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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Desert Island Discs is one of Radio 4's most popular and enduring programmes. Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Sue Lawley to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island.
The discussion of their choice is a device for them to review their life. They also choose a favourite book (excluding the Bible or other religious work and Shakespeare - these already await the "castaway") and a luxury which must be inanimate and have no practical use. |
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PRESENTER |
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Sue's biography
- Sue's interview
- Quiz about Sue |
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"Lawley's consensual, almost sensual probing, producing an ambiguous bond like that between hostage and hostage-taker, is ... a masterpiece of technique."
The Sunday Times 17 March 1996
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Jan Morris, author
Jan Morris is the author of over 30 books including a novel, and personal historical works. Most famously Jan writes about places such as Venice, Oxford, Trieste and New York that have intrigued her.
She was born a boy and spent the first 46 years of her life as James Morris until she had a sex change operation in Casablanca in 1972.
James Morris joined the Army at 17, after choir school in Oxford, and was introduced to the joys of foreign travel.
At 23 he returned to study English at Oxford: this enthusiasm for reading and writing combined with an interest in travel prompted him to get a job on leaving Oxford as a reporter on The Times and later The Guardian as foreign correspondent, mainly in the Middle East.
He made his name as the reporter on the 1953 Everest trip and broke the story that a British expedition had conquered Everest the day before the Queen's coronation in 1953.
James married Elizabeth in 1949, who is still a lifelong friend. He wrote his first book, Coast to Coast, whilst in America on a writing scholarship. It was an instant success.
She concedes that her Pax Britannica trilogy about the decline of the British Empire is her most "important work", but it is writing about cities and places that Jan has returned to time and again. She brings a personal perspective and close observation to history. She says "The best way to find out about a place is wander around. Wander around, alone, with all your antennae out thinking about what's happening and what you see and what you feel."
Her latest book Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere springs from the impression on her the first time she saw it as a member of the 9th Lancers: a memory that "has remained with me ever since - far more than Venice really - maybe a false one, as it's mine, and even then I thought it was all on its own - it was mixed up, it wasn't like anywhere else, it was out on a limb, on a fold in the map. I like that sort of place and it suits me because I'm on a fold in the map too!"
1. Oh How I hate to Get Up in the Morning
Performer Irving Berlin
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Chappell
CD Title This is The Army
Band T23
Label Columbia
Rec No 14877
2. Let Me Sing and I'm Happy
Performer Al Jolson
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin
CD Title Mammy
Band T7
Label Milloball
Rec No TMSM 34031
3. We're a couple of swells
Performer Judy Garland and Fred Astaire
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin
CD Title Easter Parade
Band T26
Label CBS
Rec No CDCBS70288
4. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Performer Frank Sinatra
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Warner Chappell
CD Title To be Perfectly Frank
Band T7
Label Double Gold
Rec No DBG 53065/A
5. I'm putting All My Eggs in One Basket
Performer Louis Armstrong
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin
CD Title I'm putting All My Eggs in One Basket
Band T5
Label Verve
Rec No 521 851-2
6. I Got the Sun in the Morning
Performer Ethel Merman
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin
CD Title Annie
Band T8
Label RCA
Rec No 09026 61992 2
7. White Christmas
Performer Bryn Terfel
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin/ FD&H
CD Title White Christmas
Band T6
Label DG
Rec No DG 449 965-2
8. Heimweh or Always
Performer Richard Tauber with the Dajos Bela* Orchestra
Composer Irving Berlin
Publisher Berlin
CD Title Heimweh
Label Pearl
Rec No GEMM CD 9381
If Jan could take just one record it would be No 3, We're a couple of swells.
Her book, apart from The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, would be The Mabinogi, in modern Welsh.
Her luxury would be a hot water bottle.
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