Desert Island Discs

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the advertising man, Maurice Saatchi. He and his brother Charles created what became the biggest advertising agency in the world. Saatchi & Saatchi masterminded the Conservative victory in 1979 with their slogan 'Labour isn't working'. He'll be telling Sue Lawley about the heady days of the 1980s - a red Ferrari would be delivered unannounced to...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a man who spans our century. Aged 91, Max Nicholson has enjoyed careers in conservation, politics, journalism and the Civil Service. But his great passion remains ornithology. As a tiny boy, his parents took him one rainy afternoon to see the stuffed birds in the Natural History Museum, and there his great obsession was born. He was a conservationis...

Sue Lawley's castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the celebrated American writer John Updike. His novels include Rabbit Run (and three Rabbit follow-ups), Couples and The Witches of Eastwick. He is both poet and historian, famous for charting the changes in post-war American society such as increasing marital breakdown and changing attitudes to death. He started his writing career by selli...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actress Wendy Richard, one of the best-known faces on British television. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about a career which started with the Arthur Haines show in the 60s, and took her through a whole series of long-running television programmes - The Newcomers, Are You Being Served? and its sequel Grace and Favour. However, it was 10 years a...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the sixth Duke of Westminster. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the responsibilities and pleasures of being one of the country's richest men. Having enjoyed an idyllic childhood on the banks of Loch Ern in County Fermanagh, it was a rude shock to be transplanted to an English prep school at the age of seven. The compa...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is clothes designer Jasper Conran. Son of Sir Terence Conran and Shirley Conran, he has art, design and business in his blood and was always determined to make his own way in the world of fashion without parental influence. He has said, "in a family like mine, if you're not successful, you drown". He'll be telling Sue Lawley about his difficult childho...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the great pioneers of heart transplant surgery - Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his dedication to his patients, whether heart transplants are now routinely successful and about some of the earlier controversies which his experimental surgery has attracted. He will also be describing his early ambitions to be...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the oldest and deepest voices in rock music - the legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker. The son of a preacher man, he was brought up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and his first guitar was made from an old inner tube tied to the barn door. By the age of 14, he had his own guitar and ran away to Memphis with two dollars in his pocket for a life tou...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actor Brian Blessed. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about Z Cars - the series which first brought him to public prominence in the 1960s, about his friendship with the actress Katherine Hepburn and his obsession with climbing mountains - mountains like Everest and Kilimanjaro - when he isn't acting. [Taken from the original programme material for...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Marianne Faithfull. Singer and actress, she was the original 1960s wild child. At the age of 17, when she was still a convent schoolgirl in Reading, she shot to fame with the hit single As Tears Go By; written for her by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. She was Mick Jagger's mistress, she hung out with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, she was young, beaut...

Sue Lawley's castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Sir Bernard Ingham. For 11 years, one month and five days, almost from when she came to power to the day she left office, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mrs Thatcher. A former card-carrying member of the Labour Party, he became her Chief Press Secretary, adviser and supporter. He was accused by the media of crossing the line between civ...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of America's most successful playwrights. Since he opened Come Blow Your Horn on Broadway in 1961, Neil Simon has written at least a play a year, and they include Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, Lost in Yonkers, as well as the hit musicals Sweet Charity and They're Playing Our Song. He'll be telling Sue Lawley about his childh...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey. The son of a hospital porter, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his childhood in London during the war, his interrupted schooling which meant he left school at 15 with no qualifications and how when he decided he wanted to enter the church, he went on to acquire a clutch of 'O' and 'A' Levels in the...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week has a classic rags-to-riches story to relate. Born into a poor family in Coventry, record producer Pete Waterman is nowadays estimated to be worth at least 60 million pounds, and is the proud possessor of 10 Ferraris, 15 Jaguars and several houses and railway engines. He'll be telling Sue Lawley how, with no formal education - and still unable to do jo...

The castaway choosing his eight desert island discs this week will also be relating a story of early triumph, 25 years of obscurity and a revival of fortunes at the age of 81 which has made him one of the country's most successful classical composers. He is George Lloyd, and he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the shell-shock and bad luck which put paid to his early promise - his years growing ca...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actor Hugh Grant. The star of the enormously successful Four Weddings and a Funeral, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his life before he was propelled into international celebrity status. Now firmly established as a cinematic symbol of a certain type of Englishman, he had his first big break in the Merchant Ivory film Maurice, after stints i...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the country's most distinguished counter-tenor James Bowman. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he uses his voice as an instrument, producing the unusually high falsetto sound which characterises counter-tenor parts. He'll also be describing his association with Benjamin Britten, who offered him his first part - as Oberon in Britten's opera A...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist Nina Bawden. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the autobiographical aspects of both her adult books - such as Afternoon of a Good Woman and Circles of Deceit - and her children's books like Carrie's War and The Peppermint Pig. All contain tales with twists and turns from her own experience - evacuation during the war, her years as a...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the music writer and critic Felix Aprahamian. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how, as a music critic on the Sunday Times for over 40 years, he has lived at the epicentre of 20th-century musical life - meeting such luminaries as Poulenc, Messiaen, Delius and the French organist and composer, Charles-Marie Widor. He'll also be discussing his view...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer and publisher Nigel Nicolson. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his parents Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West and their unconventional marriage which was based on deep mutual love but also allowed both of them to enjoy homosexual affairs. His book Portrait of a Marriage - famously televised by the BBC - tells their story. He'll a...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the historian Professor Eric Hobsbawm. A life-long Communist and author of a series of books on the history of the 19th century which is regarded by many as a seminal work of scholarship, he has now turned his attention to the 20th century. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his views on the major historical events of the century, its future and h...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is British cinema's king of horror - Christopher Lee. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his disappointment at not being able to follow what he considers his true vocation, that of an opera singer, and about his 50-year career which has encompassed 230 films, 27 plays and numerous radio and television appearances. [Taken from the original programme m...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Jimmy Knapp, General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his Scottish childhood, his poor, working-class background and his rise from signalman to one of the most powerful and controversial trade union leaders in the country. He'll also be discussing his views on public ownership, the future of C...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Sir Adrian Cadbury, for nearly 20 years chairman of the famous chocolate factory that bears his family name. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his Quaker background and his experiences of rowing for Britain in the 1952 Olympics, as well as discussing his views on the standards and values which dominate British business life today. [Taken from the...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the biologist Dr Richard Dawkins. Author of popular science books such as The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his scientific beliefs which are firmly rooted in the conviction that Darwin's theory of evolution provides the starting point for all we need to know about our world. He'll be discussing the impli...