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BBC Radio 4


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


Desert Island Discs

Nick Cave is a singer and writer who, with his band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, has released emotionally intense and provocative music since the mid-Eighties. He is also a novelist, composer and has written film scripts and soundtracks along with his writing partner and Bad Seed Warren Ellis. 

Nick grew up in Wangaratta, Australia the third of four children. He formed his first band, the Boys Next Door, in 1973 while he was at school. He studied fine art at the Caulfield Institute of Technology in Melbourne but left to pursue music. In 1980 the band relocated to London, renaming themselves the Birthday Party on the flight over. In 1984 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ released their debut album, From Her to Eternity, and they have gone on to put out a further 17 albums.
 
In 2015 Nick lost his son Arthur who died after accidentally falling off a cliff and seven years later his eldest son Jethro died. In 2018 Nick started the Red Hand Files, an online blog in which he answers questions posed by his fans, to try and articulate his feelings about grief. He has described it as a “strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency.”

In 2017 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia. 

DISC ONE: Metal Guru - T. Rex 
DISC TWO: My Father - Nina Simone 
DISC THREE: (I’m) Stranded - The Saints 
DISC FOUR: It Serves You Right to Suffer - John Lee Hooker 
DISC FIVE: Something on Your Mind - Karen Dalton 
DISC SIX: Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash West
DISC SEVEN: I Am a God – Kanye West
DISC EIGHT: Morning Dew - Tim Rose 

BOOK CHOICE: The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 
LUXURY ITEM: A suit 
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: I Am a God – Kanye West 

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley

Nick Cave, singer and writer

Roy Plomley's castaway is actor and writer Michael Palin.

Favourite track: Nimrod by Edward Elgar
Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Luxury: Bed

Michael Palin

The castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is one of the legendary figures of the British rock music scene - guitarist Eric Clapton. Once known, blasphemously, as 'God', with prolific graffiti announcing 'Eric Clapton is God', he played with, among others, the Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith. Dealing successfully with years of alcohol and drug-related problems, he's still one of rock's superstars, and he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his passion for music and his life of turmoil.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] 

Favourite track: Purple Rain by Prince
Book: Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
Luxury: Guitar

Eric Clapton

He's created a world full of wizards and witches, and his most popular character is Death. The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is one of Britain's best-selling authors. Terry Pratchett has written over 30 books, and sells more than one million copies each year. But as he tells Sue Lawley this week, he will never win the Booker Prize because, in this country, fantasy fiction is frowned upon.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] 

Favourite track: Thomas The Rhymer by Steeleye Span
Book: Edible Plants of the South Seas by Emile Massal
Luxury: The Chrysler Building

Terry Pratchett

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Alexander McCall Smith. Alexander McCall Smith was an established professor of law, an expert on ethics and a part time musician when, at the age of 50, he wrote the book that turned his life on its head. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency became a word of mouth best-seller. He has now written a series of books featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, a 'traditionally built' Botswanan woman who spends as much time dealing with the trials of everyday life as solving crime. Her cases have included absent husbands, imposter fathers and missing children - all resolved using common sense and underpinned with a strong sense of the importance of traditional African social values.

Alexander McCall Smith's fascination with, and devotion to, Africa is not surprising - he was born and brought up in Zimbabwe - then Southern Rhodesia - only moving to Britain when he began his legal studies. He visits Botswana every year. Even as a child he was a keen writer, and he was a published author for many years before he devised his most celebrated creation. His books are now printed in more than 30 languages and in 2004 he was named the Booksellers' Association Author of the Year.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Soave sia il Vento 
 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: Collection by W H Auden
Luxury: A handmade pair of shoes

Alexander McCall Smith

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer Marian Keyes. 

Her twelve novels to date have sold 35 million copies and are published in 33 languages. Some of her novels have been adapted for the screen. She has also published three volumes of journalism.

Marian was born the eldest of five children in Ireland in 1963. While she was academically successful at school, she says she wasn't taught to think for herself, which left her ill prepared for university where she studied law.

After completing her degree, but failing to get apprenticed to a law firm in Dublin, she moved to London. She spent her twenties working as a waitress, and began drinking heavily. She went into rehab for her alcoholism when she was 30. 

Her fortunes changed once she was sober: she sent some short stories she had written the previous year off to a publisher and had her debut novel published in 1995. 

Marian has described each of her books as "a comedy about something serious" and says they are a reflection of who she is:
"I'm very bleak, really melancholic. But I've always used humour as a survival mechanism. I write for me and I need to feel hopeful about the human condition. So no way I'm going to write a downbeat ending. And it isn't entirely ludicrous to suggest that sometimes things might work out for the best."

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Marian Keyes

Lauren Laverne talks to Ian Wright in an episode first broadcast in 2020.

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 surpassed eight years later by Thierry Henry.

Born to a Jamaican couple in south-east London, Ian grew up with his mother and step-father. His biological father had left the family when Ian was under two years old. Things at home were difficult and Ian spent as much time as possible outside playing football.

At his primary school a teacher, Mr Pigden, took him under his wing and Ian would later credit him with changing his life. He left his secondary school at the age of 14 to get a job. Although he took part in trials for many professional football clubs as a teenager, he was never selected. He continued to play for amateur sides. By the age of 21, he had three children to provide for, so when Crystal Palace came calling in 1985, he turned them down three times before accepting a two-week trial, followed by a three-month contract. His football career had finally begun.

After impressing as a forward at Palace, he was bought by Arsenal for a record fee in 1991. He was called up to the England squad the same year and would go on to collect 33 caps. He spent his last couple of years in professional football at a number of clubs around the country and in total, he played 581 league games, scoring 387 goals for seven clubs in England and Scotland. Since his retirement from football in 2000, he has had a career as a pundit on both TV and radio.

He has eight children and has been happily married to his second wife, Nancy, since 2011.

DISC ONE: The Marriage of Figaro: Duettino - Sull'aria by Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, composed by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
DISC TWO: Looking For You by Kirk Franklin
DISC THREE: River Deep Mountain High by Ike and Tina Turner
DISC FOUR: Redemption Song by Bob Marley & The Wailers
DISC FIVE: Mysteries of the World by MSFB
DISC SIX: Endlessly by Randy Crawford
DISC SEVEN: Crown by Stormzy
DISC EIGHT: Just Fine by Mary J Blige

BOOK CHOICE: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
LUXURY ITEM: A seven iron golf club and golf balls
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Endlessly by Randy Crawford

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Classic Desert Island Discs - Ian Wright

Mark Steel is a writer, comedian and radio presenter. 

His performing career began as a poet in the alternative comedy scene in the early eighties at the Comedy Store. A regular presenter on Radio 4, he began his award winning series, Mark Steel’s in Town in 2009. 

Alongside his performing career, he’s been a regular newspaper columnist writing for the Guardian and Independent Newspapers.
 
Mark was born in 1960 and adopted at ten days old by Doreen and Ernie. He grew up in Swanley, Kent and left home at 18 to live in a squat in Crystal Palace. 
After his own son was born, Mark spent many years tracing his birth parents and eventually met up with his genetic father who had been a professional gambler and a friend of Lord Lucan.
Mark has two children and lives in London.

DISC ONE: My Boy Lollipop - Millie Small 
DISC TWO: Janie Jones - The Clash 
DISC THREE: San Quentin (Live at San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA - February 1969) - Johnny Cash 
DISC FOUR: Killing in the Name - Rage Against The Machine
DISC FIVE: Trøllabundin - Eivør Pálsdóttir 
DISC SIX: Love Me or Leave Me - Nina Simone
DISC SEVEN: Into My Arms - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
DISC EIGHT: 1977 - Ana Tijoux
 
BOOK CHOICE: Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
LUXURY ITEM: A piano 
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Love Me or Leave Me - Nina Simone

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor

Mark Steel, comedian

Former cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent is the first Black woman to play for England and she was part of the team which won the Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2009. Today she is a broadcaster and cricket commentator for Channel 4, Sky Sports and the BBC’s Test Match Special.

Ebony was born in south London and as a child it was football that caught her attention, especially Liverpool FC and her hero Robbie Fowler. At primary school she was encouraged to have a go at cricket through a charity called Cricket For Change which was set up to encourage more state school children into the sport. Holding a bat in her hands for the first time, she hit the ball as hard as she could and, as she watched it soar through the air, she was hooked.

Ebony started out playing for Surrey Cricket Club’s Under 11’s team as a bowler. In 2003 a serious back injury forced her to stop playing and she thought her sporting career was over. She was determined to prove the medics wrong so she retrained as a batswoman as batting was easier on her back.

In 2007 she made her debut for England and two years later was part of the World Cup-winning team. In 2020 Ebony joined forces with Surrey Cricket Club and founded the African-Caribbean Engagement Programme (ACE) to build grassroots cricket programmes for young people in black communities across the UK. In 2021 she was awarded an MBE for her services to cricket and charity.

DISC ONE: Cold Sweat - James Brown 
DISC TWO: Girlie Girlie - Sophia George 
DISC THREE: Pass Me Over - Anthony Hamilton 
DISC FOUR: A Long Walk - Jill Scott 
DISC FIVE: Rock Steady - Aretha Franklin 
DISC SIX: Never Forget - Take That 
DISC SEVEN: Superheroes - Stormzy 
DISC EIGHT: Work To Do - The Isley Brothers 
 
BOOK CHOICE: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
LUXURY ITEM: A drum kit 
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: A Long Walk - Jill Scott 

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley

Ebony Rainford-Brent, former England cricketer

Cher has been a global star for over six decades. Her career has spanned music, television and film and throughout that time her outfits have made flamboyant fashion statements. 

She was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California and had a peripatetic childhood. Her mother married six times and with each new husband the family moved house.

In 1962, when she was 16, Cher met Sonny Bono in a coffee shop. She moved in with Sonny as his housekeeper and personal assistant and began singing backing vocals for his boss, the music producer Phil Spector. In 1965 Sonny and Cher released I Got You Babe which reached number one in the US and UK charts – knocking the Beatles off the top of the chart.

Cher is an award-winning actor who has starred in films including Silkwood, Mask and Moonstruck. In October 1998 she released her 22nd studio album Believe – the title track remains the biggest-selling number one by a solo female artist in British chart history.

DISC ONE: Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum 
DISC TWO: Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley 
DISC THREE: A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes - Ilene Woods 
DISC FOUR: Evil - Stevie Wonder 
DISC FIVE: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ - The Righteous Brothers 
DISC SIX: I Can’t Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt 
DISC SEVEN: Minute By Minute - The Doobie Brothers
DISC EIGHT: A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke 
 
BOOK CHOICE: The Saracen Blade by Frank Yerby 
LUXURY ITEM: An eyelash curler 
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke 

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley

Cher, singer and actor

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sandi Toksvig.

Host of BBC Radio 4's News Quiz until June 2015, she is also a writer and comedian and recently entered the world of politics, helping to found the Women's Equality Party.

Her parents were both broadcasters: her mother worked as a studio manager and announcer before she married, her Danish father's job as a foreign correspondent took the family around the world. Sandi and her siblings spent much of their childhood in the United States and when she was "asked to leave" yet another American school, her parents sent her to boarding school in England. She soon decided to lose her strong American accent and went on to Cambridge, where she performed in the Footlights.

In addition to writing, her most recent acting role was in Call the Midwife and she continues to appear regularly on TV and radio shows as a panelist: she is to start as the next host of QI, taking over from Stephen Fry. She's also Chancellor of Portsmouth University.

Sandi Toksvig

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