Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer Sybille Bedford. Born the daughter of a German baron in 1911, her childhood brought her into contact with the great literary figures of her age - Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf and T S Eliot. She has received critical acclaim as a novelist, journalist and law reporter, covering the Lady Chatterley trial, the Auschwitz trial and the trial of Jack Ruby.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Slow Movement of 'Double' Violin Concerto in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: A La Recherche de Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust Luxury: A French restaurant in full working order

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the playwright Jack Rosenthal. Bar Mitzvah Boy, and The Evacuees are among his many successes. His work often reflects his own life. He poured the grief he felt when his children left home into Eskimo Day, and touched a raw nerve with many parents who felt they had been left behind.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor by Max Bruch Book: Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce Luxury: Clay for making sculpture

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, John Bird. From a childhood in orphanages and approved schools, he has gone on to run the most successful street magazine in the world, with a circulation of over 250,000 a week in Britain and an overall turnover of some £24 million. With Big Issues in major cities all over Britain, Europe and the USA, he is returning his attention to his birthplace this time with his eye on becoming Mayor of London.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Caravan by Duke Ellington Book: Encyclopaedia of London by Ben Weinreb Luxury: Mont Blanc pen, notebook and ink

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the theatre producer Bill Kenwright. His West End successes include Shirley Valentine, Medea and Stepping Out. A gambler at heart, he continued to run Blood Brothers on Broadway despite a panning by the New York critics and it became a huge box office hit. An actor himself - most famously as Gordon Glegg in Coronation Street - he started producing in the provinces. There he lured audiences into the theatre by putting TV stars such as Pat Phoenix on stage - although sometimes he had to remind them that she wasn't Elsie Tanner.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Call To Arms (Everton FC and Z Cars Theme Tune) by Blueknowz Book: Everton - The Complete Record by Steve Johnson Luxury: Guitar"

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the gardener and broadcaster Geoffrey Smith. He learnt his craft at his father's knee growing fruit and vegetables for the stately home where he worked. Later he learnt the science of horticulture at college and achieved top marks. He's always maintained the promise he made to himself as a boy: to spend his life outdoors. Except, of course, when he enters a studio for Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Dawn Chorus Book: History of viticulture, with instructions on how to make wine Luxury: Bundle of prunings from a good vineyard so he can plant his own vines

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the most-recorded saxophonist in the world. Inspired by Duke Ellington and encouraged by Jack Brymer, John Harle is equally at home playing jazz or classical music. He once marched with the Coldstream Guards, but left to test himself against other musicians at the Royal College of Music, gaining 100% in his final exam. As a composer he has collaborated with among others, Paul McCartney and Harrison Birtwistle, and his first opera is premiered this week.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Hunting Song by Pentangle Book: The Aesthetics of Music by Roger Scruton Luxury: Lute and strings

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is 'England's choir master', Sir David Willcocks. For some 38 years he trained the Bach Choir - the most popular amateur choir in Britain. His retirement in 1998 he describes as ""like the end of an affair"". As the Director of Music at Kings College Cambridge, he tranformed small boys with dirty knees into an angelic choir. His gift is a mix of natural talent and experience. At the age of eight he joined the choir school at Westminster Abbey, where he was conducted by Elgar. Later, he worked closely with Vaughan Williams whose humility and humour he remembers, produced some masterful performances.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Oh Sacred Head by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Book on astronomy Luxury: King's College Chapel

"Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the sculptor Antony Gormley. His Angel of the North towers over the A1 just outside Gateshead. Elsewhere, his figures stand buried in sand at the mouth of an estuary, or hang from the ceiling of an American jailhouse. In 1994 he won the Turner Prize for his works called Field - thousands of small clay creatures, crafted by people from around the world. Another sculpture, Bed, he created from a mattress made from thousands of slices of bread - and then ATE his own body shape over several weeks.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Raga Jaijaiwanti by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Dilshad Khan Book: Principle of Hope by Ernst Bloch Luxury: Snorkel and mask

Sue Lawley's castaway this week says changing her mind was one of the most difficult things she's ever had to do. After an out-of-body experience, psychologist Susan Blackmore set out to study and prove the existence of the paranormal. Twenty years on, she's a convinced sceptic.She continues, however, to be fascinated by the question of consciousness. In particular, the new theory of memes which examines how habits and beliefs are passed on from one person to another. At their worst, she says, they're evident in fascism or religious fundamentalism. At their best, they're responsible for our co-operation and kindness.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Not Fade Away by Grateful Dead Book: Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Luxury: A handful of cannabis seeds

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the businessman Sir Ernest Hall.His life is like a fairytale. From a sickly boy, living in the one room he and his family shared, he became a successful businessman and millionaire - and all because of an inspirational piece of music. Today on the site of an old carpet factory in Halifax, he's brought together his two loves - business and the arts - to form an environment in which plastic-bag manufacturers and building societies draw inspiration from the painters and sculptors who work alongside. At the age of 68 he has also realised his ambition to be a professional pianist.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Piano Trio in B Major by Franz Schubert Book: The collected works by William Blake Luxury: Piano

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the abstract artist Sir Terry Frost.He first became interested in art as a prisoner of war, when lack of food and freedom enhanced the beauty of a single leaf. On his return to Britain, nature continued to fascinate him and inform his work; bright circles of colour inspired by the Sun and Moon, or patterns of white-on-white remembered from a snowy landscape. Now 83, he's never been so busy. A good thing, he says, because it keeps the aches and pains away.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Tea For Two by Max Bygraves Book: Blank sheets to write his thoughts on imagination and memory Luxury: Mirror (for company)

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress Dame Judi Dench.She's been delighting audiences for some 40 years, on film, television and the stage. It's partly this versatility that makes her so special. Nominated for an Oscar for the film Mrs Brown, in which she played an ageing Queen Victoria, she says the difference between film and the theatre is that on stage she can make an audience believe that she's a tall, willowy blond, when in reality she is five foot nothing. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh Book: Ordnance Survey map of the world Luxury: The Man with a Glove painting by Titian

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the experimental composer Gavin Bryars. One of his best-known works, The Sinking of the Titanic, pays tribute to the band which continued to play as the ship went down. It poses the question what if they hadn't stop playing; how would their music have sounded under water? His most popular composition, Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, features a tramp singing the same verse again and again, building up layer upon layer of emotion. Composing is a craft he learnt as an assistant to John Cage, after hearing his work Four minutes, thirty-three seconds - of silence. Today he is both established and establishment - the ENO are soon to stage his latest opera and if you look closely at the orchestra, you'll spot him on the bass![Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: My Foolish Heart by Bill Evans Trio Book: Science and Civilisation in China by Joseph Needham Luxury: Gravity chair

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the novelist Alice Thomas Ellis.A devout and traditional Catholic, she didn't begin writing until she was 42. The Sin Eater, that first novel, was her reaction to the changes in the Catholic Church after Vatican Two and channelled her anger at what she saw as the excesses of the 1960s. She's a woman of apparent contradictions. She wanted to be a nun, but fell in love and became a mother of seven instead. She's deeply religious but believes in ghosts and the supernatural and although her books are often triggered by anger, they are frequently tender and full of humour. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Rorate Caeli Desuper by Monks & Choirboys or Downside Abbey Book: Come Hither - An Anthology by Walter de la Mare Luxury: A very comfortable sofa

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the poet Andrew Motion. He describes his writing as a "biological thing" - like developing a headache or the flu - but much, much more pleasurable. Also a biographer, his first, controversial work was about his friend and fellow poet Philip Larkin. While researching for it, he collected together his own personal writings and burnt them. Dominant in his work is the figure of his mother; injured in an accident which left her severely ill and from which she eventually died. His poems, he says, are his way of bringing her back to life. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Cello Suite No. 6 in D by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Prelude - Penguin edition by William Wordsworth Luxury: Pencils and paper

Sue Lawley's castaway this week believes he has the answer to "life, the universe and everything". According to mathematician Ian Stewart, it's 137-and-a-half degrees.He calls it "the golden angle", and says it can be found everywhere in nature - whether in the pattern of seeds on a sunflower head or in the spiral of a snail's shell. Mathematics, he says, has nothing to do with arithmetic and everything to do with being able to pack the luggage into the boot of the car. But for a broken collarbone which meant he stayed at home working out puzzles with his mum, he would have remained bottom of the class and never discovered how much fun maths could be. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel Book: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter Luxury: Mrs Thatcher pickled in a Damien Hurst sculpture

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet, Sir Anthony Dowell. His future was determined as a child when he stood before Dame Ninette de Valois with his trousers rolled to the knee. It took only a short glance at his legs for her to accept him into the Royal Ballet School. As he grew and developed as a dancer, his talent was spotted and soon the great choreographers Kenneth Macmillan and Frederick Ashton began creating roles for him. His outstanding technique and dramatic sense inspired generations of dancers. But now, as Director of the Royal Ballet, he fights to keep dance at the top of the arts agenda in the face of much criticism and controversy. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Eight English Dances by London Philharmonic Orchestra Book: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Luxury: Sketch pad and paints

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has turned around a failing supermarket chain by introducing his staff to 'black-bin Mondays' and 'dress-down Fridays'. As the Executive Director, Archie Norman made ASDA one of the top three grocers on the high street.In the process, he's answered every one of the 40,000 suggestions from his staff - personally. And he's learnt how to keep his colleagues on their toes - he's removed their chairs from the meeting rooms. Now as a new MP and Vice Chairman of the party, can he do the same for the Conservatives?[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The Complete Angler by Isaac Walton Luxury: Jar of Marmite

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the opera producer David Pountney. Alongside Mark Elder and Peter Jonas at the ENO, he tried to make opera more attractive to a wider audience. The opera stage, he says, shouldn't be treated like a mantle shelf filled with fragile objects. It's a versatile and robust art form which needn't be stuck in the past. So he staged Carmen in an automobile graveyard, with a pink Cadillac and a giant billboard, while his Hansel and Gretel was set in a 1950s housing project.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: String Quartet No 2 'Intimate Letters' by Leos Janáček Book: Anthology: The English Year by Geoffrey Grigson Luxury: Croquet lawn

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the man who broke the British land speed records, Richard Noble. His thirst for speed began when he was six years old and saw John Cobb's jet boat Crusader. Then, in the 1970s, he built his own jet-propelled car in his garage at home. He called it Thrust One, and wrote it off at over 200 miles per hour. Nine years later, he broke the land speed record with Thrust Two, reaching speeds greater than a Boeing 747. Last year he watched as his team, with Andy Green behind the wheel, broke the sound barrier.Now firmly established alongside other champions of speed like John Cobb and Malcolm and Donald Campbell, Richard Noble chooses his Desert Island Discs.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Dambusters March by The Central Band of the RAF Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Guitar

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has murdered 75 people, and although he wants to retire, his fans are begging him for just one more. He's the creator of Inspector Morse, Colin Dexter. A Classics teacher before he began to write, it was a profession he immensely enjoyed until deafness forced him to quit. His other great loves are shared by his fictional hero, Morse. Both live for Wagner, crosswords and beer.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Immolation Scene from Act 5 of Gotterdammerung by Richard Wagner Book: The collected works by A E Houseman Luxury: Manicure set

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the QC Helena Kennedy. In 1992 she published a book which drew attention to the way English law discriminates against women. She called it Eve was Framed. It began a debate into how we view defendants and victims and how our judges are trained. Born into a working-class family living on the south side of Glasgow, she recently entered the House of Lords. She says her father, a newspaper packer and an active trade unionist, would have been 'amused but proud'.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Cello Suite No 1 in G Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Aeneid by Virgil Luxury: Goose down duvet

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the British bass John Tomlinson. He is most famous as Wotan - ruler of the gods in Wagner's Ring Cycle. In fact, it's a role he has made so much his own that the composer's grandson says it could almost have been written with him in mind. Growing up in a Methodist family music was a natural part of life, yet he studied to be an engineer until the urge to sing became too powerful to ignore.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Concerto For Violin And Strings In D Minor Largo by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Flora and Fauna of a Tropical Desert Island Luxury: A box of lenses

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist and illustrator Paul Hogarth. He has portrayed A Year in Provence for Peter Mayle, depicted Doris Lessing's Africa and captured Majorca with Robert Graves.Born into a working-class family, his parents disapproved of his two great loves - travel and drawing. In the face of their opposition, he won a scholarship to art school where he was drawn into radical politics, becoming a communist and abandoning both art and family to fight in Spain. A popular figure with writers, he could match Brendan Behan drink for drink, and survived a 30-year working relationship with Graham Greene. Now 80, he says he still has the urge to travel, and continues to draw on his rich and varied life. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Far Horizons by Glyn Boyd Harte Book: Times Atlas of World History Luxury: Solar-powered Apple Mac

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the scientist Professor Heinz Wolff. He came to public attention when he presented the television programme The Great Egg Race, in which he challenged people to conquer engineering problems with a rubber band, a pencil and a pickled onion. In the 1970s while designing aids for disabled people, he devised the phrase 'Tools for Living' to describe his work. After all, as he points out, we all use tools to cope with our environment, whether as an astronaut, a diver or an elderly person. It was his father who encouraged his enthusiasm for invention, sharing his Sunday afternoons experimenting with his chemistry set, or organising talks from physicists who had to hide their surprise at assessing the ideas of a six-year-old child. In the 80s he founded the Institute for Bioengineering at Brunel University. There he continued his inventions devising for example, a box for experimenting in outer space, a voice machine for people who can't speak and a safety system for deep-sea divers.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Man I Love by Joan Wolff Book: Collection of Landscape Pictures (with book) Luxury: A Collection Of Landscape Pictures

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician and Transport Minister Glenda Jackson. Politics is her third job. At 16, she left school to work in Boots. But it was as an actor that she reached the pinnacle of her profession, becoming an international star and winning Oscars for her roles in Women in Love and A Touch of Class. On television, she was the formidable Elizabeth R, but won our hearts as Cleopatra in Morecambe & Wise. Despite her vast acting experience, she admits that when she came to make her maiden speech in the House of Commons she had the worst attack of stage fright in her long career.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: War Requiem Libera Me by Benjamin Britten Book: The History and Creation of a Japanese Sand Garden Luxury: A bath

This is an archive edition of Desert Island Discs. What follows is what was said about the programme at the time:Sue Lawley's castaway this week has celebrated more than 50 years as a professional performer - he's the comedian and singer Harry Secombe.At 76, he can still hit the cruel Cs, although these days he turns puce with the effort. He can still make an audience laugh itself silly and numbers Prince Charles among his many fans. He's most definitely the best raspberry-blower in the business. Today he recalls the early days of The Goon Show with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine. He remembers the nights spent in review alongside those Windmill girls dressed only in beads - "and most of those were sweat". And he describes how presenting Highway and Songs of Praise has left him feeling humble.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Fantasia On Greensleeves by Ralph Vaughan Williams Book: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens Luxury: Guitar

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Chairman of Northern Foods, Chris Haskins. Until recently he was something of a curiosity - a big businessman who was also a lifelong supporter of Labour and enthusiastically pro-Europe. It was the Aldermaston marches in the late 1950s which influenced his political beliefs. Sent to report on them for the Irish Times, he was soon swept along by the protesters' enthusiasm and sense of purpose.It was then too he learnt his organisational skills. When put in charge of sorting out accommodation for thousands of extra marchers, he fled to the pub. By the time he returned they had gone. Problem solved. He joined Northern Foods after falling in love with the owners' daughter. At that time, it was a small company providing milk for doorstep deliveries. Today, it's one of Britain's biggest food companies.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Symphony No 9 In D Minor Adagio by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The collected works by Sean O'Casey Luxury: Pen and paper

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Paula Rego. Born in Portugal, she was an only child, and spent her days sitting with the maids as they told tales around the kitchen table. Now she makes up stories about the people she knows and weaves them into her pictures. Like those early fairytales, her portraits always have a touch of danger about them. If you look the devil in the face, she says, face your fears and paint them - then they lose the power to scare you.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Da Me O Braco Anda Dai by Blanc/Barbosa Book: Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald Luxury: Pencil and paper

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the television presenter Loyd Grossman. His career has allowed him to peer through the keyholes of the rich and famous and comment on their homes. He once described Tony Blackburn's house as like that of a maiden aunt in Eastbourne. It's a formula which has lasted 14 years. Although he was well into his 20s before he learnt to cook, some 20 million viewers watch him as he deliberates, cogitates and digests the culinary efforts of his would-be masterchefs. As a boy his dream was to be a rock star or a historian. In the end, he gave up both, forsaking his study of the gin-drinking experiences of 18th-century Londoners and forgoing his evenings spent dodging beer cans thrown on stage. He turned instead to journalism and Harpers & Queen. It was by accident that he was picked out to present for the new fledgling television station, TVAM, but by the time they realised their mistake his TV career was launched.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper Book: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Luxury: Fishing rod

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the theatre producer Thelma Holt. Famed for introducing some of the best international productions to this country, she persuaded Dustin Hoffman to London's West End, brought Ingmar Bergman's Hamlet to the South Bank and premiered the work of the Japanese director Ninagawa in Britain.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Lazy Bones by Paul Robeson Book: Utopia by Thomas Moore Luxury: Rosary beads

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the playwright and film director Anthony Minghella. He grew up on the Isle of Wight in a close-knit family of Italian descent, and says that he has never felt truly English. It is not surprising therefore that his most successful film explores questions of identity and nationality. That film, The English Patient, won nine Oscars. It is, he admits, unashamedly moving, since for him the purpose of fiction is to "exercise the emotional muscle". Music, too, plays an important part in his life. He listens to music as he writes and the structure of many of his plays and film scripts are influenced by it. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Mache Dich, Mein Herze, Rein by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Collected Piano Works by Bach Luxury: Piano

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the broadcaster and popular historian, John Julius Norwich. Closely associated with Venice, he talks about his love for the city and his battle to protect it from the rising waters of the Mediterranean. It's a passion he learnt from his parents - the diplomat and politician Duff Cooper and the beautiful socialite Lady Diana. As a boy he grew up surrounded by his mother's friends - artists and writers like Jean Cocteau and Noel Coward. Evelyn Waugh, too, frequently visited. But he was someone who his mother adored and his father barely tolerated.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Bassoon Concerto in B by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Luxury: Laptop Computer

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the naturalist and writer Richard Mabey. A romantic at heart, he regrets that so much written about nature these days concentrates on the scientific. Unlike past writers like WH Hudson or Gilbert White, he says we rarely confess our feelings and emotions about the countryside. What interests him is our relationship with nature; how we name our streets and houses after flowers, why children still whack conkers, and the reasons we bring holly and mistletoe into our homes at Christmas. He himself has a special relationship with the nightingale - he describes how, in times of distress and depression, he can always find comfort in its song.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: La Delaissado (The Abandoned) by Joseph Canteloube Book: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Luxury: Guitar

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the composer and performer Richard Rodney Bennett. A versatile musician, he is equally at home playing jazz, writing film scores or composing for the concert hall. He wants to give performers music which they want to play, so he has written percussion pieces for Evelyn Glennie and saxophone sonatas for John Harle and Stan Getz. "Nobody," he says, "needs another violin concerto from anybody". His film scores include Murder on the Orient Express, Far From the Madding Crowd and Four Weddings and a Funeral, but he confesses to having most fun when he's just singing jazz.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Violin Concerto by William Walton Book: The Atlantic book of British and American Poetry by Edith Sitwell Luxury: 6mm 36 inch circular knitting needle with a point at each end

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the novelist Rose Tremain. She began writing as a child soon after her father left home. It became a kind of therapy for her and she explains it's something she still turns to, especially in moments of crisis. Recognised for her ability to get right inside the minds of her characters, she offers the reader a view of the world through their eyes. In her book Sacred Country, we become a little girl who believes she's really a boy. In Restoration, we live the life of a 17th-century man. As a writer, she wants her work to feel dangerous, and so after extensive research she likes to forget it; keeping some facts and making others up. It's like playing a game with the reader, she says, a challenge to guess which is fact and which is merely fiction.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Dance Me To The End Of Love by Leonard Cohen Book: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking Luxury: Word processor

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the musician and presenter Jools Holland. He first shot into the public eye when he made what he still calls "a bit of a verbal slip", and used a four-letter word on the teenage music show The Tube. These days he hosts a late night television programme, where he plays alongside such musical greats as Eric Clapton, Oasis and Tony Bennett. His own musical performance has evolved and expanded from the days when he and a mate would tour the pubs for a few pounds, a drink and a lot of adoration. In the 1970s he found success with his punk group, Squeeze. And he now fronts his own, 12-man rhythm and blues orchestra. A long way from where he began as a small boy, playing boogie woogie on his grandmother's pianola.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: (We're Gonna) Jump For Joy by Big Joe Turner Book: Four Books of Architecture by Andrea Palladio Luxury: Piano

Sue Lawley's castaway this week has been the voice of racing for half a century. Due to retire in November 1997, Peter O'Sullevan calculates that he has commentated on some 14,000 races. After calling his last Grand National earlier this year he perhaps breathed a sigh of relief, because even after 50 broadcasts he admits to still finding the responsibility nerve-wracking. Horses have always been his life. He owns them, bets on them, writes about them and campaigns for their welfare, with the same enthusiasm that he had as a young boy riding with his grandparents' groom, Truelove.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Piano Concerto 5 in E Flat Major by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Ends and Means by Aldous Huxley Luxury: Bottle Of Calvados

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the filmmaker and director Mike Leigh. He first came to public attention on a dark and stormy evening when 16 million people tuned to BBC1 to watch his film Abigail's Party. It was also the night that ITV was blacked out by a strike, there was a highbrow documentary on BBC2, and Channel 4 didn't exist. His recent films Secrets and Lies and Naked won top awards at Cannes, building on the recognition he received for his earlier, more gentle portrait of working-class life - Life is Sweet. He explains to Sue Lawley how his early films were inspired by the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett and Francois Truffaut. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Clarinet Concerto in A Clarinet Concerto in A Major K622 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Luxury: Lavatory and lavatory paper

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the editor and publisher, Ursula Owen. Twenty-five years ago she helped create Virago - the feminist publishing house which promotes women writers. A huge success, it became the focus of much attention when she and her colleague, Carmen Callil, fell out in what became a very public row. Recently, she has revamped the magazine Index on Censorship, which debates the issues surrounding freedom of speech and publishes the work of persecuted writers. The daughter of a Jewish family who fled to Britain from Nazi Germany, she was a quiet, reserved and conformist child. Her friends, she says, still wonder how she grew up to be such an outspoken, strong-minded and opinionated woman.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Der Rosenkavalier The Trio From Act Three by Richard Strauss Book: The collected works by Anton Chekhov Luxury: Family photo album

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the literary critic, Sir Frank Kermode. One of the most influential teachers of his age, he is credited with bringing the new literary theory of Structuralism to this country. Something, as he admits to Sue Lawley, he now profoundly regrets. He traces his life, "lived like tumbleweed in the wind", from a short-sighted, studious boy growing up on the Isle of Man to King Edward Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Cantata BWV 106 The Actus Tragicus by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Luxury: Samuel Palmer's painting Moonlit Landscape

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the jazz singer Cleo Laine. Although driven by a great desire to be a performer, and travelling from one audition to another, she confesses to Sue Lawley that when her big break came, it wasn't jazz which attracted her, so much as the leader of the band - John Dankworth. Whether he spotted a cheap singer for the night, or recognised a great talent in the making, it was to be the start of a hugely successful partnership both professionally and personally.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Don't Look Back by Jacqueline Dankworth Book: The Jazz Revolution by John Dankworth Luxury: Perfume

This week's castaway is an author. In his book The Wasp Factory, the teenage protagonist tortures insects, experiments with bombs and kills a brother and a cousin. But, says Iain Banks, that was "just a phase he was going through". He tells Sue Lawley how, as a writer, he has not developed the filters that most adults do and so views the world with childlike eyes, describing what he sees. And this world, he feels, is very often a violent and terrifying one. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Mohammed's Radio by Warren Zevon Book: The Complete Monty Python Television Scripts by Monty Python Luxury: Front Seat Of A Porsche

Sue Lawley's castaway is comedian Eric Sykes.Favourite track: Messiah Hallelujah by George Frideric Handel Book: Ripley's Believe It Or Not by Ripley Luxury: A sand wedge golf club and a crate of golf balls

Sue Lawley's castaway is campaigner Christina Noble.Favourite track: This Is My Life by Shirley Bassey Book: The Book of Kells Luxury: Photo of an Irish cottage

Sue Lawley's castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah. As well as talking about his work as a performance poet often working in prisons or schools, Benjamin recalls a time when he was illiterate. He also remembers Nelson Mandela's request to meet him at seven o'clock in the morning to brief him on Margaret Thatcher.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Take Five by The Dave Brubeck Quartet Book: Poetical Works of Shelley by Percy Shelley Luxury: Law of the land (so he could break it)

Sue Lawley's castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is concert pianist Joanna MacGregor. As well as talking about her work as a champion of New Music, Joanna remembers her childhood playing piano for gospel choirs and how she had to bribe her way onto the college Steinway with packets of cigarettes. In conversation with Sue Lawley, she talks about her life and work and chooses eight records to take to the mythical island.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives Book: The Sleep Walkers by Arthur Koestler Luxury: Sampler to record the noises of the island

This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is actress Sian Phillips. Sian talks about her award-winning career and her most recent performance as Marlene Dietrich, as well as remembering her 20 years of marriage to Peter O'Toole. In conversation with Sue Lawley, she talks about her life and work and chooses eight records to take to the mythical island.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Cosi fan Tutte soave sia il vento by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The Medical Care of Merchant Seamen by William Louis Wheeler Luxury: Pen and paper

Sue Lawley's castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is comedian Harry Enfield. As well as talking about characters such as Loadsamoney, Kevin the Teenager and Tory Boy, Harry reveals his reasons for not campaigning with Tony Blair at the general election.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Nabucco Overture To Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi Book: Bleak House by Charles Dickens Luxury: Beer and a cigarette machine

Sue Lawley's castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs is sculptor David Wynne. As well as talking about his sculptures Boy with a Dolphin and Guy the Gorilla, David explains how he researches his work by visiting the animals in the wild. This has led to some dangerous adventures. But David Wynne's work has its gentler moments - he also designed the hands on the back of the 50-pence piece.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Clarinet Concerto in A by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer Luxury: Harmonica