Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway is the athlete Dame Kelly Holmes. Kelly Holmes was the heroine of the Athens Olympics. She achieved her lifetime's ambition when, at the age of 34, she won gold medals in the 800 and 1500 metres.As a teenager she witnessed Sebastian Coe's Olympic success in 1984 and that was the inspiration behind her own career in athletics. Early on her trainers recognised she had the natural talent - and determination - to succeed. But her career has been blighted by injury - she bowed out of the 1996 Olympics due to injury; won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics despite considerable physical pain; and several times had appeared close to the end of her career as a result of a series of health problems.Now retired from athletics, she says she wants to inspire other schoolchildren to take up sport - and make sure that the whole of Britain feels the Olympic spirit by the time it comes to host the games in 2012.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys Book: A Set of Encyclopaedias Luxury: Large supply of chocolate

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the composer John Rutter. He is the most celebrated and successful composer of carols alive today and this Christmas his music will be heard in concerts and churches all over the world. He is drawn to the simplicity of Christmas carols and says he loves being able to compose 'a hummable tune'. Inspired and encouraged by his school education, he became Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge, and then with a string of winning commissions already behind him, moved into full time composition. But his relationship with composition is a difficult one - it's a process he finds isolating and says that although it does not make him happy - he feels compelled to do it. However, once he has finished a work he says nothing in the world compares with the feeling he experiences when he conducts it for the first time. He says: "I write music that people will enjoy singing. I'm not ashamed of that".[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Gloria in Excelsis Deo from B Minor Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Teach yourself mathematics illustrated by voluptuous women Luxury: Viola

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Maggi Hambling. Above all else, she is known as a painter of people. Over the past 30 years she has painted George Melly, Stephen Fry and Michael Gambon among many others. But in the early years, her subjects were not well known; instead they were characters she saw on the streets or in the bars of South London. People whose faces she would commit to memory so that she could draw them when she returned to her studio. She was the first artist to be given a residency at the National Gallery and in 1995 won the Jerwood Prize. But although she remains in great demand as a portrait painter, her work provokes controversy too - her tribute to Benjamin Britten, an enormous scallop shell standing on the shore at Aldeburgh, continues to divide opinion in the town.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Runnin' Wild by Marilyn Monroe Book: The Complete Works of Just William by Richmal Crompton Luxury: A wine cellar from All Soul's, Oxford

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the former Archbishop of York, David Hope. For a decade he was the second most important prelate in the Church of England but, earlier this year, he handed in his notice to return to life as a parish priest. As a young boy growing up in Wakefield, it was his cousin Muriel who would take him along to the town's cathedral to worship - he was captivated by the ritual and atmosphere of the place and 35 years later he returned as its Bishop. A traditionalist himself, he opposed the ordination of women and believes the church should resist pressure to ordain practising homosexuals, but he fears that both issues will continue to divide Anglicans across the world for the rest of his lifetime. He says he has never been happier than he is as a parish priest - and that throughout his ministry, he has been someone who preferred people to paper.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Vespers by Sergei Rachmaninov Book: Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens Luxury: A case of selected malt whiskies

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Colin Firth. He created an iconic moment in British television history when, as Jane Austen's hero Mr Darcy, he emerged wet-shirted from his stately lake. To his surprise, he became a sex symbol, was dubbed the 'male Ursula Andress' and was voted Britain's Most Popular Actor in a BBC poll. He went on to send up the role on the big screen - as the ironically-named Mark Darcy, the brooding boyfriend of Bridget Jones.He always knew he wanted to act - from the moment when, as a five year old boy, he took on the role of Jack Frost at a school panto. He studied at the Drama Centre in London's Chalk Farm - where one of his teachers, Christopher Fettes, said he was by nature a poet and compared his acting to that of Paul Schofield. Married to an Italian woman and with two young sons, he now divides his time between life in London and in Italy.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Opening of the Kyrie from Mass in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Stories by Woody Allen Luxury: His guitar

Sue Lawley's guest this week is the veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost - the only British television presenter to have interviewed seven American presidents and six British Prime Ministers who has, over the past five decades, become a broadcasting institution. The presenter once known as a scourge of the Establishment has become something of an establishment figure himself, noted for his formidable contacts book, his star-studded parties, and for his gentle but revealing interviewing style. Born in 1939, the youngest son of a Methodist minister and his wife, David was football and cricket-mad from an early age but with a burning ambition to go to Cambridge University. He arrived there in 1958, and threw himself into it, joining Footlights and editing Varsity and Granta. After Cambridge, Ned Sherrin saw him performing a comedy act in a Mayfair bar and hired him up to present the iconic satirical programme That Was The Week That Was. Other successful programmes followed including Frost Over Britain and The Frost Report. Breakfast with Frost ran for twelve years until early 2005. David is not retiring though and is due to present a new interview programme for Al-Jazeera International which will begin next Spring, and will also conduct occasional interviews for the BBC.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Dam Busters by Eric Coates Book: London A-Z Luxury: Sunday papers

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the philosopher Mary Midgley. For the last 30 years Mary Midgley has been one of Britain's leading moral philosophers. She has been called "the most frightening philosopher in the country" as a result of her ideas and the acuity with which she defends them. Her work is chiefly concerned with the role of science in our lives; whether human nature exists, and if so, what it tells us about ourselves; the concept of wickedness; and the part that art and religion have to play in telling us about human behaviour and experience. Mary was born in 1919 in Greenford, the youngest of Cannon Scrutton and his wife Lesley's two children. She was educated at Sommerville College, Oxford and after university began working as a lecturer in the philosophy department at Reading University before moving to the University of Newcastle. She married Geoffrey Midgley, also a philosopher in 1950 and they went on to have three children. Her first philosophical book Beast and Man was published in 1979 when she was 50. Since then she has continued to publish books on a diverse range of issues. Now 86, Mary continues to live in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the home she shared with her husband Geoffrey, who died in 1997.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams Book: The Variety of Religious Experiences by William James Luxury: A solar hot water system

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the soprano Renée Fleming. Renée Fleming is one of the greatest sopranos on the world's stages today. She has won critical acclaim for her interpretations of Mozart and Strauss and has made a series of operatic roles her own - including the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Dvorak's ill-fated water-nymph Rusalka. However, she says her route into classical music was far from straightforward. She grew up in upstate New York, the daughter of two music teachers. Although the family used to sing together, Renée says she was not a natural performer and was very anxious about appearing in public and then, while at college, her musical love was jazz rather than opera. Her musical break-through came at the age of 29, when she was asked to stand in as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at the last minute. Since then she's appeared in all the great opera houses. As well as the standard repertoire, she is a champion of new music and Andre Previn is one of many who have written especially for her. She has won numerous accolades for her singing including two Grammies and two Classical Brit awards.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: River by Renée Fleming Book: The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis Luxury: Coffee

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the broadcaster Chris Evans. He is one of the most creative and influential broadcasters of his generation. He has been hailed as the saviour of more than one radio station and made a name for himself on television too - first of all on The Big Breakfast, but also with his own formats, including Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday. He's won a clutch of awards and, by taking over Virgin radio, made himself a millionaire many times over. But he also gained a reputation for being brash and bullying; he walked out on more than one job and his drinking binges were splashed across the tabloids.Since those days he's married and divorced, lived in America and, more recently, pursued a more peaceful existence - keeping chickens and growing vegetables at his cottage in the English countryside.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Here, There and Everywhere by The Beatles Book: Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Luxury: A pair of swimming goggles with prescription lenses

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician and journalist Boris Johnson. He is one of the most popular and unpredictable MPs on the Conservative party benches and, under his editorship, the weekly magazine The Spectator sells more copies than ever before. After Eton and Oxford he made his name as a journalist working for the Daily Telegraph in Brussels. His incisive reports about the future of Europe caused a furore at home and abroad - he claims one of his articles changed the course of European history - and, on returning to London, he hoovered up a number of awards, including columnist of the year and political commentator of the year. But it has not always been plain sailing. His critics say he cannot answer to two masters - and he must choose between politics and journalism - Boris doesn't necessarily agree![Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Finale of Variations on a theme by Johannes Brahms Book: Homer - an Indian paper edition (to translate) Luxury: Large pot of French mustard