Desert Island Discs

Guests are invited to imagine themselves cast away on a desert island, and choose eight recordings, 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. Guests are also automatically given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another appropriate religious or philosophical work. They are then prompted to select a third book to accompany them. Popular choices include Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Actress Judi Dench, who has macular degeneration, was permitted to take an audiobook in place of a printed manuscript.[5][6]

Guests also choose one luxury, which must be inanimate and of no use in escaping the island or allowing communication from outside. Roy Plomley[7] enforced these rules strictly. He did, however, grant a special dispensation to Princess Michael of Kent, who chose her pet cat.[8][9] The rules are, however, less strictly enforced today; for instance, Lawley allowed John Cleese to take Michael Palin with him, on the condition that he was dead and stuffed. Examples of luxuries have included champagne[10] and a piano, the latter of which is one of the most requested luxuries.[11]

After Plomley's death in 1985, the programme was presented by Michael Parkinson, from 1988 to 2006 by Sue Lawley and from 2006 to 2018 by Kirsty Young.[7] Young was replaced by 6 Music presenter Lauren Laverne, who interviewed Olympic diver Tom Daley for her first show, broadcast on 30 September 2018. Laverne was initially only drafted in as an interim presenter, while Young took time off due to complications of fibromyalgia, but following her decision not to return in July 2019, it was announced that Laverne would continue for "the foreseeable future".[12][13]

The first castaway was Vic Oliver, and several castaways, including Celia Johnson, Arthur Askey, Trevor Nunn, John Schlesinger, Kenneth Williams, Terry Wogan, Brian Rix, David Attenborough and Adele Leigh have been cast away more than once. The most requested piece of music over the first 60 years was "Ode to Joy", the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.[14] One of the most remarked broadcasts was Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's 1958 selection of seven of her own recordings.[15][16] This record was subsequently beaten by British pianist Dame Moura Lympany on her second appearance on the programme on 28 July 1979 when all eight of her selections were of her own recordings.[17] In the early 1970s, Roy Plomley attempted to interview Alistair MacLean, but ended up speaking to somebody else with the same name – and the programme was never broadcast.[18] In January 1981, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, appeared as a castaway on the show.[19]

Plomley originally wanted the sounds of "surf breaking on a shore and the cries of sea birds" to open and close each programme. However, Leslie Prowne, the head of popular record programmes at the BBC, was concerned that it lacked definition and insisted that music should also be used. Plomley and the series' producer Frederic Piffard selected "By the Sleepy Lagoon", composed by Eric Coates (who appeared on the show in 1951). The tune has been used since the first transmission in 1942. The sound of herring gulls has accompanied the music except for a period of time in 1964 when tropical bird sounds were used.[20]

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[21] stated that this was due to rights issues, as explained in The Sunday Times in 2006.[22]

It was announced on 27 September 2009 that an agreement had been reached as a result of which the programme would be available to stream via the iPlayer.[23] The first episode available through the iPlayer was with Barry Manilow. Subsequently, the programme was also made available as a podcast,[24] beginning with the edition broadcast on 29 November 2009, which featured Morrissey. However, due to music clearance issues, the music selections on the podcast versions are reduced to only playing for around 30 seconds or so (and in rare instances are unavailable, as mentioned in an announcement made by the presenter at the appropriate point of the programme).

On 30 March 2011, the BBC placed more than 500 episodes from the show's archive online to listen to via iPlayer. Other episodes have since been added, both new and old.

In the early years of the BBC, programmes were broadcast live and were generally not recorded. This, in addition to the BBC's policy of wiping that was applied during the 1950s and 1960s, means very few episodes from the first 20 years of the show are known to exist; the earliest episode still in existence was broadcast on 25 April 1951 and features actress Margaret Lockwood.[25] Several extracts were preserved for posterity at the request of the guests, such as an extract featuring Alfred Hitchcock where he speaks about his films The Pleasure Garden (1925) and Rebecca (1940), gives his view on the changing landscape of the film industry and briefly discusses his then upcoming film Psycho (1960).

• Desert Island Discs (1977, by Roy Plomley)
• Plomley's Pick (1982, by Roy Plomley)
• Desert Island Lists (1984, compiled by Roy Plomley and Derek Drescher)
• Sue Lawley's Desert Island Discussions (1990, by Sue Lawley)
• Desert Island Discs: 70 Years of Castaways (2012, by Sean Magee, foreword by Kirsty Young)[26]
• Desert Island Discs: Flotsam & Jetsam (2012, by Mitchell Symons)[27]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Desert Island Discs.

• Desert Island Discs, BBC

• Latest episodes

• Sue Arnold, "The Lagoon Show", The Observer, London, 17 March 2002