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Desert Island Discs — Personal Journals
Desert Island Discs

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Copyright: © (C) BBC 2023

Latest Episodes:

Dr Max Perutz Jun 25, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Dr Max Perutz. When he left Austria in 1936 to study at Cambridge, his fellow students dismissed his ambition to decipher the structure of the protein haemoglobin as 'mad'. No-one had seriously attempted to map a molecule that was made up of 10,000 atoms. Twenty-two years later he was successful. It was an achievement that earned him and his colleague John Kendrew the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962 - and has since contributed to the study of blood diseases like sickle cell anaemia and Huntington's disease.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Piano Sonata No.30 in E Major by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Luxury: Skis

Donald Sutherland Jun 18, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Donald Sutherland. He has acted in 104 films, including such classics as MASH, Don't Look Now and JFK. Tall and lanky as a child, he was called 'Goofus' or 'Dumbo' because of his big ears. However, it was those ears that caught the attention of the director of The Dirty Dozen and thus his film career was launched.

Now appearing on the British stage for the first time in 36 years, he chooses eight records to take to the mythical desert island.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major 412 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman Luxury: 100 cases of vintage Bordeaux

Clive James Jun 11, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Clive James. Author, critic and television personality, he is presently contemplating his fourth autobiography - tracing the journey from his childhood in Australia to the Footlights Review at Cambridge University, and then to becoming the wittiest television critic and presenter in Britain.

During the interview Clive reads extracts from his poem 'Young Australian Rider, P.G. Burman', taken from his book Other Passport Poems 1958-1985.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley Book: My Method of Singing by Enrico Caruso Luxury: Karaoke piano

Professor Géza Vermes Jun 04, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Professor Geza Vermes . When he wrote Jesus the Jew in the early 1970s, it shocked the Christian world. He continued to examine Jesus through three more books, drawing on his lifetime's study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Born in Hungary in the 1920s, his Jewish parents had converted to Catholicism, but it did not save them from the Nazis. He was ordained a Catholic priest, but returned his Jewish roots and his study of the religion and culture of first-century Palestine.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Now from the Sixth Hour by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: The Complete Works by Flavius Josephus Luxury: Comfortable armchair/desk

John Bird May 28, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is John Bird. As a student, he changed the face of the Cambridge Footlights review by rejecting jokes on bed-makers and punting and writing a political review instead. In the early 1960s he helped found The Establishment Club with Peter Cook. Writing sketches with John Fortune, they found they were unable to find suitable actors to perform their work, and so took to the stage themselves. Satire, he says, died in the late 1960s and he struggled to make a living, until Rory Bremner hired them. As 'The Two Johns', their dialogues featuring an awkward interviewer and slippery politician have won them much recognition and a BAFTA award.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Repons by Pierre Boulez Book: The collected works by Wallace Stevens Luxury: 2,000 soft loo rolls

Dame Norma Major May 21, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Dame Norma Major. In her book on the Prime Minister's residence, Chequers, she revealed how Neville Chamberlain would spend time measuring the girths of his favourite trees, and how Ramsay MacDonald chopped wood every morning dressed in plus-fours. She herself was uncomfortable there, and she remembers the loneliness and stress of being the country's First Lady. She says her love of music, and her work for charity helped her through the tough times.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Norma by Bellini Book: Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers Luxury: Solar laptop

Kathleen Turner May 14, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Kathleen Turner. A versatile actress, she's been the femme fatal in films like Body Heat, parodied that role in comedies like Serial Mom, and played the romantic adventurer in Romancing the Stone. But, she says, ''I never play the victim, because I'm not attracted to a woman who doesn't try''. It's an attitude which must have helped her when she developed rheumatoid arthritis which left her severely bloated and in pain. Presently wowing audiences as Mrs Robinson in London's West End production of The Graduate, she chooses eight records to take to the mythical island.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Book: Emma by Jane Austen Luxury: Roses

Sir John Mills May 07, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Sir John Mills. He was only six when he decided he wanted to be an actor. And now after seventy years in show business he is still touring the world with his one man show. It was the war which made him a star and the films he made then eventually led to Hollywood. There he made friends with Laurence Olivier, Rex Harrison and Noel Coward, to whom he says he owes a great debt.

He won an Oscar for his performance in Ryan's Daughter, but one of his favourite films remains Ice Cold in Alex. In it, he got to kiss Sylvia Sims, a scene which was later cut by the censor for showing too much of her cleavage and which had to be reshot with only three buttons undone instead of four.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: All the Things You Are by Chick Henderson Book: The Warden by Anthony Trollope Luxury: His piano

Sir Peter Bonfield Apr 30, 2000

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Sir Peter Bonfield. The chief executive of British Telecommunications, it is said that when he left his previous company, its Japanese owner presented him with a samurai sword and helmet to remind him of the warrior qualities he would need at BT. And certainly the challenges facing him in this fast moving industry have tested all his discipline and determination - qualities he says he learnt as a boy at the local convent school.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: American Pie by Don McLean Book: A book on celestial navigation Luxury: A windsurfer

Leonard Slatkin Apr 23, 2000

Show notes

This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is the conductor Leonard Slatkin. An American, he is about to take on the mantle of chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Renouned for his championing of both the American and British cannons, his aim has always been to demystify music of all kinds. He has spun discs on a pirate radio station and played honky tonk piano in a jazz bar. His parents' Hollywood String Quartet was the best known band in town and the Slatkin household was often filled with film stars. From these two influences he developed his love of chamber music and a passion for Doris Day. In conversation with Sue Lawley, he talks about his life and work and chooses eight records to take to the mythical island.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Danny Boy by Percy Grainger Book: Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin Luxury: Wine

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