite northern near the railway sidings. And I think ignorance also helped a great deal to get through on a tiny budget. Series of the Likely Alert did you make? Three. And then you went back to the subject later on in whatever happened to the Likely Alert? Yes. How long afterwards was that? Nearly six years. And quite a lot had happened. Well yes, we thought that that was the best time to go back because in fact as we... Left them as young men of about 23. What happens to you in a gap between 23 and 28 is very different from what happens to you in 33 and 38. So it gave a Whole new range of material to look at. It's your turn Ian, your second record, what's it to be? Well I chose a track from one of my films, My favorite albums, I love blues, especially blues guitarists, and it's...

A song called Born Under a Bad Sign, the words of which Dick and I both love, and it's Albert King. On under a bad sign. Now let's stay with your television career after the likely lads... Was it all plain sailing? I mean, you must have had a flop or two on the way. Ian, did you? Yes, we were rather nervous after the like glance because we'd won.

These awards and we still had to do something else. But we did a film in that period. Which was a rather successful film called The Jokers with Michael Crawford and Oliver Eade. And then we were lured to ITV and did a disastrous series where we wrote, I think, 14 shows. It was called Mr. H with Harry H. Corbett. Forget that well it's just as well i mean i'd forgotten it till your research file turned up the information that we did it thickest thing If that was a good series. Ah well now, you're racing ahead now. We did, we had further adventures of Lucky Jim after that. We came back to the BBC and did a series with Kingsley, A.M. He used to show up for supper after the show. Didn't get very jolly, didn't he? Certainly. With his very pretty daughter, I remember.

And we did the series like it was quite good. We've got very good reviews. It was with Keith Barron We enjoyed in that very much. May I mention thicker thieves now certainly certainly what was that like excellent? brilliant scripts He said modestly. Now we're coming up to Porridge, obviously. When did you first work with Ronnie Barco? Had you met him? Socially or had you done a play with him or what was it? No this is, you can tell the story but it's Thick as Thieves is linked to porridge in a rather I don't know if Ronnie's ever known the story, but you may as well know now. It's very curious, because people have said to us, Why are you so obsessed with criminals and criminality? You must have some murky skeletons in your cupboard. The truth was, we were asked to write two scripts for Ronnie Barker for a series called Seven of One. We wrote one.

Which was a Welsh piece. And then Ronnie said to me, he said, I'd like to do a series about prison. So we thought about this. So we wrote Thick as Thieves about a man coming out of prison. However, we'd already told Ron that, yes, we were writing something to do about coming out of prison or to do... So we then wrote a script about a man being taken to prison. And that was called Prisoner and Escort. And in fact, ironically enough, that was then liked very much by everybody. And they then said, Oh, can we do a series and we think this is... Than the Welsh one, so we found ourselves writing porridge. And how many series of porridge? Three.

And then the adventures of Fletcher when he came out, which was where you started, really. Yes, yes. That's right, going straight. Going straight last year. Any more Fleur Trois coming up? We have a movie, which we've just finished, of porridge. It's back right into quintessential porridge country, with all the original members of the cast that we remember. Full from the kind. There's Prison Officer Mackay and Brian Wilde and the others, and we've had enormous fun making it. Right, record number five. Dick, it's your turn again. The Beatles have loomed large in our lives, in the background of our lives anyway. So he left the choice... Of it to me and I have picked a song which I think combines a, it's very happy and at the same time nostalgic which is an extraordinary quality.

That is Penny Lane. The Beatles, Penny Lane. Now we did touch briefly on... Subject of feature films. That was really you Dick, moving from directing television to directing features. Yes. How did it happen and what was the first? Well, Otley was the first and we were first of all commissioned to do that. Script and halfway through I began to enjoy the script and I thought well I would love to direct this and in fact I wanted to continue doing what I had done in television which was following through from the written page.

To the moment when you're actually standing on the floor with actors working it out and seeing it happen on cellular. So I managed to persuade the producer who was fortunately young and it was his first film as well. And he was as ignorant as I was, and so I got the job, which was wonderful, and I had a marvellous time. Ian came up to me actually about three days. Is into it, and said to me, How are you doing? And I sort of looked around carefully before answering and said, I'm having the time of my life. They're on quite a lot of films now not all of them comedies take there are some of them quite well grim Well villain was the grimest was the Richard Burton one. Yes, which was a gangster picture, but I mean we don't See ourselves just as being comedy writers. We we would like To write lots of things. The trouble is, I suppose, that once you start writing comedy, it's a commodity that not everybody can produce. So you tend to get asked to do the same thing all the time. And the theatre. You have...

Indeed, I think, written for the boards once at no less a venue than the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. What was that? Billy. Around two years. Two and a half years. That was one of the most exciting things we did working on a stage play. Can't wait to do it again. We have written another musical, which hopefully will go on this year. And it's your turn, yeah. Well, I was trying to pick a record that really reminded, was reminiscent of the 60s, you know, which was an exciting period for us all. I was thinking of Bob Dylan and then I remember that certainly the musician that you saw in What excites me most, I remember seeing him in a club, just knocked out, was Jimi Hendrix.

So I've chosen Jimi Hendrix for the Bob Dylan song, which is all along the watchtower. ♪ No reason to get excited ♪ ♪ The thief he kindly spoke ♪ ♪ There are many here among us ♪ ♪ Who feel that life is but a joke ♪ ♪ But you and I we've been through that ♪ ♪ And this is not our fate ♪ ♪ So let us start talking about it now ♪ All along the watchtower, Jimi Hendrix. You've more or less emigrated to Hollywood now. Yet here is that Hollywood is more or less a ghost town. Is that not so... I don't know where that impression goes from now. It's a very, very active town. And we moved to America because we wanted to be involved much more in motion pictures.

And the money. The climate and the money. The climate doesn't really worry us terribly much. And you both bought houses there now, so it sounds as if you're settled. Yes, we've lived there three years. We are a resident there. Oh, for Dick, quite a major upheaval. You've got four children, haven't you, Dick? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Schools and a new deal all that sort of thing yes now you've done an American version of porridge did you have ...to find an American Ronnie Barker or did you change the whole concept? We had to try and we actually failed. We didn't ever find one. So this forced us to make it... More of a group show rather than relying on a central character. I mean, this is not to take anything away from the supporting people in Porridge, but I mean, it's nevertheless very much a vehicle for Ronnie. And we weren't able to do that, so we had to have a very different approach. And it wasn't as successful, but nevertheless it did on a whole season, and if they don't like them, they yank them off very fast.

Ian, how do you work? Are you disciplined writers? I mean, do you sit down every morning at exactly five minutes to ten? Yes, we are disciplined. We couldn't do the amount of work we do without being disciplined. I mean, we did write a lot of things last year. So, we treat... People are going to work. We now have offices there, our own production company now. And it's always nice to go to a neutral place. We usually start quite early because we work. Best in the mornings. Who walks up and down and who's at the typewriter? Well Dick sits down and writes in longhand and I look for a corkscrew. And I walk around a lot. We've got to record number seven and it's Dick's turn. Well, this is a complete contrast to everything else, but I... Contrast and it's a piece of Mendelssohn's Elijah which I sang when I was at school actually and I rather like singing but it's the nice thing is to be

of other people singing the same note and then you have a greater chance of being buried amongst them. So I thought I would like to sing from time to time. So I chose in fact the closing chorus from the first part of my...

Since Elijah, which is Be Not Afraid. . Be not afraid from Mendelssohn's--

Elijah, the Royal Choral Society and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. Now one important thing, we've got to apportion the duties on this island. Who's good at do-it-yourself? Neither of us. No? I should think that we would be there for years without learning how to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Who stands for fishing? Either of you? No. I have. Yes? as a crabber there one summer with Rodney Bews. Mm-hmm. It was a wonderful summer. William Le Bon shellfish. There's some, bound to be some on the island. Uh, small boats, now the crabbing industry... In Cornwall, I mean that should involve small beds. Yes, but I just went in them, I didn't help build them. No, anything to do with construction, we can't do it. Actually, I like to think that I can do things that I... You can't. It's just silly to imagine you can.

I'm better than you. He lived in a house once where one by one, the lights went out. And all he had to do was put in a. The new electric light bulb but I mean he couldn't even do that. Right last record. I do choose one that maybe reminded me of the last few years, which really is the move to America. So I've chosen Hotel Cali.

From the album of the same name by the Eagles. I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before. Relax, said the night man. We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Hotel California by the Eagles. Now, suppose you both lost three of your four records Sir, if you could just hang on to one each tick, which would you hang on to? I'd choose the Aretha Franklin. Right. And Ian?

I choose Albert King. And you're allowed one luxury each to take with you. What have you chosen, Dick? I think I want a pack of cards. Well, that's a modest luxury. I might be able to win the royalties off some forthcoming Programs that we would inevitably be forced to write together out of sheer boredom. Ian, what are you doing? Shellfish. I would like to learn to play a musical instrument. Yes, which? I'd take a guitar. Acoustic? Yes. Yes. And one book each apart from the Bible and Shakespeare which are both on the island and we don't allow multi-volume encyclopedias. Well I would teach yourself the guitar. That's a good choice. Is it my book? Well I would like a book that has stood me in good stead over the years ever since I was a child.

...and it still makes me laugh now. And I might want to be childish from time to time, and I would like the complete Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh. And thank you, Dick Clement and Ian Latham. For letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much. Goodbye everyone. You've been listening to a podcast from the desert island discs archive. For more from the Desert Island Discs archive.

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