Interview with Gyles Brandreth and Susie Dent
Gyles: I eat a Twix to ensure an energy-boosting sugar rush and (seriously) Susie & I stand in the wings thinking how lucky we are that we have such a lovely audience. We call them “the Purple people” and we regard them as real friends – which is why we always spend the interval in the stalls meeting people. (I also get given an interval ice cream – a real perk of the job. I choose vanilla – because Susie has told me the origin of the word …(Look it up!).
Susie: Essentially Gyles has us doing strange vocal exercises to limber up before we go on, whereby we make ridiculous noises. But they do work! Other than that we sit and eat sandwiches just before the matinee while marvelling at the wonderful community that has built up around Something Rhymes with Purple. We consider ourselves very lucky.
Gyles: It’s genuinely improvised. Susie really does know all this amazing stuff about words and language. It’s all there in her incredible head.
Susie: I'm not sure about underappreciated but the marvel of every show for me is how bottomless Gyles's reservoir of anecdotes is. There seems to be no one he hasn't met and no theatre whose boards he hasn't trodden. His really has been a remarkable life. I'd also like to give a nod to Kathy Klugston's marvellous Purple Shipping Forecast that kicks off the show.
Gyles: ‘Rudolf the Red-Noised Reindeer.’ of course. What else?
Susie: It has to be 'Walking in the Air' from The Snowman.
Gyles: Looking out at it from inside the house – while eating Twix bars and singing ‘Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. If it was sunny, I might venture out – because I know that the warmth of sunshine on your back on a cold day is called APRICITY and I love that word.
Susie: Retreating into my hibernacle (winter den) and snudging (lying quiet and snug).
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