BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Desert Island Discs, Betty Driver

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Last broadcast on Fri, 28 Jan 2011, 09:00 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts).

Synopsis

Kirsty Young's castaway is the veteran Coronation Street actress Betty Driver.

For more than forty years she's been pulling pints and dishing up her hot-pot in the Rovers Return. But her career in showbusiness started decades before she took up residence on Britain's most famous street.

She was a child when her mother put her on the stage and she toured the country with an act that showcased her stunning singing voice - it brought success but not happiness. "I did it for over twenty years," she says, "and hated every day of it." Although she has been working now for an incredible 80 years, she says: "I just love work and I will never retire. They'll have to shoot me to get rid of me!"

Record: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat Minor.
Book: Rebecca by Daphne du Murier
Luxury: Eau de Soir perfume by Sisley

Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Music played

Oscar Hammerstein II — I’ll Take Romance

Artist: Betty Driver Composer: Hammerstein/Oakland
Up with the Curtain, ASV
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor

Artist: Stephen Hough with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 - 3 - Romantic Piano Concerto, vol. 50, Hyperion
Ella Fitzgerald — Night and Day

Composer: Cole Porter
Ella Fitzgerald: Cole Porter Songbook, Verve
Johann Strauss II — Thunder and Lightning Polka

Artist: Sir Harry Mortimer (with the G.U.S. (Footwear) Band
Championship Bandstand, EMI
Winifred Atwell — Black and White Rag

Composer: Botsford
Queen Of The Ivories: Black & White Rag, Sanctuary records
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — the Overture to Swan Lake

Artist: Leonard Slatkin conducting the St Louis Symphony Orchestra
Swan Lake, RCA
Hoagy Carmichael — Skylark

Composer: Carmichael/ Mercer
Too Marvellous for Words: Capital sings Johnny Mercer, Capitol, C 496791
Johannes Brahms — The Adagio from the Cello Sonata No.2 in F Major.

Artist: Steven Isserlis
Cello Sonatas, Hyperion