Desert Island Discs
Episodes
Billy Connolly
18 Nov 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is the comedian and actor, Billy Connolly. His one-man shows continue to pack venues on both sides of th...
Simon Schama
02 Sep 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the historian Simon Schama. Books such as The Embarrassment of Riches, Landscape and Memory and Citizens have won S...
Lord Roll
26 Aug 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Lord Roll.Now in his 90s, Eric Roll is enjoying his third career as an investment banker. As a young man he was a t...
Bruce Fogle
19 Aug 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the vet Bruce Fogle. His interest in the relationship between pets and their owners has turned Bruce Fogle into a b...
Joss Ackland
12 Aug 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is actor Joss Ackland.Favourite track: My Cup Runneth Over by Mary Martin and Robert Preston Book: The Diary of Samuel Pepys by ...
Lord Deedes
05 Aug 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Lord Deedes. In a journalistic career spanning 70 years, Bill Deedes has witnessed and written about some of the mo...
Claudia Roden
29 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the award-winning cookery writer Claudia Roden whose Book of Middle Eastern Food revolutionised Western attitudes t...
Cormac Murphy O'Connor
22 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy O'Connor.Favourite track: Praise to the Holiest by Edward Elgar Book: Lifelines by S...
Martin Bell
15 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is Martin Bell, who, after a distinguished career as a BBC foreign correspondent, became the Independent MP for Tatton...
Peggy Seeger
08 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is folk singer-songwriter Peggy Seeger.Favourite track: The Air from Suite No 3 in D Major by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: A Scot...
Sir Stanley Kalms
01 Jul 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the businessman, Sir Stanley Kalms. Over the last fifty years he's turned Dixons, the small photographic studio his...
Sir Harry Kroto
24 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is chemist Sir Harry Kroto.Favourite track: 3rd Movement of Symphony No4 in G Major by Gustav Mahler Book: Quantum Electro Dyna...
Frank McCourt
17 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is Pulitzer prize-winning writer Frank McCourt.Favourite track: The Kyrie from St Cecilia Mass by Charles Gounod Book: Oxford An...
Sir Kyffin Williams
10 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the Welsh painter, Sir Kyffin Williams. It was only when he was invalided out of the army because of his epilepsy t...
Sir Thomas Allen
03 Jun 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is opera singer Sir Thomas Allen.Favourite track: Act 3 of Meistersinger von Nurnberg by Richard Wagner Book: Under the Greenwoo...
Courtney Pine
27 May 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine.Favourite track: Guiltiness by Bob Marley and the Whalers Book: Beneath the Underdog by Charle...
Sir Timothy Clifford
20 May 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is National Galleries of Scotland Director Sir Timothy Clifford.Favourite track: La Ci Darem La Mano in Act 1 of Don Giovanni by...
Sir John Sulston
13 May 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is biologist Sir John Sulston.Favourite track: String Quartet in B flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Oxford Anthology of ...
Margaret Drabble
06 May 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is writer Margaret Drabble.Favourite track: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth - (from Messiah) by George Frideric Handel Book: Old ...
Tasmin Little
29 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is violinist Tasmin Little.Favourite track: Daphnis & Chloe by Maurice Ravel Book: Harry Potter book by J K Rowling or Littl...
Chris Tarrant
22 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is broadcaster Chris Tarrant.Favourite track: Tequila Sunrise by Eagles Book: The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris Luxury:...
Ronald Blythe
15 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Admired as a keen observer and chronicler of rural life, Ronald Bythe is perhaps best known for his 'oral histories' - Akenfield: Portrait of an Engli...
Tanni Grey Thompson
08 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the paralympic athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson. Tanni Grey-Thompson has won medals in four Paralympic Games: when she w...
Sir Alec Broers
01 Apr 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Sir Alec Broers. As a professor of electrical engineering at th...
Shirley Hughes
25 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the children's author and illustrator, Shirley Hughes. The many characters Shirley Hughes has created - such as Alf...
Professor Peter Vanezis
18 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs is the Regius Professor of Foresenic Medicine and Science at the University of Glasgow, Peter Vanezis. Pr...
Henry Sandon
11 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is broadcaster and porcelain expert Henry Sandon.Favourite track: Salutation from Gerald Finzi 'Dies Natalis' by Gerald Finzi Bo...
John Lill
04 Mar 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is pianist John Lill.Record: Beethoven's String Quartet No.14 in C Sharp Book: Huge Tome on fauna and flora Luxury: Solar-power...
Charlie Watts
25 Feb 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts.Favourite track: Dance of the Coachmen & Grooms -from 4th by Igor Stravinsky Book: C...
Professor Sir Richard Doll
18 Feb 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is epidemiologist Professor Sir Richard Doll.Favourite track: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin Book: Oxford Textbook of Medic...
Griff Rhys Jones
11 Feb 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is actor and writer Griff Rhys Jones.Favourite track: Un Di Felice from Act One of La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi Book: The Pickw...
Sir John Mortimer
04 Feb 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is writer and barrister Sir John Mortimer.Favourite track: Dio, Che Nell'alma Infondere from Act Two by Giuseppe Verdi Book: Oxf...
Terry O'Neill
28 Jan 2001
Contributed by Lukas
For forty years, the photographer Terry 0'Neill has been capturing the rich and famous on film - from Sir Laurence Olivier and Mick Jagger to Brigitte...
Marguerite Patten
21 Jan 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is the cookery writer Marguerite Patten. Known as the 'doyenne of British cookery', Marguerite Patten ha...
George MacDonald Fraser
14 Jan 2001
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the writer George MacDonald Fraser. When George MacDonald Fraser decided to write about Flashman, the well-known bu...
Marquess Of Bath
07 Jan 2001
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is the owner of Longleat, the Marquess Of Bath.Favourite track: The Ode to Joy (Symphony No 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Com...
Stephen Sondheim
31 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is composer Stephen Sondheim.Favourite track: Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess? by George Gershwin Book: The collected works by E B W...
Norman Painting
26 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway for this special edition of Desert Island Discs is Norman Painting, who has played Phil Archer in The Archers ever since its fir...
Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell
24 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the astrophysicist Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Jocelyn Bell Burnell was only twenty-four when she made the disc...
Richard Briers
17 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is actor Richard Briers.Favourite track: The Cuckoo and the Nightingale by George Frideric Handel Book: Great Expectations by Ch...
Tim Smit
10 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is Tim Smit, the co-founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall. Before Tim Smit thought of building the largest greenhous...
Tina Brown
03 Dec 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is the editor of Talk magazine, Tina Brown. Her reputation as a formidable magazine editor spans both si...
Albie Sachs
26 Nov 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is judge Albie Sachs. The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, his account of being placed in solitary confinement by the South ...
Des Lynam
19 Nov 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is sports presenter Des Lynam.Favourite track: In Party mood by West End Celebrity Orchestra Book: Encyclopaedia of Natural Medi...
J K Rowling
05 Nov 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is the writer and creator of Harry Potter J K Rowling.Favourite track: First movement-Violin Concerto in D Major by Pyotr Ilyich...
Ronald Harwood
27 Aug 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer Ronald Harwood. At the age of 17 Ronald Harwood left his home in South Africa and set sail for England, ...
Christopher Lloyd
20 Aug 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the gardener and writer Christopher Lloyd. Well known for his forthright opinions, Christopher Lloyd has tended his...
Robert Swan
13 Aug 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the explorer and environmentalist, Robert Swan. When he was a boy Robert Swan became fascinated by Scott's attempt ...
Sir Norman Wisdom
06 Aug 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor and comedian Sir Norman Wisdom. His cloth cap and tight-fitting jacket became his screen trademark in the...
General Sir Charles Guthrie
30 Jul 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs is General Sir Charles Guthrie.Favourite track: The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves by Giuseppe Ve...
Sir Roger Penrose
23 Jul 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the mathematician Sir Roger Penrose. His prize-winning work with Stephen Hawking on the nature of black holes broug...
Rt Hon Michael Portillo MP
16 Jul 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs is Michael Portillo.Favourite track: Viene la Sera by Giacomo Puccini Book: Proust: Time Regai...
Alan Parker
09 Jul 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Alan Parker. When Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone came out in 1975, it marked the beginning of a very successful and som...
Peter Nichols
02 Jul 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the playwright Peter Nichols. His award winning work, including Privates on Parade and A Day in The Death of Joe Eg...
Dr Max Perutz
25 Jun 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 de...
Donald Sutherland
18 Jun 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 lan...
Clive James
11 Jun 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Clive James. Author, critic and television personality, he is presently contemplating his fourth autobiography - tr...
Professor Géza Vermes
04 Jun 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 continue...
John Bird
28 May 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 an...
Dame Norma Major
21 May 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 wou...
Kathleen Turner
14 May 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 com...
Sir John Mills
07 May 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 busin...
Sir Peter Bonfield
30 Apr 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 co...
Leonard Slatkin
23 Apr 2000
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Sir Anthony Caro
16 Apr 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Sir Anthony Caro. Universally regarded as the 'grand old man of British sculpture', in the 1950s he had learnt from...
Claire Tomalin
09 Apr 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Claire Tomalin. A writer and literary editor, she is probably best known for a series of acclaimed biographies of w...
Harold Evans
02 Apr 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Harold Evans. One of the great campaigning journalists of all time, as editor of The Northern Echo in the 1960s he arg...
Adrian Noble
26 Mar 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is Adrian Noble. Now the Artistic Director of The Royal Shakespeare Company, he says he learnt a lot abo...
Al Alvarez
19 Mar 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Al Alvarez. In the late 1950s, as the influential poetry critic of the Observer, he favoured a style of writing which ...
Colin Montgomerie
12 Mar 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Colin Montgomerie.One of the biggest earners in the history of golf, he's ranked number three in the world. Despite ha...
Robert McCrum
05 Mar 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Robert McCrum. The author of six highly acclaimed novels and literary editor of the Observer, he describes how he woke...
Sheila Hancock
27 Feb 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sheila Hancock. She first became a household name in the 1960s in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade. Since then she has sta...
Michael Holroyd
20 Feb 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Holroyd. A respected biographer, as a boy, he sought refuge from an unhappy home in Maidenhead Public Library....
Professor Stuart Hall
13 Feb 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is Professor Stuart Hall. Nearly 10 years after he came to England from Jamaica in 1951, he helped found...
Simon Callow
06 Feb 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Simon Callow. He impressed the theatre world when he played Mozart in Amadeus, and won our hearts as the genial Scot, ...
Peter Melchett
30 Jan 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Peter Melchett. The executive director of Greenpeace, he has recently hit the headlines for his active opposition to g...
Neil Jordan
23 Jan 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Neil Jordan. As a child he would cycle past Bram Stoker's house on his way to school, one of the reasons, perhaps, tha...
Ian McEwan
16 Jan 2000
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is Ian McEwan.A Booker Prize winner, he was once dubbed 'Ian Macabre' because of the dark nature of his ...
Dr Jane Goodall
09 Jan 2000
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Dr. Jane Goodall. She had no formal scientific qualifications when she first went to Africa to study the Gombe chimpan...
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
31 Dec 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. His musicals dominate London's West End, including Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Starlight E...
Michael Crawford
24 Dec 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Crawford. Renowned for his attention to detail, he has always performed his own stunts - whether roller-skatin...
Michael Nyman
19 Dec 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Nyman. Said to be the best-selling classical composer in Britain, as a child visiting the opera or concert hal...
Oz Clarke
12 Dec 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Oz Clarke. As a wine expert, he has sipped, slurped and spat his way through thousands of vintages from around the wor...
Sir Richard Sykes
05 Dec 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sir Richard Sykes. The chairman of Glaxo Welcome, as a boy he was not a natural scholar, until he went to work at the ...
Warren Mitchell
28 Nov 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Warren Mitchell. Arthur Miller praised his portrayal of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. His King Lear and Shylock...
Clarissa Dickson Wright
21 Nov 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Clarissa Dickson Wright.Born into a home where caviar was more common than fish paste, she has always been surrounded ...
William Gibson
19 Nov 1999
Contributed by Lukas
This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is William Gibson. Long before the existence of the Internet, he wrote about 'cyberspace', a boundless w...
Willard White
07 Nov 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Willard White.Teased as a child for his deep bass voice, it has made him one of the most popular opera stars today. Ha...
Ralph Fiennes
31 Oct 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Ralph Fiennes. His first Hollywood film role was as the Nazi concentration camp leader in Schindler's List, a part whi...
Rita Dove
22 Aug 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is the poet Rita Dove. The first African-American to become the US Poet Laureate, Rita Dove was brought up to believe tha...
Sir Roger Norrington
15 Aug 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is the conductor Sir Roger Norrington. Known for conducting music at a cracking pace, he argues that it's the way the gre...
Patricia Routledge
08 Aug 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's castaway is the actress Patricia Routledge.Once voted the nation's favourite actress for her television roles as Hyacinth Bucket and Hett...
Rick Stein
01 Aug 1999
Contributed by Lukas
The castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is Rick Stein. When the police closed his discotheque down because of too many fights on a Saturday ni...
Rod Steiger
25 Jul 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Rod Steiger. He talks about The Method, Marlon Brando and the depression which dogged him for nearly a decade. And he ...
Martin Pipe
18 Jul 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Martin Pipe. He has turned horse training into a science. His animals have the choice of a swimming pool, indoor cante...
Paddy Moloney
11 Jul 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Paddy Moloney. As the founder of the Chieftains he has taken Irish folk music around the world. No purist, some of his...
Igor Aleksander
04 Jul 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Profesor Igor Aleksander. He has been researching artificial conciousness for over 30 years. His first machine, Wisard...
Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe MP
27 Jun 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is the Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe. Since the last election she has used her free time to write a novel, but has...
James Dyson
20 Jun 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is James Dyson. Today he's one of the richest men in Britain, but he began with an idea, a piece of cardboard and some st...
John Barry
13 Jun 1999
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lawley's guest this week is the film composer John Barry. The Pope is said to adore his soundtrack to Dances with Wolves. Although he's probably b...