Alle afleveringen
2.000 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Roger Waters
29 mei 2011 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the musician Roger Waters. Lees meer
As one of the founding members of the band Pink Floyd, he has seen huge critical and commercial success. But in 1985 he walked away from the group and years of acrimony followed. They were reunited for one final performance, twenty years later, for Live 8. It was a moment many of their fans thought they would not live to see and it was, he says, highly emotional.
"We did a run through on the Friday night and it was remarkable, there were about fifty or sixty people working on the site, putting out rubbish bins or whatever it was they were doing and they all stopped and at the end they all applauded - that was a very moving moment."
Record: Mahler - Symphony No.5 in C Sharp - 4th movement
Book: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Luxury: A grand pianoProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Debbie Harry
22 mei 2011 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the singer Debbie Harry. Lees meer
Her group Blondie started out in seedy New York bars and went on to achieve international success - selling tens of millions of albums along the way. She was ultra cool - a striking beauty with platinum hair and a sneer. Now aged 65, her trademark look continues to serve her well, she says: "As far as ageing goes it's rough - I try my best - I'm healthy and I exercise like a fiend. I'm glad that I've had all the radical experiences in my life - it suits me."
Record: Mahler's Symphony No.5 in C sharp Minor -4th movement
Book: War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Luxury: Paints and papersProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Kwame Kwei-Armah
15 mei 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the actor, director and playwright, Kwame Kwei-Armah. Lees meer
His creative output spans both high art and popular culture. He became a household name starring in BBC One's Casualty, but at the same time he was pursuing a career in writing and his award-winning plays have been staged at the National Theatre. He's just finished a stint as the artistic director of The World Festival of Black Arts in Senegal and his next posting is to the US, where he's taking over a theatre in Baltimore. Throughout his life, he says, he continues to be inspired by the joyful atmosphere he grew up in. "My home was so warm, so full of life and noise. Most of my theatre I call the theatre of my front room. My memory was just this citadel to love and joy."
Record: Fight the Power
Book: The complete works of August Wilson
Luxury: A basic word processorProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Molly Parkin
8 mei 2011 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the doyenne of bohemian living, Molly Parkin. Lees meer
She left the Welsh valleys to train as a fine artist in London and was a successful painter then teacher before becoming a fashion writer and novelist. She is as well known, though, for her lifestyle as her work. She adopted a hedonistic approach to life - smoking and drinking through the night and picking up numerous lovers along the way.
Now aged 79 she prefers to live alone and says she has found a calmer way of living. "I have been blessed, and made it my business, to surround myself with larger than life characters," she says, "love, on a very profound level comes unexpectedly and brilliantly."
Record: Good Golly Miss Molly
Book: The History of the Colony by Sophie Parkin
Luxury: Her entire outfit including her Andrew Logan broochProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Prof David Phillips
1 mei 2011 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Professor David Phillips. Lees meer
His love of science has taken him on an extraordinary journey. At the height of the Cold War, he swapped a post in America for a place at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he partied with the Bolshoi and was interrogated by the KGB. He is also Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Imperial College, but, despite his eminence, he admits his students had a 'professor button' fitted onto their hi-tech lasers. It was, he explains, a knob he could twiddle while showing visitors around the lab, but it wasn't connected to the machinery and meant he didn't ruin his students' experiments.
Record: The Marriage of Figaro
Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Luxury: A piano with musicProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Cath Kidston
24 april 2011 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the designer Cath Kidston. Lees meer
Cheerful and practical, her products nod towards the 1950s. She began with ironing board covers but these days you can listen to a radio decorated with one of her designs, pitch one of her tents or decorate the children's bedroom with her cowboy wallpaper.
In her own room as a child she used to play at keeping shop. These days her business has a turnover of more than £50 million. "I really felt, from very, very early on, I was onto something with the notion of what I was doing," she says. "I remember feeling I'd really overstepped the mark when I opened my second shop - thinking, that's probably going a stage too far."
Record: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Book: The Larousse French/English dictionary
Luxury: A hot water bottleProducer: Isabel Sargent.
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Felicity Green
17 april 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the pioneering fashion journalist Felicity Green. Lees meer
As hem-lines headed north in the early 60s she was hitting her stride in Fleet Street. She was the first woman on the board of a national paper and, as society changed, she kept right up with it. She introduced readers to Mary Quant, Biba and Twiggy and, on one memorable occasion, gave Harold Wilson's wife Mary a home perm.
Now in her mid-80s she is still mentoring students at St Martin's College and says "I have never been fashionable - fashion needs to be followed at a very, very respectful distance. My blue-print for fashion is to be simple and stylish."
Record: Chan Chan
Book: Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim
Luxury: A bronze sculpture by Giles PennyProducer: Rachel Simpson.
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Terry Gilliam
10 april 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the animator and director Terry Gilliam.
He first planted his foot-print on our cultural landscape more than thirty years ago - back then, it was a huge, animated foot which squashed everything beneath it and became one of the defining images of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
In the years since, his film credits have included Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. Now aged 70, he's directing his first opera. He says: "I've always liked the extremes, the edges. I like to know where the cliff is, but you only find out by stepping off."
Record: Ein Heldenleben
Book: Dictionary
Luxury: A mirror
Producer: Leanne Buckle. Lees meer -
Martin Sheen
3 april 2011 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the actor Martin Sheen. Lees meer
In recent years he has won great acclaim and a Golden Globe for playing the leader of the free world in the hugely successful political drama The West Wing. He's made more than a 100 movies, including Apocalypse Now, Badlands and The Departed. For him, work is often a family affair, in Wall Street he acted alongside his son Charlie Sheen and in his latest movie, The Way he was directed by another of his children - Emilio Estevez.
But away from the film set, he's an activist and campaigner - he's been arrested around 70 times and is motivated, he says by faith and conscience above politics.
Record: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Book: The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky.
Luxury: A full set of golf clubs and a bag of golf balls.Producer: Leanne Buckle.
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Dame Anne Owers
27 februari 2011 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Dame Anne Owers. Lees meer
A long-time human rights campaigner, she's spent years immersing herself in the problems of people on the margins of society. During the time she was Chief Inspector, the prison population expanded hugely. "The thing that saddened me greatly is that our prisons became better places but they also became places that soaked up a lot of money and into which we put a lot of people. My view is a lot of that money could have been better spent doing things that stopped people getting there in the first place and therefore prevented there being victims of crime."
Record: Handel's Messiah
Book: An Anthology of British poetry
Luxury: A solar powered word processorProducer: Isabel Sargent.
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Lawrence Dallaglio
20 februari 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio. Lees meer
He was capped 85 times for England, played in three Lions tours and led his club side, Wasps, to the top of the premiership five times.
Yet, he says, he only started playing rugby seriously after the death of his sister, Francesca. She died in the Marchioness disaster on the Thames when he was 16 and her death, he says, blew his world apart.
"Losing my sister was devastating. It made me more determined to do something to bring my parents together. When I first took up rugby, I took it up not for sporting reasons, I needed something to grab onto, I needed an olive branch."
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
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Celia Imrie
13 februari 2011 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringImmediately recognisable as one of Britain's most versatile actresses she's worked in television, theatre and films over the past four decades. While she's taken roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in big budget films, it's her instinct for TV comedy - working alongside Victoria Wood and Julie Walters - that has made her a household name. Lees meer
Audiences loved the spoof soap opera Acorn Antiques and she won an Olivier Award for her role in the stage production. In the early days, though, she remembers the camera crews were unsure what was going on. "I do remember the cameramen watching what had been a very slick show up until Acorn Antiques and then just thinking, 'Why is this bit so bad? Why is the scenery swaying in the background?'"
Record: Tiptoe Through the Tulips
Book: The Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Luxury: A cut glass crystal chandelier with candlesProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Howard Jacobson
6 februari 2011 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the writer Howard Jacobson. Lees meer
After many years of swiping at literary prizes, last October he walked off with the biggest one going, the Man Booker. His book, The Finkler Question, was a study of what it meant to be Jewish in England. It's a subject that has been very near to Howard Jacobson's heart. He says: "My sense of myself has always meant being on the outside. On the outside as a Jew, looking into gentile England, but also on the outside of Jewishness too. I have always felt myself to be on the outside of everything."
Record: You're a Sweetheart
Book: The Oxford Book of English Verse
Luxury: A never ending supply of pressed shirts and trousersProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Jon Snow
30 januari 2011 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the journalist Jon Snow. Lees meer
For the past 21 years he's been the face of Channel Four's nightly bulletins where, along with his patent enthusiasm and vigour for dissecting the day's stories, he's noted for his natty line in neckties and socks.
He's a highly experienced foreign correspondent too - he's reported from Haiti, New Orleans, Washington and East Africa among many locations. However it was in El Salvador that he found his name on the list of people who might be targeted by death squads. It was, he says, something of a 'badge of honour'. "I cry on location", he says, "and it's a good thing, because otherwise you bottle it up and come home bonkers."
Record: Petite Messe Solennelle
Book: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Luxury: A set of watercolours and an endless supply of paperProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Betty Driver
23 januari 2011 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the veteran Coronation Street actress Betty Driver. Lees meer
For more than forty years she's been pulling pints and dishing up her hot-pot in the Rovers Return. But her career in showbusiness started decades before she took up residence on Britain's most famous street.
She was a child when her mother put her on the stage and she toured the country with an act that showcased her stunning singing voice - it brought success but not happiness. "I did it for over twenty years," she says, "and hated every day of it." Although she has been working now for an incredible 80 years, she says: "I just love work and I will never retire. They'll have to shoot me to get rid of me!"
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
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Rt Hon Alex Salmond
16 januari 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond. Lees meer
He has spent his political life campaigning for Scottish independence. As a schoolboy he stood in classroom elections - back then, he won on the canny ticket of half-days for all and replacing the school milk with ice-cream.
He was a child when he realised he had a knack for public performance - he was a boy soprano who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him. He says: "If you can sing in front of thousands of people when you're ten or eleven then being Scottish First Minister is nothing in comparison."
Record: Joe Hill sung by Paul Robeson
Book: The complete works of Robert Burns
Luxury: A Sand Wedge & endless golf balls for playing golf.Producer: Leanne Buckle.
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Gyles Brandreth
9 januari 2011 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Gyles Brandreth. Lees meer
A former Conservative MP, he is also a some-time actor, broadcaster and prolific writer who has authored biographies, diaries, stage plays and mysteries.
Pursuing a political career has been, he says, the over-riding ambition of his life. However the happiest moment came not from politics, but when he was performing in a West End show that he had written himself. These days, his ambitions are to return to the stage and the role he wants to take on is Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.
"I have no complaints" he says; "my life has been one long series of tomato and marmite sandwiches. I've always had what I wanted."
Record: I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face sung by Simon Cadell
Book: The Complete plays of Anton Chekhov
Luxury: Michelangelo's PietàProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Tony Iveson
2 januari 2011 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the veteran RAF pilot Tony Iveson. Lees meer
Aged 21, he survived being shot down in his Spitfire over the North Sea during his first taste of combat in the Battle of Britain. Unusually for a fighter pilot, he then went on to join Bomber Command and the famous Dambusters squadron, sinking the German battleship The Tirpitz and winning a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Aged 89 he returned to the skies, becoming the oldest man to fly a Lancaster bomber: "Well, I got out of that aeroplane and looked at it and it and thought how did we do it?" he says. "I know it was a long time ago and I was young and fit and a professional flier. But I thought about some of my friends who had been lost and it was an emotional experience."
Record: Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor
Book: A volume of Somerset Maugham's short stories
Luxury: Two established vines and a tin bath to make wineProducer: Rachel Simpson.
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Sandie Shaw
26 december 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sandie Shaw. Lees meer
With her melodic, velvety voice, bare feet and Sassoon bob she was the epitome of everything that was swinging about the '60s.
She was just 17 when she first topped the charts with Always Something There to Remind Me and went on to become Britain's first Eurovision winner with Puppet on a String. She loathed the song at the time, but has recently come to terms with it after recording a new version which is, she says, rather forlorn.
Along with the highs have been terrible lows - years that she calls her dark ages, when, without money or creative freedom, she felt hopeless. It was Buddhism that turned her fortunes around and became central to her life. Now, she says, she cannot believe the journey life has taken her on and she is preparing for a final flourish as a performer.
Record: None of them!
Book: Lecture on The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life
by Daisaku Ikeda
Luxury: Omamori GohonzonProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Nick Park
19 december 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park. Lees meer
His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit: Gromit the silent but wise dog; Wallace, his well meaning owner with notably less brain-power. They now hold the same place in the nation's heart at Christmas that Morcambe and Wise once occupied. They are old-fashioned and quintessentially British - as familiar as bread and butter, or hoping the rain holds off - but their appeal is international.
The world they inhabit is one of Jacobs cream crackers and tea-strainers - so it's little surprise that in real life too Nick Park's own creature comforts are modest: "The thing is, I have everything I want really. I've got my little house, I've got a campervan, I love the British countryside, I'm not after yachts or things like that."
Record: I Forgot that Love Existed - Van Morrison
Book: A Collins Bird book
Luxury: My own 'Amazing pair of binoculars'Producer: Leanne Buckle.
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Sir Torquil Norman
12 december 2010 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman. Lees meer
He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmother an adventurer and his father also a keen pilot.
Torquil ended up in the toy trade where the skills needed were, he says, a close attention to detail combined with the outlook on life of a seven year old. He was, he admits, perfectly qualified. In retirement he set about his biggest project - he bought a disused railway engine shed and raised tens of millions of pounds to safeguard its future as a venue for performing arts and a centre for young people.
Record: Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out - Bessie Smith
Book: Book by his father: Nigel Norman - Verses 1911 - 1943.
Luxury: A miniature still with a little ice-making machine attached to it to make dry martinis. -
Frances Wood
5 december 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Frances Wood. Lees meer
As head of the Chinese collection at the British Library she is the gatekeeper to some of the rarest printed texts in the world. Her life has been immersed in the language and culture of the Far East and, along the way, she's spent time learning how to throw hand-grenades, plant rice in the paddy-fields and bundle Chinese cabbages.
She was in China in the final months of Mao Zedong's regime and remembers being aware of the sense of national unease: "There were the bodies that floated down the Pearl River to Hong Kong - you did get a real sense of foreboding. You did know that the whole country was on edge."
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: Don Carlos
Book: A copy of Chinese dictionary Cihai, (which means Sea of Words) from the 1930s
Luxury: The War Memorial outside Euston Station. -
Robert Harris
28 november 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the best-selling writer Robert Harris. Lees meer
He was, apparently, a political junkie from a young age; he was just six when he wrote the essay: 'Why me and my dad don't like Sir Alec Douglas Home' and he also had an early realisation that he wanted to grow up to be a writer. His first novel - Fatherland - imagined a world after the Nazis had won World War II. It sold more than three million copies and made him a household name. "I can remember I wrote the opening sentence and I practically had to go and lie down afterwards," he said, "the possibilities of it - and the feeling that I'd finally arrived at what I wanted to do - it was overwhelming."
Record: Every Day I write the book - Elvis Costello
Book: Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
Luxury: A nightly fragrant bath. -
Alice Cooper
21 november 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the rock musician Alice Cooper. Lees meer
As a teenager he says it was British music that he tuned in to - listening to The Beatles, The Yardbirds and The Who. He realised that while rock music had many heroes, there were few villains - that was the territory he marked out for himself. He developed his trademark look - blackened eyes, straggly hair and glamorous clothes - and set about designing live shows that were gleefully gory and macabre.
While critics have described him as 'the world's most beloved heavy metal entertainer', it took him a while to untangle himself from his creation. "For a long time I honestly didn't know where I began and Alice ended. My friends at the time were Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and I was trying to keep up with them. And I realised when they all died that you didn't have to be your character off stage."
Record: Work Song - The Butterfield Blues Band
Book: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Luxury: An indoor golf driving rangeProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Anna Del Conte
19 november 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the cookery writer Anna Del Conte. Lees meer
Born to a wealthy Milanese family, she arrived in Britain in 1949 where her Italian ingenuity with food was sorely needed in a nation still facing rationing and no olive oil. Her books, starting with Portrait of Pasta in 1976, helped to change all that, and established her as a food hero for younger cooks like Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith.
She has still more to teach however: whatever you do, she says, you shouldn't serve bolognese with spaghetti as it's just the wrong shape. Tagliatelle is much better.
Record: Part of the duet from the first act of Otello
Book: The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
Luxury: Extra virgin olive oil. -
Ian McMillan
7 november 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Lees meer
Thirty years ago he was working in a factory gluing together tennis ball halves. Then he got a grant, chucked in his job and devoted himself to writing and performing.
These days he's known as the Bard of Barnsley and his appeal stretches from the terraces of his local football club to the balcony of the London Coliseum... he is poet in residence at both Barnsley FC and the English National Opera...
He still lives in the village where he was born and he considers and analyses British culture from his very particular vantage point in south Yorkshire.
He says: "You can do the universal in the local, I always think. You can see all the changes that have happened all over the world in the 20th and 21st centuries in microcosm."
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: 4' 33" - John Cage
Book: The Long and The Short of It: Poems 1955-2005 by Roy Fisher
Luxury: A tandem bike with wooden models of his family on the front. -
Lang Lang
31 oktober 2010 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Chinese pianist Lang Lang. Lees meer
He was five years old when he gave his first public recital in front of an audience of 800 people. It was a pivotal moment and from that point on it was clear where his future lay. His parents were both musical too but, during the cultural revolution, had not been able to pursue their own ambitions. Lang Lang was born under the one-child rule and so he was, he says, their only chance. Their aim was that he should become the No.1 pianist in China and in the years that followed, family life was sacrificed to that end.
Still only 28 years old, he is a phenomenon in the classical music world - he played to a global audience of four and a half billion people for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and, when he returns to China, he says he is mobbed in the streets.
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: The Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 played by Vladimir Horowitz
Book: The Analects of Confucius.
Luxury: Two feathered pillows. -
Nick Clegg
24 oktober 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. Lees meer
Of his career, he says: "Joining the Liberal Party was a no brainer for me - when you're a young man, you don't get a calculator out saying 'Am I going to get to power?' you get propelled forward by idealism". Yet this week more than any other, critics have questioned whether his interest in power has meant his ideals have had to take a back seat.
In this candid conversation, he describes the behind-the-scenes negotiations that underpinned the coalition and he shares the personal trauma when, after his wife and baby son had both been dangerously ill, he wondered whether a political career would place too heavy a burden on his family.
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: Schubert - Impromptu No.3 in G flat major
Book: The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
Luxury: A stash of cigarettes. -
Michael Mansfield
17 oktober 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the barrister Michael Mansfield. Lees meer
He is one of Britain's leading QCs - the Birmingham six, the Marchioness disaster, the Stephen Lawrence trial and the death of Jean Charles de Menezes are only a handful of the high profile cases he's been involved in.
He describes himself as a 'radical lawyer' and says he's been educated by the cases he's taken on. He has become, he says, increasingly angry and radical over the years. "I do feel that reputation, standing up for principle, is one of the few ways in which a difference can be made."
Record: The Goons - What's the Time, Eccles?
Book: The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine as his Bible: and
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
Luxury: A drum kit. -
Sarah Doukas
10 oktober 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the founder of Storm model agency, Sarah Doukas. Lees meer
She has never, she says, had a normal career - after running away from school, she ran bric-a-brac stalls in London and Paris and then lived in America before returning to Britain. She enjoyed a stint as a model herself (her speciality, at only five feet two inches tall, was perching on car bonnets so they seemed bigger in advertising pictures). But she discovered she had a knack for spotting future talent and is best known for finding a 14 year old Kate Moss and turning her into an international star. "I'm a terrible old rocker" she says, "I always knew my life would be unconventional."
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye
Book: The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Luxury: A photo album of all my family. -
Johnny Vegas
3 oktober 2010 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the entertainer Johnny Vegas. Lees meer
As a stand-up comic he made his name as one of the most brilliant and unpredictable acts on the circuit. His stage persona was a belligerent drunk who would heckle his own audience. But the more successful he became, the more the similarities between his own life and his stage character seemed to blur. "I found popularity through self-destruction" he says, "and that can be quite addictive". In recent years, he has cut down on his drinking, lost weight and now got engaged - all part of a plan to ensure he reached his 40th birthday and could be a proper father to his young son. "Life's actually turned around and been very good to me," he says.
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: Hurt - Johnny Cash
Book: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
Luxury: A Kiln. -
Sir Tom Jones
26 september 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sir Tom Jones. Lees meer
In a career spanning fifty years he's sold 150 million albums and his hits have included It's Not Unusual, What's New Pussycat? and Delilah. As a child it was assumed he'd follow in his father's footsteps and become a miner. But he developed TB when he was twelve and doctors warned his parents against sending their only son to the pit; they said his lungs were too weak. Now aged seventy, he has no plans to retire. "Singing's like breathing to me", he says, "my voice drives me, it tells me that I have to do it".
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
Book: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire -Lawrence James
Luxury: A Bucket and Spade. -
Kathy Burke
15 augustus 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringFrom Lady Gaga to The Specials. Actor and director Kathy Burke shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young. Lees meer
She became a household name for her comedy performances, working with Harry Enfield to create the characters Kevin and Perry. She won critical acclaim for serious roles and picked up the Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of an abused wife in the film "Nil By Mouth".
Kathy's early life had been tumultuous - her mother died before she was two and her father was often drunk, leaving her older brother to run the family home. She was a teenager when she discovered acting and, she says, it was the saving of her.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2010.
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Lord David Cobbold
8 augustus 2010 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway on Desert Island Discs is Lord David Cobbold. Lees meer
He was just 32 years old when he took over the ancestral pile Knebworth House and he succeeded in turning a crumbling corner of the establishment into one of the best rock concert venues in the world. Over the past forty years, everyone from Led Zeppelin to Paul McCartney to Robbie Williams has played there. The concerts have not only allowed him to keep the house in private hands, but have also given him a front-row seat to some of the most celebrated performances in rock history.
Record: Pink Floyd - Brain Damage
Book: Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Luxury: A fishing rodProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Lynn Barber
25 juli 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the interviewer Lynn Barber. Lees meer
A master of the profile interview, her razor-sharp observations have earned her the nickname the Demon Barber and won her a stack of awards. Although critics say her articles are hatchet jobs, she disagrees: "I think that people are well served by quite blunt or quite rude questions because it forces them to fight back and come back strongly," she says.
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: Macushla sung by John McCormack
Book: The Complete F Scott Fitzgerald
Luxury: A cyanide pill. -
Tim Robbins
18 juli 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning actor, writer and director Tim Robbins. Lees meer
His film credits include The Shawshank Redemption, Dead Man Walking, The Hudsucker Proxy and Mystic River. Brought up in an artistic and creative household in New York's Greenwich Village, he was always encouraged to sing and perform. After talking politics around the dinner table as a teenager he would, on occasion, spend his evenings working the lights for the local drag act.
Indeed it was on stage, rather than in front of the camera, that Tim Robbins developed his own acting style: "It gave me a discipline to still the anarchic energy I had," he says: "A rigid discipline to an emotional truth and the ability to have that at my fingertips."
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: A Case of You -Joni Mitchell
Book: A Matchbook
Luxury: A Surfboard. -
Dr Gwen Adshead
11 juli 2010 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the forensic psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead. Lees meer
A consultant at Broadmoor Hospital, it is her job to try to understand the behaviour of some of the most vilified people in our society. The Victorian institution in Berkshire is home to more than two hundred men; all people who have been convicted or accused of the most dangerous violent behaviour.
Her life outside work seems impossibly normal - bringing up her children, singing in a choir and gardening fill her spare time. Of her work, she says: "Other people's minds are so fascinating I can't think of anything more interesting and I can't understand why everyone isn't a psychiatrist."
Producer: Leanne Buckle
Record: James Taylor - Shower the People
Book: Biggest book of poetry available.
Luxury: Pen and paper. -
Dame Fanny Waterman
4 juli 2010 · 40 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Dame Fanny Waterman. Lees meer
It was during a sleepless night, more than forty years ago, that she came up with the idea of launching a piano competition in Leeds. Since then it's become a world renowned event and been a springboard for many of our most celebrated pianists including Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia.
Although she is now 90 years old, she still teaches masterclasses and continues to be involved with every detail of the competition. "They call me Field Marshal Fanny" she says, "I am a busy breeches."
Record: Radu Lupu- Piano Concerto No.3
Book: The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
Luxury: A grand piano and a stool. -
Tony Adams
27 juni 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the footballer Tony Adams. Lees meer
He's one of the few people who know at first hand the pressures and joys of captaining the England team. And, after signing as a schoolboy for Arsenal, he is the only man ever to have led a championship winning team across three decades.
The drama and successes of his life have been as remarkable off the pitch as on it. He found sporting glory despite being an alcoholic and even served time in prison for drink-driving. But his journey of recovery has been a remarkable one. He went back to studying, developed a love of literature and the arts and put his own money into a charity to support other sports men and women recovering from addiction. It's a transformation that his former team-mates have described as 'heroic'. Now, he is heading to Azerbaijan to become a manager, he is planning, he says, to build the Tony Adams team.
Record: Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Book: The book of Alcoholics Anonymous
Luxury: Football. -
Lewis Gilbert
20 juni 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the film director Lewis Gilbert. Lees meer
His career started in the 1920s when he was a child actor in silent movies. Over the next seven decades, he went on to direct Hollywood blockbusters as well as landmark British films. His directing credits include Reach for the Skies, Alfie, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine - as well as three Bond films. Depite his numerous successes, though, he remains haunted by the film he didn't make: he spent years working with Lionel Bart and planning how Oliver! might look... only for the project to slip through his fingers.
Record: I'll String Along with You
Book: A book of poems
Luxury: A footballProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Frank Skinner
13 juni 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the comedian Frank Skinner. Lees meer
As a football-obsessed comic whose stand-up routines were peppered with details of his personal life, he became the poster-boy for the 'Loaded' generation. Beneath the surface, though, he seems to be full of contradictions. He was expelled from school when he was a teenager - but went on to gain a masters degree; he has long been obsessed with Elvis Presley - but now says he feels a tingle when he goes to the opera. Although he had long enjoyed entertaining his friends, he was 30 before he realised where his future lay. "I was an unemployed drunk going nowhere," he says, "And then comedy turned up. Comedy saved my life"
Record: The Fall
Book: Teach yourself French
Luxury: A ukulele. -
Gyorgy Pauk
30 mei 2010 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the violinist Gyorgy Pauk. Lees meer
In a career spanning fifty years, he has played with all the best orchestras and continues to teach masterclasses around the world.
He grew up in Hungary and, after both his parents were taken to labour camps, he was brought up by his grandmother. His parents died during the war and it was, says Gyorgy, a miracle that he and his grandmother survived in the Budapest ghetto. For years afterwards, he says, he would carry food with him because he was so scarred by the hunger he'd felt.
His musical talent was his passport to the West and, when he was 22 years old, he fled first to France, then to Holland and finally to Britain where he has lived for nearly fifty years. Of his early years, he says: "There were times when you were punished if you were listening to the radio. That's when it started to get to me - realising that I was not free. Music is international, it has to be worldwide."
Record: Bach's Andante from the Second Sonata in A Minor
Book: How To Be An Alien by George Mikes
Luxury: A N'espresso machineProducer: Leanne Buckle.
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Dame Stephanie Shirley
23 mei 2010 · 38 min
Beluister deze afleveringEntrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley joins Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs. Lees meer
As a child, she escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport - travelling across Europe for two days in a train with a thousand children and just two adults. She went on to set up a computer programming company which made her a millionaire many times over. But she has given away most of her fortune and now is an ambassador for philanthropy. Her determination throughout it all, she says, has been to prove that hers was a life worth saving.
Record: Mozart- Sonata in C, K. 545
Book: AA Milne - Winnie The Pooh
Luxury: Mother and Child by Henry Moore. -
Rob Brydon
16 mei 2010 · 34 min
Beluister deze afleveringThe comedian and actor Rob Brydon joins Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs. Lees meer
Growing up in Port Talbot, South Wales, he discovered performing when he was a teenager and says he came alive when he was on stage: so much so that he left school with only a couple of O Levels. For years, he made a comfortable but unfulfilling living recording voice-overs and working on a television shopping channel. He always dreamed of working in comedy, though, and eventually it was 'Marion and Geoff' and then 'Gavin and Stacey' that made him a household name.
Record: Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
Book: Collected works of Dylan Thomas
Luxury: A guitar. -
Fay Weldon
9 mei 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringThe writer Fay Weldon joins Kirsty Young to choose her Desert Island Discs. Lees meer
The author of dozens of novels, essays and radio and TV dramas, she says she spends so much time inventing characters and storylines that the distinction between fact and fiction has become blurred.
As a child, Fay Weldon believed she had a second sight - seeing people who weren't there and hearing voices that no-one else could hear. As an adult, her perceptive nature has served her well too and she says: "I think I know what goes on in other people's heads - more than most people do."
Record: Rockin' My Life Away -Jerry Lee Lewis
Book: Kennedy's Latin Primer
Luxury: A shotgun. -
Emma Thompson
28 maart 2010 · 37 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is Emma Thompson. Lees meer
Sense and Sensibility, The Remains of the Day, Much Ado About Nothing and Howards End are just a handful of her notable screen credits in a dazzling career that has seen her pick up Oscars for both acting and writing.
She appears to have pulled off that rare trick of being both a star and one of us - she famously keeps her brace of Oscars in the downstairs loo, still lives across the road from her mum and holidays in a cottage in Scotland where, she says, she and her husband spend a third of the year 'digging in like a pair of old potatoes.'
Record: Corarsik
Book: Homer's Odyssey
Luxury: A saucepan - heavy bottomed with a removable handle. -
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
21 maart 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is the writer Frank Cottrell Boyce. Lees meer
His film credits include Hilary and Jackie, Welcome to Sarajevo and 24 Hour Party People. He's also written TV soaps, radio and stage plays and children's novels.
These days children are his main audience and, as a father of seven himself, he should know what they want. He not only tests his ideas on them, but they keep him focused: 'I need them in the house to make sure I'm not watching telly, or having a four-hour bath - the fact that they're there makes me work.'
Record: Miserere by Allegri
Book: The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Luxury: A ferris wheel. -
Duncan Bannatyne
14 maart 2010 · 35 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne. Lees meer
He made his name appearing on the TV show Dragons' Den as a no-nonsense investor with an eye for the bottom line. He made his fortune in nursing homes, health clubs and hotels. Quite something, given that aged 30 he was a deck chair attendant who had been thrown out of the Royal Navy for attempting to throw his commanding officer overboard. He says, 'When you've got a criminal record, no qualifications, no references, the best option is starting your own business - because no one can stop you.'
Record: Love Changes Everything
Book: The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
Luxury: A pillow. -
Maggie Aderin-Pocock
7 maart 2010 · 36 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Lees meer
She has, she says, a special relationship with the moon, one that started when she first saw The Clangers as a small child. As a teenager she made her own telescope so she could study the moon more closely. Now she makes highly technical optical equipment for satellites, but says she still harbours desires to go into space - her dream job is building a telescope on the moon. She says: 'From the age of three, I wanted to get into space and I still do. It's been the driving force of my life really, that desire to get out there one day.'
Record: As by Stevie Wonder
Book: Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Luxury: A telescope. -
June Spencer
28 februari 2010 · 39 min
Beluister deze afleveringKirsty Young's castaway is actress June Spencer. Lees meer
She is one of the best-loved matriarchs in broadcasting. As Peggy Woolley in The Archers, she's the only original member of the cast still in the show.
It's 60 years this spring since the pilot episodes were first broadcast and, although she is now aged 90, June has no plans to retire.
She says, 'It's a great bonus for me that The Archers has run as long as it has, and I've gone along with it.'
DISC ONE: Fred Astaire - Let's Face The Music And Dance
DISC TWO: Nelson Eddy - I Passed by Your Window
DISC THREE: Andrei Gavrilov - Frédéric Chopin’s Revolutionary Study
DISC FOUR: Northern Sinfonia Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Bernard Pommier - Claude Debussy’s En bateau (from Petite suite)
DISC FIVE: John Williams - Concierto De Aranjuez
DISC SIX: Harry Secombe - Giacomo Puccini’s E Lucevan Le Stelle (from Tosca)
DISC SEVEN: The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Overture to The Sleeping Beauty
DISC EIGHT: Winchester Cathedral Choir - George Frideric Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah)CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: John Williams - Concierto De Aranjuez
BOOK CHOICE: Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome
LUXURY CHOICE: A Scrabble boardProducer: Isabel Sargent
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2010.