Desert Island Discs

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, and groaning under the weight of myriad fellowships and awards, with an honorary DBE to her name, she is one of the grand dames of British science.In retirement she continues to mentor and encourage fellow women scientists, not least in her networking group "science&shopping" - an aim being to have some fun.She says her metaphor for the brain "is that of a garden that is full of the most interesting, different things ... that have to be cultivated and constantly checked."Producer: Alison Hughes.

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 box was cemented by one of the most memorable moments in broadcasting history - the notorious "legover" comment that prompted the legendary Brian Johnston to dissolve into helpless, prolonged giggles live on air.He says "The great thing about our job is that you have no pre-conceived idea about what is going to happen - you have no script - the cricket is the script".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 twenty odd books and her autobiography is entitled "I Knew I Was Right".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 council estate and an unlikely chief executive, I'm quite happy not to be in the limelight".

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 says she is an "icon of democracy" and Desmond Tutu calls her "a remarkable woman ... ready to work for the healing of her motherland".Her renown has come at significant personal sacrifice: she endured nearly 20 years of house arrest and persecution, exiled from her children and apart from her British husband who died from cancer in 1999. She says "It takes courage to feel the truth, to feel one's conscience because once you do, you must engage your fundamental purpose for being alive. You can't just expect to sit idly by and have freedom handed to you."Producer: Cathy DrysdaleBoth the on-demand and the download audio of this programme are an extended edition of the original broadcast.

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 Howerd, Jack Nicholson and most recently Benedict Cumberbatch.She started out typing Goon Show scripts in the mid 50s, accidentally became an agent, and as a producer she has risen to the very top of her industry, with hits including the rock musical Tommy, the sit-com Men Behaving Badly and the drama series Sherlock.She says "it's terribly important not to know too many rules. If you know rules and obstacles you spend a lot of time dealing with them. If you don't know there's a rule you just do it."Producer: Alison Hughes.

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 encouraged him to rise above his station - there was music in his Anglo-Irish background, but it wasn't encouraged and rarely if ever talked about.He says, "In my opinion there is no such thing as bad music. There may be bad players or bad singers but I don't like the idea of inferior music".The producer was Isabel Sargent.

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 for the Ed Sullivan Show. He loved TV and it felt the same about him. He's won a raft of Emmys for his productions and worked with all the big beasts of the broadcasting jungle including Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and David Letterman.He has spent the last few years commuting between New York, Tokyo, London and Hollywood - the first and so far only westerner to run the Japanese giant Sony.He says - "I think I'm a bit prone to new adventures. The same damned impulse that got me in trouble by sending me to America in the first place compels me to take challenges when offered them."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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's also known for her conscience and designed a canvas tote called "I'm not a plastic bag" as part of an environmental campaign to highlight our over use of plastic bags.She combines all this with a hectic family life. She met and subsequently married a widower 12 years her senior when she was 25. He had 3 children aged under 5 and they've added a further two to the clan.She says her life is like "juggling and dancing while having one arm and one eye at the same time".Producer: Alison Hughes.

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 show performer, writer, actor, Dawn has made us laugh for years. So does she ever feel overwhelmed by people's expectations? She says "I tell myself that I'm the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do .... I am the sort of person who writes a book - so I do".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 the - frankly rather unlikely - occurrence of a television career. She is the nun who knows about art and her passionate and pithy critiques of the world's great works and hidden treasures have won her many devoted fans. With decades of solitude and prayer under her belt she seems, unlike nearly every other guest, to be perfectly cut out for a stretch alone on a desert island.She says "It's my apostolic duty to talk about art. If you don't know about God, art is the only thing that can set you free". Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.

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 Question Time.Producer: Alison Hughes.

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 to an unparalleled body of work: he is the only actor in history to have top billing in three films that won Best Picture Oscars. Now in his mid-70s he is making his directorial debut.He says "I'm always fighting to break through... I'm trying to show you the part of me that wants to love, wants to kill, that wants to find my way out, that feels there is no way out."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 not one of those people who by mistake became a potter or by mistake is a writer - they are both completely entwined."Producer: Isabel Sargent.

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 peppered his stellar career in comedy. He says, "I like starting things ... there are starters and finishers in life, that's the great divide ... I like the fight and the passion and the difficulty - well I don't like it, but it's what I do".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 Broadway - looking for the next hit that could cross the Atlantic. She says: "people say, how can you go to the theatre for 50 years and still be enthusiastic? Every time I go, I think, Oh, I'm going to see something, I'm going to be surprised!"Producer: Isabel Sargent.

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 homeland left him high and dry. He says "I had no job, no career, nothing at all. It taught me a lot about myself. If you've been in a situation where you have nothing there's nothing much you're afraid of."Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 her own life. She's been married and divorced three times, her only child has battled drug addiction and a severe stroke nearly killed her in 2009.Despite this, she remains ambitious and energetic in the business world and says that there's no such thing as a glass ceiling.Producer: Alison Hughes.

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 promise revealed itself early on and despite dallying with the idea of journalism as a career, she finally followed the path her mother wanted for her - academia. She says, "I like to be in places where I feel my voice can be heard and I can say things of some value." Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 good looks of a Hollywood film star. Brought up by his single mother in Harlem, he still lives with her when he's not travelling the world and says of the neighbourhood he grew up in, ... "for me it was hard to be there ... because I just didn't see many successful black men around... there were just not many of us who made it out".Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.

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 promoters she has, none the less, a face known to millions - as a long time friend and muse to David Hockney she is the woman at the centre of his famous painting "Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy".She wants her work to be relevant because and says "there's nothing worse than being out-dated. If that happens and I feel I'm past it, I'll stop".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 tie. Inspired by his boyhood heroes Seb Coe and Daley Thompson, who he first saw on TV competing in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, sport became his passion.He says "I think I've done more things with my disability than most able-bodied people would ever dream of doing".Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 in sleazy go-go bars to bagging an Oscar, how she coped with the difficulties her early success brought her and how she met her husband of 29 years, Kurt Russell.

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.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the campaigner Baroness Jane Campbell. She was born with a degenerative condition and her parents were told she would not survive infancy. Now in her mid-fifties and a cross-bench peer, she's spent her adult life campaigning for equality for disabled people and was one of the leading voices behind the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. She recalls: "I found myself sitting in the middle of Westminster Bridge bringing the traffic to a standstill. The police didn't know what to do with us - whether to pat us on the head or, you know, put handcuffs on us. They were quite confused."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Mary Berry is one of the UK's best-known and respected cookery writers. More than six million copies of her books have now been sold - not bad for a girl who failed her school certificate in English. On television, it is her role as a judge on The Great British Bake-off that has brought her to the attention of a new generation. It was in domestic science lessons that she discovered her love of cooking and she is in no doubt of the importance of teaching cookery in school "When everybody leaves school, whether they are a boy or a girl, what do they have to do in the home? They have to produce a meal. They haven't been taught to do it. I think it should be essential."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.A child of Bengali immigrants, he started learning Indian dance almost as soon as he could walk. Talent-spotted in his teens, he went on to spend two years touring the world with Peter Brook's Mahabharata. A keen collaborator, he's worked with everyone from prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem to disco queen Kylie Minogue. He says he was a shy boy and dance allowed him to communicate properly for the first time: "It was like being allowed to speak - and people taking notice of that and that's another problem because then you want people's attention all the time, so, every dinner party we went to, I said, Mum, are they going to ask me to dance? It became an addiction." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor, writer and director Simon McBurney. It's 30 years since he set up the ground-breaking theatre company Complicite. It brought extraordinary physical deftness to the stage and its productions won every plaudit going - from an armful of Olivier awards to the Perrier prize for comedy. His mainstream credits range from TV roles in the Vicar of Dibley and Rev, to screen credits for The Last King of Scotland and Harry Potter. On stage, he's directed Katie Holmes and Al Pacino to critical acclaim in New York. Of his unconventional directing style, he admits: "Some people have said, it's a bit like going into the jungle with some mad explorer - who everybody knows doesn't have any idea where he's going - but somehow he gives people some sort of confidence to keep on going." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the legendary tennis player, Martina Navratilova. In an extraordinary career she's won 59 Grand Slam titles - her last just a few weeks short of her fiftieth birthday. Her life off the court has been equally eventful - she grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and, as a teenager, threw rocks as Soviet tanks rolled in; tennis offered a way to see the world and she defected to the US when she was 18 years old. After thirty years at the top of her profession she retired - and says she finally found time for the rest of her life: "Tennis really was a total commitment, you didn't have much time for anything else. So, when I quit, I was going through something emotionally that most people go through when they're 18, 20 years old. Really having the time for personal relationships, developing friendships and taking the time with everybody. I think I've caught up by now."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the architectural critic and writer Charles Jencks.Born in America, for the past four decades he has lived and worked in Britain - where his designs are as likely to be found in sculptural landscapes as buildings. Perhaps his most significant legacy, though, is the work he did with his late wife, Maggie Keswick. They worked together to design Maggie's Centres - a series of practical and beautifully-designed buildings to give information and support to people with cancer. He says: "When you have cancer, there's many things which you have to do aside from the struggle - it's not just a medical problem, it's a social problem - of how you tell the children, how you tell your boss - and above all, as Maggie said, it's not to lose the joy of living." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the comedian John Bishop.Growing up on a Merseyside council estate, his early ambition was to play football for Liverpool - otherwise, he thought he might find a way out by winning the Pools or joining a band. The youngest of four children, his family were, he says, the kind that filled factory floors rather than lecture halls. Now a hugely popular stand-up comedian, it was a failing marriage and a sense of desperation that led him, one night, to a comedy bar. He decided to give it a try - it turned his life, and marriage, around. "There was a time where the stand-up was the thing that I think kept me sane - it was like therapy and if I stopped doing it, I would go backwards." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Egyptian writer and commentator Ahdaf Soueif.She was the first Muslim woman to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize and, from an early age, her life has been divided between Egypt and Britain. She was among the crowds in Tahrir Square last year, witnessing the uprising at first hand, and describing events for the world's media. She says: "Every once in a while there would be a surge of a few meters forward, as your friends, who were being killed at the front, gained you those three metres and your job, as the masses, was to move forward and hold the three metres." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the campaigner Doreen Lawrence. The life she thought was hers ended when her son Stephen was murdered by a group of young white men on a street in London in 1993. In the years since, her campaigning has resulted in a shift in public attitudes, laws being changed and policing methods overhauled. She set up a charity in her son's memory and has been awarded an OBE for services to community relations. She says: "My son was special and I think, what happened to him, I just wanted everyone to know and learn about him - but all the other things, the OBE, I'd swap all of that just to have my son back. When your children are young you take them for granted, because you think they're going to be there forever."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Margaret Rhodes. As the first cousin to the Queen, she has a unique insight into the life of the royal family. She used to spend her summer holidays at Balmoral with the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret while, during the war, she worked for MI6 and lodged at Buckingham Palace. She attended the Queen's wedding and coronation and, in later life, worked as an assistant to the Queen Mother. Remembering the Queen's coronation, she says: "We had only just recovered from six or seven years of deprivation and blackouts and rationing - it was like the sun suddenly coming out behind a lot of very dark clouds and I think everybody felt that with a new young Queen, a whole new era was opening up. It was somehow exciting." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the agony aunt and writer Denise Robertson. She is, she says, one of life's survivors -- yet she seems to have had more than her fair share of tragedy; she's been widowed twice, dealt with financial hardship and lost a child to cancer. She's written dozens of novels and for more than forty years been an agony aunt on local radio, papers and television. She says: "There have been times when I've thought, just as I get things right, fate steps in and kicks the steps from under me. But then you pick yourself up again. When I started out, there used to be a joke, that one day I'd open a letter without saying, 'Oh I remember when that happened to me'."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the novelist, historian and biographer, Peter Ackroyd. As a child he used to walk the streets of London with his grandmother - an experience that, he believes, fostered his own love for the city. He was appointed literary editor of The Spectator when he was just 23 and has gone on to write dozens of books since. He has written a biography of London, as well as books about people he calls 'cockney visionaries' such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and, now, Charlie Chaplin. Yet, of the work he's produced so far, he says: "Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death. So that final book is the one which gives me a sense of achievement."Producer: Christine Pawlowsky.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Baroness Sheila Hollins.An Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, she has specialised in the health and welfare of people with learning disabilities; advising on policy and influencing attitudes. She started off as a GP, turning to psychiatry after finding a huge proportion of her patients were suffering from emotional and social problems. One of her four children has a learning disability and that has brought a focus to her professional ambitions. She says: "In many ways, I've always thought that our children are going to be different to any expectation we had of them and really the joy of parenthood is discovering who your children really are."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the composer and performer Tim Minchin. As a comic and musician he has sold out London's O2 Arena and won legions of fans. He wrote the songs for the Royal Shakespeare Company's musical Matilda - the production of Roald Dahl's children's story has been a smash hit on the West End, won seven Olivier awards and is due to transfer to Broadway next year. He says: "I'm not a magical thinker - I don't think I need my special undies on or my special pencil - I'm not superstitious about the process. I just took my childhood of reading Dahl and said, 'I know what this is' and wrote some songs." Producer: Isabel Sargent.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the jazz pianist and singer Jamie Cullum. His interview was recorded in front of an audience at St George's in Bristol and launched Radio 4's More Than Words Festival. Despite failing his grade four piano exam and, by his own admission, barely being able to read music, Jamie Cullum has become hugely popular. He is particularly celebrated for his live shows and in this very special recording, he performed three of his musical choices. Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the broadcaster Anna Ford.One of the first high profile women in news, she worked for Granada, ITV and the BBC before retiring after more than thirty years on our screens. One of her professional pairings was presenting the News at 10 with Reginald Bosanquet, she remembers how he would try to unsettle her during broadcasts: "I adored Reggie, he would land either obscene poems or love poems on my script just before I was to about to read it to camera and I would catch just a sight of this and it was almost impossible not to laugh."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the American comedian Jackie Mason.His one-man shows have been pulling in audiences for more than fifty years. Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him, he trained initially as a rabbi - and quickly acquired a reputation for being very funny. "The people who heard my sermons kept saying to me; 'Rabbi, why aren't you a comedian?' I said to myself, maybe I should take the hint." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the renowned voice coach Patsy Rodenburg. Her work at the National Theatre and the RSC has spanned decades and her students include Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Maggie Smith and Daniel Day Lewis. But her work takes her away from the stage too - she has coached politicians and helped offenders in prison. She says: "I did some work on Hamlet in a top security prison and the guy playing Claudius was a murderer and he spoke, 'Oh my offence is rank, it smells to heaven', and he just broke."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the former rugby player and commentator Brian Moore. As a player he was ferociously competitive, he says his approach to the game was almost pathological and it earned him the nickname 'the pitbull'. By the time he retired, he'd earned dozens of England caps and played in three grand slams. But he discovered the obsessive determination he'd shown as a player was not so useful off the pitch. "In sport, the 'I won't give up', 'carry on training' and 'going again and again and again', that's rewarded because people say isn't that fantastic - but when it comes to normal life, you can't solve everything like that." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. In this frank interview, he describes life in the highly political home where he grew up, the impact that failing the school 11+ exam had on him and the gradual kindling of his own ambitions. He speaks of his debt to his wife Pauline and how for many years of their marriage he underestimated her. He describes, too, the inferiority complex which dogged him for much of his adult life: "All the attacks on me because of my grammar and kind of background, aggressive style - it used to ruff up a few feathers and whilst I would never let it show, certainly deep inside me I felt a bit inferior."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

James Corden, actor and writer of Gavin & Stacey, is Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor and writer . As a child he longed to act - he found early success in Alan Bennett's play The History Boys and became a household name for the TV show he devised and co-wrote, Gavin and Stacey. These days he's starring in the West End in the comedy One Man, Two Guvnors. It is due to transfer to Broadway in the spring and he says: "I'm well aware that this could well be the best part that I ever play on stage - it's a gift for any actor who has any interest in comedy. It feels like all my dreams come true." Record: Days Like this - Van Morrison Book: A book to learn the piano Luxury: A pianoProducer: Leanne Buckle.

Denise Lewis, Olympic gold medallist, is Kirsty Young's castaway.Her discipline was the heptathlon and it was at the 2000 Sydney Olympics that she leapt, threw, sprinted and hurdled her way on to the winner's podium. An only child of a single mother, she says her mum had always had ambition for her - and was there to witness her success. She said: "Her face said it all, there were tears in her eyes and for me it felt like, yes mum, we've done it together".Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway for the 70th anniversary edition of Desert Island Discs is Sir David Attenborough. He has seen more of the world than anyone else who has ever lived - he's visited the north and south poles and witnessed most of the life in-between - from the birds in the canopies of tropical rainforests to giant earthworms in Australia. But despite his extraordinary travels, there is one part of the globe that's eluded him. As a young man and a keen rock-climber, he yearned to conquer the highest peak in the world. "I won't make it now - I won't make it to base camp now - but as a teenager, I thought that the only thing a red-blooded Englishman really should do was to climb Everest."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the author Vikram Seth. His novel A Suitable Boy was nearly a decade in the writing, but it was a huge and immediate hit and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He is now working on a follow-up novel called A Suitable Girl. He's due to finish work on it in 2013 - 20 years after the original work was published. The pace of work, he admits, is slow: "The sound of deadlines pushing past is one of the sounds that authors are most familiar with - it's very much in the gestational period." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Paul Johnson. He writes, he says, out of a desire to 'put things right' and more than fifty books and thousands of articles have flowed from his pen. His opinions have provoked, offended and enraged plenty of people over the years and sweeping works about modernity, morality, art and philosophy, sit alongside fiercely opinionated biographies and essays. He says: "I like to be, in general, in agreement with what most people think, but I also like to be a little bit independent and individual and, thank God, I've been allowed to do that all my writing life."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the director of the Royal Ballet, Dame Monica Mason. Her working life has been dedicated to dance. When she joined the Royal Ballet at fifteen she was the youngest dancer to be admitted to the company and, during her career, its legendary choreographer Kenneth MacMillan created five roles for her. She became director ten years ago and is due to step down this summer. She says: "I couldn't bear it if I thought that, behind closed doors, somebody was saying 'she's here again, you know', so I shall keep my distance and only go in when asked."Producer: Leanne Buckle.