Desert Island Discs

Cate Blanchett is arguably the most celebrated Australian actor ever, winning two Academy Awards, three BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and dozens of other honours around the world. She grew up in Melbourne, and although she enjoyed music and drama at school, she initially had no plans to pursue a career as an actor. She started a degree course in economics and fine art, but dropped out after a year, and later won a place at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. She found international fame before she was 30, playing Elizabeth I in the highly-acclaimed film Elizabeth, winning an Oscar nomination and a BAFTA. Since then, she has appeared in more than 70 films and 20 stage productions. She won an Oscar and a BAFTA for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese, and other notable roles include the elf leader Galadriel in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings series and a version of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. She won her second Oscar in 2014 for her performance in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. Her TV work includes the acclaimed series Mrs America, where she played the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, and she has recently taken on the role of an internationally famous composer and conductor in the film Tár, written and directed by Todd Field. Cate has received the Australian Centenary medal and is a Companion of the Order of Australia. She is married to the director and playwright Andrew Upton.DISC ONE: Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor – II composed by Gustav Mahler, performed by Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Claudio Abbado DISC TWO: Bésame Mucho by Trio Los Panchos DISC THREE: Tannhäuser: Pilgrims' Chorus composed by Richard Wagner and performed by Norman Luboff Choir, New Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Leopold Stokowski DISC FOUR: Go Tell the Women by Grinderman DISC FIVE: Proof by I am Kloot DISC SIX: Blow the Wind Southerly by Kathleen Ferrier DISC SEVEN: The Little Weaver Bird by Molly Drake DISC EIGHT: Lil' Darlin' by Count Basie And His OrchestraBOOK CHOICE: Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit LUXURY ITEM: Time CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Tannhäuser: Pilgrims' Chorus composed by Richard Wagner and performed by Norman Luboff Choir, New Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Leopold StokowskiPresenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Edward Enninful is the editor-in-chief of British Vogue and the editorial director of Vogue in Europe.Edward was born in the port city of Takoradi in Ghana in 1972. His father was a major in the Ghanaian army and, following a period of political instability, the family fled the country and settled in London. Edward’s interest in fashion dates back to his childhood in Ghana when he watched his seamstress mother at work making dresses for clients including the President’s wife. As a teenager in London he was spotted by the stylist Simon Foxton and began modelling for the irreverent fashion magazine i-D. At 18 Edward became the magazine’s fashion director, the youngest person ever to hold this post at an international fashion title.In 2017 Edward became editor-in-chief of British Vogue and since his appointment he has championed inclusivity and diversity. His cover stars have included Rihanna, Oprah Winfrey and he recently featured the first man – actor Timothée Chalamet. Edward was awarded an OBE for services to diversity in the fashion industry in 2016. He married his partner Alec Maxwell this year and they live in London with their dog Ru.DISC ONE: Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu by Alhaji K Frimpong DISC TWO: Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil DISC THREE: Strange Fruit by Nina Simone DISC FOUR: Back to Life by Soul II Soul DISC FIVE: Ex-Factor by Lauryn Hill DISC SIX: Stars of Track & Field by Belle and Sebastian DISC SEVEN: Peru by Fireboy DML & Ed Sheeran DISC EIGHT: Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary by RihannaBOOK CHOICE: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson LUXURY ITEM: A pair of embroidered slippers CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Strange Fruit by Nina Simone Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Baz Luhrmann is an Australian director whose debut film, Strictly Ballroom, became one of Australia’s most successful releases, and also inspired the title of the BBC’s popular Saturday night dance show. He went on to direct Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, the Great Gatsby and, more recently, Elvis starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler. Baz was born Mark Andrew Luhrmann in 1962. His friends nicknamed him Baz after the puppet Basil Brush because of his unruly hair. When he was five the family moved to Herons Creek, a remote settlement in New South Wales. Several years later Baz started ballroom dancing after he picked up a leaflet advertising classes while travelling on a bus. At drama school in Sydney he devised a play called Strictly Ballroom with his fellow students and later wrote a screenplay with his school friend Craig Pearce. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992 where it received a rapturous response and went on to win eight Australian Film Institute awards and three BAFTAs. Baz’s most recent film, Elvis, tells the life of Elvis Presley from the perspective of his infamous manager Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks. The film has been a commercial success – making almost $300 million around the world to date. In addition to making feature films Baz has directed theatre and opera productions. He lives mainly in New York with his wife and frequent collaborator, the production designer Catherine Martin, and their two children. DISC ONE: Changes by David Bowie DISC TWO: One by John Farnham DISC THREE: Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass DISC FOUR: Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley DISC FIVE: Puccini: La Boheme / Act 1 - 'Che gelida manina' by Luciano Pavarotti DISC SIX: Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack DISC SEVEN: Lady Marmalade by Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, MYA, Pink DISC EIGHT: No Church in the Wild by JAY Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, The-Dream BOOK CHOICE: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy LUXURY ITEM: A silk eye mask CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Puccini: La Boheme / Act 1 - 'Che gelida manina' by Luciano Pavarotti Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Barry Hearn is a promoter who has been at the forefront of some of the biggest snooker, boxing and darts events in the last 40 years. He played a central role in turning snooker into a television phenomenon, and as a boxing promoter he represented Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. He later turned darts players, including Phil 'The Power' Taylor, into household names.Barry was born in Dagenham in East London in 1948 and grew up in a council house. At school, he enjoyed playing cricket and football, but freely admits he wasn’t good enough to become a professional player. Instead, he became an accountant and when one of the companies he worked for asked him to find some investment properties, he bought a chain of snooker halls. Barry took advantage of the snooker boom of the 1970s - which started after the BBC began televising competitions - and signed a young Steve Davis. Steve went on to win the World Snooker Championship in 1981 and Barry formed his company Matchroom the following year. He consolidated his success by moving into boxing and then introduced darts to a mainstream audience. In 2021 Barry was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sport Industry Awards, and also handed over the chairmanship of Matchroom to his son Eddie. His daughter Katie also works for the company. Barry is reluctant to retire just yet, and remains company president, where his new role has given him some more free time to enjoy one of his favourite activities – fishing.DISC ONE: The Gambler by Kenny Rogers DISC TWO: Sweet Home Chicago by The Blues Brothers DISC THREE: Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver DISC FOUR: The Lonesome Boatman by Finbar & Eddie Furey DISC FIVE: Snooker Loopy by Chas 'n' Dave DISC SIX: The Best by Tina Turner DISC SEVEN: American Pie by Don McLean DISC EIGHT: Forest Lawn by Tom Paxton BOOK CHOICE: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway LUXURY ITEM: A fishing rod and rocking chair CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Steven Spielberg is the most successful director of his generation and the highest-grossing director of all time: his films have taken more than $10 billion worldwide. From Jaws to E.T. and Jurassic Park to Schindler’s List, his storytelling has captivated audiences around the world. Steven grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he started making films as a young boy. In 1958 he made a short Western which won him a Boy Scout merit badge. He screened it to his entire Scout troop and their laughter and applause got him hooked on film making.In 1971 he directed a television movie called Duel about a motorist who is pursued by a murderous truck driver. The film attracted good reviews from critics, and before the age of 30, Steven had directed his first global hit: Jaws grossed $471 million worldwide and is credited as heralding the arrival of the blockbuster era. He now says Jaws was ‘a free pass into my future.’ He has won three Academy Awards, and has received eight nominations for best director. The Fabelmans, his most recent film, is a semi-fictionalised account of his own coming of age, drawing on his film-making experiences as a child. Steven is married to the actor Kate Capshaw, who starred in his film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and they have seven children. DISC ONE: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Gene Pitney DISC TWO: Fugue in G minor, BMW 578 – “The Little” arranged by Leopold Stokowski, composed by J.S Bach, performed by Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin DISC THREE: Michelle by The Beatles DISC FOUR: What the World Needs Now Is Love by Jackie DeShannon DISC FIVE: Come Fly with Me by Frank Sinatra DISC SIX: The Ghost of Tom Joad by Bruce Springsteen DISC SEVEN: Somewhere, composed by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, performed by Reri Grist DISC EIGHT: Coolhand by Buzzy Lee BOOK CHOICE: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck LUXURY ITEM: H-8 Bolex camera CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Coolhand by Buzzy Lee Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Professor Jean Golding is an epidemiologist who is best known for founding the Children of the Nineties study - more formally known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. The most detailed project of its kind anywhere in the world, it has followed the lives of children who were born in Avon during 1991 and 1992 and helped scientists make important discoveries about everything from peanut allergy to the effects of long Covid.Jean was born in Cornwall in 1939. As a toddler she suffered two bouts of tuberculosis and spent several weeks in hospital. Then at 13 she contracted polio, leading to a three-month hospital stay. After graduating in mathematics from Oxford University, her first job involved completing calculations for the 1958 perinatal mortality survey, set up to collect information about the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early infancy. By the time she started designing the Children of the Nineties study, Jean was well used to working with large data-sets, but the new project was bigger than ever. It collected more than 1.5m biological samples including blood, placenta, hair, nails and teeth along with thousands of questionnaires. As well as expanding medical knowledge, the study has influenced government policy.Jean retired from the study in 2005. She was awarded an OBE for services to medical science in 2012 and today is Emeritus Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology at the University of Bristol. DISC ONE: The ‘Trelawny’ National Anthem by The Fisherman’s Friends DISC TWO: Under Milk Wood (Part 1) read by Richard Burton DISC THREE: Bad Penny Blues by Humphrey Lyttelton DISC FOUR: Dawn Chorus by BBC Sound Effects DISC FIVE: The Hippopotamus Song by Flanders & Swann DISC SIX: A Hymn to Him by Rex Harrison DISC SEVEN: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. Posth. 114, D. 667 "The Trout": I. Allegro vivace by Melos Ensemble DISC EIGHT: Bring Me Sunshine by Morecambe and Wise BOOK CHOICE: The Oxford Book of Twentieth-century English Verse LUXURY ITEM: A mobility power chair CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Dawn Chorus by BBC Sound Effects Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Richard E Grant was born in Swaziland, now Eswatini, one of the smallest countries in Africa, and took his first steps as an actor as a teenager in the local amateur theatre company.He studied Drama and English at Cape Town University in South Africa, and moved to London in 1982, hoping to find work as an actor, with - in his words - 'nothing more than a couple of suitcases, a boxful of music cassettes and blind ambition.' He worked as a waiter to pay the bills, until his very first film role, in Withnail and I, launched his acting career. Since then, he has appeared in a very wide range of films, with roles in How to Get Ahead in Advertising, The Player, Jack and Sarah, Logan and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, as well as the Star Wars series. He was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Richard has been a lifelong diarist and has published three collections of memoirs. His most recent book chronicles his long and happy marriage to his wife, the dialect coach Joan Washington, who died from cancer in 2021.DISC ONE: I'm The Greatest Star by Barbra Streisand DISC TWO: When I Fall in Love by Nat King Cole DISC THREE: When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge DISC FOUR: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics DISC FIVE: Chopin: 24 Préludes, Op. 28 - 4. Largo in E Minor by Ivo Pogorelich DISC SIX: Please Forgive Me by Patrick Doyle DISC SEVEN: Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy DISC EIGHT: Don't Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand BOOK CHOICE: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll LUXURY ITEM: A piano CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: When I Fall in Love by Nat King Cole Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

Professor Angela Gallop is a forensic scientist who has helped solve some of the most notorious violent crimes in recent British history including the killings of Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor and Rachel Nickell.After completing a degree in botany and a doctorate on the biochemistry of sea slugs, Angela joined the Home Office’s Forensic Science Service in 1974, and four years later attended her first crime scene, where 18-year-old Helen Rytka was killed by Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.Over the years cold cases became her speciality and in 1992 she investigated the death of the Italian banker Roberto Calvi. He was found hanging from scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge, London, in a suspected suicide ten years before. Angela’s work established that suicide was unlikely and that, in all probability, he’d been murdered. His killers were never found.In 1999 Angela and her team investigated the murder of Lynette White who was killed in her flat in Cardiff in 1988. Five men had been tried for her death and three - known as the ‘the Cardiff Three’ - were sent to prison although their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal two years later. Angela’s investigation made history when the murderer was identified and convicted through his familial DNA. Angela first worked on the Stephen Lawrence case in 1995 – two years after his murder - and returned to it in 2006. The forensic evidence that was found during this investigation helped to convict his killers in 2012.Angela has written a book about her career in forensics and another which outlines the challenges the discipline faces today. Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Rick Rubin is a multiple Grammy-winning record producer who has worked with a wide range of artists including Adele, the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He also reinvigorated the career of Johnny Cash in the 1990s, with a series of acclaimed stripped-back albums, introducing the legendary Man in Black to a new audience. Rick was born on Long Island in New York in 1963. As a teenager, his first love was punk, but he soon became entranced by New York’s emerging rap scene and started hanging out in hip hop clubs to discover more about what was then considered to be an underground form of music. In 1984 he co-founded Def Jam Recordings from his dorm room at university and produced rap records for T La Rock and LL Cool J.Together with his business partner, promoter Russell Simmons, Rick took rap into the mainstream by putting rappers Run-DMC and rock band Aerosmith together to cover Aerosmith’s Walk This Way. It enjoyed international success and became hip hop’s first crossover hit.In 1993 Rick approached the country singer Johnny Cash about working together. By that time Johnny, who was in his sixties, had been dropped by his record label and was performing at dinner theatres to small audiences. In his mind his career was over. Rick persuaded him to record again and released the album American Recordings in 1994. Lauded by the critics, the album led to a creative collaboration that lasted until Johnny’s death in 2003. Rick's more recent work includes the album The New Abnormal by the Strokes, which won the band their first ever Grammy last year. DISC ONE: Across the Universe by The Beatles DISC TWO: …And at the Hour of Death by Víkingur Ólafsson DISC THREE: Rockaway Beach by The Ramones DISC FOUR: Us V Them by LCD Sound System DISC FIVE: I Believe in You by Neil Young DISC SIX: Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling by Thomas De Hartmann DISC SEVEN: The Dangling Conversation by Simon & Garfunkel DISC EIGHT: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack BOOK CHOICE: The Red Book by Carl Jung LUXURY ITEM: Tarot cards CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling by Thomas De Hartmann Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Maxine Peake is an actor and writer who first came to public attention in 1998 as Twinkle in the Victoria Wood sitcom Dinnerladies. She went on to play Veronica in Paul Abbott’s series Shameless and later became known for playing real people, including the Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams, and Sara Rowbotham, the former health worker who exposed the sexual abuse scandal in Rochdale in 2012. Maxine was born in Bolton and after a rocky start at college – she was asked to leave her performing arts course after just two weeks but stuck it out – she won a scholarship to study at RADA. Three months before she was due to graduate she auditioned for Victoria Wood and won her first television role starring alongside Wood, Julie Walters and Anne Reid.Victoria Wood advised her to take on a diverse range of roles in order to avoid being typecast as what Maxine calls the “fat, funny northerner”. She took the advice to heart and extended her range playing Myra Hindley, Martha Costello QC in the legal drama Silk and Hamlet in a critically acclaimed production at the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester. Maxine has also written plays including Beryl: A Love Story on Two Wheels about Beryl Burton, a Yorkshire woman who dominated 1960s cycling and held the record for the men’s 12-hour time trial for two years. DISC ONE: Mersey Paradise by The Stone Roses DISC TWO: Puff the Magic Dragon by Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Red DISC THREE: Joe Hill by Paul Robeson DISC FOUR: The Four Horsemen by Aphrodite’s Child DISC FIVE: Evening of Light by Nico DISC SIX: Promised Land by Joe Smooth DISC SEVEN: A Whistling Woman by The Unthanks DISC EIGHT: I Saw the Light by Todd Rundgren BOOK CHOICE: One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard LUXURY ITEM: A solar-powered epilator CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Joe Hill by Paul Robeson Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley