Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015 – Details, episodes & analysis

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Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015

BBC Radio 4

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/9d. Total Eps: 209

Guests are invited to choose the eight records they would take to a desert island.

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#77
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#73
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#49
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#38
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#31
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15/08/2026
#87
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#33
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14/08/2026
#42
🇬🇧 Great Britain - personalJournals
13/08/2026
#43

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Score global : 38%

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Commander Chris Hadfield

Sunday, December 20, 2015 • Duration 35:44

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.

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Kylie Minogue

Sunday, December 13, 2015 • Duration 35:27

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.

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Lemn Sissay

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 • Duration 34:52

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.

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Russell Brand

Sunday, July 21, 2013 • Duration 34:01

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.

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Val McDermid

Sunday, July 14, 2013 • Duration 35:04

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.

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Jane Somerville

Sunday, July 7, 2013 • Duration 36:17

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.

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Steven Pinker

Sunday, June 30, 2013 • Duration 34:49

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.

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Hugh Laurie

Sunday, June 23, 2013 • Duration 33:03

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.

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Alexandra Shulman

Sunday, June 16, 2013 • Duration 34:29

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.

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Conrad Anker

Sunday, June 9, 2013 • Duration 34:07

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.

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Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015 – Details, episodes & analysis

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Recent rankings

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Apple Podcasts

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Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015 – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify