Desert Island Discs

Kirsty Young's castaway is the author Vikram Seth. His novel A Suitable Boy was nearly a decade in the writing, but it was a huge and immediate hit and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He is now working on a follow-up novel called A Suitable Girl. He's due to finish work on it in 2013 - 20 years after the original work was published. The pace of work, he admits, is slow: "The sound of deadlines pushing past is one of the sounds that authors are most familiar with - it's very much in the gestational period." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Paul Johnson. He writes, he says, out of a desire to 'put things right' and more than fifty books and thousands of articles have flowed from his pen. His opinions have provoked, offended and enraged plenty of people over the years and sweeping works about modernity, morality, art and philosophy, sit alongside fiercely opinionated biographies and essays. He says: "I like to be, in general, in agreement with what most people think, but I also like to be a little bit independent and individual and, thank God, I've been allowed to do that all my writing life."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the director of the Royal Ballet, Dame Monica Mason. Her working life has been dedicated to dance. When she joined the Royal Ballet at fifteen she was the youngest dancer to be admitted to the company and, during her career, its legendary choreographer Kenneth MacMillan created five roles for her. She became director ten years ago and is due to step down this summer. She says: "I couldn't bear it if I thought that, behind closed doors, somebody was saying 'she's here again, you know', so I shall keep my distance and only go in when asked."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan. His career has spanned more than five decades and includes the chat show Wogan, the Eurovision Song Contest, the quiz Blankety Blank and for many years being the host of Radio 2's breakfast show. He says: "You have to create a kind of little club - you are not talking to an audience, you are talking to one person - and they are only half listening anyway. It's a mistake to think that everyone is clinging to your every word."Producer: Corinna Jones.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the scientist Professor Brian Cox. In the press he's been called 'the pin-up professor' and his enormously popular TV series have been credited with creating the 'Brian Cox effect' - a surge in the number of would-be scientists applying to university. As a teenager he decided he wanted to be a rock star; he toured the world as a member of the band Dare and performed on Top of the Pops with his second group D:Ream.He says:"I hope, we're beginning to treat ideas almost like we treated rock and roll - I hope so, it would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if ideas were the new rock and roll?"Producer: Corinna Jones.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the creator of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes. He won an Oscar for his screenplay for Gosford Park and went on to write other feature films including The Young Victoria and Vanity Fair. Downton Abbey, which he created and writes, has been an enormous TV success with a huge audience. "Of course" he says, "if I had a clear understanding of why it had done so well, I would continue to write shows that attracted record viewers for the rest of my life." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the journalist and former editor Eve Pollard. She was groomed for success by Rupert Murdoch, but made an editor by Robert Maxwell. Her career has spanned glossy magazines and tabloid journalism, breakfast television, biographies and novels. When she first worked on Fleet Street, she says, women were such a rarity that the male reporters didn't know what to make of her. "Any woman who has a high flying job, they don't know who to compare you to - you're not their mum, you're not their sister, you're not their wife - so they make you a sort of monster-nanny figure."Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the businessman Sir Martin Sorrell. He's been called "the world's most influential ad man," and is the founder and chief executive of the world's biggest advertising agency, WPP. He was 40 when he left Saatchi and Saatchi to be his own boss, he says: "When I started off, what I wanted to do was to build a company and manage it - I wanted to be an entrepreneur and be a manager." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the adventurer Bear Grylls. His first career was with the SAS, but he was forced to leave after a parachute jump went wrong and he broke his back in three places. As he recuperated, he rekindled his childhood ambition of climbing Mount Everest - he went on to become the youngest Briton to reach its summit. His TV series, Born Survivor, has a global audience of more than a billion people who regularly watch him eating the apparently indigestible and risking his life by pitting himself against nature. Married with three young sons, he says: "The unresolved struggle in my life is the fact that I have a job that has an element of danger to it and at the same time I have a gorgeous family - three young boys that are the pride of my life." Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor Robert Hardy.He became a household name as the vet Siegfried Farnon in the hit TV series All Creatures Great and Small and, to a younger generation, he is the Minister of Magic in the Harry Potter films. But the role he is best known for is Winston Churchill - he won a Bafta for his performance in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years. He believes actors are born rather than made and his own ambitions crystallised when, as a very young boy, he was a page boy at a wedding: "I walked down the aisle with my head held high and as I went, every eye was turned towards me and something inside me said, "That's it, get every eye on you".Producer: Leanne Buckle.