The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Janet Holmes à Court. Recently named Businesswoman of the Year, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how, after the sudden death of her husband, the hugely rich Robert Holmes a Court, she was advised to sell up and retire to the beach. Before his death, he had just been starting to turn the tide which had run against him after he'd lost around £400 million in the stock market crash of 1987. Forgetting the beach, she proceeded to take up the...

Sue Lawley's castaway is actor and comedian Hugh Laurie. Favourite track: Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison Book: A self-learn Italian book (slowly) Luxury: Family photo album

BBC TV's Birds Of A Feather is one of the country's favourite comedy programmes, attracting audiences of 14 or 15 million on a Sunday evening. This week, one of its co-stars, Pauline Quirke, will be cast well away from Chigwell as she prepares to set sail for Radio 4's desert island. Known more famously perhaps as Sharon of Sharon 'n' Tracey, she'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her poor upbringing in London's East End, her first role as a child arsonist at the age of 10 in Dixon of Dock...

This week, Sue Lawley's desert island castaway is the pianist Mitsuko Uchida. She was born in Japan, but, when she was 12, her family moved to Vienna, where she fully immersed herself in the music that she has now become famous for playing - Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and in particular, Mozart. Her aim is to be always faithful to the composer whose work she is trying to interpret. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track:...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his enormously successful screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, his novel - televised by the BBC - The Buddha of Suburbia and his love of pop music which he plays at full volume whilst writing. He'll also be discussing the racial abuse which dominated his childhood in Bromley, where, as the son of an Indian father and an English mother, and the only Asian boy...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Viscount Rothermere. As proprietor of the Daily Mail, the Mail On Sunday, London's Evening Standard and a string of regional newspapers, he is the last of the hereditary grandees who once dominated the newspaper industry. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his family's long involvement with newspapers, about his own views on the ethical problems facing the press today and about his ability to see into the future. [Taken from the original...

This summer will see what will be a sad day in Test cricket history: Dickie Bird, who has umpired 65 Test matches, 92 one-day internationals and three world cup finals, will be umpiring his last Test match at Lords. This week in Desert Island Discs, he will be talking to Sue Lawley about his church-going childhood in Barnsley, and his anxieties about punctuality - arriving as he has done at least four hours before time at Buckingham Palace, Chequers and The Oval. [Taken from the original...

Nearly 14 years ago, the young Simon Weston set off to serve with his regiment in the Falklands War. On 8th June 1982 in Bluff Cove, his ship was bombed, most of his friends were killed, but he survived. This week on Desert Island Discs, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about that shattering moment, his subsequent rehabilitation and how his disfigurement has affected his life. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: What...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is someone who has unexpectedly encountered professional acclaim late in her life. Singer Kyra Vayne could well be described as one of opera's forgotten voices - until this year when, thanks to the release of some previously-unknown recordings which had lived under her bed in Shepherd's Bush for 30 years, her voice reached a large new audience of admirers. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her reaction to the ecstatic reception given to her...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Chairman of the National Westminster Bank Lord Alexander. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he began his career as a jobbing barrister, doing all manner of work on the western circuit where he earned a reputation which took him to the top of his profession. Among many others, he won cases for Jeffrey Archer and Kerry Packer, and lost one for Ken Livingstone's GLC. In the 1980s he moved to the City as Chairman of the Takeover Panel...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he was an early 'fast-track' pupil - going to Edinburgh University at 16 - their youngest student for 50 years, about the reasons behind his standing aside in favour of Tony Blair in the contest for the Labour leadership, and about his childhood as one of three sons of a Scottish minister. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a surgeon and a painter. Sir Roy Calne - Professor of Surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge - will be talking to Sue Lawley about his early conviction that transplant surgery was a viable way of treating kidney and liver disease, about his struggles to have his ideas accepted and about the paintings he has done of his patients - many of which have been the subject of several public exhibitions. [Taken from the original programme...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Professor George Steiner. One of the most prominent intellectuals of our time, he'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how the English academic establishment has taken decades to accept him despite his early popularity as a Cambridge lecturer, and about the problem of reconciling the love of beauty with great acts of evil. He'll also be describing how his family left Austria for France in the 1920s and how he was one of only two boys to survive in...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the country's best-known novelists. Author of I'm the King of the Castle, Strange Meeting and The Woman in Black, among many other books, Susan Hill will be talking to Sue Lawley about the inspiration for her recent and highly-acclaimed sequel to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca; about the loneliness which characterised her childhood and about the relationship between tragedy in her own life and the way she writes about it in her...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is one of the world's outstanding photojournalists, Eve Arnold. The first American woman member of the famous photographic co-operative, Magnum, she'll be talking about how her passion for photography began with the present of a camera, and how, since then, she has travelled the world in search of arresting pictures, living with hippy communes and with the black power movement, as well as photographing some of the great movie stars, including Paul...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Julian Barnes. Since his first novel - Metroland - was published when he was 34, he has written another eight and won four literary prizes - most famously perhaps for Flaubert's Parrot. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his passion for Flaubert, his love for Leicester City, his notions of love and his fear of death. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track:...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the only surviving British star of the silent screen. Chili Bouchier will be talking to Sue Lawley about some of the perils of making silent movies and her transition into the talkies with hugely successful films like Carnival and Gypsy. She'll also be describing the ups and downs of a personal life which has been as vivid as her many films - encompassing two disastrous marriages with men who betrayed her, marriage proposals from Howard Hughes...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the playwright Jimmy McGovern. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the TV series Cracker - one of the top television series of the 1990s - about how much of the central character, Fitz, is modelled on himself, how he feels about the violent world it portrays and about why we are fascinated by criminal psychology. For seven years a writer on Brookside, he'll be describing how the phenomenal success of Cracker led to the reviving of his...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Christopher Hampton. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his multiplicity of talents - after obtaining a first at Oxford he went straight to the Royal Court Theatre in London where he wrote several highly-regarded plays, among them The Philanthropist. He then went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay of the film Dangerous Liaisons, to translate the work of Ibsen and Chekhov, to write the book for Sunset Boulevard, and, most...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Margaret Tebbit. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the night 11 years ago when the IRA detonated a huge bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where she was staying with her husband for the Tory Party Conference. Since that dreadful night, she has been severely paralysed, and she'll be describing the effect on her life: the dreams she has in which she no longer has to use a wheelchair, the new friends she's made and the old ones who turned...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is an entertainer who has managed to captivate a generation. Petula Clark will be talking to Sue Lawley about how the British still perceive her as 'our pet' since her early singing days when she was chosen to sing in Trafalgar Square on VE night. Now, arguably the biggest female recording star Britain has ever produced, she is about to take on the lead role in Sunset Boulevard in the West End. In between, hits like The Little Shoemaker, Down Town...

The castaway this week in Desert Island Discs is the singer and actress Barbara Dickson. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how she progressed from being the daughter of a Rothsyth docker to the lead role in Willy Russell's play John, Paul, Ringo and Bert, and later to win an award for her performance in his play Blood Brothers. Along the way, her extraordinary singing voice brought her a string of hit singles, including I Know Him So Well, while recently her acting abilities landed her...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the actress Alison Steadman. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her role as the monstrous Beverly in the BBC's production of Abigail's Party 18 years ago, as well as her talent for improvisation which she has perfected with her director husband, Mike Leigh. She'll also be discussing how daunting she found it recently to take on the role of Mrs Bennett in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. [Taken from the original programme material for this...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a musician who became famous for producing other people's music. George Martin will be talking to Sue Lawley about how he earned money to pay for piano lessons, was helped by a fairy godfather to study at the Guildhall School of Music and went on in 1962 to sign up and produce the group which changed the face of popular music. He'll be discussing his relationship with The Beatles and his extremely productive life since they disbanded 25 years...

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Umberto Eco. His best-selling novel The Name of the Rose propelled him from the relative obscurity of his post as Professor of Semiotics at Bologna University to worldwide fame at the age of 50. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he deals with the demands of his celebrity status, his childhood in Mussolini's Italy and his other works - Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. [Taken from the original programme...