Desert Island Discs - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

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:

Stephen King Nov 19, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the author Stephen King. He's written more than 40 novels, won 23 major awards and sold hundreds of millions of books worldwide. He is best known for his tales of small-town America corrupted by the supernatural and macabre; with novels such as The Shining, Misery, Salem's Lot and Carrie making him a household name.

His first success came with Carrie - at the time he was scraping a living as a teacher, living with his young family in a trailer and writing short stories to supplement his income. He threw the first draft of Carrie in the bin and it was his wife Tabitha who fished it out and urged him to finish it. But with success came drug and alcohol abuse - and again it was his wife who intervened and encouraged him to stop. He nearly gave up writing after a road accident in 1999 which nearly killed him. But, to the delight of his legions of fans, he took up his pen again and the stories keep on coming.

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

Favourite track: Desolation Row by Bob Dylan Book: Collected poetry by W H Auden Luxury: Water hammock

Lord Stevens Nov 17, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the former head of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Stevens. Although he was to become known as 'the policeman's policeman', it was not his first career choice - as a child he wanted to be a pilot but was told that his eyesight was not good enough for him to make it his career.

His first beat, more than forty years ago, was on Tottenham Court Road in London. He soon moved over to CID and earned the nickname 'Swifty Stevens' for his impressive arrest record. When he took over at the Met in 2000, it had just been branded 'institutionally racist' and the morale and reputation of the force was at rock bottom. He's credited with turning it around and regaining public confidence. Even in his retirement, he's continuing to head two major investigations - one into the circumstances around the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the second into football bungs.

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

Favourite track: Reach for the Sky by Central Band of the R.A.F. Book: Reach for the Sky: The Story of Douglas Bader by Paul Brickhill Luxury: Cellar of champagne

Humphrey Lyttelton Nov 05, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the veteran jazz musician and radio presenter Humphrey Lyttelton. To Radio 4 listeners, he's best known as Chairman Humph who has spent more than 30 years picking his bewildered way through the innuendo and mayhem of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

But his first love is jazz - as a child, he was always fascinated by music and when he was a teenager it was Louis Armstrong who inspired him to take up the trumpet. Fittingly, Armstrong went on to hail Humph as 'Britain's top trumpetman'. Now aged 85, Humph is still recording and touring with his band and says that he finds he's kept awake at night by new ideas for music they can play together.

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

Favourite track: That's My Home by Louis Armstrong Book: Collected works by James Thurber Luxury: A keyboard

Heston Blumenthal Oct 29, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the chef Heston Blumenthal. He is one of only three chefs working in Britain today to be awarded three Michelin stars and last year his restaurant, The Fat Duck, was named the best in the world by a panel of 5,000 food experts.

His speedy rise to the top of his profession is little short of extraordinary. He has only ever spent a week in a professional kitchen and taught himself classical French cookery. He became fascinated by the science of cooking and has become the Willy Wonka of modern cuisine - dishes he's created include mango and douglas fir puree, salmon poached with liquorice and, most famously, snail porridge. But he acknowledges his success has been largely due too to his wife's support and now wants to change the balance of his life towards spending more time with his young family.

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

Favourite track: Love has Finally Come at Last by Bobby Womack Book: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee Luxury: Japanese knives

Camila Batmanghelidjh Oct 22, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the children's campaigner Camila Batmanghelidjh. Camila Batmanghelidjh has devoted her life to the kind of children most people would cross the street to avoid - youngsters who are often violent, don't go to school and who are unfamiliar with a stable family life. More than a decade ago she took over a run of disused railway arches in South London to set up a centre offering food, advice, education and counselling. Now her outreach projects serve more than 11,000 children each year and, such is her success, she's feted by celebrities and courted by politicians.

The product of a wealthy Iranian family herself, she decided early on that her vocation lay in working with children and that this was a task she could not combine with motherhood. Last week she was named Woman of the Year in recognition of her ground-breaking work.

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

Favourite track: Redemption Song by Bob Marley Book: Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre Luxury: A yoyo

Robert Fisk Oct 15, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the journalist Robert Fisk. He is one of our most distinguished foreign correspondents and has spent his life covering conflicts around the world - the past 30 years immersed in the life and politics of the Middle East. He formed his ambition at a young age - he saw Hitchcock's film Foreign Correspondent when he was just 12 years old and was determined to join their ranks. War, too, was a strong influence - his father had fought on the Western Front and was haunted by his experiences. He insisted that young Robert should learn about the war and his first foreign holiday was a tour of the Somme.

He has become used to living in a war zone - he has escaped a kidnap attempt, survived an attack by Afghan refugees and risked his life to secure interviews of which other journalists dream. Perhaps his greatest scoop was securing a series of face-to-face interviews with Osama Bin Laden.

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

Favourite track: Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber Book: Le Mort D'Arthur by Thomas Mallory Luxury: A violin

Jane Horrocks Oct 08, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Jane Horrocks. She specialises in unconventional, complex roles - from the eccentric secretary Bubble in the cult sit-com Absolutely Fabulous to a bulimic teenager in Mike Leigh's film Life is Sweet. But the role that brought her the greatest public recognition and critical acclaim was Little Voice. Written especially for her, it told the story of a cripplingly shy girl who only finds liberation and expression when she takes on the voices of musical legends. Jane Horrocks's ability to sing like Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe, among others, was so convincing that the film's credits had to make it clear she had sung every note and not been dubbed by the originals.

The film had parallels with Jane's own life - as a shy school-girl, she too had discovered her facility for copying voices and would entertain family and friends with her portrayals of Shirley Bassey and Julie Andrews. She says that as soon as she found her gift she used it to win friends - and knew she had discovered her niche in life.

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

Favourite track: I Miss You by Björk Book: Jamie's Dinners by Jamie Oliver Luxury: The Essential Family Cookbook

Quentin Blake Oct 01, 2006

Show notes

Kirsty Young's first castaway is one of our most popular illustrators, Quentin Blake. His work is immediately recognisable and is full of energy, anarchy and joy. An award-winning author in his own right, he is best known for his long collaboration with the author Roald Dahl. In the same way that it is impossible to think of Alice in Wonderland without imagining Tenniel's solemn drawings, when one imagines Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach it is invariably Quentin Blake's pictures that spring to mind.

As a child growing up in the London suburbs he was self-contained, quiet and serious. Family friends remember that he didn't say much - but that he always loved drawing. His cartoons were first published in Punch when he was 16, making him one of its youngest ever contributors, but after graduating from Cambridge and training as a teacher, he decided his future lay not in one-off sketches for magazines, but in book illustration. He was named the first ever Children's Laureate in 1999 and in 2005 was awarded the CBE. He lives in London and continues to work towards the establishment of a museum celebrating the history and techniques of illustration.

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

Favourite track: String Quartet No 2 - Intimate Letters by Janácek Book: Collected Works by Charles Dickens Luxury: Arches watercolour paper

Dame Joan Plowright Aug 27, 2006

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress Joan Plowright.

Dame Joan Plowright is an actress who has been at the forefront of her profession since she first appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in London half a century ago. In those days she was identified with the new wave, appearing in plays by writers such as Arnold Wesker and John Osborne. She went on to make her name in more established roles - winning Actress Of The Year for her performance as Shaw's 'St Joan'. Through her marriage to Laurence Olivier, she became closely associated with his work at Chichester, and the foundation of the National Theatre. After his death, she added a career on screen to her theatre work. She was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Enchanted April and her latest film, Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont will be released later this year.

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

Favourite track: Piano Sonata in C Major- 1st Movement by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust Luxury: A piano

A A Gill Aug 20, 2006

Show notes

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the critic and columnist A A Gill. His witty, first-person articles have earned him a whole host of awards and a loyal following. But his life as a successful writer was preceded by more than a decade that was spent living in squalid squats, taking drugs and existing in an alcoholic haze. It was the unplanned intervention of a GP that made him face up to his alcoholism and seek treatment. It's now 21 years since he last had a drink and he has been given, he says, the chance to start again and live a second life.

He abandoned his early hopes of becoming an artist, for a while he ran cookery courses in his own home and, at the same time, he started writing. Despite suffering from dyslexia so severe that he has to dictate all his columns to copytakers he found his voice immediately - as soon as he began writing his articles, he says, he felt he had come home.

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

Favourite track: Love Song from Sanders of the River by Paul Robeson Book: Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake Luxury: My children's pillows

Related Podcasts