Private Passions - David Hyde Pierce

US actor David Hyde Pierce is one of the multi-award-winning stars of the American sitcom 'Frasier', in which he played Dr Niles Crane, younger brother of Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane. On Broadway he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in 'Curtains', and went on create the role of Brave Sir Robin in Monty Python's 'Spamalot' musical. He has played a wide range of stage roles from Shakespeare to Chekhov, has appeared in films such as 'Sleepless in Seattle' 'Nixon', and ' A Bug's Life', and starred in a 2007 episode of 'The Simpsons'. He is currently appearing with Mark Rylance and Joanna Lumley in David Hirson's play 'La Bete' at London's Comedy Theatre (his West End debut), before the play transfers to Broadway in the autumn.The play, wittily written in mock-17th-century rhyming couplets, concerns the clash between the high-minded leader of a troupe of actors (Hyde Pierce), and a vulgar street clown (Rylance), who are brought together by their princely patroness (Lumley), in anticipation of an exciting creative combination - but what results is an irreconcilable clash of egos. David Hyde Pierce is both an Anglophile and a great lover of music - he originally hoped to be a concert pianist. He tells Michael Berkeley that he has compiled a list of music as a homage to England, beginning with the Overture to HMS Pinafore, a show in which he directed as a student . His love of the English cathedral tradition is reflected in Parry's anthem 'I was Glad' and his final choice, Louis Vierne's Carillon de Westminster, for organ. There's also Rosalyn Tureck playing Bach and his friend Stephen Hough playing a Mendelssohn piano concerto, as well as an extract from Berlioz's 'Beatrice et Benedict'', conducted by Sir Colin Davis, in which he himself acted.