Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My cast away this week is an entertainer. On television you may have seen him as Zipsa, the sexually retarded

academic in Porter House Blue, or heard him as the spitting image of Norman Tebit and Lord

Olivier. On the stage he's enjoyed great acclaim playing Napoleon and about 40

characters in the supporting cast as well. Good going you'll agree for a man who

began his professional career only eight years ago. His success lies in his individuality.

Accurate observation, born out of wide reading and quickness of mind, gives him all

the characters he needs as an actor, comedian, writer and mimic.

He is John Sessions.

A John of all trades, they say on the stage at least.

Is that how you like it or do you find yourself John beginning to lean towards one particular

bit of your talent? Well I'm not quite sure what to do at the moment because I've

always I always felt certainly through the first few years it was good to get her finger into as many pies as possible.

Then after a while you wonder whether you've dissipated your energies and perhaps you should just concentrate on the one thing for example I go with improvisation

then you think oh dear then you'll be like you know Percy Edwards as down as the man who does

the bird impersonations and there was that lady who used to tear up telephone books and

they'll say oh he's a little bloke with a big nose who makes it up which sort of puts you

out of the running for Hamlet although I'm not sure I've been the running for Hamlet but but do you have a fear of being

slotted nevertheless I mean pigeonholes yes and not quite sure how to go about

subverting that or changing that perception of me, you know.

But I do keep trying to do different things while being aware, oh dear, should I just stay with

...