"It’s this old Hollywood musical variety show type of thing. Really epic Technicolor. There’s an Esther Williams thing in there where she’s just swimming and being beautiful. It’s a beauty-based film. All the money wasn’t popped into special effects, obviously. It was popped into building really grand sets, really great costumes, really, really good makeup. Like, whatever. I saw that in college. One of my friends showed it to me in his apartment. I was like, “What the f— is this?” And then I bought the DVD and [now] I toss it in once a month, at least in the background. I don’t really actually follow the movie straight through. I just kinda fast-forward to the parts that look cool."

"The original was called Pollyanna, and then they did a remake of the film, called Polly, and it had Phylicia Rashad in it. It was probably one of the first musical films I had ever seen that was fully… Pretty much almost fully cast of Black men and women and children. And I think it was one of the reasons I was like, “Oh, I can do musicals. I can be in them. This is cool.” And I love the music. I still remember the songs, and it’s been a while since I’ve watched it. I have the VHS of it. I don’t even know if they do it on DVD. I don’t know if you can even get it on iTunes. But I loved it."

"W. C. Fields, with wife, mother-in-law, child, daughter, and son-in-law, played by the wonderful Grady Sutton. All this is pure enjoyment. When were movies ever more alive than in the thirties, when the great performers from the musical and vaudeville stage entered films? W. C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Maurice Chevalier, Fred Astaire, Marie Dressler, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland, among so many others. They were the real authors of their films, needing little help from their directors. American films began with audiences wanting to see performers, not directors, and this, perhaps, continues to separate American films from European films, but we’re lucky to have both, and who’s to say which is really better."

"Classical music reminds me a lot of when I was growing up. I learned violin and trumpet in school, and I sang; my mum listened to classical music a lot, too. All of it I discarded at thirteen, of course, when I became a teenager, as you do. But Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were always there at home. They were this incredible musical wallpaper.

I didn't know Chopin's Nocturnes, though, until my wife introduced me to them about twenty years ago. Because of that, they're very dear to me. This music is properly of the night in its melodies, and the sparseness of its arrangements. The playing by Ashkenazy is incredible, too. It's music that goes straight through you, in the best possible way.
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"As a huge David Bowie fan who was at the last Ziggy Stardust gig – when he said he was quitting, I remember turning round to my friend and saying, “As if!” – this BBC documentary from a couple of years later felt very special. And very new. It’s the document of Bowie in America, and gets you so close. He’s so vulnerable, sniffing – obviously taking cocaine – and looks like an alien; but when talking Alan Yentob through his old tour outfits, he’s still something of a chirpy cockney lad. The film also shows the sharpness and originality of his musical mind, especially when he’s directing his amazing backing singers through their parts. It’s fascinating to see him at work as a musician"