Desert Island Discs

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is writer Sue Townsend. Her most famous creation is Adrian Mole, and, in many respects, his life mirrors her own: like her hero, she comes from a poor but not deprived background and always nursed a secret ambition to be a writer. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her life and work and carefully selecting eight records which remind her of some of t...

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is a man who, for the past 26 years, has earned his living by helping to alter the industrial landscape of northern Britain - steeplejack Fred Dibnah. Renowned for his philosophising as much as for his engineering expertise, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his life, which has been spent swinging from factory chimneys and wrestling behind the wheel...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the film critic Dilys Powell. She began reviewing films for The Sunday Times in 1939, and since then her forthright and pithy comments have served as a natural accompaniment to the pleasures of going to the cinema. Today, at the age of 90, she still reviews three or four films a week and she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her receipt of what she...

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is scientist James Lovelock. The son of a South London gasman, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his passion for science and recalling some of the experiences he had whilst working on the American space programme, which eventually led him to invent the Gaia Theory - a theory which, amongst other things, argues that the human race is not necessary fo...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the man who brought the Folies Bergere to Britain and ran the Talk of the Town in its heyday - the theatrical impresario Lord Delfont. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his extraordinary life: he was raised in the East End of London, his family having settled there after escaping the pogroms in the Ukraine, and is now, at 82, the president of his...

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the historian EP Thompson. As a lifelong peace campaigner, Edward Thompson enjoys making history as much as writing about it. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his disillusionment with the Communist Party, how and why he founded the magazine which has become The New Left Review, and enjoying his carefully-selected eight records. [Taken from the...

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is the American actor Alan Alda. The son of a vaudeville artist, he shot to fame portraying the wise-cracking, womanising Hawkeye in the television series M.A.S.H. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the part that transformed his life and his initial reluctance to accept it, his childhood years in the burlesque houses of America, and explaining why,...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, Director of one of Britain's most famous museums, the V & A. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her career at the V & A and the controversy she caused within her first year of office. She'll also be recalling how, at 19, she abandoned her university career and married a Spanish sea captain with whom she sailed the w...

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the film director John Schlesinger. Like many other British filmmakers, he learnt his craft at the BBC but soon moved on to directing feature films including A Kind of Loving, Far From the Madding Crowd and the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his long and successful career, the controversy he caused with his films...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan. Educated at Oxford and dividing his time between England and Pakistan, his fame extends well beyond the cricket field. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his faith - he is a devout Muslim - the constant speculation surrounding his love life and how his mother's death from cancer dramatically changed his life. [T...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the photographer David Bailey. Born and bred in the East End of London, he took the fashion business by storm in the 1960s - discovering, photographing and often marrying some of the world's most beautiful women. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about success in the 1960s, the first time he saw Jean Shrimpton and his desire to carry on working, like h...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the conductor Klaus Tennstedt. When, at 45, he defected from East Germany, he was virtually unknown in the West. But three years later, after conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he was acclaimed as an international maestro. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his impressive musical career, his defection from East Germany and his battle agains...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the most important figures in British industry today - the Director-General of the CBI John Banham. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his impressive and varied career, his passion for sailing and how he very nearly lost his life during the Fastnet Race of 1979. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Bernice Rubens. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her childhood with musically-gifted brothers and sister, and how, despite having written 17 novels - one of them won the Booker prize, another was also shortlisted - she still sees herself as merely a successful novelist who failed to become a musician. [Taken from the original program...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the architect Maxwell Hutchinson. Unafraid of controversy, he attacked Prince Charles' criticisms of contemporary architecture - a move which secured him presidency of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his love of tower blocks and requiem masses, of 17th-century cottages and his desire to write a number...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is playwright Alan Bleasdale. Often controversial, and always funny, Bleasdale's work focuses on life in Liverpool, a city he loves and whose characters people his most famous plays - Boys from the Blackstuff and GBH. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his intense love of family, his work and, as a self-confessed hypochondriac, he will be revealing s...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week will be the lawyer and politician Lord Shawcross. As Attorney General in the Labour government of 1945, he was responsible for leading the British prosecution case at the war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the atmosphere in that courtroom, his reasons for leaving the Labour Party and his unconventional upbringing. No...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Ron Todd - leader of Britain's largest trade union, the Transport and General Workers' Union. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his childhood as the son of a Walthamstow street-market trader, his rejection of Catholicism and conversion to socialism and about how he feels about the modern Labour Party and the role of trade unions in the 1990s. [Ta...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is responsible for many of the images which grace our television screens and billboards. He is advertising man John Hegarty, and he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about some of the slogans and scenarios he has created - from Vorsprung durch Technik to the Levi's advertisement which features the hero removing his trousers in a laundrette. [Taken from the o...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist and critic A S Byatt. Winner of the 1990 Booker prize for her novel 'Possession' - the story of a clandestine romance between two Victorian poets - she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the isolation of her school days as a highly academic child, the release of university life at Cambridge and her subsequent life at the forefront of the...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is poet and playwright Derek Walcott. Recent winner of the WH Smith award, and described by his admirers as one of the greatest contemporary exponents of the English language, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early life in St Lucia - a place he frequently returns to, when not at his post of Professor of Poetry at Boston University. [Taken from...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week has been described as the 'enfant terrible' of the restaurant world. Marco Pierre White opened his first restaurant at the age of 27, where he established a reputation both for extraordinary culinary expertise and for outrageous behaviour. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the route which took him from the Leeds council estate where he was born near...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a politician who is seen in many quarters as the Labour Party's strongest weapon in their battles with the government - John Smith, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man of great resilience, he'll be telling Sue Lawley why he still loves politics in spite of the frustration of his years in opposition, his having a heart attack two and a half yea...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is John Simpson. Recently honoured by the Royal Television Society as Journalist of the Year, he'll be talking about his life covering foreign affairs for the BBC. In that capacity, he has reported on most of the momentous upheavals of the last few years - from Tiananmen Square to the release of Nelson Mandela, from the fall of Ceausescu to the collaps...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is an author and adventurer. Now 93 years old, Cecil Lewis will be talking to Sue Lawley about his extraordinary career, embracing his time as a fighter pilot during the First World War, his brush with the Red Baron, and later how he helped Lord Reith set up the BBC, which he then left for Hollywood where he was to win an Oscar for his screenplay of Ge...