Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It was devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley.
Desert Island Discs holds the record for the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio and is one of the longest-running radio programmes in the world (surpassed only by the Grand Ole Opry, 28 November 1925 in the United States and by Sunday Half Hour, 14 July 1940 in the United Kingdom.).
Each week a guest ("castaway") is asked to choose eight pieces of music, a book and a luxury item for their imaginary stay on the island, while discussing their lives and the reasons for their choices. The programme's theme is "By the Sleepy Lagoon" composed by Eric Coates in 1930. Since 2006 the show has been presented by Kirsty Young.
Read more about Desert Island Discs: Format, Notable Castaways, Copyright Status, Appearance in Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“I ... would rather be in dependance on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those too who rather than submit to the right of legislating for us assumed by the British parliament, and which late experience has shewn they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)