Desert Island Discs

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Joanna Lumley May 13, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Joanna Lumley. She first found fame as the high-kicking glamour-puss Purdey in the 1970s show The New Avengers, but the role that cemented her in the nation's psyche was Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. A striking beauty with a cut-glass accent she had, until then, been cast as a certain sort of sexy toff. Yet in AbFab she stole the show as a shallow, free-loading, alcoholic has-been - famous for her towering chignon and withering one-liners.

Along with displaying a formidable comic talent, it was a role that toyed cleverly with her public persona, hinting at her own beginnings as a model at the precise moment in the 1960s when London really started to swing. As she contemplates being marooned, she abandons the make-up and glamour of her on-screen life and embraces island living - collecting firewood, eating from shells and preparing her evening fire before the moon rises and she chooses the eight tracks that she would like to hear during a single island day.

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

Favourite track: Symphony No 7 in A Major by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: A huge atlas Luxury: Video camera + film.

Ben Helfgott Apr 01, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott. His inspirational journey has taken him from the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland to the highs of Olympic glory. He was nine years old when Germany invaded and at that point, he says, his childhood ended. He spent the next three years in a ghetto while his mother and younger sister were among those rounded up and shot by the Nazis. He was then deported to a series of concentration camps and, when he was eventually liberated from Theresienstadt, he was 15 years old and little more than a skeleton. He joined a group of 700 orphans who were brought to England to form a new life.

He went on to become a successful businessman and a champion weightlifter - but his physical strength is matched by an extraordinary emotional fortitude. Not only has he made the most of every opportunity that came his way but he has spent his life campaigning to ensure those who died are properly commemorated.

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

Favourite track: Nessun Dorma by The Three Tenors Book: The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell Luxury: A bar with two discs for weight training.

Professor Raymond Tallis Mar 25, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the physician, philosopher, novelist and poet Professor Raymond Tallis. His specialism is the care of elderly patients - it's an area that he combines with his philosophical interest in considering what it is that makes humans unique - all part, as he says, of 'unpacking the miracle of everyday life'.

He was one of five children brought up in modest circumstances in Liverpool. A bright child, he studied at Oxford and then St Thomas' Hospital although he acknowledges that his father was always disappointed that he had become a doctor - thinking it rather a shabby profession compared to his own preference for mathematics. Throughout much of his working life he rose before dawn in order to squeeze in time for his writing before he started his clinical work and in 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in recognition of his contribution to medical research.

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

Favourite track: The first movement of String Quintet in C Major by Franz Schubert Book: Being and Time by Martin Heidegger Luxury: A video of a day in the life of his family.

Jo Brand Mar 18, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the stand-up comedian Jo Brand. From the word go she always anticipated she would be heckled about her weight and appearance. While most people would run a mile at the thought of standing in front of a rowdy, aggressive and largely drunk audience, she says that the worst that can happen is humiliation - and she adds that as a woman, she was already equipped to deal with this, because people felt free to comment disparagingly on her appearance in everyday life.

Her first career was as a psychiatric nurse - and for several years she would spend the day working in a psychiatric unit before appearing at a comedy club in the evening. Both careers demand an ability to be calm in extreme situations and to display a confidence that is often not felt. Her extreme act meant that for many years she was labelled a man-hating feminist - but she confounded critics by getting married and having two children.

Elements of this programme may offend some listeners.

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

Favourite track: Oh England, My Lionheart by Kate Bush Book: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Luxury: A church organ.

Andy Kershaw Mar 11, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster and journalist Andy Kershaw. His career to date is as distinctive as his delivery - he combines an evangelical enthusiasm for world music with a fascination for reporting from the planet's most unstable places. He says he is happiest when marinated in mosquito repellent and living out of a rucksack - and although he is best known for unearthing unfamiliar tunes and bringing them to a wider audience it is his current affairs reporting that has brought him the greatest acclaim.

Rwanda, Burundi and Haiti are among the 81 countries he has visited; his front line dispatches vividly conveying the true horror of conflict. His reporting and his music broadcasts have won him many, many awards and both careers are, he says, the result of his insatiable nosiness.

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

Favourite track: Hupenyu Hwangu by Bhundu Boys Book: The collected works by Ryszard Kapuscinski Luxury: Lots of toilet roll.

JP Donleavy Mar 04, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer J P Donleavy. The author of a dozen novels as well as numerous plays and short stories, he remains best known for his first novel, The Ginger Man, which is widely regarded as a modern classic. Born in 1926 and raised in New York, J P Donleavy was the son of Irish immigrant parents. They told him little of Irish culture when he was growing up but, after the war, he moved to Dublin to take up a place at Trinity College. He was already a skilled boxer when he arrived in Ireland and found that street-fighting was almost a form of public entertainment in the city - and one which he excelled in. Despite Trinity's stature, his student life revolved around drinking, partying, writing and painting. He became friends with Brendan Behan and the legendary Irish writer became the first person to read the completed script of The Ginger Man.

Although The Ginger Man was banned in Ireland and expurgated in Britain and America it became a word-of-mouth success. But its publication plunged J P Donleavy into a legal battle that took 20 years to resolve. It was a legal struggle, though, that was worth fighting for - for the past 50 years it has never been out of print.

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

Favourite track: 2nd movement of Emperor Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: 1972 Social Registry of New York Luxury: His own long-handled spoon to make dressings.

Andrew Neil Feb 25, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the journalist Andrew Neil. For 11 years he was editor of The Sunday Times. Under him, the paper broke the story of Israel's nuclear capabilities, revealed the Queen's dismay at the tone of Margaret Thatcher's administration and shone a bright light onto the difficulties of Princess Diana and Prince Charles's marriage. But as well as reporting the news, the paper made headlines too - Andrew Neil steered The Sunday Times through its move to Wapping and the bitter and often violent dispute that followed.

Much has been made of his rise to be a figure at the heart of the establishment. A grammar school boy who went on to study at Glasgow University, he threw himself into university life; he edited the student newspaper, was a keen young debater and chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students. It seemed as if he was destined for a life in politics - but he decided he wanted to live a little first and then found that while he revelled in the political debate, the life of an MP was not for him. He is now Editor in Chief at Press Holdings and an established and authoritative political broadcaster.

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

Favourite track: First Movement of Violin Concerto in D Major by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Book: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith Luxury: Wind-up radio.

Grayson Perry Feb 18, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the artist Grayson Perry. For more than 20 years his work was broadly unknown outside the narrow confines of the art world. But in 2003 he became a household name after a collection of his exquisitely ornate pots won him art's most prestigious award, the Turner Prize. He's described as 'the hottest potter in the world' but newspaper headlines describing his success focused at least as much on his clothes as his art - when he collected the prize he wore a lilac party dress with a bow in his hair.

He started dressing in his sister's clothes when he was a child - initially as part of his imaginative games and then for an erotic thrill. In part, women's clothes represented the tender emotions he was too scared to show in his repressive and sometimes frightening family home. Now, they're a way of controlling how people see him, what kind of attention he attracts and, if nothing else, they're a unique selling point. He acknowledges the debt he owes to his profession; only the arts would tolerate, he says, a transvestite potter from Essex.

Favourite track: Prophecies by Philip Glass Book: An art book on Gothic and Renaissance altar pieces Luxury: Loads of really good pens and paper

Paul Abbott Feb 11, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the screen writer Paul Abbott. He has written some of the most controversial and successful television programmes of the past decade. Shameless, Clocking Off and State of Play all flowed from his pen and have won him bags of awards.

But he was driven to write as a response to the chaotic and traumatic childhood he'd suffered. One of eight children, both parents had left the family home by the time he was 11, leaving his older sister to bring them up. They had a near-feral existence, and lived, says Paul, like rats. At 15 he attempted suicide and ended up in a psychiatric ward. After that, without wanting to or really being aware it was happening, he wrote as a way of letting out the rage he felt inside him.

He was quickly able to turn this writing into short stories, radio plays and film scripts and to sell them. Now he is credited with making television the 'new National Theatre'. But it's not his greatest achievement - he is proudest of his successful marriage to Saskia, his wife of eighteen years, and of their two children.

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

Favourite track: Town Called Malice by The Jam Book: Complete Works by Arthur Miller Luxury: Writing pad and pencils.

Neil Tennant Feb 04, 2007

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the singer and songwriter Neil Tennant. He is best known as one half of The Pet Shop Boys which, over the past 20 years, has been one of Britain's most successful and popular bands, noted for combining dance music with witty lyrics and delivering them in a uniquely English style. As a teenager growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne, he felt himself to be an outsider at school, but found friends in an amateur theatre company. Yet he always felt his life would be different to theirs and used to tell them that he would become a celebrated pop star.

But Neil was 30 when he finally left his day job as a writer for Smash Hits magazine to pursue the musical interests that had dominated his life since he was a teenager. By that time, he was anxious that he had missed the boat. Now, as well as continuing to release records with The Pet Shop Boys, he has branched out into other forms of composition, writing a live score for the film Battleship Potemkin, a West End musical and being involved in collaborations with Robbie Williams and the Scissor Sisters, among many others.

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

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