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 original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Carol...
Nov 03, 1991•38 min
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, despite being a millionaire, he continues to work. [Taken from the original programme material for ...
Oct 27, 1991•37 min
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 world. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] F...
Oct 20, 1991•38 min
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 Darling and Sunday Bloody Sunday and choosing eight records to take to his island exile. [Taken fro...
Oct 13, 1991•37 min
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. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite...
Oct 06, 1991•35 min
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 his hero Picasso, until he's 90. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition...
Sep 29, 1991•37 min
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 against cancer of the vocal chords. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition o...
Sep 22, 1991•38 min
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 Island Discs] Favourite track: Sanctus by Gabriel Fauré Book: The collected works by A E Houseman Lu...
Sep 15, 1991•37 min
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 programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: String Quintet C Major...
Sep 08, 1991•38 min
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 one hit. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs...
Sep 01, 1991•37 min
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 some of his fears. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Isl...
Aug 25, 1991•35 min
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. Now 89 years old, he'll also be recalling the days when he was known as 'handsome Hartley Shawcross', ...
Jul 07, 1991•42 min
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. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite ...
Jun 30, 1991•41 min
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 original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Stand B...
Jun 23, 1991•37 min
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 British literary world. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Des...
Jun 16, 1991•39 min
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 original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Yo...
Jun 09, 1991•33 min
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 nearly 30 years ago, to the moment when he became the youngest chef to be awarded two Michelin stars at ...
Jun 02, 1991•33 min
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 years ago and having to live for much of the time away from his beloved homeland of Scotland. [Taken fr...
May 26, 1991•36 min
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 collapse of the Berlin Wall. More recently, he was one of the very few journalists to stay on in Baghdad wh...
May 19, 1991•39 min
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 George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition ...
May 12, 1991•37 min
The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Dame Shirley Porter, who, as Lady Porter, was the flamboyant leader of the ruling Conservative Group at Westminster City Council - a post she held from 1983 until she stepped down in April 1991. She'll be telling Sue Lawley about what it was that made her go into politics at the age of 40, about her campaign for cleanliness on the streets of the capital and about her plans for the future. [Taken from the original programme material for this archiv...
Apr 28, 1991•35 min
Chief Rabbi Elect Dr Jonathan Sacks is the castaway on Desert Island Discs this week. This avowedly 'unconventional' future leader of Britain's Jews was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish household but went to Church of England schools and wanted to be an accountant before deciding that his life's work lay in his faith. Rabbi Sacks reveals how he gained, and many years later lost, his beard as well as what he hopes to achieve in his new role. [Taken from the original programme material for this ar...
Apr 21, 1991•38 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week will be the industrialist Lord King of Wartnaby, Chairman of Babcock International and of British Airways. He recalls for Sue Lawley, among other things, his early beginnings in the engineering industry, an unfortunate incident with a small plane he once owned, and what it was which made him want to take over an ailing airline more than 10 years ago. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourit...
Apr 14, 1991•37 min
Sue Lawley's castaway is writer Naomi Mitchison. Favourite track: Kishmull's Galley by Kenneth McKellar and Orchestra Book: Book of Modern Poetry Luxury: Endless supply of writing materials
Apr 07, 1991•36 min
This week's castaway in Desert Island Discs is the entertainer Marti Caine. Although her public life is one as comedienne, television presenter, star of a sit-com series, singer and glamorous pantomime performer, Marti Caine's private life is one that is very different. Her father died when she was seven, she was taken into care before she was 10, her first marriage broke up, and then, about four years ago, she was diagnosed as suffering from cancer of the lymph glands. She talks about the way i...
Mar 24, 1991•36 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the industrialist and ex-president of the CBI Sir Trevor Holdsworth. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his time at the helm of the giant engineering firm Guest, Keen and Nettleford and his recent involvement with British Satellite Broadcasting - BSB - as well as some of his earlier brushes with history. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Vocalise by Sergei Rachmaninov Bo...
Mar 17, 1991•36 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Spectator columnist Jeffrey Bernard. His Low Life column has gained him something of a cult following over the 15 years or so it's been appearing; slightly irregularly. It concentrates on the kind of life in Soho which seems often to revolve solely around drinking, women and gambling - the kind of life Jeffrey Bernard enjoys, by his own admission. And of course, last year Keith Waterhouse turned some of these columns into the highly-successful...
Mar 10, 1991•37 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the former Chairman of Granada Television Sir Denis Forman. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the delights and disasters of a highly eccentric upbringing in Scotland and about his experiences in Italy during the war, where he lost a leg. Also, as the first producer of What the Papers Say, and the originator of the highly popular Jewel in the Crown, he'll be discussing the difficulties of making television programmes which are simultaneously pop...
Mar 03, 1991•38 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is theatre and television director Ronald Eyre. A man of great versatility, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his many outstanding operatic and theatrical productions, as well as his school-teaching days, and his childhood in the Yorkshire mining village of Mapplewell. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Magic Flute - The Trio Soll Ich, Teurer by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...
Feb 24, 1991•37 min
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Britain's most distinguished ballet mistress Dame Ninette de Valois. She first appeared on the professional stage more than 75 years ago, and her contribution to the development of ballet in this country has been phenomenal. Now in her nineties, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how she became the first director of the Vic Wells Ballet School in 1931 - a school which grew and changed over the years to become the Royal Ballet in 1956. [Taken fr...
Feb 17, 1991•38 min
