Desert Island Discs: Archive 1991-1996

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Absolutely Fabulous! Jennifer Saunders began "doing funny things with props" in the early 1980s. With her stage partner Dawn French, she toured the clubs and comedy venues making people laugh with acts like The Menopause Sisters. As part of the Comic Strip performers, she burst onto our TV screens as one of the famous, if rather manic, five.

Now through her characters Edina and Patsy,...

Today's castaway on Desert Island Discs confused the rock critics in the late 1970s with songs like Sweet Gene Vincent, Reasons to be Cheerful and outraged the BBC with Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Ian Dury and the Blockheads were part vaudeville act and part punk rock band. In his songs, he created the characters Clevor Trever and Billericay Dickie and so invented the original Essex Man. He's also a painter and an actor, but a...

On Desert Island Discs today the castaway is Robert Winston.

As Professor of Fertility Studies at Hammersmith Hospital in London, he has been at the forefront of medical developments in his field. He pioneered the screening of embryos for genetic defects and has frequently made the headlines with his views that all women, including widows, lesbians and those who are HIV positive, should be considered for treatment.

[Taken from the o...

This week's castaway on Desert Island Discs may be nearing 70, but he knows how to play The Generation Game. Bruce Forsyth is one of the great all-rounders - television host, pianist, dancer and comedian.

He began performing as a child, tap-dancing on the roof of his father's lock-up garages. But, as he tells Sue Lawley, his big night came when he was asked to compere Sunday Night at the Palladium. He has spent more than five decad...

Atlanta was her sixth Olympic Games. The first was 20 years before. On Desert Island Discs, Tessa Sanderson reveals the competitive drive that brought her back from retirement at the age of 40 to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. She fondly recalls her rivalry with fellow competitor Fatima Whitbread, and remembers the moment she became the first and only British woman to win an Olympic throwing gold medal.

[Tak...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a writer, a traveller and an advisor to a Prince and Prime Minister.

Now nearly 90, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early years in South Africa, his incarceration as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and his life-long campaign to save the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Piano...

He's called "His Excellency" by some; to others he's "Fatty Patten". Next year he will hand over Hong Kong to the Chinese.

Chris Patten, this week's castaway on Desert Island Discs, describes the challenges of being the colony's last British Governor. He recalls the moment he won the election for the Conservative Party, but lost his own seat, and how, as Environment Secretary, he found himself implementing "the single most unpopular...

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the wine writer Jancis Robinson.

One of only 200 Masters of Wine in the world, she recalls how her passion was first aroused by a full-bodied Chambolle-Musigny. It was, she says, the first time she realised that wine was an intellectual experience and not just for lubrication. A familiar face on television for her Matters of Taste and Wine Course series, she also edited the prestigious Oxford Compa...

The ball rolled past the gap between him and Gordon Banks and into the back of the net. The Germans were one goal up.

This week's castaway, Jackie Charlton, recalls the match which was to bring him to his knees in relief and joy as England went on to win the 1966 World Cup. Just one of the crowning moments of a career that could so easily have ended down the pit, except for his talent with the ball. Nicknamed "The Boss" because of ...

Always an outsider, she seems to have gone against all the mores of her time; from opening a dancing school in Calcutta to living alone with her children in Kashmir. On Desert Island Discs this week, the writer Rumer Godden describes how her rich life in India (under the Raj) and in Britain has influenced her novels.

She says she can't remember a time when she didn't write. Now in her late 80s, and after publishing more than 50 book...

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is Professor Lewis Wolpert. As Chairman of the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, he is a passionate advocate of the value of science and the increasing need for the recognition and promotion of its importance. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his early life in South Africa, his recent struggle with clinical depression and his passion for the views of the 18th-century...

His fourth novel, Popcorn, has been widely-acclaimed by the critics. He's about to begin a nationwide tour with his stand-up comedy routine. And, after the success of his TV series The Young Ones and Blackadder, he's currently writing The Thin Blue Line for BBC1. Yet despite all that, Ben Elton, this week's castaway, says he's more of an enthusiastic 'farty' than a "smug git in a shiny suit".

He muses as to whether his scatter-gun d...

She has written songs for her friends Barbra Streisand and Bette Davis, and admires Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn. This week, the poet and lyricist Fran Landesman chooses her eight records.

Although now in her 60s, retired to her bed and celibate, she is still writing lyrics and performing her poetry and has just published a new collection of her work. From poor little rich girl to a life of bohemian excess, she looks back at her e...

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the actor Kevin Whately. Having appeared increasingly prominently in three of the most successful series in recent TV history - Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Inspector Morse and Peak Practice - he's currently 'hot property' in the casting world.

He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his boyhood in a remote part of Cumbria, his bold but inspired decision to chuck in accountancy in favour of the...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the scientist Colin Blakemore. A brilliant student, he became an Oxford professor at the age of 35 and since then he has commanded enormous influence through his research and the way he has tried to communicate the importance of science to the world at large.

He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his main work - the functioning of the human brain - and about his research on the relatio...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the designer and entrepreneur Terence Conran. He first came to fame with the Habitat store which introduced British shoppers to consumer delights like the chicken brick and the duvet. Now considered one of the country's most successful restaurateurs - he currently owns seven restaurants and is involved in designing another 17 - he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his original foray ...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. One of the most distinguished members of the English Chamber Orchestra, she has toured all over the world with them.

However, as she will be telling Sue Lawley, up until the early 1980s, she always refused to visit one country - Germany. For it was from there that her Jewish parents were taken away by the Gestapo, never to be seen again. From the ag...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the composer and conductor André Previn. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he and his family fled from Nazi Germany and ended up in California. His skill as a jazz musician led to a job at MGM and four Oscars for the film scores he wrote there. However, in the mid-1960s he turned his back on Hollywood and became principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He'll be di...