Choosing your Desert Island Discs
One desert island, only eight tracks of music to keep you company. What will you choose?
From today Kirsty Young is offering you a unique opportunity to take part in Desert Island Discs. Cast yourself away and share the eight tracks that you would take with you to a desert island.
All you have to do is go to the Desert Island Discs website, enter your eight tracks and nominate the one track you would save from the waves if the tropical sea threatened to carry off your selection.
Nominations will close at 2pm on Friday 3rd June and Kirsty will then reveal the listeners' choices in a special live celebration of Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 on Saturday 11th June at 9am.
If you search the Desert Island Discs archive you can find the choices of everyone who has been interviewed on the programme since it began in 1942. There are more than 2,850 castaways to search and over 500 episodes of the programme to listen to and download.
You can search by castaway or by music choice so you can check whose choices you share. Will you be like Sir Michael Caine, Elton John and Steve Coogan and choose Elgar's Enigma Variations? Or like Twiggy, Spike Milligan and Antonio Carluccio and choose Yesterday by The Beatles? Or will you choose a spoken word recording like Judi Dench, Noel Coward and Princess Grace of Monaco who all took some Shakespeare?
It doesn't have to be music or poetry - Ann Widdecombe chose the sound of a hippo, Matthew Pinsent chose cricket commentary. What is the soundtrack of your life? The tracks you can't live without - the tracks that will transport your imagination back home or back in time and lift your spirits in your island isolation?
The most popular track with castaways over the years is Beethoven's Symphony Number 9 in D Minor which has been chosen by 97 castaways including Martin Sheen, Paulo Coelho and Dr Susan Greenfield. The top ten most chosen tracks by castaways are all classical recordings. Will the listeners agree?
We also want to know why you've chosen these pieces. What's the story behind your soundtrack? The memories trapped in each track? We'll be featuring listener's stories on the website and in the live programme on the 11th June.
Cast yourself away at the Desert Island Discs website.
Alice Feinstein is the Editor of Desert Island Discs
- Go to the Desert Island Discs website to enter your eight tracks and nominate the one track you would save from the waves if the tropical sea threatened to carry off your selection.
- Picture caption: "Arena: Desert Island Discs 22/12/1981 © BBC Picture shows - Roy Plomley, presenter of 'Desert Island Discs'. On BBC2, Tuesday February 23 1982, Arena celebrates the 40th anniversary of one of the worlds longest-running series in broadcasting - Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Here we can see Roy Plomley, who has presented the series since it started, relaxing on his 'desert island', specially built for Arena's programme."
Comment number 1.
At 11:33 23rd May 2011, Curmy wrote:I see you're still trying to promote Desert Island Discs on the Radio 4 extra blog. I'm sorry, but I'm not in the slightest bit interested.
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Comment number 2.
At 12:51 23rd May 2011, Paul Murphy wrote:Hi Curmy
This is the Radio 4 and 4 Extra blog so we cover both stations here!
Many thanks
Paul
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Comment number 3.
At 16:36 23rd May 2011, lastsongster wrote:Desert Island Discs has long been a favourite of mine. And for many years, the subject of what would be the eight tracks was a popular topic of discussion at parties or family gatherings. Then a few years ago I noticed that songs for the desert island were replaced by songs you wanted played at your funeral, so I started a website called My Last Song. One of the most popular features on the site is the 'fave five' which are listings of contributors' favourite five tracks, the music that has been the sound track to their live and which they want to be remembered by.
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Comment number 4.
At 17:33 23rd May 2011, mcdu wrote:I agree with Curmy. Interesting to note that Radio 4 Extra is now just an annex to Radio 4 and not a proper station anymore. It doesn't even merit its own blog.
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Comment number 5.
At 20:17 24th May 2011, MariaClaire wrote:Agree with curmy and mcdu, if only all this effort was put into promoting radio 7 it might have got more listeners as apparently 1.6 million wasn't enough!
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Comment number 6.
At 15:19 25th May 2011, Paul Murphy wrote:Hello Curmy, mcdu and MariaClaire,
You're off-topic for this post. If you want to comment on Radio 7 becoming Radio 4 Extra you should head over to the recent Feedback post or Mary's post.
Many thanks
Paul
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Comment number 7.
At 19:24 25th May 2011, MariaClaire wrote:Ok, but nobody seems interested in discussing the topic of the blog, doesn't that tell you something.
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Comment number 8.
At 05:21 26th May 2011, Helen Morris wrote:all it tells me is that if i see a blog which has been hijacked for another agenda, its not worth attempting to comment - i expect i am not alone in that.
you don't have to join in or comment - no-one is trying to force you to take part by mentioning the project and program in a blog, just make you aware - and if you don't want to join in, don't, but please don't make inappropriate comments or try to raise awareness of your concerns by hijacking a perfectly innocent forum
if you want to moan and complain about how the Radio stations are being managed, then do so in the appropriate place, and i'm really sorry if things don't stay the way you like, but change happens and this is not the way to get the powers that be to recognise your issues
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Comment number 9.
At 12:00 26th May 2011, Lawrence Jones wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 10.
At 13:42 26th May 2011, MariaClaire wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 11.
At 23:12 26th May 2011, Curmy wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 12.
At 11:21 27th May 2011, MariaClaire wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 13.
At 14:51 27th May 2011, Jeff wrote:A great idea to give people the opportunity to submit their own choices, and it will be interesting to see how the whole project is summarised on the programme of the 11th June. I love listening to the DID interviews, as the music choices bring out some wonderful insights into the life and character of the interviewees. Long may it continue.
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Comment number 14.
At 18:52 27th May 2011, MariaClaire wrote:I've always enjoyed DID, Roy Plomley came up with such a great format, the simple ideas are always the best. (Mods, is this ok and on topic?)
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Comment number 15.
At 01:20 28th May 2011, Russ wrote:The winning entry in the caption competition for your header picture was:
"New staging of Beckett's Happy Days surprises critics"
Russ
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Comment number 16.
At 10:10 31st May 2011, Paul Murphy wrote:#15 Hi Russ, I like your caption. I thought you might be interested in a pic of Billie Whitelaw in Happy Days: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bbcradio4/5779996637/in/photostream It does look like they used the same set for both pictures, best wishes, Paul
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