Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000

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 Express. He traces a career which began more than 30 years ago when he teamed up with Tim Rice to write Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

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

Favourite track: Some Enchanted Evening by Rossano Brazzi

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Crawford. Renowned for his attention to detail, he has always performed his own stunts - whether roller-skating under moving lorries in Some Mothers Do Have 'Em, or walking the tightrope in the musical Barnum. A consumate professional, he admits to escaping from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from exhaustion, so the show could go on!

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

Favourite track: Gloria from Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach

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 hall his imagination would be caught by a particularly pleasing sequence of notes. Later, he was to use these as inspiration for his own compositions. A Purcell manuscript inspired his music for the The Draughtsman's Contract. Scottish folk songs the soundtrack to The Piano.

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

Favourite track: Farewell (Das Lied von der Erde (the song of the Earth)) by Gustav Mahler

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 world. Renowned for his enthusiasm for trying new flavours and varieties, his earliest memory is of drinking his mother's damson wine when he was just three years old. And it didn't put him off.

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

Favourite track: Thanks for the Memory by The Mitford Girls Original London Stage Cast

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 pathology laboratory of his local hospital. Understanding the application of science led him to become a research scientist at Glaxo Welcome. He describes how later the Board Room lured him away from the lab, and how he came to mastermind one of the most audacious take-overs in the city.

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

Favourite track: Second Movement from Cello Concerto in B Minor by Antonin Dvořák

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 won critical acclaim. But he will always be remembered for Alf Garnett, the bigoted, bully from Till Death Us Do Part. He 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: Marie Theres I Made A Vow from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss

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 by fine food. Yet she came to cooking as a profession late in life, having first practised as a barrister. Finding success on television, she has recently had to come to terms with the death of her co host Jennifer Paterson and being just One Fat Lady.

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

Favourite track: Rasputin by Boney M

This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is William Gibson. Long before the existence of the Internet, he wrote about 'cyberspace', a boundless world reached only through computers. External space travel, to the Moon and Mars, had become old hat. By creating internal space, he breathed new life into science fiction. 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: (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? by Nick Cave

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. Happy to sing Wagner or Gershwin, he's renowned for his ability to get under the skin of his roles, and audiences still remember how, as Porgy, he wept real tears at the loss of Bess.

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

Favourite track: Piano Concerto No 21 in C Major- Andante by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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 which, he says, had a profoundly disturbing effect on him. His latest project, playing the jaded hero Onegin, is the culmination of a long held desire to bring Pushkin's novel to the big screen.

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

Favourite track: Mir Ist So Wunderbar by Ludwig van Beethoven