Kirsty Young's castaway is Chris Hadfield.

He was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station and took part in three space missions spending a total of 166 days orbiting the Earth. He has spent over 14 hours doing two space walks.

He flew his first eight day mission into space in 1995 during which he visited the Russian space station Mir. In 2001 he paid his first visit to the International Space Station to help install Canadarm2, a robot arm helping to build the station which was launched three years previously. In 2012 he began his final five month stay in space on board the ISS. It was on this mission that his videos of life in space - including a film of him singing David Bowie's Space Oddity and accompanying himself on guitar - led to him enjoying a huge following on social media.

Chris was born in 1959 in Ontario, the second of five children: his father was a pilot and the family lived on a farm. He mapped out his future career aged nine when he watched Neil Armstrong become the first person to walk on the moon in 1969. In pursuit of his dream Chris first become an Air Cadet, then attended military college, becoming a fighter pilot and then a test pilot, as well as an aeronautical engineer. He finally achieved his ambition of becoming an astronaut in 1992.

He went onto become the Chief of Robotics at the NASA Astronaut Office and Chief of International Space Station Operations at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Following his final space mission, Chris retired from the Canadian Space Agency in July 2013. Amongst the awards he's received are the military Meritorious Service Cross, NASA's Exceptional Service Medal and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Ahead of Glastonbury 2025, hear Kylie Minogue - Glastonbury’s 2019 ‘Legend’ slot performer - choose the songs that soundtrack her life in this classic episode of Desert Island Discs.

With seven number ones and ten million singles sold in the UK, she is the third-biggest selling female artist in Britain and has sold around 70 million records worldwide.

Born in Melbourne in 1968, Kylie and her sister Dannii began their careers as child actors on Australian television. At 17, Kylie landed the role of Charlene Mitchell in the soap opera Neighbours and her on-screen wedding to Jason Donovan's character Scott Robinson was watched by twenty million people in the UK alone.

Her recording career began after she was spotted singing at a charity event in 1987. Within months she had released a cover version of "Locomotion" which became the biggest-selling Australian single of the decade. Following the single's success, her first hit with record producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman was "I Should Be So Lucky": her debut album sold seven million copies.

At the age of 21, a romance with INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence led to a change in her image. In 2000, inspired by 1970s disco and assisted by gold hot pants, her single "Spinning Around" became her first British number one for a decade. She also sang to an estimated global audience of 3.7 billion at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.

In May 2005 she was diagnosed with breast cancer: following treatment she resumed the tour 18 months later.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Lemn Sissay.

As a poet, writer and playwright, much of his work tells the story of his search for his birth parents. Born to a young Ethiopian woman who wanted him temporarily fostered while she completed her studies, he was with a family until he was 12. He would spend the next five years in a number of children's homes where he began to write. On leaving care at 17, he self-published his first book of poetry while on the dole.

Several poetry collections, plays and programmes for radio and TV followed and his work has taken him around the world. He was the first poet to be commissioned to write for the 2012 London Olympics and his success has also brought him two doctorates and an MBE for services to literature. He is about to be installed as Chancellor of the University of Manchester, an elected post he will hold for the next seven years. He takes writers' workshops for care-leavers and set up Culture World, the first black writers' workshop.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Russell Brand, comedian & actor, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.

Actor, comic, writer, Russell Brand is a compelling cultural phenomenon who in 2006 was, in his own words, "plucked from a life of hard drugs and petty crime and rocketed into the snugly carcinogenic glare of celebrity."

Along with an athletic wit and a florid turn of phrase he specialises in going too far - reckless acts of self-destruction and a degree of chaos seem to be his companions along life's winding path. It's been five years since he rocked the foundations of the BBC with what became known as the Ross Brand scandal. He's since gone on to international success with a movie career, best-selling books and all the trappings of life on the "A" list.

His most recent notable appearances have included testifying to a Parliamentary Select Committee on the importance of funding for drugs rehabilitation programmes and an appearance as a panellist on Question Time.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

The writer, Val McDermid, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.

Crime fiction is Val's chosen genre and the millions of novels she sells examine and dissect the darkest recesses of human behaviour. Domestic violence, murder, abduction - it's difficult to imagine a subject she'd shy away from. She once described herself as "A mixture of hard bitten cynical hack and Pollyanna".

Brought up in a secure home by parents who were very happily married, she was the first Scot from a state school to win a place at St Hilda's college, Oxford. She was just 16. After graduation she chose tabloid journalism as her trade and by all accounts fitted right in with the hard working, bolshy, boozing culture at the time.

She says "I think there are three elements to any literary career. You have to have a modicum of talent, you've got to work hard . and you've got to be lucky."

Producer: Isabel Sargent.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the cardiologist Jane Somerville.

Now an Emeritus Professor in her discipline at Imperial College London she's gained a worldwide reputation for her pioneering work on congenital heart disease.

She began studying medicine in the early 1950s when only a very few women were admitted through the doors of medical school. Since then she's been responsible for ground-breaking advances in cardiovascular treatment and founded the World Congress of Paediatric Cardiology.

She had something of a role model in her mother, a hard-working, clever, successful woman too. Her early years as a pupil at a boys' school in Wales must also have prepared her for making her way in such a heavily male-dominated profession.

She has a reputation for being straight-talking, and her late husband used to urge her to be more "prudent", but, she says, "it wasn't fun to be prudent: it was much more fun to be mafioso and naughty."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker.

An author and Harvard professor he's been named by Time Magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential scientists and thinkers.

The psychology of violence and where language comes from are just two of his specialist subjects. Bill Gates is officially a fan, the man who sends him hate mail related to his work on irregular verbs is not. It would seem that whenever he publishes yet another best-selling book controversy is never far behind - his recent contention that we live in an "unusually peaceful time" drew opprobrium from many quarters.

Born and brought up in Montreal his parents encouraged vigorous debate around the dinner table - indeed it was his mother's interest in the psychology of language and linguistics that sparked his own.

He says "I appreciate what my parents did for me beyond words. Not in making me what I am, but in my view of what's important in life, what I think about and cherish."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor, Hugh Laurie.

If life were straightforward he'd be marooned on the island because of his achievements as an Olympic rower. But his early promise on the water was scuppered by a bout of glandular fever - so he's had to make do instead with life as a worldwide entertainment superstar.

Very British comedy, very big budget movies, very successful syndicated TV drama - his 30 year career has taken him from A Little Bit of Fry & Laurie to a big bit of broadcasting history: his role in the U.S. show House ran for 8 series and had a global audience of 81 million. So why now does he feel the need to risk his stellar reputation by making music too?

He says, "as soon as I acknowledge to myself that something is frightening and carries the risk of public humiliation I feel like I have to do it."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman.

In spite of being in charge of one of our leading 'style bibles' for more than 20 years, her reputation is that of someone rather down to earth. She thinks designers cut clothes too small, refuses to let superstars have photo and copy approval and when she was first appointed editor, she'd never even been on a fashion shoot. During her tenure Vogue's circulation has increased.

Her first job as editor was with the men's magazine GQ and she's had spells at Tatler, the Sunday Telegraph and writing a weekly column for the Daily Mail.

She says, "Vogue is not my personal taste, really. I think of it more as a kind of newspaper, reporting on what's out there."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the mountaineer Conrad Anker.

Some of us choose a life in I.T. or event planning - Conrad Anker has opted to swing from a nylon stepladder 19,000 feet up a cliff with a dose of trench foot and a wedge of stale cheese for supper. It may seem an odd way to spend one's life but it's his way.

One of the world's elite climbers he's credited with a long list of first time ascents. He's also summited Everest three times. During one renowned climb he discovered the icy corpse of the legendary George Mallory who had perished along with Sandy Irvine as they tried to scale the peak - in nothing more than hobnail boots and tweeds - in 1924.

When he isn't exploring the far corners of the world's wilderness he's at home in Montana with his wife Jennifer, the widow of his best friend Alex Lowe, who was killed by an avalanche that narrowly missed Conrad himself.

He says of his life, "Most people are so risk averse. The world is full of couch potatoes ... we climbers should get government stipends for keeping the risk-taking gene pool alive."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the out-going Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King.

He has been in charge during a period of unprecedented global financial turmoil yet under his leadership the Bank of England has emerged as one of the world's most powerful central banks. He may have grown used to the pink tails coats and top hats of his attendants in Threadneedle Street but his background was far from privileged. His father worked on the railways and then became a teacher; his mother was a housewife and sang in the church choir. Their son studied hard and gained a top first at Cambridge before going on to teach at MIT and the London School of Economics.

Throughout his demanding public life he has been sustained by his twin passions for cricket and Aston Villa football club. His other great love appears to have been an intriguingly slow burn: he first met Barbara, the woman who would become his wife, in 1970 - they married in 2007.

He says, "Being the Governor of the Bank of England is actually the easiest job I've ever done; you're in charge & you've got tremendous support."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's guest this week is the ballerina, writer and broadcaster Deborah Bull.

The Royal Ballet, where she was a principal dancer for almost two decades owes a debt of gratitude to the Janice Sutton School of Dance in Skegness. It was there, aged 7, two floors above a fish and chip shop and a row of amusements arcades - and having practiced "good toes, bad toes" - that she knew precisely what she wanted to do with her life.

After many years of success at the top of her profession, she said goodbye to her childhood dream and jetéd into her life's next act - for a time serving as Creative Director of The Royal Opera House and more recently working far beyond Covent Garden promoting creativity and cultural partnerships across Britain.

She says "I always thought I'd feel a passionate sense of loss when I stopped dancing. What was absolutely wonderful was, as the volume turned up on the new career, the volume turned down on the old one."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Alice Walker.

Author, poet, feminist and activist, it was her novel The Color Purple that brought her worldwide attention and acclaim. The story of a poor black girl surviving in the deep American south, between the wars, it is a landmark work, disturbing and exhilarating in equal measure.

If one subscribes to the idea that "art is a wound turned to light", then Alice Walker's early life proved crucial to her future creations. Shot and blinded in one eye by her brother's BB gun it was through the isolation of her injury that she began to write. She once described poetry as "medicine".

She has also said, "I know the world's a mess, but there's so much that's gorgeous in it. I wish everybody could have what I have."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the musician, Alison Balsom.

Widely considered the finest classical trumpet player of her generation, she's performed in all the great concert halls of the world, winning a huge amount of fans and a string of awards for her ability to exquisitely convey the many voices of her chosen instrument.

As a child she had dreams of being a part-time trumpet player, astronaut and jockey - she's only 36 so there's time yet for the other two; but whilst she is solely devoting her energies to her instrument her belief in the power of music seems endless. In between gigs, rehearsals, recordings and motherhood, she's found time to travel to Uganda and Liberia as patron of Brass for Africa, with the heartfelt conviction that she can transform the lives of street children by teaching them to play.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Kirsty Young's guest this week is the artist Damien Hirst.

Life, death, desire, fear, beauty, horror - his creative preoccupations are standard fair; his art - using sharks, maggots, butterflies, glass, formaldehyde and even sometimes paint - is not. His best known works have become iconic symbols of contemporary culture and his exhibitions and auctions attract attention the way a carcass attracts flies.

Growing up in Leeds his mother was something of an early artistic influence - she had dots painted on the front door and whenever Damien said he'd finished a drawing, she'd lay another sheet of paper down and tell her son "carry on."

He once said, "People don't like contemporary art but all art starts life as contemporary. I'm sure there were people in caves going 'I like your cave but I hate that crap you've got on the wall'."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Sir Sydney Kentridge QC.

Widely regarded as a leading advocate of the 20th century, he continues to make his mark in the 21st; he recently appeared for the first time in the European Court of Justice and at the end of last year he spent the actual day of his 90th birthday working in the English Supreme Court.

Born in South Africa, he was first called to the bar there at the end of the 1940s and played a leading role in some of the most significant political trials of the apartheid era. 'Understated, controlled, relentlessly rational' - and with devastating cross-examination skills - the verdict of one of his clients - Nelson Mandela.

He himself says "I hope there's only one thing about my professional life of which I've boasted and which I think, as a lawyer, is unique on my part - I have acted as an advocate for three winners of The Nobel Peace Prize. I don't think anyone else has done that."

Producer: Isabel Sargent.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer and campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera.

She has counselled government and travelled widely advising on how to put a stop to forced marriage and so called honour violence.

At 14, Jasvinder was shown a picture of the stranger thousands of miles away she was to marry and in the face of intimidation she fled her family, chose her own husbands and gained a first class degree. Her books have shone a piercing light on the veiled world of shame, brutality and coercion that some young women endure whilst Karma Nirvana, the pioneering charity she set up and runs, offers refuge and practical help.

She says, "my life has had to take paths where responsibility was the key thing. Now I'm at a point in my life where I'm more content than I've ever been. I've reconciled the disownment."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Julie Goodyear.

For a quarter of a century her Coronation Street character Bet Lynch set the gold plated standard for big, brassy, back chatting blondes. Behind the bar of the Rovers Return her bosom swathed in leopard-print and her head piled high with platinum curls she was Manchester's answer to Mae West. Her MBE was awarded for her services to drama - and when she left the series in 1995, her departure pulled in 19 million viewers.

Yet whatever the scriptwriters came up with it was never as dramatic as the life she's lived beyond The Street. She got pregnant at 17, her second husband abandoned her for their best man, and in 1979 she was diagnosed with cancer and told she'd a year to live. She's now married to her fourth husband.

She says, "If anyone should be interested in an epitaph for my life, I would like them to consider, 'At least she tried."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the writer David Almond.

Most of his work is for children but the adults who populate the juries of heavyweight literary prizes really like it too. The accolades began with his first novel Skellig published in 1998 when he was 47; it won the mighty "Whitbread Children's" award and then many others besides.

Ever since, he's been acclaimed for his ability to craft complex, philosophical narratives with strikingly down to earth characterisations.

He grew up just outside Newcastle in a big, Catholic family and his childhood features heavily in his stories.

He says "Each of my books has had to be written - there was something that had to come out."

Producer: Alison Hughes.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the photographer Rankin.

He started out doing fashion shoots and is very good at making pretty young things look even prettier. But his work and influence have spread well beyond the glossy pages of style bibles. From Congolese war widows to canoodling pensioners his skill is capturing a moment of spontaneous and often surprising truth. He should really been doing peoples' tax returns - he went to college to study accountancy - but his head was turned in his halls of residence where the arts students seemed to be having all the fun. Within a few years Kate Moss was posing for him in nothing but a fedora and leather boots. However his reputation for raunch was put on the back burner the day he photographed Her Majesty The Queen - his picture of a serene and smiling monarch now hangs in The National Portrait Gallery.

Photography is he says "like a seduction. It's a relationship compressed into a moment."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 castaways this week are the comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. They've been at the rock-face, mining for laughs, for over 40 years and they've given us plenty of gems ... amongst them monologues in the '70s for Frankie Howerd, the era-defining character Alan B'Stard MP, star of The New Statesman, and now the successful revival of their long running and much loved sitcom "Birds of a Feather".

Grammar school boys from North London they first met as ten year olds at a youth club, growing up to have 'real jobs' in the civil service and journalism, before finally embarking on the precarious business of making a living from putting words into other people' mouths.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

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 Drysdale

Both 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 Dame Judi Dench.

Born into a family with dramatic leanings, she followed one of her older brothers, Jeffery, to drama school. Having abandoned ideas of becoming a set designer, she made her professional debut as Ophelia at the Old Vic in 1957. An illustrious stage career followed in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet in 1960, in Cabaret in 1968 and as Lady Macbeth for Trevor Nunn in 1976. On TV she found huge success in sitcoms - appearing with her husband, the late Michael Williams, in A Fine Romance and with Geoffrey Palmer in As Time Goes By.

She received an Oscar nomination for her first big-screen part as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown; Shakespeare in Love won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Mrs Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, Iris, and Philomena followed. She played the part of 'M' in the James Bond films seven times and is about to appear as Paulina in Sir Kenneth Branagh's production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

Married to Michael Williams for 30 years, their daughter, Finty, is also an actress.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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 this week is Dr Bill Frankland.

Frequently referred to as the "grandfather of allergy", his achievements include the introduction of the pollen count to the British public and the prediction of increased levels of allergy to penicillin.

Born in Cumbria in 1912, Dr Frankland turned 103 in March. He studied medicine at Oxford and worked at St Mary's hospital in Paddington, London, before war intervened. He signed up to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), but spent over three of the six years he spent in the army as a prisoner of war in Singapore.

After the war, he began work in the dermatology department at St Mary's, but quickly switched to allergy which became his passion. During the fifties he served as a registrar to Alexander Fleming who had discovered penicillin back in 1928. In 1954 he published a seminal research paper about a double-blind randomised trial proving that pre-season pollen injections greatly reduced the symptoms of hay fever sufferers.

He has treated high profile patients including Saddam Hussein and given evidence in court - possibly the oldest expert witness to do so. He continues to work in a private practice and has remarked, "I really don't know what people do when they retire at 65.".

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.