Kirsty Young's guest this week is the artist Damien Hirst. Life, death, desire, fear, beauty, horror - his creative preoccupations are standard fair; his art - using sharks, maggots, butterflies, glass, formaldehyde and even sometimes paint - is not. His best known works have become iconic symbols of contemporary culture and his exhibitions and auctions attract attention the way a carcass attracts flies. Growing up in Leeds his mother was something of an early artistic influence - she had dots p...
May 12, 2013•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sir Sydney Kentridge QC. Widely regarded as a leading advocate of the 20th century, he continues to make his mark in the 21st; he recently appeared for the first time in the European Court of Justice and at the end of last year he spent the actual day of his 90th birthday working in the English Supreme Court. Born in South Africa, he was first called to the bar there at the end of the 1940s and played a leading role in some of the most significant political t...
Mar 31, 2013•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer and campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera. She has counselled government and travelled widely advising on how to put a stop to forced marriage and so called honour violence. At 14, Jasvinder was shown a picture of the stranger thousands of miles away she was to marry and in the face of intimidation she fled her family, chose her own husbands and gained a first class degree. Her books have shone a piercing light on the veiled world of shame, brutality and c...
Mar 24, 2013•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Julie Goodyear. For a quarter of a century her Coronation Street character Bet Lynch set the gold plated standard for big, brassy, back chatting blondes. Behind the bar of the Rovers Return her bosom swathed in leopard-print and her head piled high with platinum curls she was Manchester's answer to Mae West. Her MBE was awarded for her services to drama - and when she left the series in 1995, her departure pulled in 19 million viewers. Yet whateve...
Mar 17, 2013•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer David Almond. Most of his work is for children but the adults who populate the juries of heavyweight literary prizes really like it too. The accolades began with his first novel Skellig published in 1998 when he was 47; it won the mighty "Whitbread Children's" award and then many others besides. Ever since, he's been acclaimed for his ability to craft complex, philosophical narratives with strikingly down to earth characterisations. He grew up just...
Mar 10, 2013•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the photographer Rankin. He started out doing fashion shoots and is very good at making pretty young things look even prettier. But his work and influence have spread well beyond the glossy pages of style bibles. From Congolese war widows to canoodling pensioners his skill is capturing a moment of spontaneous and often surprising truth. He should really been doing peoples' tax returns - he went to college to study accountancy - but his head was turned in his ...
Mar 03, 2013•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Uta Frith, developmental psychologist, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. Uta Frith's groundbreaking work on autism has revolutionized our understanding of the condition; overturning the traditional, long-held belief that the root of the problems are social & emotional; discovering instead that autism is the result of physical differences in the brain. She arrived in Britain from Germany in the early 60s for a two-week course in English. Half a century later, a...
Feb 24, 2013•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew. Known simply as "Aggers" to the army of fans devoted to Test Match Special, his charm, knowledge and ready wit have gained him a place in the heart of anyone who loves the game. His own infatuation began as a young boy at boarding school and along with his talent and determination it took him all the way to the top of the sport. He played for Leicestershire and England. His transition from the crease to the commentary b...
Feb 17, 2013•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's guest is the writer Julie Burchill. As a columnist and author she is a committed non-conformist - daring the world to take issue with her vociferous life and work and depending on whom you ask is either a 'Marxist critic' or 'a right wing columnist'. As a child she used to hide away when potential playmates came to call, at 17 she was writing for the NME and in the decades since she's plied her trade at The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Mail amongst others. She's also written ...
Feb 10, 2013•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is Sir Terry Leahy, the businessman and former CEO of Tesco. His first job with the company was as a teenager when he worked as a shelf-stacker, but he made his name transforming the supermarket from a lack-lustre brand into Britain's biggest retailer. His ascent to the very top was marked by a fundamental understanding of his customers' needs and a single minded determination, powered, he says, by a fear of failure. He says of himself, "I was a relatively shy guy from a ...
Feb 03, 2013•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Aung San Suu Kyi. The programme was recorded on location in Naypyitaw, Burma in December 2012. Now Leader of Burma's opposition party, she has dedicated her life to fighting for human rights and democracy in her homeland. A figure of world renown, she is known in Burma as simply "The Lady" and her integrity, determination and grace have provided a beacon of hope to a nation oppressed and exploited by decades of brutal military dictatorship. President Obama sa...
Jan 27, 2013•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast TV producer Beryl Vertue is Kirsty Young's castaway on Desert Island Discs. In the famously fickle world of telly where last year's hero is this year's zero she has stood the test of time. Indeed in TV circles the noun "vertuosity" is defined as "the ability to make enormously successful sitcoms for British television and then sell the formats to the American market". The cast list of her working life is a who's who of quality broadcasting and includes Jack Lemmon, Galton & Simpson, Frankie ...
Jan 20, 2013•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Martin Carthy. A highly influential figure in the world of traditional music, about fifty years ago he was at the forefront of the English folk revival - inspiring not just his fellow countrymen, but Bob Dylan and Paul Simon too. Now he's part of a folk dynasty. His wife is the celebrated singer Norma Waterson and their daughter Eliza is as renowned for her fiddle playing, as she is her voice. Martin, on the other hand, was brought up in an atmosphere that en...
Jan 13, 2013•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sir Howard Stringer. Now Chairman of the Board and formerly CEO of Sony, he was surely the only Chief Executive who was a decorated Vietnam vet as he knelt before the Queen to be knighted. It gives you something of an idea of the breadth and height of his achievements. Born in Cardiff he went to 11 different schools before his 16th birthday and it clearly gave him restless feet. In the mid-sixties he headed to America where his first job was answering phones ...
Jan 06, 2013•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the designer and businesswoman, Anya Hindmarch. Given her first handbag by her mother at 16, she knew that her future lay in fashion. At 18 she went to Florence to immerse herself in Italian style, and ended up deep in the world of Florentine leather, getting samples made up of a duffel bag she'd spotted. An initial run of 500 bags sold out. Fast forward 25 years and her eponymous fashion business is globally successful with her designs much sought after. She...
Dec 30, 2012•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Dawn French. Her career started back when dungarees were considered a legitimate fashion choice and she's built her reputation on borderline surreal skits and glowingly warm characterisations. Brought up in a forces family she had to move schools a lot and found making people laugh helped to make them her friends. Since then it's made her a household name and she may be moments away from becoming a 'national treasure'. Double act partner, sit-com star, sketch...
Dec 23, 2012•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the nun, writer and broadcaster Sister Wendy Beckett. For over 40 years she's lived the life of a hermit, rising every day at midnight to spend seven hours praying. Her home is a caravan in the grounds of a Carmelite Monastery where she spends her days in silence - speaking only once a day to the nun charged with delivering her daily food rations of skimmed milk, cold cooked vegetables and two rice crackers. Her self-imposed isolation has only been broken by ...
Dec 16, 2012•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles. After flirting with Communism in his teens he joined the Conservative party and enjoyed a heady rise through local politics, heading up Bradford City Council in the 1990s. He tells Kirsty about his early life above a shop in Keighley, how Mrs Thatcher got him an interview to be a candidate for MP, and how a prolonged hug from David Cameron softened the blow of a disastrous appearance on...
Dec 09, 2012•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Dustin Hoffman. In spite of his Aunt Pearl telling him he wasn't good looking enough to be an actor for the past forty-five years he's been crafting landmark movie performances. He is that rare and apparently contradictory thing - a character actor and a superstar. The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, All The President's Men, Marathon Man, Kramer v Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Wag The Dog, and Last Chance Harvey are just a handful of the movies that contribute...
Dec 02, 2012•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is the artist and author, Edmund de Waal. His ceramics are on display in many of the world's major museums. They're delicate pots in shades of white and cream, informed he says by a great deal of thinking about literature. His written work has also won him several awards; his book "The Hare With Amber Eyes" traces the rich and dramatic story of his family's Russian Jewish heritage and the diaspora in Odessa, Paris, Vienna, and Tokyo. He says, "I make pots and I write. I'm...
Nov 25, 2012•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the director, producer and writer, John Lloyd. His work has been making us laugh for over thirty years: Spitting Image, Not The Nine o'Clock News, Blackadder and QI are just a handful of the programmes he's helped to create. If the comedy work ever dries up he could open a shop selling second hand Baftas - he's won a stack of them and a Grammy and an Emmy. Which isn't to say it's been an easy ride - fall outs, multiple sackings and missed opportunities have p...
Nov 18, 2012•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is the critic, actress, and producer Blanche Marvin. Blanche has been immersed in the theatre for seven decades. She worked with James Mason, Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov and calmed the nerves of Tennessee Williams. She brought Samuel Beckett to an American audience and persuaded Peter Brook to launch a series of awards to encourage artistic risk-takers. A doyenne of the West End, she's at nearly every opening night and her reviews are read by producers on ...
Nov 16, 2012•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is businessman Tidjane Thiam. He's chief executive of the Prudential, but he's about as far from the archetypal "man from the Pru" as you can get. The seeds of his success were sown amid the complex political terrain of the Ivory Coast with an extended family heavily involved in politics and a father imprisoned for his beliefs. His life quickly took on an international flavour from West Africa to Morocco, Paris to Washington, but in his early 30s a coup in his h...
Nov 04, 2012•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hilary Devey, businesswoman and TV star is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs. The very incarnation of entrepreneurial spirit, Hilary Devey built a haulage network business from scratch, which now employs nearly eight thousand people and has an annual turnover of £100 million. She has a successful media career and is one of the current incumbents of the TV programme Dragons Den. The real drama in her life has happened off screen. The skeleton in her parents' closet reappeared in...
Oct 28, 2012•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the academic & commentator, Mona Siddiqui. Born in Karachi and brought up in Huddersfield, she's a rarity - a female Muslim theologian. As Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University her analysis regularly sheds light on controversial issues affecting the Muslim faith. Her calm & reasoned standpoint can be heard regularly on the Today programme's Thought for the Day. Brought up in a house stuffed full of books, her academic...
Oct 21, 2012•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is the American opera singer, Noah Stewart. He's a hit in opera houses around the world and his solo CD has topped the classical charts. Yet for a long time the closest he managed to get to the stage was as a receptionist at Carnegie Hall. He won a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York though while waiting for his big break, he waited tables and did voice overs for Sesame Street. Blessed not only with rich, clear tenor tones he also possesses the goo...
Oct 14, 2012•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the designer Celia Birtwell. In the ephemeral world of fashion she has endured; Marian Faithfull wore her creations in the 60s, Kate Moss is a fan today. Whimsical prints and flattering forms are her signature style and the vintage creations that she designed with her then husband Ossie Clarke now change hands for a small fortune. Her new ranges are highly collectable and fly off the high street rails too. Never one of the fashion world's flamboyant self prom...
Oct 07, 2012•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is the Paralympian & broadcaster Ade Adepitan. Wheelchair basketball's his sport and this year he partnered Claire Balding anchoring the television coverage of the 2012 London Paralympics. When he's not stuck in a studio explaining the intricacies of Goalball he's reporting from the rainforests of Nicaragua or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Adversity seems to suit him - he even survived turning up for his first day at school aged 7 in a pink checked suit and bow ti...
Sep 30, 2012•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is Hollywood's prototype dizzy blond, Goldie Hawn. Like most things in Tinseltown the image is somewhat at odds with the reality. Goldie is an Academy Award winner and producer who's been on the A list for 40-odd years, starring alongside Peter Sellers, Walter Matthau and Woody Allen. She's now transmuted from fantasy pin-up to best selling author - she writes parenting manuals and spearheads a childhood learning initiative. She tells Kirsty about her journey from dancing...
Sep 23, 2012•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirsty Young's castaway is the critic and satirist Craig Brown. A prolific writer, he's lampooned everyone from DH Lawrence to Victoria Beckham and, earlier this year, he became the first journalist to win three separate prizes at the British Press Awards. He showed early promise - when he was 14 he started writing spoofs of Harold Pinter plays, and his characters have their own entries in Who's Who. Producer: Leanne Buckle.
Aug 12, 2012•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
