Desert Island Discs

By BBC Radio 4

Personal Journals Society & Culture

What's Desert Island Discs about?

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

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Melanie C

02.23.2020

Melanie Chisholm - known as Melanie C - is a singer and songwriter who found global fame as one fifth of the Spice Girls, the most commercially successful female group ever. Melanie was one of 400 other hopefuls who answered ...

Desert Island Discs episodes:

02.23.2020 Melanie C Melanie Chisholm - known as Melanie C - is a singer and songwriter who found global fame as one fifth of the Spice Girls, the most commercially successful female group ever. Melanie was one of 400 other hopefuls who answered ...
02.16.2020 Ian Wright, former footballer and broadcaster Ian Wright is a former professional footballer and now a football pundit on TV and radio. He began his career at Crystal Palace before moving to Arsenal where he became their highest goal scorer of all time, a record only ...
02.09.2020 Zoe Ball, broadcaster Zoe Ball is a radio and television presenter. She became the first woman to present the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 1997, and then the first woman to present the Radio 2 Breakfast Show in 2019. Zoe grew up ...
02.02.2020 Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge Sonita Alleyne is the Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, the first woman to hold the post and - more significantly - the first black master of any Oxbridge college. In her previous career in the media, she was the co-founder ...
01.26.2020 Anne Enright, writer Anne Enright won the Booker Prize for her fourth novel, The Gathering, in 2007, and was appointed the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction in 2015. She has written seven novels, two collections of short stories and a book of essays ...
01.19.2020 Dame Sue Campbell, Director Women's Football at the FA Dame Sue Campbell is the Director of Women’s Football at the Football Association. The women’s game has become increasingly popular recently and last year the England team - the Lionesses - made it to the World Cup semi-finals. Born in ...
01.12.2020 Michael Lewis, writer Michael Lewis is a best-selling non-fiction writer and journalist. He initially worked for an investment bank, and his experiences of Wall Street excess in the 1980s informed his acclaimed first book, Liar’s Poker. Three of his later books – Moneyball, ...
01.09.2020 Rupert Everett, actor Rupert Everett is an actor, writer and director whose breakthrough came in 1981 when he was cast as a gay schoolboy in Another Country, Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film. Rupert later starred in Dance with a Stranger before making ...
12.22.2019 Stephen Merchant, writer, comedian and actor Stephen Merchant first came to fame with the TV sitcom The Office, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Ricky Gervais. He continued to work with Gervais on the series Extras, Life is Short and An Idiot Abroad. His comedy hero ...
12.15.2019 Heidi Thomas, screenwriter Heidi Thomas is a screenwriter and playwright best known for Call the Midwife. The BBC TV series, which began in 2012, was originally a six part adaptation of a trilogy of memoirs by Jennifer Worth, recalling her experiences as a ...
12.08.2019 Professor Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience Professor Russell Foster is head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford, professor of circadian neuroscience and the director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. An expert in sleep, he describes it as 'the single ...
12.01.2019 Asif Kapadia, film director Asif Kapadia is an Academy Award-winning film director, renowned for his documentaries about the musician Amy Winehouse, the Brazilian motor racing star Ayrton Senna, and the Argentinian footballer, Diego Maradona. Born in 1972, Asif is the youngest of five children. ...
11.24.2019 Isabella Tree, writer and conservationist Isabella Tree is a conservationist and writer of the award-winning book Wilding: the Return of Nature to a British Farm, which tells the story of rewilding a 3,500 acre farm estate in Sussex, which she oversaw with her husband Charlie. ...
11.17.2019 Stephen Graham, actor Stephen Graham is an actor, whose credits include key roles in films including This is England and The Irishman, and in TV dramas such as Boardwalk Empire and Line of Duty. Stephen was born in Kirkby just outside Liverpool in ...
11.13.2019 Lauren Laverne picks some of her favourite episodes Hear stories & track choices from castaways including Len Goodman, Maya Angelou and Stephen Hawking.
11.10.2019 Kimberley Motley, lawyer Kimberley Motley is an American attorney and the first foreign lawyer to practise in Afghanistan. Born in 1975 to an African-American father and a North Korean mother, she grew up in a poor neighbourhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where hers was ...
11.03.2019 Russell T Davies, screenwriter Russell T Davies is one of the U.K.’s most successful television writers. He spent his teenage years learning his dramatic craft with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre, and his career in television began in the children’s department at the BBC. ...
10.27.2019 Wendell Pierce, actor Wendell Pierce is an American actor best known for his role as Bunk Moreland in the television series The Wire. Since the series ended in 2008, he has made around 40 film and television appearances, including Treme, Selma and the ...
10.20.2019 Dame Glenys Stacey, former Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey has spent 40 years in public service, including high profile work as a regulator in key areas of national life. She has just stepped down after her five year term as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation ...
10.14.2019 Baroness Arminka Helić Baroness Arminka Helić is credited with persuading William Hague, the former foreign secretary, and the actor and director Angelina Jolie to launch the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) to campaign against rape as a weapon of war. Born ...
10.06.2019 Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer & lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda is best known as the composer, lyricist and original star of the multi-award-winning Broadway musical, Hamilton. It won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, 11 Tony Awards and Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album. The London production won ...
09.29.2019 Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, firefighter Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is the Chief Fire Officer for West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. She is one of the most senior women in the Fire and Rescue Service in the UK. After spending some time living on the streets ...
09.22.2019 Thom Yorke, musician Thom Yorke has been the front man of Radiohead, one of Britain’s most successful British bands, for 34 years. They have sold over 30 million albums worldwide, and have won three Grammys and four Ivor Novello awards. Their debut studio ...
09.15.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Lemn Sissay Another chance to hear Lemn Sissay's Desert Island Discs from October 2015. Interviewed by Kirsty Young. As a poet, writer and playwright, much of his work tells the story of his search for his birth parents. Born to a young ...
09.08.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Judith Kerr Another chance to hear Judith Kerr, interviewed by Sue Lawley. From February 2004. A writer and illustrator known to generations of children both for her charming Mog picture-books and for her careful rendering of the life of a Jewish child ...
09.01.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Daniel Kahneman Another chance to hear Daniel Kaheneman, interviewed by Kirsty Young in August 2013. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most influential living psychologists, his many years of study have centred on how and why we make the decisions we ...
08.25.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Professor Monica Grady Another chance to hear Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University, interviewed by Kirsty Young in July 2015. Well-known in scientific circles, at NASA and the European Space Agency, she came to the attention of ...
08.18.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Freddie Flintoff One of the best players of his generation, he was part of the England team that won the Ashes in 2005, a year that marked his sporting coming of age. On the strength of that historic victory he was awarded ...
08.11.2019 Jo Fairley, businesswoman Jo Fairley is a businesswoman and writer. She co-founded the Green & Black’s chocolate company with Craig Sams, her husband, and has launched several other successful ventures since then. Jo did not enjoy school, left at 16 with six O-levels ...
08.04.2019 Sir Tim Waterstone, businessman Sir Tim Waterstone is the founder of the bookshop chain that bears his name. Born in May 1939, he was the youngest of three children. His father, who worked for a tea company all his life, served in the Royal ...
07.28.2019 Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer, England Dame Sally Davies is the outgoing Chief Medical Officer for England. She will take up her next post as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, later this year. She was born in Birmingham in 1949 to academic parents - her father ...
07.21.2019 John Cooper Clarke, poet John Cooper Clarke first achieved fame with his poetry during the punk rock era of the late 1970s. Born in Salford in 1949 to Hilda and George, he suffered from tuberculosis as a child and was sent to recuperate with ...
07.14.2019 Marcus Wareing, chef Marcus Wareing is a prize-winning chef, restaurateur, TV presenter and cookery book writer, who gained his first Michelin star at the age of just 26. He grew up in Southport, and by the age of 11 was helping out in ...
07.07.2019 Sue Biggs, DG Royal Horticultural Society Sue Biggs is the Director General of the Royal Horticultural Society. She’s been at the helm of the RHS since 2010 and during that time, its membership has grown to more than half a million people. The RHS is also ...
06.30.2019 Jared Diamond, academic and author Jared Diamond is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, although his interests and expertise range far wider, from physiology to ornithology, history to ecology and from anthropology to evolutionary biology. His 1997 book, Guns, Germs and ...
06.23.2019 Emily Eavis, festival organiser Emily Eavis is co-organiser of the Glastonbury Festival. Together with her husband and her father, she masterminds the booking of bands and oversees the setting up of what is the largest greenfield festival in the world. The site itself becomes ...
06.16.2019 Nitin Sawhney, musician, producer, composer Nitin Sawhney is a composer, musician and producer working in the worlds of music, film, video games, dance and theatre. He has released 10 studio albums, scored over 50 films and television programmes, and is known for his collaborations, with ...
06.09.2019 Professor Monica McWilliams, social scientist Professor Monica McWilliams is an academic, peace campaigner and former politician. In 1996, she was the co-founder of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party and was elected to a seat at the Multi-Party Peace Negotiations, which led to the ...
06.02.2019 Lubaina Himid, artist Lubaina Himid is a Turner Prize-winning artist, curator and Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. Lubaina was born in Zanzibar in 1954. Her mother was from Britain and her father was originally from the Comoros Islands. ...
05.26.2019 Derren Brown, illusionist Derren Brown, illusionist and mentalist, chooses the eight tracks, book and luxury he want to take with him if cast away to a desert island. BOOK CHOICE: Collected works of Carl Jung LUXURY: Leica Camera CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Goldberg Variations Presenter: ...
05.19.2019 Pat McGrath, makeup artist Pat McGrath is a renowned make-up artist. She works with the world’s top designers, photographers, editors and models, creating images for the pages of the world’s most glamorous magazines. She and her team also work at the most high-profile catwalk ...
05.12.2019 Louis Theroux Louis Theroux is a television documentary maker. He has received two BAFTAs and a Royal Television Society Award for his work which includes the series Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends and When Louis Met… Born in 1970, and brought up in ...
05.05.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Tracey Emin Another chance to hear artist Tracey Emin's Desert Island Discs, with Sue Lawley, first broadcast in November 2004. Tracey Emin is one of the most successful and controversial artists to emerge during the 1990s. Her work was championed early on ...
04.28.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell Another chance to hear Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell choose her Desert Island Discs, with Sue Lawley. First broadcast 24th December, 2000. Jocelyn Bell Burnell was only twenty-four when she made the discovery of a lifetime: As she was mapping ...
04.21.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Mary Berry Another chance to hear Mary Berry's Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young from 2012. Mary Berry is one of the UK's best-known and respected cookery writers. More than six million copies of her books have now been sold - not ...
04.14.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Ade Adepitan Another chance to hear Paralympian and broadcaster Ade Adepitan interviewed by Kirsty Young in 2012. When he's not stuck in a studio explaining the intricacies of Goalball he's reporting from the rainforests of Nicaragua or the middle of the Atlantic ...
04.07.2019 Classic Desert Island Discs: Ricky Gervais Another chance to listen to the comedian, Ricky Gervais speaking to Kirsty Young in 2007. In just twelve episodes, his show The Office changed the face of British television comedy. At its centre was the comic monster, David Brent, a ...
03.31.2019 Martin Freeman, actor Martin Freeman is a multi-award winning actor, best known for his roles as the lovable Tim in BBC Two’s The Office and as Dr Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes. He also played Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, ...
03.24.2019 Jacqueline de Rojas, President of techUK Lauren Laverne’s castaway this week is Jacqueline de Rojas, the President of techUK, the body that represents 900 companies in the technology sector. She is Chair of the Board of Digital Leaders, co-Chair of the Institute of Coding and sits ...
03.17.2019 Marlon James, writer Marlon James is a writer who won the Man Booker Prize in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings, a novel which centres on an attempt to assassinate Bob Marley. Marlon was the first Jamaican to win the Prize. ...

Older episodes

Desert Island Discs

What's Desert Island Discs about?

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Desert Island Discs episodes:

Melanie C

Ian Wright, former footballer and broadcaster

Zoe Ball, broadcaster

Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge

Anne Enright, writer

Dame Sue Campbell, Director Women's Football at the FA

Michael Lewis, writer

Rupert Everett, actor

Stephen Merchant, writer, comedian and actor

Heidi Thomas, screenwriter

Professor Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience

Asif Kapadia, film director

Isabella Tree, writer and conservationist

Stephen Graham, actor

Lauren Laverne picks some of her favourite episodes

Kimberley Motley, lawyer

Russell T Davies, screenwriter

Wendell Pierce, actor

Dame Glenys Stacey, former Chief Inspector of Probation

Baroness Arminka Helić

Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer & lyricist

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, firefighter

Thom Yorke, musician

Classic Desert Island Discs: Lemn Sissay

Classic Desert Island Discs: Judith Kerr

Classic Desert Island Discs: Daniel Kahneman

Classic Desert Island Discs: Professor Monica Grady

Classic Desert Island Discs: Freddie Flintoff

Jo Fairley, businesswoman

Sir Tim Waterstone, businessman

Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer, England

John Cooper Clarke, poet

Marcus Wareing, chef

Sue Biggs, DG Royal Horticultural Society

Jared Diamond, academic and author

Emily Eavis, festival organiser

Nitin Sawhney, musician, producer, composer

Professor Monica McWilliams, social scientist

Lubaina Himid, artist

Derren Brown, illusionist

Pat McGrath, makeup artist

Louis Theroux

Classic Desert Island Discs: Tracey Emin

Classic Desert Island Discs: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Classic Desert Island Discs: Mary Berry

Classic Desert Island Discs: Ade Adepitan

Classic Desert Island Discs: Ricky Gervais

Martin Freeman, actor

Jacqueline de Rojas, President of techUK

Marlon James, writer

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