Test Match Special - #40from40: John Lithgow

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

John Lithgow, star of Third Rock from the Sun and The Crown, spends a memorable half hour with Jonathan Agnew at the Oval during a Test match against India in 2007.

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Hello, I'm Jonathan Agnew, welcome to another classic view from the boundary from Test Match Special. For this episode, we're going back to the 2007 test match at the Oval between England and India. On the field, the match played out to a draw, but there was a special moment

for the Indian bowler Annal Cumbla as he scored his only test hundred in the first innings. Well, watching the action was a rather intrigued guest. John Lithgow is an American actor, best known for his role in the cult comedy, third rocked from the sun, as well as numerous other TV shows and films.

He was in London that summer to make his debut for the Royal Shakespeare Company and popped up to join us for an enchanting half hour. He began by telling me that his relationship with cricket went back slightly further than we might have guessed. To tell you the truth, it began a long, long time ago. I was a drama student in London 40 years ago, and I stuck around for yet another year

and worked as a kind of production assistant. and gopher with the Royal Shakespeare Company, even back then. And at rehearsal breaks and tea breaks, the actors would actually play cricket with a tennis ball in the rehearsal room, and they invited me to play with them. And so I did at least have that minuscule experience of playing cricket. Yes, so you do the ball should bounce. And I think you only really understand a sport

if you've played it at least a bit. with people who know what they're doing. Have you come to realize the great, so vast traditions and niceties of... Something comes over Englishmen as soon as the subject of cricket comes up. Actually, last evening I was having... I was at a dinner party with Sir Tom Courtney from Hull

who said dyed in the wool cricket fan, and he suddenly was transformed. When he heard that I was coming to the Oval, today. So I have teachers from all walks of life. Is it a complicated game? Well, it's full of nuance, isn't it? I mean,

there's all sorts of I mean, this extraordinary thing that you are fully expected to protest an umpire's call. You're almost required to object. Do you think so? They're not supposed to. You're expected

to object, but just not too much. Right. I think what you... It's all nuance. I think what you've detected, John, is a bad umpire, giving some bad decisions. I've heard a little bit about that. And the player's getting a bit grumpy about it. And sledging. I've heard all about sledging. Have you? Yes, and jelly beans on the weekend. And I don't remember any of that in baseball. So you picked up on all that, have you? Oh, I actually, believe me, three days ago, I had no idea what any of this was all about. but as soon as I got tickets to the test match

then I immediately went right to her. See, that's very interesting because you may not realize as yet that you're still new to this, that actually you're not supposed to be sledging and throwing jelly beans at people and that rang with the umpires. I thought that was expected too. No, unfortunately not. Many people would like it to be.

In American sport, we have what's called trash talking, particularly in basketball, which is exactly sledging. I think getting a psychological. advantage by just... And who's doing the trash talking? The player. The chap with the glove on at the back. The wheelkeeper?

You mean in cricket? No, in baseball. Who's doing it? No, I would say, as I said, in basketball. That's the major trash talking sport. Is it? Not in baseball? No, baseball is...

I don't know. It seems like there's too much concentration going on. There's a lot of turning around and staring at the umpire. Right. But it's, if you object strenuously to a call, you can get thrown out, thrown out of the game. Can you? See, we were talking about all this at the last test matches where we picked up. And we were trying to say, obviously, the players shouldn't be doing this because of the influence that it has.

And if, without being unkind, but if we like a new to, you know, one of our kids learning the game, say, it's the first thing they see. I mean, here are you talking of sledging and jelly beans. It obviously does have an impact. It's made an impression on you to an extent. Well, I suppose so, but I mean, sports is passionate stuff. It's not only one team against each other, but it's one nation and one culture against each other. That's one of the reasons why I love it. And, you know, I act in lots of different countries from time to time, and I always try to go to the sports because it's amazing how much you learn about a nation.

I was in New Zealand. I saw a rugby match in New Zealand and ice hockey and Quebec, you know. If you want to get to know French Canadians, go to a nice hockey match. What's interesting is a lot of our sport, of course, is international? Yeah. I mean, as an American, a lot of your sport isn't, is it? Actually, it's very high quality. Well, we're insular in a lot of ways.

Cricket and soccer. Soccer is coming on. God knows, you know, the papers are full of Beckham in Southern California. I was going to ask you about this, yes. Yes. And it's been interesting in the U.S. soccer is one of the most important sports for kids up into the age of about 11 and 12. And then the sport loses them, I think, as basketball and football and baseball co-opped them.

But that's beginning to change. One thing is the demographic of the U.S. population is changing, and a huge influx of Hispanics who are passionate about soccer, football. So, you know, it's becoming a much... much, much bigger thing. And Beckham is doing what Pele did back in the, I guess, 70s coming to the U.S. in the last chapters of a great career. And he's having something of the same effect, an enormous amount of attention all of a sudden.

But there is much more of a professional sport now. So, you know, we have a World Cup soccer team now. He's actually climbed into the last six or eight or six. You mentioned David Beckham, and you live in L.A., don't you? Yeah. So are you on the guest list? Have you been around to Beck's Towers? You know, I haven't been in L.A. since he arrived and made his big splash.

A friend of mine lives about 500 yards from the house where the Beckham's are moving in. Do you know it? Do you know the house? I don't know their house. But in my friend's house, she says, there are helicopters. puttering around up above and it's creating a huge sensation but such as life in LA they'll only be there about six months and they'll buy something bigger is he's big mates of Tom Cruise are you on that sort of social circle or not really I'm a I'm

an anomaly in Los Angeles I'm really I mean I like living in LA just fine but I my wife is a professor at UCLA and I'm more of a faculty spouse than a movie star there. Right. I live a very kind of modest life. The reason I'm here is I'm a theater actor and I take that seriously and go back to New York and act there quite frequently. So I'm a strange, I don't know how I'm regarded in LA. A lot of people don't even think I live there. They think I'm a New Yorker. I did appeal for help, John, from our from our listeners. And as usual, they're a game bunch. Yes. And so here we go. What have we got? We have Chauvik, who is in the States, I think. Good to hear that you're being taught cricket. You're an international man, he says. I remember seeing him on TV for many years

in a comedy called Third Rock from the Sun here in the US, of course. One big difference in cricket and baseball is that in cricket, there's no fair and foul territory. Entire field is fair, however, you're not compelled to run if you play the ball with your bat. Does that make sense to you? Oh, yes, I'm way beyond that. I'm way beyond that.

This is sort of chapter one, is it? It's very rudimentary. We're okay, Shavik's actually moved on to sledging and jelly beans, so he probably is beyond that. Now then, Jason, I'm a yank, that's his expression, been in England for eight years, and I love cricket. I've been played for two seasons now, for two village clubs around Guilford in Surrey, left-handed bat, about three or four, top score 46 this year. I taught myself the rules by watching cricket on the TV, and I've since been taught by my teammates in the Surrey Cricket Academy. So that's nice, what on Jason. I suppose cricket is probably best watched on the telly to learn.

I don't know. Do you listen, what you should do is to watch the telly with the sound down. what many of our listeners will say and listen to the radio. Well, I don't know. On the telly, it's always been very bewildering to me. Really, the big difference has been my friend, my friend Barnaby, and our alternating little tutorials. Which are done where?

I mean, do you actually sit on watching on the telly? Well, I haven't been able to... We just watched the first 45 minutes today in a pub before it arrived. arriving here. That's a good start. Yes, that was a very good start. But I've actually managed to stream baseball games live from the US and sit with him in an internet cafe and narrate a single inning. Actually, I even got to the point where I could go back and replay the same inning. That's good. And I have a big Boston Red Sox fan in the US and one of the great sport rivalries is the Boston Red Sox against who?

The New York Yankees, of course, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Well, I showed him a little bit of a Red Sox game. They're in tight contention right now. I got him so excited about baseball. I've done this with a few Englishmen. I've even taken them to the stadium. It's so much fun to teach an Englishman baseball. Are we slightly sniffy about it?

No, no. I mean, the thing is they are relatives. Cricket and baseball are relatives. There are lots of manners that are quite similar. And the basic notion of a ball being thrown at a batsman and runs being scored, I mean, they're definitely connected with each other. But it's very exciting to learn the differences. Inning for a start, big one of them, because we don't have an inning, do we?

What do we have? Innings. Exactly. And you only have three of them, and they last for days and days. We have nine and they go by and... We have four. We're two. That's right. Yes, right. Okay, that's coming on. What we've got here. Douglas Squirrel, what a tremendous name. I was born in the US and emigrated to Britain seven years ago at the age of 29. I learned the basics by watching Sky on the telly, then tried for a long time to find some way to master skills myself and now actually play. Eventually, I joined under 15's team where the coaches are very helpful understanding. I now bowl rubbish leg spin for Saltwood Village Cricket Club would have passed all my exams to become a qualified ACU and S umpire. That's good. So he's going to be out there possibly making a better job than... You see in some cases...

You're doing a little sledging yourself. Oh, yes. I know. I'm not supposed to do that. Sometimes I can't resist myself, though. Good word sledging, isn't it? Do you like that? Yeah, I love that. They're better than trash talking, you call it. Yes. Doesn't that come from Australia, though?

Oh, well, indeed. Well, we claim it. In fact, what I may do, since you're so interested in it, I could possibly introduce you to the man who we claim started it. Really? He'll deny it. Is he an outsider? terms. Yeah. You may have to put your fingers in your ears at times, but I'll introduce to

Ian Chappell. He's a good friend of mine. It's about two boxes down later on. You can ask him all about sledging. Okay. And then I'm going to do a runner. Then I'll let you do. Now then, Robert in Bogner. I find it's quite easy. You've explained the basis of cricket in baseball terms. For example, six is equivalent to a home run, four's equivalent to a ground rule double. Yeah. Wickets, two bases that are four, so two bats and then effectively There's a perpetual force play between the stumps and run is scored in the same way as the total bases in a baseball game.

It's going to be complicated this, isn't it? No, I'm following every word of it. 10 outs per inning instead of three. Robert says, I could go on, but I'm supposed to building furniture. What's more of a challenge, building furniture, or trying to explain cricket to an American? Building dokems. What's been the most obvious difference, do you think,

between, I mean, is it right to compare baseball to cricket? I mean, is that the best way to start? I think baseball gives you a little bit of a leg up. I remember learning rugby. Rugby suddenly made a little bit of sense when people explain the similarities to American football. And then you begin to explore the differences. The major differences, I think of the American sports,

baseball, I think, is the most pastoral and the most leisurely. I mean, you do sit and take your time. There are breathing spaces between innings and all. It's nowhere near as leisurely as cricket. I mean, you can come and go days on in. And I think it's a matter of learning the rhythm of the game. And, you know, the buildup of tension can take place over days

rather than over hours. Can you get that great tension? I mean, here we are watching what could be, an amazing game, and that England were out of it from, well, the start of the second day, really, but suddenly a glimmer of hope. Here we are on the fourth morning. I mean, you explained to America, this game for five days, they might roll their eyes. When Tandulkar was rolled out, I mean, suddenly it was like,

wait a minute, something might happen here. This could be historic. So you can see why we like our five-day games away, because they do, Ed and Flow, and there aren't. Well, as I, you know, it was quite thrilling to get Barnaby excited about the gradual buildup of tension in baseball. In baseball, it's much more incremental. There's little mini, mini dramas which then increase exponentially.

How much do you know about baseball? Absolutely nothing. I've sat there many times and tried to work it out if I'm in a strange part of the world. I am your man. We'll do a deal. I'll graduate you onto the second part of cricket. Barnum is on some good groundwork. Yes, right.

I'll move you on to the second and I'll come watch some baseball. I'd love to understand it actually. It's a beautiful game. They're both beautiful games. Can you bat beautifully in baseball, though? It looks like a bit of a clubbing most of the time. Well, you know, you're accustomed to the British bowling, and that all seemed very bizarre to me until I began to see the beauty of it.

But there is just as much variety in pitching, even though it shoots past the batter it doesn't bounce in front of him. No. But what about the batting? The batting looks like you're sort of thrashing around and playing the same shot all the time, really? You know where the ball's going to be, and you just cut it. It's not. I mean, if it was that crude, you wouldn't have the great batters,

you know, the great Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig. What made them stand out? I could explain to you what makes batsmen stand out from others. Well, there are different strengths to batting. In baseball, there is a clutch hitting, which means when you absolutely have to get a hit, that's your man. He's the more likely man to hit. You know about batting average. Someone, a great hitter has a batting average of about 3.35 or 3.40, which means he only gets a base hit.

He only gets on base one time out of three. that's you know you're far more likely to fail at the plate than to succeed at the plate and yet there is this extraordinary difference between a very strong batter and a poor batter do you do you have our equivalent of bill frindle a statistician he doesn't like that word oh dear that's a mark of great honor in the u.s is it bill

you don't mind the decision oh i thought he didn't like that one bill he's very trusty quite temperamental there was one newspaper couldn't cope with the word and used to call me their facts and figures, man. Uh-huh. Right. But all these sheets of paper and dots and hieroglyphics. No, no, no. Statistician is a title of nobility is the United States, Bill. I thought for a minute I'd insult them.

I mean, if I show you this. Oh, don't you love them? That's Bill's score sheet. What do you make of that? There's magic. I mean, every time I go to the ballpark in the U.S., I score the games. Do you? Yeah. It's, uh, I mean, they go on forever. You know, there's not just batting average, but there's batting average in this particular three-game series. There's batting average with runners on third. There's batting average.

Sounds a bit more complicated than ours. It's vast and unfathomable. You get these 13-year-old nerds who can tell you absolutely every statistic from 1958 in the National League. We've got a 67 a roll one here. Oh, Bill. Have a sheet bank again. 68, you've got another factor on. That's why I have to live with you said, John.

What about commentary? I mean, you haven't listened to us yet, have you? No, I haven't. No, this is the first time you heard your voice, John. Well, what I'd like you to do, and, in fact, I might do this as a start of your stage 2 development, is by you, one of these little nanny little radios that we can get around the ground here, in stadium radios. Yes. And you can sit for the afternoon, parts of it,

with that in your ear, and you can listen to the commentary. And actually, it might confuse me even more, Biden it, Bill, thinking about it. What do you think? It's interesting. When the test match is underway, you hear it, you walk down the street and you hear it coming out of every newsstand. That might be good. Perhaps we'll get one of those. Now that I have my rudimentary foundation, maybe I'll try it on the next bit.

My sister, Maritime, and living in the USA, recounted to me how she tried to explain the laws of cricket to her baseball-loving husband, well and wholly in the Caribbean. She was beginning to congratulate herself at having got him interested, if not hooked, then realised she hadn't told him yet that most matches last three to five days. I can imagine that went down.

Robert, Richard Carrington. It takes time to introduce Americans to cricket. My American wife and I have been married for 34 years. At first, like all Americans who compare it to baseball, she thought it was incredibly tedious. But gradually over the years, she's become more and more intrigued and more and more knowledgeable,

to the point now that she's, She's beating me in Jeff Boycott's online fantasy cricket competition and doing her best to persuade her family. Soon in the States, there's much more to the game than she first thought. Thank you, Richard. Fantasy being beaten by that and Jeff. He haven't met Jeff Boycott yet, have you, John? No.

I might save you that, possibly. He is in charge of fantasy cricket? Some could say that. He would say he's probably in charge of most things cricket. He works with us. I don't know whether we're introduced to do Ian Chappell first or Jeff Boycott. That will mull over. Are you missing your lunch, by then?

John are not he happy to... I'm going to scare something up after we finish. Well, lunch is very much part of watching cricket. That's what I love about cricket. Everything is a part of cricket. Oh, no, no. You brought it with you, presumably, have you? No, no.

No. Do you bring a little picnic basket to cricket? Oh, yes. You know, I remember driving through Yorkshire when I was making a movie up there. I was staying in Lincolnshire and took a drive through Yorkshire and came upon a country cricket match. And I just sat and watched for like two hours.

At that point, I didn't really know what was going on, but it was beautiful. Felt nice. And I think, very similar to baseball, that's where it all starts. I mean, as sort of culture's traditions. So you can drive, my time in America has been brief, but you can drive through of a summer's day and see in the parks?

Oh, yeah, yeah. rural areas on Saturday afternoon. I remember driving across country in the US and stopping to see softball games between like a gas station team and a mail bondsman's team in the evening and everybody gathers around. Fantastic. Now, here's an old English tradition for you, John.

That little yellow thing tundling around with the rope. Yes. All the modern sophistication, the technology that we have, still to prepare a ground after rain. Nice little tradition. You trundle around with a rope on the back of a tractor and a stooge stands there in the middle holding other end. You know, like that.

They look like very expert moisture removers. I know. He'll have done that for many years, perfecting that skill. I like the way they cover the wicket with those little tents. That's interesting. Yes, they're called covers. These ones are the more traditional type of cover, but at lords, which you must go to.

Yeah. Have you been to Lords yet? Not yet. By God, I'm going to get that. No, we must go. They have a hover cover there that comes on like a hovercraft. Really? One huge thing and sits over the pitch, because that, of course, the pitch is absolutely paramount. Yeah.

It's absolutely apparent. How many more of these have got here. Dear TMS, how lovely to hear John Lithgow on your program today. It comes across a really nice, well-informed man, who's generally enjoying the whole test-match experience. I loved his performance of the world, according to Garpe, alongside Robin Williams. The scene where the two of them raced through a housing estate on foot, chased by a very angry truck driver

is one of the all-time great scenes that comes from Ken. I wish I'd seen it. Oh, it's actually a great film. It was made in 1982 and it was 30 years ahead of its time. A really amazing film. We picked up a couple nominations.

Oscar nominations. Yes, Oscar nominations. Just a great time. I played the entire role. The part is a transsexual, you know. Who used to be a professional American football player. So it was probably one of my most noticed performance. Yes.

I don't know whether it's the best, but it was certainly, nobody missed me. It's been lovely to have had you in here. It's great. It really has. Well, it's been a wonderful lunch. Well, good. Even though I haven't eaten a bite. We'll see if we can find you something.

But it's great. And I really do hope that you enjoy cricket. It's a wonderful sport. This has been one of my best days in London. and I've just loved it. And I've only seen about an hour and a half of cricket. When does the play start by, though? I forgot to ask you.

August 30th to October 6th in a straight run. It's not in repertory. We're doing it at the courtyard theatre at Stratford, which is the temporary theatre they have created while they renovate the big theatre. A couple more here. Sanford Chelten's delighted we've got John Lithgow. I've got a fan for years.

I hope you'll forgive me if I say that I'm probably the biggest, if not only fan, of the film Buccaroo Banzai. No, no, he is in the company of millions of very, very weird people. Well, how is that especially weird? Buckroop, you've never, you've never seen Buckingrupe, it is a fantastic satiric sci-fi film that I made in the early 80s. It's one of my favorite films, too. It's completely zonked out.

I hesitate to recommend it to you, but you might be curious. I play a Italian physicist. Italian physicist whose body was inhabited in the 1930s in a botched physics experiment by an evil alien who now speaks like a crackpot Mussolini and he's trying to return to the eighth dimension, something like that. That sounds straightforward enough. It sounds like you're trying to have going to stand Trigger. My most famous line from it was, laugh for while you can, monkey boy. And you have no idea how many people ask me to say that. That's right. Well, I'm sure Sam would have loved that. They were a special one for you, Sam.

That's for you, Sam. For my most enjoying memory of John and film was the bad guy against Sly Stallone in Cliffhanger. So, I was an experience acting with him, I guess. Yeah, it was great fun. I mean, if you're going to do a movie like that, you want to do it with Sly. We had a fabulous big tooth and nail fight on the belly of a up-ended helicopter on the side of a mountain. If you're going to play that scene, Sly's your man. Well, I do hope they get on that main list as well in L.A.,

they'll get on the Beckham list. Oh, yeah. I wish you well with that. Thanks for the company. Oh, such a pleasure, Jonathan. Good luck with it. I'll be listening to your voice for the rest of my life. Well, it's lovely hearing that interview again.

John remains a popular figure on stage and screen, notably playing Winston Churchill in the Netflix Smash the Crown. Now, while you're here, let me direct you to some other treats from the archives of Test Match Special. They're able to listen to on BBC's sounds. Here's a taster of another classic view. It's Lawrence of Arabia himself, Peter O'Toole, chatting to Brian Johnston in 1991. And where does Toole bat, though?

He opens. You go in first? Yes. Against all the hostile fast bowling? And what do you look like in a helmet? Well, we were playing in Northamptonshire, and a distinguished pro was in the other side, and he insisted that we all wear a helmet, because the pitch was bouncing and taking spin. So I went to the pavilion and I was given a helmet

And I couldn't find my way out of the pavilion I stumbled around And I couldn't see where the door was And I felt and I'm sure I looked like a Dalek So I took it off Yeah I mean how people look through their visa No I know It's extraordinary isn't it

And you can't hear either You can't hear the chap calling for a run or anything And what about the bowling then? Do you get any wickets? Sometimes I get a wicket or two. I get a few maidens. For me, one run now is what six runs meant when I was at war. One wicket now means a five-wicked wall.

If I do a piece of decent fielding, I'm very happy. If I take a catch, I'm delirious. And as long as I don't become a passenger with the team, I'll keep on playing. Are you good at sprinting around the boundary? Oh, that's a great sight. I'm greatly encouraged by my team. I said, go on, go on, off he goes, off he goes. And I puff and pant.

So to make sure you don't miss anything for Test Map Special, do subscribe on BBC Sounds. The TMS podcast, classic view from the boundary. BBC Sounds. As things slowed down for everyone this year, I've decided to reach out to Virgil Van Dyke amongst loads of other A-list guests. That buzz of going out there and playing for 60,000,

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