Desert Island Discs
85 FOLLOWERS
Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.
Desert Island Discs
4d ago
Sandy Powell won her first Academy Award for dressing Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, and has since won two more Oscars - along with a further dozen nominations - and three BAFTAs. Her credits range from Gangs of New York for Martin Scorsese to Mary Poppins Returns for Disney, and she's worked with many of the biggest current screen stars, including Leonardo di Caprio, Cate Blanchett and Al Pacino.
Sandy was born in south London and completed an art foundation course at St Martin’s School of Art. In 1981 she got her first job designing costumes for the choreographer ..read more
Desert Island Discs
1w ago
Clive Oppenheimer is a volcanologist, filmmaker and Professor of Volcanology at the University of Cambridge. His research has taken him on expeditions across the world, from Antarctica, where he discovered the camp of Captain Scott’s attempt to reach the South Pole, to Ethiopia where he was held at gunpoint by rebels.
Clive was born in London, and fell in love with rocks and the stories they tell on visits to what is now the Natural History Museum. His mother survived the Blitz in London and his father escaped persecution by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. On a gap year trip to Indonesia, C ..read more
Desert Island Discs
2w ago
Cillian Murphy has received global acclaim for his performance in the title role of Christopher Nolan’s epic film Oppenheimer. He has been nominated for an Oscar, which follows the best actor award he picked up at this year’s Golden Globes. On the small screen he played the Birmingham gangster Thomas Shelby for a decade in the BAFTA-winning Peaky Blinders, which made him a household name.
Cillian was born in Cork in 1976 and initially music was his creative outlet. His band Sons of Mr Green Genes, which he formed with his younger brother, was offered a five album record deal, but the boys’ par ..read more
Desert Island Discs
3w ago
Val Wilmer has photographed and interviewed many of the most significant musicians of the post-war years, including Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and many more.
Val grew up in Streatham in South London, where a local record shop helped to nurture her love of music, especially jazz. Her lifelong passion for jazz and photography began at an early age: when she was just 14 years old, she persuaded her mother to take her to London Airport to see off the jazz legend Louis Armstrong who had been playing in the UK. She asked him for an autograph ..read more
Desert Island Discs
1M ago
Jamie Dornan is an actor who first came to the attention of television audiences in 2013 when he played serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC series the Fall. Two years later he starred alongside Dakota Johnson in the film Fifty Shades of Grey and went on to play the same part in the rest of the trilogy. In 2022 he was the lead in the BBC drama the Tourist which was watched by millions of viewers and recently returned for its second season.
Jamie was born in Holywood in County Down. At 10 he played Widow Twankey in the school pantomime - a defining moment for him when he experienced the thrill ..read more
Desert Island Discs
1M ago
Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a cellist who came to international attention when he performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018. Still only 24, he has performed at a series of high profile locations including the Hollywood Bowl and Downing Street. Last year he was a soloist at the Last Night of the Proms.
Sheku was brought up in Nottingham along with his six siblings who are also extremely talented musicians. At six-years-old he went to a concert by the Nottingham Youth Orchestra where he was transfixed by the cello section. He started having lessons not long afterwards and by t ..read more
Desert Island Discs
1M ago
The Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the Bishop of Chelmsford. She also sits in Parliament as a Lord Spiritual and last year she played a prominent role in the Coronation, administering Holy Communion to the King and Queen.
She was born in Isfahan, central Iran, the youngest of four children to Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, the first ethnic Iranian Anglican Bishop of his country, and his wife Margaret. In 1980, in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, her family were targeted and forced to leave the country. She arrived in the UK aged 13 as a refugee. Four decades on, Guli has yet to set foot on Irani ..read more
Desert Island Discs
1M ago
Graham William Nash is a musician, singer, songwriter and photographer. He had his first musical success as a member of the UK band The Hollies before his move to America when he sang as part of Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Graham was born in 1942 and grew up in Salford. He found his singing voice at the age of six when he realised that not only could he sing, but he had the ability to harmonise any melody.
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Over the years, Graham has written many hit songs for The Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash including Our House and Marrakesh Express. Al ..read more
Desert Island Discs
2M ago
Delia Smith CH CBE is one of Britain’s most popular and successful cookery writers and broadcasters.
Her first book, How to Cheat at Cooking, was published in 1971 and she presented her first television series, Family Fare, two years later. Since then she has presented many more series and her books have sold more than 21 million copies in the UK alone. Her widespread influence has led to the phrase ‘the Delia effect’, when large numbers of shoppers sought out her recommendations.
Delia was born in Woking in 1941, and grew up in Bexleyheath. She attended the local secondary modern school, but ..read more
Desert Island Discs
2M ago
Greta Gerwig is the director of the feature film Barbie - the first woman in cinematic history to have the sole director’s credit for a billion dollar blockbuster. Her previous films include Lady Bird, inspired in part by her own childhood, and Little Women, a widely acclaimed adaptation of the much-loved novel.
Greta was born and brought up in Sacramento in California. Her parents encouraged her love of the arts and she started trying to direct her friends in productions while she was still in kindergarten. She studied English and Philosophy at Barnard College in New York where she started ac ..read more