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.

4.5

798 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

John Cooper Clarke, poet

07.21.2019

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 ...

Desert Island Discs episodes:

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. ...
03.10.2019 Dame Esther Rantzen, broadcaster and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen is best known as the presenter of the long-running TV series That’s Life, which began on BBC One in 1973. She was both presenter and producer of the programme, which was hugely successful, regularly reaching 20 million ...
03.03.2019 Trevor Sorbie, hairdresser Trevor Sorbie is known as an innovative hairdresser and is the founder of the charity, MyNewHair. Born into a family of hairdressers – both his father and grandfather were barbers – he spent the first decade of his life in ...
02.24.2019 Margaret MacMillan, historian Professor Margaret MacMillan is a Canadian historian, author and broadcaster. In 2018 she delivered the Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4, in which she examined the tangled history of war and society. She was born in Toronto in 1943, and ...
02.17.2019 Ann Cleeves, writer Ann Cleeves is a crime writer best known for two series of novels, both of which have been adapted for television. Vera, for ITV, features her detective Vera Stanhope, and Shetland, for the BBC, focuses on DI Jimmy Perez, who ...
02.10.2019 Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Cressida Dick is Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She was born in 1960, the youngest child of two university professors. Her parents divorced when she was still at primary school and she and her older siblings grew up in Oxford. ...
02.03.2019 Bob Mortimer, comedian Bob Mortimer is a comedian best known for his work with his comedy partner Vic Reeves. For 30 years, he and Vic have appeared in numerous TV series together, including Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, Shooting Stars and The Smell ...
01.27.2019 Wendy Cope, poet Wendy Cope is one of England’s most popular and widely-read contemporary poets. Wendy was born in Erith, Kent. Her father was 29 years older than her mother and she was sent to boarding school at the age of seven. Although ...
01.20.2019 James Rebanks, Shepherd and Writer James Rebanks is a shepherd and the best-selling author of The Shepherd’s Life. Born in Cumbria in 1974, he grew up venerating his grandfather, who taught him what he needed to know in order to take over the family farm ...
01.13.2019 Ruth Jones, actor and writer Ruth Jones is an actor and writer. She co-created and starred in the award-winning TV comedy series Gavin and Stacey, and also wrote and took the title role in the comedy drama Stella, which ran for six series. She grew ...
01.06.2019 Jeremy Deller, artist. The Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller is perhaps best known for We’re Here Because We’re Here, a moving and powerful memorial to the Battle of the Somme, and The Battle of Orgreave – a re-enactment of the confrontation between police ...
12.23.2018 Alan Carr, comedian Alan Carr, comedian and chat show host, is known for his love of silliness, dressing up and camp daftness. His stand-up shows have filled arenas, and on TV he co-hosted the Friday Night Project and then his own show - ...
12.19.2018 Hella Pick, journalist As one of the Guardian’s first female foreign correspondents, Hella Pick reported on events that shaped the world in the second half of the 20th century, from Martin Luther King's civil rights activism to Watergate, the Gdansk shipyard strikes to ...
12.16.2018 Mariana Mazzucato, economist Professor Mariana Mazzucato is an economist, who focuses on value and innovation. Born in Italy, Mariana moved to America as a child, when her father accepted a post at Princeton University. She has lived in the UK for the last ...
12.09.2018 Gary Barlow, singer-songwriter Gary Barlow, musician and Take That lead singer, has written more than a dozen chart-topping songs, and has received six Ivor Novello awards including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Born in Cheshire in 1971, his interest in ...
12.02.2018 Tom Kerridge, chef Tom Kerridge is a chef, restaurateur and TV presenter. Tom made his name with his Buckinghamshire pub The Hand and Flowers, which he opened with his wife in 2005. It is the only British pub with two Michelin stars. Tom ...
11.25.2018 Kate Atkinson, novelist Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for her 1995 debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and has won the Costa Novel Award twice, for Life After Life in 2013 and for A God in ...
11.18.2018 Tracey Thorn, musican and writer Tracey Thorn, musician and writer, is best known as one half of the duo Everything but the Girl. Brought up in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire, she bought her first guitar, a black Les Paul copy, when she was 16 and her ...
11.04.2018 Vanley Burke, photographer Vanley Burke is a Jamaican-born photographer often described as the Godfather of Black British Photography. His body of work is regarded as the greatest photographic record of African Caribbean people in post-war Britain. He is motivated by a desire to ...
10.28.2018 Jacqueline Gold Jacqueline Gold is the CEO of the retail brands Ann Summers and Knickerbox. She joined the business at the age of 19 for work experience, and faced resistance because her father, David Gold, was the owner. By the time she ...
10.21.2018 Venki Ramakrishnan Venki Ramakrishnan is a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist. He is most renowned for his research into the atomic structure of the ribosome - a complex molecule in the cell which translates DNA into chains of amino acids that build proteins, ...
10.14.2018 Nile Rodgers Nile Rodgers is a Grammy-winning composer, musician, and producer. With his own band, Chic, he's been enticing people on to the dance floor since the mid-1970s with hits like Le Freak and Good Times. With over 200 production credits to ...
10.07.2018 Thea Musgrave Composer Thea Musgrave celebrated her 90th birthday this year, an event marked by celebrations and concerts around the world, including the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival. She has published more than 150 compositions, including major orchestral works and ...
09.30.2018 Tom Daley Tom Daley started diving aged seven and by the age of 14 was representing Great Britain at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He has won six British Championships, three European Championships and won the World Championships in 2009 and 2017. ...
09.23.2018 Henry Marsh Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon, who pioneered a technique of operating on the brain while the patient is under local anaesthetic. The procedure is now standard practice. He is also an acclaimed writer. He was born in 1950 in Oxford, ...
09.16.2018 Danielle de Niese Danielle de Niese is a soprano who has taken starring roles with leading opera companies around the world. She was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Sri Lankan parents, and at the age of eight she won a national TV talent ...
09.09.2018 Classic Desert Island Discs: Malorie Blackman Another chance to listen to the writer speaking to Kirsty Young in 2013. A prolific and multi-award winning author, Malorie Blackman has powered her way to success not just through talent but determination and perseverance. From the careers mistress who ...
09.02.2018 Classic Desert Island Discs: Dame Cicely Saunders Another chance to listen to the founder of the Hospice Movement speaking to Sue Lawley in 1995. Dame Cicely Saunders talks about her schooldays at Roedean, how she trained as a nurse and much later, as a doctor. When she ...
08.26.2018 Classic Desert Island Discs: Cilla Black Another chance to listen to the singer and television presenter speaking to Sue Lawley in 1988. Cilla Black reveals her three remaining burning ambitions in life: to make a number-one record, to become a grandmother and to be treated as ...
08.19.2018 Classic Desert Island Discs: Brian Redhead Another chance to listen to the journalist and broadcaster speaking to Michael Parkinson in 1986. Brian Redhead presented the Today programme for almost 20 years. He talks about his appearance on Children's Hour as a clarinetist, his early days as ...
08.12.2018 Classic Desert Island Discs: Sir Michael Tippett Another chance to listen to the composer speaking to Roy Plomley in 1985. Sir Michael Tippett is regarded as one of the foremost composers of the twentieth century. Other than a period as Director of Music at Morley College, he ...
08.05.2018 Pam Ayres Pam Ayres is a poet and broadcaster. Pam was born in the Vale of the White Horse and retains her characteristic Berkshire burr. She is the youngest of six children, and grew up in the company of her four brothers ...

Older episodes

Desert Island Discs

What's Desert Island Discs about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Desert Island Discs episodes:

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

Dame Esther Rantzen, broadcaster and campaigner

Trevor Sorbie, hairdresser

Margaret MacMillan, historian

Ann Cleeves, writer

Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

Bob Mortimer, comedian

Wendy Cope, poet

James Rebanks, Shepherd and Writer

Ruth Jones, actor and writer

Jeremy Deller, artist.

Alan Carr, comedian

Hella Pick, journalist

Mariana Mazzucato, economist

Gary Barlow, singer-songwriter

Tom Kerridge, chef

Kate Atkinson, novelist

Tracey Thorn, musican and writer

Vanley Burke, photographer

Jacqueline Gold

Venki Ramakrishnan

Nile Rodgers

Thea Musgrave

Tom Daley

Henry Marsh

Danielle de Niese

Classic Desert Island Discs: Malorie Blackman

Classic Desert Island Discs: Dame Cicely Saunders

Classic Desert Island Discs: Cilla Black

Classic Desert Island Discs: Brian Redhead

Classic Desert Island Discs: Sir Michael Tippett

Pam Ayres

Other shows like Desert Island Discs: