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Desert Island Discs

Radio Drama and Broadcast Landmarks

Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio programme that first aired on the BBC Forces Programme on January 29, 1942, devised by its original host Roy Plomley. Each episode invites a guest, called a castaway, to imagine being stranded alone on a desert island and to choose eight pieces of music, one book and one luxury item they would take with them, and the ensuing conversation about those choices becomes a portrait of the guest's life. More than 3,400 episodes have been broadcast across more than eight decades, hosted after Plomley by Michael Parkinson, Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young and, since 2018, Lauren Laverne, and the programme's opening theme, Eric Coates's By the Sleepy Lagoon, has remained unchanged since 1942. In 2019 a panel of broadcasting industry figures named it the greatest radio programme of all time.

Facts
Release Year
1942 1
Country
United Kingdom 1
Connections

In Medium

Radio, Media Forms
Source Desert Island Discs (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation
Desert Island Discs (Wikipedia)
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs, lead paragraph, opening sentence (broadcaster)
    Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs, lead paragraph, first-broadcast sentence
    It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
  • In Medium: Radio, Article lead sentence
    Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight audio
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