300 episodes

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Desert Island Discs BBC Radio 4

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.3 • 12.2K Ratings

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

    Clive Oppenheimer, volcanologist

    Clive Oppenheimer, volcanologist

    Clive Oppenheimer is a volcanologist, filmmaker and Professor of Volcanology at the University of Cambridge. His research has taken him on expeditions across the world, from Antarctica, where he discovered the camp of Captain Scott’s attempt to reach the South Pole, to Ethiopia where he was held at gunpoint by rebels.
    Clive was born in London, and fell in love with rocks and the stories they tell on visits to what is now the Natural History Museum. His mother survived the Blitz in London and his father escaped persecution by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. On a gap year trip to Indonesia, Clive saw his first volcanoes and realised both their natural power and their significance in human lives. He studied at the University of Cambridge, and completed a PhD at the Open University.
    He has taken part in and led expeditions to volcanoes all over the world, including Indonesia, Italy and Ethiopia. He is one of few Westerners to have worked in North Korea, where he was invited by the government to study volcanic activity at the culturally significant Mount Baekdu.
    He has also made three documentaries with filmmaker Werner Herzog about volcanoes and their scientific, cultural and spiritual significance.
    DISC ONE: Blue Rondo a la Turk - Dave Brubeck Quartet
    DISC TWO: Love Hangover - Diana Ross
    DISC THREE: Autobahn - Kraftwerk
    DISC FOUR: Lava - The B-52's
    DISC FIVE: Debaser - Pixies
    DISC SIX: Turangalîla-symphonie, Part VI Jardin du sommeil d’amour. Composed by Olivier Messiaen and performed by the Orchestre de l’Opéra Bastille, cond Myung-Whun Chung, with Yvonne Loriod (piano) and Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot)
    DISC SEVEN: T’zeta - Bezawork Asfew
    DISC EIGHT: Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God - The Sixteen and Harry Christophers
    BOOK CHOICE: The Vivisector by Patrick White
    LUXURY ITEM: A seismometer
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Debaser – Pixies
    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producers Sarah Taylor and Tim Bano

    • 38 min
    Cillian Murphy, actor

    Cillian Murphy, actor

    Cillian Murphy has received global acclaim for his performance in the title role of Christopher Nolan’s epic film Oppenheimer. He has been nominated for an Oscar, which follows the best actor award he picked up at this year’s Golden Globes. On the small screen he played the Birmingham gangster Thomas Shelby for a decade in the BAFTA-winning Peaky Blinders, which made him a household name.
    Cillian was born in Cork in 1976 and initially music was his creative outlet. His band Sons of Mr Green Genes, which he formed with his younger brother, was offered a five album record deal, but the boys’ parents thought his brother was too young and vetoed a career in music.
    Cillian changed tack and in 1996 was cast as Pig in Enda Walsh’s play Disco Pigs, reprising the role in a film version in 2001. His breakthrough film role came playing Jim the bicycle courier in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later in 2002 which he followed up with a starring role in Ken Loach’s the Wind that Shakes the Barley.

    In 2005 he played Dr Jonathan Crane - Scarecrow - in Christopher Nolan’s film Batman Begins, which was the start of their continuing creative collaboration.
    Cillian lives in Ireland with his wife, the artist Yvonne McGuinness, and their two sons.
    DISC ONE: The Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon
    DISC TWO: The Wandering Minstrel - Séamus Ennis
    DISC THREE: Walter’s Trip - The Frank and Walters
    DISC FOUR: Bullet the Blue Sky - U2
    DISC FIVE: Somebody to Love - Queen
    DISC SIX: Everything in its Right Place - Radiohead
    DISC SEVEN: We Can Work it Out - The Beatles
    DISC EIGHT: If I Was A Painter - Lisa O’Neill
    BOOK CHOICE: Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works
    LUXURY ITEM: An acoustic guitar and strings
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: We Can Work it Out - The Beatles
    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producer Paula McGinley

    • 35 min
    Val Wilmer, writer and photographer

    Val Wilmer, writer and photographer

    Val Wilmer has photographed and interviewed many of the most significant musicians of the post-war years, including Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and many more.
    Val grew up in Streatham in South London, where a local record shop helped to nurture her love of music, especially jazz. Her lifelong passion for jazz and photography began at an early age: when she was just 14 years old, she persuaded her mother to take her to London Airport to see off the jazz legend Louis Armstrong who had been playing in the UK. She asked him for an autograph, then took a picture of him as he broke into a huge smile. The image was the first of many classic shots.
    Alongside her work as a photographer, Val has written extensively about music, as a journalist for numerous publications and as an author: her book As Serious As Your Life, examining the evolution of free jazz within the wider context of racial and sexual politics, has been widely acclaimed as a classic text.
    In 1983 she co-founded Format, the first all-female photographic agency, which aimed to champion women photographers and to widen the range of images available to newspapers and magazines.
    Her photographs are held in the collections of the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery.
    DISC ONE: Potato Head Blues - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven
    DISC TWO: Black, Brown And White - Big Bill Broonzy
    DISC THREE: Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8_1. By Kodaly, First movement performed by Janos Starker
    DISC FOUR: The Weary Blues – Langston Hughes
    DISC FIVE: My Lovely Elizabeth - S.E. Rogie
    DISC SIX: Criss Cross - Thelonious Monk
    DISC SEVEN: Dogon A D - Julius Hemphill
    DISC EIGHT: Love and Affection - Joan Armatrading
    BOOK CHOICE: The Collective Works of Langston Hughes
    LUXURY ITEM: Nail scissors
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Criss Cross - Thelonious Monk
    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producers Tim Bano and Sarah Taylor

    • 38 min
    Jamie Dornan, actor

    Jamie Dornan, actor

    Jamie Dornan is an actor who first came to the attention of television audiences in 2013 when he played serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC series the Fall. Two years later he starred alongside Dakota Johnson in the film Fifty Shades of Grey and went on to play the same part in the rest of the trilogy. In 2022 he was the lead in the BBC drama the Tourist which was watched by millions of viewers and recently returned for its second season.
    Jamie was born in Holywood in County Down. At 10 he played Widow Twankey in the school pantomime - a defining moment for him when he experienced the thrill of playing to a live audience.
    After dropping out of university Jamie became a model and worked on big campaigns for some leading fashion brands before landing his first acting part in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in 2006. His role in the Fall was his big break and the Fifty Shades films catapulted him to movie star status.
    In 2021 he played Pa in the film Belfast which was written and directed by Kenneth Branagh about his own childhood, growing up at the beginning of the Troubles.
    Jamie is married to the musician and composer Amelia Warner and they have three children.
    DISC ONE: Caravan - Van Morrison
    DISC TWO: Violin Concerto No. 1: II. Composed by Philip Glass and performed by Adele Anthony (violin) and Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Takuo Yuasa
    DISC THREE: Hoppípolla - Sigur Rós
    DISC FOUR: Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
    DISC FIVE: Metarie - Brendan Benson
    DISC SIX: Forever – The Beach Boys
    DISC SEVEN: Something - The Beatles
    DISC EIGHT: The Whole of the Moon – The Waterboys
    BOOK CHOICE: Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
    LUXURY ITEM: A golf club and balls
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Forever – The Beach Boys

    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producer Paula McGinley

    • 36 min
    Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cellist

    Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cellist

    Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a cellist who came to international attention when he performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018. Still only 24, he has performed at a series of high profile locations including the Hollywood Bowl and Downing Street. Last year he was a soloist at the Last Night of the Proms.
    Sheku was brought up in Nottingham along with his six siblings who are also extremely talented musicians. At six-years-old he went to a concert by the Nottingham Youth Orchestra where he was transfixed by the cello section. He started having lessons not long afterwards and by the age of nine he’d completed all of his music grades – receiving the highest marks in the country. At 17 he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.
    He went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music and made his debut at the BBC Proms as a soloist with the Chineke! Orchestra in 2017.
    In 2020 he was appointed an MBE for services to music and two years later became the Royal Academy of Music’s first Menuhin Visiting Professor of Performance Mentoring.
    DISC ONE: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op.85 - 1st movement: Adagio – Moderato. Composed by Edward Elgar and performed by Jacqueline du Pré, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
    DISC TWO: Rivers of Babylon -The Melodians
    DISC THREE: Dat - Pluto Shervington
    DISC FOUR: String Quartet in C major, Op 20 No. 2, Capriccio: Adagio. Composed by Joseph Haydn and performed by The London Haydn Quartet
    DISC FIVE: Chances Are - Bob Marley
    DISC SIX: Requiem in D minor, K. 626 , Introitus 1 – Requiem. Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and performed by the Monteverdi Choir
    DISC SEVEN: Symphony No.11 'The Year 1905' - II. The 9th January; Adagio. Composed by Dmitri Shostakovich and performed by The Moscow Philharmonic, conducted by Kirill Kondrashin
    DISC EIGHT: Largo from Organ Sonata No.5 in C major, BWV 529. Composed by Johan Sebastian Bach and performed by Samuel Feinberg
    Book: The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman
    Luxury: A cello and strings
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Requiem in D minor, K. 626 , Introitus 1 – Requiem. Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and performed by the Monteverdi Choir
    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producer Paula McGinley

    • 37 min
    Guli Francis-Dehqani, Church of England Bishop

    Guli Francis-Dehqani, Church of England Bishop

    The Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the Bishop of Chelmsford. She also sits in Parliament as a Lord Spiritual and last year she played a prominent role in the Coronation, administering Holy Communion to the King and Queen.
    She was born in Isfahan, central Iran, the youngest of four children to Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, the first ethnic Iranian Anglican Bishop of his country, and his wife Margaret. In 1980, in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, her family were targeted and forced to leave the country. She arrived in the UK aged 13 as a refugee. Four decades on, Guli has yet to set foot on Iranian soil.
    She was ordained as a deacon in 1998 and a priest the following year. She was consecrated a bishop in November 2017, making her the first woman from a minority ethnic background to be ordained as an Anglican bishop in the UK.
    She is the lead Bishop for Housing for the Church of England and is a contributor to BBC Radio 4s Thought for the Day. She is married to Lee, who is a priest, and they have three children.
    DISC ONE: Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48: VI. Libera me. Composed by Gabriel Fauré and performed by Stephen Varcoe (baritone), The Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
    DISC TWO: Morgh-e Sahar - Homayoun Shajarian and Dastan Ensemble
    DISC THREE: Ride on Time - Black Box
    DISC FOUR: Miniatures for Piano Trio. Set 2: No. 4, Romance. Composed by Frank Bridge and performed by Alexander Chaushian and Ashley Wass
    DISC FIVE: Variations on Bahram’s Melody. Composed by Bahram Dehqani-Tafti and performed by Gabriel Francis-Dehqani with Fiona Sweeney, Krystof Kohout and Will Harmer
    DISC SIX: Take me to Church - Sinead O’Connor
    DISC SEVEN: Sovereign Light Café - Keane
    DISC EIGHT: Mahi - Golnar Shahyar, Mahan Mirarab, (feat. Luis Guerra)
    BOOK CHOICE: The Book of Kings
    LUXURY ITEM: Photo albums
    CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48: VI. Libera me. Composed by Gabriel Fauré and performed by Stephen Varcoe (baritone), The Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
    Presenter Lauren Laverne
    Producer Paula McGinley

    • 36 min

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5
12.2K Ratings

12.2K Ratings

elizaeng ,

❤️ Lauren Laverne

She is a fantastic interviewer and is doing an amazing job.

Mel MacG ,

Transformation

My heart sank when Lauren Laverne first took over and I won’t even go into the reasons because other reviewers have already painfully pointed them out … but (a) she did had enormous shoes to fill and (b) it seems like there has been a transformation of late in her questions and questioning style. For that reason alone, I’ve given this five stars. When I listen to an episode now, I often can’t help myself from saying out loud “great question!”

Shellisrkj ,

Great interviewer

I think Lauren is a great interviewer. I also enjoyed Kirsty’s style. I think it’s just different - as are all of the interviewees!
Love this podcast. And love listening to the archives.

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