Desert Island Discs

Lauren Laverne talks to Dr Nicola Fox in a programme first broadcast in 2023.

Nicky was born in Hitchin in Hertfordshire and her father introduced her to the wonders of space when she was just a few months old. In 1969 he lifted her out of her cot to watch the television coverage of the Apollo 11 mission when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Nicky’s enduring fascination with the cosmos led her to study physics at Imperial College in London.

After completing her PhD she took up a post-doctoral fellowship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland. In 2010 she became the project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, humanity’s first mission to a star, which launched in 2018 and is still flying through the sun’s atmosphere collecting data. Recently she oversaw the Osiris-Rex mission which brought back the first asteroid samples from deep space.

In 2021 Nicky was awarded the American Astronautical Society’s Carl Sagan Memorial Award for her leadership in the field of Heliophysics.

DISC ONE: The Best – Tina Turner

BOOK CHOICE: Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

Presenter Lauren Laverne

Steven Spielberg is the most successful director of his generation and the highest-grossing director of all time: his films have taken more than $10 billion worldwide. From Jaws to E.T. and Jurassic Park to Schindler’s List, his storytelling has captivated audiences around the world.

Steven grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he started making films as a young boy. In 1958 he made a short Western which won him a Boy Scout merit badge. He screened it to his entire Scout troop and their laughter and applause got him hooked on film making.

In 1971 he directed a television movie called Duel about a motorist who is pursued by a murderous truck driver. The film attracted good reviews from critics, and before the age of 30, Steven had directed his first global hit: Jaws grossed $471 million worldwide and is credited as heralding the arrival of the blockbuster era. He now says Jaws was ‘a free pass into my future.’

He has won three Academy Awards, and has received eight nominations for best director. The Fabelmans, his most recent film, is a semi-fictionalised account of his own coming of age, drawing on his film-making experiences as a child.

Steven is married to the actor Kate Capshaw, who starred in his film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and they have seven children.

DISC ONE: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Gene Pitney

BOOK CHOICE: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Presenter Lauren Laverne

Lesley Manville made her debut on the West End stage as a teenager in 1972, and since then has taken on a wide range of roles on stage and screen, including an Oscar-nominated performance in the film Phantom Thread.

She was born in Brighton and first enjoyed performing as a singer, winning competitions with her sister. When she was 15, she commuted daily to the Italia Conti stage school in London. Her first professional role was in a West End musical, and in 1974 she joined the cast of the ITV soap opera Emmerdale Farm. After two years she decided to leave, even though the work was well paid, and return to the stage.

At the Royal Court in London she appeared in some of the most critically acclaimed new plays of the 1980s including Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, and Andrea Dunbar’s Rita, Sue and Bob Too. She has also enjoyed a long collaboration with the film director Mike Leigh, memorably playing the alcoholic Mary in Another Year.

Her recent TV roles include starring as Cathy in the popular BBC Two sitcom Mum, for which she won a Royal Television Society Award in 2019. She has also played Princess Margaret in The Crown, including a scene in which Margaret shares her favourite records on a BBC radio progamme.

She was appointed a CBE in 2021.

DISC ONE: Over The Rainbow - Eva Cassidy

Presenter Lauren Laverne

This is an extended version of a programme first broadcast on Sunday 28 May 2023.

Ronnie O’Sullivan OBE is currently ranked the number one snooker player in the world, and is widely regarded as one of the finest players in the history of the sport.

He has won the Masters a record seven times and he jointly holds the record for winning the World Snooker Championship seven times. Since 1997 he has held the world record for the fastest 147 break, leading to his nickname 'the Rocket'.

Ronnie grew up in Essex and his father gave him his first snooker cue when he was seven. He took to the game immediately: he was playing on a full size snooker table when he was just eight, and two years later he was beating adult players. By the age of 12, he was winning cash prizes in local tournaments, and was soon earning more than his teachers.

Ronnie turned professional when he was 16, and quickly established himself as a star player and a fans' favourite - but he has also made headlines away from the snooker table, with accounts of his depression and struggles with alcohol and drugs. For many years he has kept his physical and mental health in check through his passion for running.

He received an OBE in 2016 for services to snooker.

DISC ONE: Lose Yourself - Eminem

BOOK CHOICE: Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

Presenter Lauren Laverne

Steven Knight CBE is a screenwriter, producer, and director for film and television.

DISC ONE: I Want You - Bob Dylan

BOOK CHOICE: The Greek Myths by Robert Graves

Mark Knopfler OBE is one of the UK’s most successful rock musicians and composers. He co-founded the band Dire Straits and their album Brothers in Arms is one of the bestselling albums of all time with 30 million copies sold. Alongside the many successes of Dire Straits, Mark has also composed hit songs for other artists like Private Dancer for Tina Turner and many soundtracks including Local Hero which features the perennial favourite Going Home.

He first worked as a journalist on the Yorkshire Evening Post and was briefly an English lecturer in Essex before moving to a flat in Deptford with his brother and John Illsey. Dire Straits was born and became one of the UK’s most successful bands before Mark called time in 1995 and pursued his own solo career.

In recent years, Mark invested some of his money to build one of the UK’s best recording studios to record his own music in alongside being a destination for other artists.

He lives in London with his wife and still visits his studio most days to make music.

DISC ONE: Ol’ Man River - Ray Charles

BOOK CHOICE: The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

Presenter Lauren Laverne

Sarah Raven is one of Britain’s best known gardeners. Since her debut book, The Cutting Garden in 1996 she has written for national newspapers and magazines and shared her gardening knowledge as a broadcaster.

Sarah’s love for gardening started with her family. Her father John was a Classics scholar at Cambridge and a keen amateur botanist and her mother Faith introduced Sarah to the joys of cutting and arranging flowers.

Following her father’s death when she was just seventeen, Sarah read History at the University of Edinburgh before deciding to pursue a career as a doctor. It was whilst she was on maternity leave from her medical training that Sarah began to cultivate her own garden which led to her first book, The Cutting Garden.

After the success of her first book, Sarah set up her eponymous business which has evolved from a kitchen table start-up to successful global brand. Sarah continues to write, her latest book, A Year Full of Pots was published earlier this year.

Sarah lives in East Sussex with her husband, the writer Adam Nicholson. She has three stepsons and two daughters.

DISC ONE: See My Baby Jive - Wizzard

Luxury: An ever-cleaning linen sheet bed with a hot (and cold) water bottle

Presenter: Lauren Laverne

The writer David Nicholls is best known for his 2009 novel One Day which has sold 6 million copies, been made into a film and a Netflix series which reached the top 10 in 89 countries. He’s written six novels and his work as a screenwriter has won him a BAFTA and an Emmy nomination.

He was born in 1966 and studied Drama and English Literature at Bristol University. This partly inspired his novel Starter for Ten. After university he spent one year in New York studying acting before returning to the UK to try and forge a career as an actor. He spent three years at the National Theatre but was mostly an understudy which inspired his novel Understudy.

After a few years, David left acting and pursued a writing career and had success as a TV screen writer. Alongside his award-winning career as a TV writer he has won many prizes for his novels.

David lives in London with his partner, Hannah and their two children.

Presenter Lauren Laverne

DISC ONE: I Say a Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin

Errollyn Wallen is one of the world’s most performed living composers. Her work, which includes 22 operas, orchestral, chamber and vocal works, was played at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in 2012 and at Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. She was the first black woman to have a piece featured in the BBC Proms and the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music for her body of work.

Errollyn was born in Belize in Central America and was brought up in North London. The passion for music came early to her - as a baby she sang in her cot - and later she enjoyed free music lessons at her local primary school. She fell in love with the piano at five and went on to have formal lessons four years later.

She studied music and dance at Goldsmith’s, University of London and took a Master’s in composition at King’s College London. After working as a session musician, Errollyn formed her own band Ensemble X whose motto is “we don’t break down barriers in music…we don’t see any”. In 1990 she composed a tribute to Nelson Mandela to mark his release from prison.

In 2020 she was awarded a CBE for services to music in The Queen’s New Year’s Honours.

Errollyn lives and works in a lighthouse at Strathy Point in the north of Scotland.

DISC ONE: Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, 4th Movement: Allegro Con Brio. Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and performed by André Previn (piano) with the London Symphony Orchestra

BOOK CHOICE: A collection of Bach sheet music

Presenter Lauren Laverne

Rob Delaney is a comedian, writer and actor who is best known for the television series Catastrophe, which he co-wrote and co-starred in alongside Sharon Horgan. He has also appeared in Hollywood blockbusters including Deadpool and Mission Impossible.

Rob was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Marblehead on the north shore. He studied for a degree in Musical Theatre at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and began writing comedy material after he graduated. In 2014, he moved to London to co-write and shoot the first series of Catastrophe and has been in the UK ever since. The series won Rob and Sharon a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society Award for comedy writing.

In 2016 Rob’s one-year-old son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour and after undergoing surgery and intense treatment Henry died in 2018. In the throes of his grief Rob wrote his best-selling book A Heart That Works which was a tribute to his son, his family and the NHS.

Rob lives in north London with his wife and three sons.

DISC ONE: Galician Overture - The Chieftains

Presenter Lauren Laverne