Desert Island Discs: Archive 1991-1996
246 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 27 years ago - ★★★★★ - 62 ratingsGuests are invited to choose the eight records they would take to a desert island
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Episodes
Martin Amis
December 29, 1996 11:15 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBSue Lawley's guest on Desert Island Discs today is the writer Martin Amis. He describes his books as comedies, but, like London Fields and Other People, they are frequently dark and disturbing. He says that he has no choice as to the subjects of his books. "They come from nowhere and feel like a little gulp in your digestive system". Although he admits that he's sometimes appalled by the characters he creates, writing itself is something he loves. [Taken from the original programme materi...
Jennifer Saunders
December 22, 1996 11:15 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBThe castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Absolutely Fabulous! Jennifer Saunders began "doing funny things with props" in the early 1980s. With her stage partner Dawn French, she toured the clubs and comedy venues making people laugh with acts like The Menopause Sisters. As part of the Comic Strip performers, she burst onto our TV screens as one of the famous, if rather manic, five. Now through her characters Edina and Patsy, she has created a comedy classic. But as she tells Sue Law...
Ian Dury
December 15, 1996 11:15 - 34 minutes - 31.3 MBToday's castaway on Desert Island Discs confused the rock critics in the late 1970s with songs like Sweet Gene Vincent, Reasons to be Cheerful and outraged the BBC with Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Ian Dury and the Blockheads were part vaudeville act and part punk rock band. In his songs, he created the characters Clevor Trever and Billericay Dickie and so invented the original Essex Man. He's also a painter and an actor, but as he reveals to Sue Lawley, he's writing songs again and hope...
Robert Winston
December 08, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35 MBOn Desert Island Discs today the castaway is Robert Winston. As Professor of Fertility Studies at Hammersmith Hospital in London, he has been at the forefront of medical developments in his field. He pioneered the screening of embryos for genetic defects and has frequently made the headlines with his views that all women, including widows, lesbians and those who are HIV positive, should be considered for treatment. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of De...
Bruce Forsyth
December 01, 1996 11:15 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBThis week's castaway on Desert Island Discs may be nearing 70, but he knows how to play The Generation Game. Bruce Forsyth is one of the great all-rounders - television host, pianist, dancer and comedian. He began performing as a child, tap-dancing on the roof of his father's lock-up garages. But, as he tells Sue Lawley, his big night came when he was asked to compere Sunday Night at the Palladium. He has spent more than five decades in showbiz, progressing from Boy Bruce the Mighty Atom, ...
Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
November 24, 1996 11:15 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBSue Lawley's castaway this week is the Leader of the Opposition, the Right Honourable Tony Blair. He will be describing his beliefs, both political and religious, and revealing the man behind the sound bites. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Recuerdos De La Alhambra by John Williams Book: Ivanhoe by Walter Scott Luxury: Guitar
Tessa Sanderson
November 17, 1996 11:15 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBAtlanta was her sixth Olympic Games. The first was 20 years before. On Desert Island Discs, Tessa Sanderson reveals the competitive drive that brought her back from retirement at the age of 40 to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. She fondly recalls her rivalry with fellow competitor Fatima Whitbread, and remembers the moment she became the first and only British woman to win an Olympic throwing gold medal. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive ed...
Sir Laurens Van Der Post
November 10, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a writer, a traveller and an advisor to a Prince and Prime Minister. Now nearly 90, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early years in South Africa, his incarceration as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and his life-long campaign to save the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Piano Sonata No. 17 in Dm 'Tempest' by Ludwig van Beethoven ...
Chris Patten
November 03, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBHe's called "His Excellency" by some; to others he's "Fatty Patten". Next year he will hand over Hong Kong to the Chinese. Chris Patten, this week's castaway on Desert Island Discs, describes the challenges of being the colony's last British Governor. He recalls the moment he won the election for the Conservative Party, but lost his own seat, and how, as Environment Secretary, he found himself implementing "the single most unpopular policy that any British government has tried to introduce ...
Jancis Robinson
October 27, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBSue Lawley's castaway this week is the wine writer Jancis Robinson. One of only 200 Masters of Wine in the world, she recalls how her passion was first aroused by a full-bodied Chambolle-Musigny. It was, she says, the first time she realised that wine was an intellectual experience and not just for lubrication. A familiar face on television for her Matters of Taste and Wine Course series, she also edited the prestigious Oxford Companion to Wine. But her main occupation is tasting, and she c...
Jackie Charlton
October 20, 1996 10:15 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBThe ball rolled past the gap between him and Gordon Banks and into the back of the net. The Germans were one goal up. This week's castaway, Jackie Charlton, recalls the match which was to bring him to his knees in relief and joy as England went on to win the 1966 World Cup. Just one of the crowning moments of a career that could so easily have ended down the pit, except for his talent with the ball. Nicknamed "The Boss" because of his straight talking, Jackie describes his relationship wit...
Rumer Godden
October 13, 1996 10:15 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBAlways an outsider, she seems to have gone against all the mores of her time; from opening a dancing school in Calcutta to living alone with her children in Kashmir. On Desert Island Discs this week, the writer Rumer Godden describes how her rich life in India (under the Raj) and in Britain has influenced her novels. She says she can't remember a time when she didn't write. Now in her late 80s, and after publishing more than 50 books, including Black Narcissus and The River, she's just adde...
Lewis Wolpert
October 06, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThe castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Professor Lewis Wolpert. As Chairman of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, he is a passionate advocate of the value of science and the increasing need for the recognition and promotion of its importance. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early life in South Africa, his recent struggle with clinical depression and his passion for the views of the 18th-century philosopher David Hume - particularly on the existence of Go...
Ben Elton
September 29, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBHis fourth novel, Popcorn, has been widely-acclaimed by the critics. He's about to begin a nationwide tour with his stand-up comedy routine. And, after the success of his TV series The Young Ones and Blackadder, he's currently writing The Thin Blue Line for BBC1. Yet despite all that, Ben Elton, this week's castaway, says he's more of an enthusiastic 'farty' than a "smug git in a shiny suit". He muses as to whether his scatter-gun delivery (so mocked by the tabloids) is the result of his fe...
Fran Landesman
September 22, 1996 10:15 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBShe has written songs for her friends Barbra Streisand and Bette Davis, and admires Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn. This week, the poet and lyricist Fran Landesman chooses her eight records. Although now in her 60s, retired to her bed and celibate, she is still writing lyrics and performing her poetry and has just published a new collection of her work. From poor little rich girl to a life of bohemian excess, she looks back at her experiences - free love, free speech and mind-expanding drug...
Kevin Whately
September 15, 1996 10:15 - 33 minutes - 30.5 MBThe castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the actor Kevin Whately. Having appeared increasingly prominently in three of the most successful series in recent TV history - Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Inspector Morse and Peak Practice - he's currently 'hot property' in the casting world. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his boyhood in a remote part of Cumbria, his bold but inspired decision to chuck in accountancy in favour of the stage and his time busking at Oxford Circus to pay his way...
Professor Colin Blakemore
September 08, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the scientist Colin Blakemore. A brilliant student, he became an Oxford professor at the age of 35 and since then he has commanded enormous influence through his research and the way he has tried to communicate the importance of science to the world at large. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his main work - the functioning of the human brain - and about his research on the relationship between vision and brain development. He'll also be d...
Sir Terence Conran
September 01, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 33.9 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the designer and entrepreneur Terence Conran. He first came to fame with the Habitat store which introduced British shoppers to consumer delights like the chicken brick and the duvet. Now considered one of the country's most successful restaurateurs - he currently owns seven restaurants and is involved in designing another 17 - he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his original foray into the restaurant world. His first venture was called The S...
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
August 25, 1996 10:15 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. One of the most distinguished members of the English Chamber Orchestra, she has toured all over the world with them. However, as she will be telling Sue Lawley, up until the early 1980s, she always refused to visit one country - Germany. For it was from there that her Jewish parents were taken away by the Gestapo, never to be seen again. From the age of 18, she herself was taken away to Auschwitz. There, be...
André Previn
August 18, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the composer and conductor André Previn. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he and his family fled from Nazi Germany and ended up in California. His skill as a jazz musician led to a job at MGM and four Oscars for the film scores he wrote there. However, in the mid-1960s he turned his back on Hollywood and became principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He'll be discussing this dramatic transition, his famous appearance on t...
Quentin Crewe
June 16, 1996 10:15 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the journalist and author Quentin Crewe. Since the age of 29, muscular dystrophy has left him in a wheelchair. Nevertheless, now 70, he can look back on a full and vivid life encompassing a 24,000 mile trip across South America and expeditions across the Sahara and the Saudi Arabian desert. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his travels, his close relationship with the Macmillan family, his work as a writer and restaurant critic and also his...
Peggy Mount
June 09, 1996 10:15 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actress Peggy Mount. Now 80 years old, and about to play the nanny in Uncle Vanya at Chichester this summer, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her long and distinguished career as one of the nation's favourite battleaxes. With her booming voice, and imposing figure, playing parts like the nurse in Romeo and Juliet and the headmistress in The Happiest Days of your Life, she has earned the affection of millions. [Taken from the original...
Gerry Robinson
June 02, 1996 10:15 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a businessman who started life as one of 10 children in a poor family in Donegal, moved with his family to London's East End and started his career at Matchbox Toys in Hackney. From there, he worked his way up the corporate ladder of several large companies until 10 years ago he organised and led a management buy-out of Compass - part of Grand Metropolitan. Now extremely rich in his own right, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the controve...
Michael White
May 26, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the producer Michael White. Renowned for his theatrical flair - with a string of successes such as Sleuth, The Rocky Horror Show, O, Calcutta and A Chorus Line - he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the downside of show business as well as the euphoria of the successful first night. He'll also be describing his cosmopolitan but miserable childhood. Sent away to school in Switzerland alone and just seven years old because of chronic asthma, his...
Janet Holmes à Court
May 19, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Janet Holmes à Court. Recently named Businesswoman of the Year, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how, after the sudden death of her husband, the hugely rich Robert Holmes a Court, she was advised to sell up and retire to the beach. Before his death, he had just been starting to turn the tide which had run against him after he'd lost around £400 million in the stock market crash of 1987. Forgetting the beach, she proceeded to take up the r...
Hugh Laurie
May 12, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBSue Lawley's castaway is actor and comedian Hugh Laurie. Favourite track: Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison Book: A self-learn Italian book (slowly) Luxury: Family photo album
Pauline Quirke
May 05, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBBBC TV's Birds Of A Feather is one of the country's favourite comedy programmes, attracting audiences of 14 or 15 million on a Sunday evening. This week, one of its co-stars, Pauline Quirke, will be cast well away from Chigwell as she prepares to set sail for Radio 4's desert island. Known more famously perhaps as Sharon of Sharon 'n' Tracey, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her poor upbringing in London's East End, her first role as a child arsonist at the age of 10 in Dixon of Dock G...
Mitsuko Uchida
April 28, 1996 10:15 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBThis week, Sue Lawley's desert island castaway is the pianist Mitsuko Uchida. She was born in Japan, but, when she was 12, her family moved to Vienna, where she fully immersed herself in the music that she has now become famous for playing - Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and in particular, Mozart. Her aim is to be always faithful to the composer whose work she is trying to interpret. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: ...
Hanif Kureishi
April 21, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his enormously successful screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, his novel - televised by the BBC - The Buddha of Suburbia and his love of pop music which he plays at full volume whilst writing. He'll also be discussing the racial abuse which dominated his childhood in Bromley, where, as the son of an Indian father and an English mother, and the only Asian boy ...
Viscount Rothermere
April 14, 1996 10:15 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Viscount Rothermere. As proprietor of the Daily Mail, the Mail On Sunday, London's Evening Standard and a string of regional newspapers, he is the last of the hereditary grandees who once dominated the newspaper industry. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his family's long involvement with newspapers, about his own views on the ethical problems facing the press today and about his ability to see into the future. [Taken from the original p...
Dickie Bird
April 07, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBThis summer will see what will be a sad day in Test cricket history: Dickie Bird, who has umpired 65 Test matches, 92 one-day internationals and three world cup finals, will be umpiring his last Test match at Lords. This week in Desert Island Discs, he will be talking to Sue Lawley about his church-going childhood in Barnsley, and his anxieties about punctuality - arriving as he has done at least four hours before time at Buckingham Palace, Chequers and The Oval. [Taken from the original ...
Simon Weston
March 31, 1996 10:15 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBNearly 14 years ago, the young Simon Weston set off to serve with his regiment in the Falklands War. On 8th June 1982 in Bluff Cove, his ship was bombed, most of his friends were killed, but he survived. This week on Desert Island Discs, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about that shattering moment, his subsequent rehabilitation and how his disfigurement has affected his life. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: What...
Kyra Vayne
March 24, 1996 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is someone who has unexpectedly encountered professional acclaim late in her life. Singer Kyra Vayne could well be described as one of opera's forgotten voices - until this year when, thanks to the release of some previously-unknown recordings which had lived under her bed in Shepherd's Bush for 30 years, her voice reached a large new audience of admirers. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her reaction to the ecstatic reception given to her...
Lord Alexander
March 17, 1996 11:15 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Chairman of the National Westminster Bank Lord Alexander. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he began his career as a jobbing barrister, doing all manner of work on the western circuit where he earned a reputation which took him to the top of his profession. Among many others, he won cases for Jeffrey Archer and Kerry Packer, and lost one for Ken Livingstone's GLC. In the 1980s he moved to the City as Chairman of the Takeover Panel...
Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
March 03, 1996 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he was an early 'fast-track' pupil - going to Edinburgh University at 16 - their youngest student for 50 years, about the reasons behind his standing aside in favour of Tony Blair in the contest for the Labour leadership, and about his childhood as one of three sons of a Scottish minister. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert...
Sir Roy Calne
February 25, 1996 11:15 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a surgeon and a painter. Sir Roy Calne - Professor of Surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge - will be talking to Sue Lawley about his early conviction that transplant surgery was a viable way of treating kidney and liver disease, about his struggles to have his ideas accepted and about the paintings he has done of his patients - many of which have been the subject of several public exhibitions. [Taken from the original programme m...
Professor George Steiner
February 18, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Professor George Steiner. One of the most prominent intellectuals of our time, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how the English academic establishment has taken decades to accept him despite his early popularity as a Cambridge lecturer, and about the problem of reconciling the love of beauty with great acts of evil. He'll also be describing how his family left Austria for France in the 1920s and how he was one of only two boys to survive i...
Susan Hill
February 11, 1996 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the country's best-known novelists. Author of I'm the King of the Castle, Strange Meeting and The Woman in Black, among many other books, Susan Hill will be talking to Sue Lawley about the inspiration for her recent and highly-acclaimed sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca; about the loneliness which characterised her childhood and about the relationship between tragedy in her own life and the way she writes about it in her novels. ...
Eve Arnold
February 04, 1996 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the world's outstanding photojournalists, Eve Arnold. The first American woman member of the famous photographic co-operative, Magnum, she'll be talking about how her passion for photography began with the present of a camera, and how, since then, she has travelled the world in search of arresting pictures, living with hippy communes and with the black power movement, as well as photographing some of the great movie stars, including Pau...
Julian Barnes
January 28, 1996 11:15 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Julian Barnes. Since his first novel - Metroland - was published when he was 34, he has written another eight and won four literary prizes - most famously perhaps for Flaubert's Parrot. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his passion for Flaubert, his love for Leicester City, his notions of love and his fear of death. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: ...
Chili Bouchier
January 21, 1996 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the only surviving British star of the silent screen. Chili Bouchier will be talking to Sue Lawley about some of the perils of making silent movies and her transition into the talkies with hugely successful films like Carnival and Gypsy. She'll also be describing the ups and downs of a personal life which has been as vivid as her many films - encompassing two disastrous marriages with men who betrayed her, marriage proposals from Howard Hughes...
Jimmy McGovern
January 14, 1996 11:15 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the playwright Jimmy McGovern. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the TV series Cracker - one of the top television series of the 1990s - about how much of the central character, Fitz, is modelled on himself, how he feels about the violent world it portrays and about why we are fascinated by criminal psychology. For seven years a writer on Brookside, he'll be describing how the phenomenal success of Cracker led to the reviving of his previou...
Christopher Hampton
January 07, 1996 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Christopher Hampton. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his multiplicity of talents - after obtaining a first at Oxford he went straight to the Royal Court Theatre in London where he wrote several highly-regarded plays, among them The Philanthropist. He then went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay of the film Dangerous Liaisons, to translate the work of Ibsen and Chekhov, to write the book for Sunset Boulevard, and, most recent...
Lady Margaret Tebbit
December 31, 1995 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Margaret Tebbit. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the night 11 years ago when the IRA detonated a huge bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where she was staying with her husband for the Tory Party Conference. Since that dreadful night, she has been severely paralysed, and she'll be describing the effect on her life: the dreams she has in which she no longer has to use a wheelchair, the new friends she's made and the old ones who turned o...
Petula Clark
December 24, 1995 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is an entertainer who has managed to captivate a generation. Petula Clark will be talking to Sue Lawley about how the British still perceive her as 'our pet' since her early singing days when she was chosen to sing in Trafalgar Square on VE night. Now, arguably the biggest female recording star Britain has ever produced, she is about to take on the lead role in Sunset Boulevard in the West End. In between, hits like The Little Shoemaker, Down Tow...
Barbara Dickson
December 17, 1995 11:15 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBThe castaway this week in Desert Island Discs is the singer and actress Barbara Dickson. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how she progressed from being the daughter of a Rothsyth docker to the lead role in Willy Russell's play John, Paul, Ringo and Bert, and later to win an award for her performance in his play Blood Brothers. Along the way, her extraordinary singing voice brought her a string of hit singles, including I Know Him So Well, while recently her acting abilities landed her o...
Alison Steadman
December 03, 1995 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actress Alison Steadman. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her role as the monstrous Beverly in the BBC's production of Abigail's Party 18 years ago, as well as her talent for improvisation which she has perfected with her director husband, Mike Leigh. She'll also be discussing how daunting she found it recently to take on the role of Mrs Bennett in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. [Taken from the original programme material for this ar...
George Martin
November 19, 1995 11:15 - 37 minutes - 33.9 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a musician who became famous for producing other people's music. George Martin will be talking to Sue Lawley about how he earned money to pay for piano lessons, was helped by a fairy godfather to study at the Guildhall School of Music and went on in 1962 to sign up and produce the group which changed the face of popular music. He'll be discussing his relationship with The Beatles and his extremely productive life since they disbanded 25 years ...
Umberto Eco
November 12, 1995 11:15 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Umberto Eco. His best-selling novel The Name of the Rose propelled him from the relative obscurity of his post as Professor of Semiotics at Bologna University to worldwide fame at the age of 50. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he deals with the demands of his celebrity status, his childhood in Mussolini's Italy and his other works - Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. [Taken from the original programme m...
Rt Hon Gillian Shephard MP
November 05, 1995 11:15 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBThe castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Gillian Shephard. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the importance of her roots in rural Norfolk. Although she briefly left to go to Oxford, she was born and brought up in Norfolk and worked in local parliament there until her late 40s, when she entered Parliament to represent a Norfolk seat. She'll be discussing her own school days, and how they influence her perception of the quality...