Desert Island Discs is a long-running
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967.-Outline:...
programme. It was first broadcast on 29 January 1942 and is said by the
Guinness Book of Records to be the longest-running
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
programme in the
history of radioThe early history of radio is the history of technology that produced radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy"...
. Guests are invited to imagine themselves
cast awayA castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded...
on a desert island, and to choose eight pieces of music, originally gramophone records, to take with them; discussion of their choices permits a review of their life.
Desert Island Discs is a long-running
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967.-Outline:...
programme. It was first broadcast on 29 January 1942 and is said by the
Guinness Book of Records to be the longest-running
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
programme in the
history of radioThe early history of radio is the history of technology that produced radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy"...
. Guests are invited to imagine themselves
cast awayA castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded...
on a desert island, and to choose eight pieces of music, originally gramophone records, to take with them; discussion of their choices permits a review of their life. Excerpts from their choices are played or, in the case of short pieces, the whole work. At the end of the programme they choose the one piece they regard most highly. They are then asked which book they would take with them; they are automatically given the
Complete Works of ShakespeareComplete Works of William Shakespeare is the standard name given to any volume containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. Some editions include The Two Noble Kinsmen, a collaboration with John Fletcher, and some do not....
and either the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
or another appropriate religious or philosophical work.
Guests also choose one
luxuryLuxury can refer to several things:*Luxury good, an economic good for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises; contrast with inferior good and normal good.*Luxury tax, a tax on products not considered essential, such as expensive cars...
, which must be inanimate and of no use in escaping the island or allowing communication from outside. The devisor and original presenter of the programme,
Roy PlomleyFrancis Roy Plomley, OBE was an English radio broadcaster, producer, playwright and novelist.-Early life:Plomley was the son of a pharmacist and was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon...
, enforced the rules strictly, but it is less strictly enforced today. Examples of luxuries have included champagne and the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
After Plomley's death in 1985, the programme was presented by
Michael ParkinsonSir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster and journalist. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...
, and from 1988 by
Sue LawleySue Lawley is an English broadcaster.Born in Sedgley, Staffordshire, England and brought up in the Black Country, she was educated at Dudley Girls High School and graduated in modern languages from the University of Bristol and some time later started her career at the BBC in Plymouth...
. Lawley stepped down in August 2006 after 18 years. She was replaced by
Kirsty YoungKirsty Jackson Young is a Scottish television presenter, actress and radio presenter. She has recently left her position as head newsreader on Five News, the news programme on British television channel Five, where she had worked for most of the time since its launch in 1997...
, who interviewed illustrator
Quentin BlakeQuentin Saxby Blake, CBE, FCSD, RDI, is an English cartoonist, illustrator and children's author, well known for his collaborations with writer Roald Dahl.-Education:...
for her first show, broadcast on 1 October 2006.
The most requested music over the first 60 years was
Ode to Joy"To Joy" is an ode written in 1785 by the German poet, playwright and historian Friedrich Schiller...
, the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
The programme's theme is
By The Sleepy Lagoon composed by
Eric CoatesEric Coates was an English composer of light music and a viola player.-Life:Eric Coates was born in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire, the son of a doctor, and studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1906, receiving viola lessons from Lionel Tertis...
in 1930.
Castaways
- The first castaway was Vic Oliver
Vic Oliver was an actor and radio comedian.He was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Viktor von Samek and came to England via America....
.
- A few castaways, including Arthur Askey
Arthur Bowden Askey CBE was a prominent English comedian.- Life and career :He was born at 29 Moses Street, Liverpool, Lancashire, he was the elder child and only son of Samuel Askey , secretary of the firm Sugar Products of Liverpool, and his wife, Betsy Bowden , of Knutsford, Cheshire...
and Earl HinesEarl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early life:...
, have been cast away twice.
Copyright
Until late September 2009,
Desert Island Discs could not be heard on the BBC's iPlayer service, which allows most programmes to be heard up to a week after transmission. The programme's website explained this was due to rights issues, as explained in
The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
in 2006:
Because Plomley was a freelance broadcaster, Desert Island Discs became his copyright. After his death in 1985 it went to his wife, Diana Wong. She still owns it but is now in her eighties and their daughter, Almond, acts for her.Mother and daughter and the BBC agree to have Plomley mentioned in the credits and the corporation pays Diana an annual sum (£5,000 in 1996). However, the family and the BBC cannot agree a payment to make the programme available after the broadcast. This is why it is not available via the BBC’s website.
It was announced on 27 September 2009 that an agreement had been reached with the family that the programme would be available to stream via the iPlayer and would be available as a podcast soon.
In popular culture
- Retro Gamer
Retro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Although launched as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamers soon became a monthly...
published a variation on the theme, Desert Island Disks, with celebrities choosing the video games they would take to a Desert Island.
- In the episode "The Last Shout" from Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous is a British sitcom created and written by Jennifer Saunders, who also plays the leading character. Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha co-star, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks. It was broadcast on BBC from 1992 to 1996 and 2001 to 2004...
Eddy was the special guest in Desert Island Discs.
- In Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll...
's play The Real ThingThe Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
, the playwright protagonist, Henry, frets over his upcoming appearance on Desert Island Discs, worrying about whether he should be honest and admit his admiration for pop musicPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
(particularly pop music derided by critics) or pretend to favour more conventionally admired music.
External links
- Desert Island Discs (BBC latest episode)
- Desert Island delights (BBC website on the programme's 60th birthday in 2002; includes two pictures of presenter Roy Plomley, one with guest Dame Gladys Cooper in 1967 and one with guest Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE , is an English singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record and film producer, painter, and animal rights and peace activist. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music...
in 1982)
- Sue Arnold, "The Lagoon Show", The Observer, London
[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, 17 March 2002