Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the comedian and star of The Fast Show, Paul Whitehouse. Born in the Rhonda Valley in Wales, Paul and his family soon moved to Enfield where he grew up. Paul was never particularly ambitious, but he was bright and got a place at University, although he dropped out in his first year. He went on to work as a plasterer and was quite content, enjoying a bit of humorous banter in the pub with his friends who included Harry Enfield and Charlie Higson.Harry was the first to get employment as a comedian - on Saturday Night Live, and he employed Paul and Charlie to write for him. Soon Paul was a regular contributor to Harry's show Harry Enfield and Chums. But Paul and Charlie were awash with ideas and characters and decided together to form their own show - a fast paced sketch show where the characters would come on, deliver a catchphrase, and exit. The Fast Show was born, and with it came an influx of new catchphrases that swamped common vernacular, such as "Brilliant!" "Very, very drunk" "Suit you, sir!" and "which was nice". After various acting roles on television and completing a live tour of The Fast Show Paul decided to write a situation comedy, and in 2001 the series Happiness was born.At the 1998 Baftas Paul won the Best Light Entertainment Performance prize and The Fast Show won Best Light Entertainment Programme. Paul was also recently listed number seven in a Radio Times poll of the 50 most powerful people in British TV comedy.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Tumbling Dice by Rolling Stones Book: A chord book full of songs and arias Luxury: A piano

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the theatre director Trevor Nunn. At the age of five Trevor had decided, to the great surprise of his parents, that he wanted to be an actor. He won his first part at the age of 13 when a local company needed a child actor. But his plans to act fell by the wayside when he realised there was such a job as directing after he directed a school revue at age 16, a role he took initially because he "had the loudest voice". After winning a scholarship to attend Cambridge University, Trevor took up an English degree and involved himself in various drama groups. In 1962 he won an ABC director's scholarship to the Belgrade Theatre Coventry. After two years his old Cambridge acquaintance Peter Hall had come and seen one of his performances and asked him to join him at Royal Shakespeare Company.Trevor worked alongside Peter Hall for four years until he took over as Artistic Director. He was the youngest person ever to do so at the tender age of 27. He has said "It was paralyzing, I reckoned I had just about learned how to run a rehearsal at the point where I took over the company". But he stayed there for a successful 18 years. In 1996 Trevor joined the National Theatre as artistic director and by February 2000 he had won 9 Olivier awards for the National, including best director.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Ode to Joy (Symphony No 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The complete works by Charles Dickens Luxury: A photo of his wife and all of his children

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Baruch Blumberg. Barry Blumberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in the 1920s, just before the economic depression in 1929. As a young boy he was particularly interested in science, and when his family moved to Queens he turned the basement of his parents house into a laboratory. At age 17, during the Second World War, he was enlisted into the Navy. They sent him to do an accelerated two year physics degree before he was trained to become a deck officer serving on small amphibious ships - he was fortunate not to be in war areas and enjoyed his experience.After the war Barry re-trained as a doctor. He worked in a large New York hospital before becoming interested in research. After a spell doing his doctorate at Oxford University he returned to the United States and focused on basic research into ethnic diversity. He was interested in how people differ to each other, why some people got sick and others didn't, with particular reference to disease. Through extensive research on this subject, Barry and his team discovered the Hepatitis B virus. This discovery of the antigen was the key to developing a vaccine and put in place special blood screening for transfusions to prevent further spread of the disease. In 1976 Barry was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Since then he has continued his research and also worked at NASA where he has been researching astral biology - the possibility of life on other planets.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: City of New Orleans by Willie Nelson Book: Ulysses by James Joyce Luxury: A flat water kayak suitable for rough water

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Gillian Anderson, best known for her role as Dana Scully in The X Files. Gillian was born in Chicago, Illinois. When she was two, she moved with her parents to London. At 11, the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan which she found deathly dull in comparison to the big city life of London. Gillian began acting in community theatre productions while in high school and decided to study drama at the Goodman Theater School at Chicago's DePaul University. After she finished her degree, she moved to New York City to find work. She performed in a couple of plays, but then was cast as the female lead in a new science fiction TV series. The X Files turned out to be a massive success and in September 1993, Gillian began a nine-year stint in the FOX TV series. For her role she received two Screen Actors Guild awards, an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series. In 1999 Gillian wrote and directed her own episode. In 2000, Gillian played Lily Bart in the Terence Davies' feature The House of Mirth and won the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress. This year she debuts on the West End in Michael Weller's What the Night is For.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle Luxury: Recordings of her daughter and "her love" reading self-written stories and poetry

George Foreman was born in Texas into a large but poor family. His earliest memories are of being hungry. He found school difficult and felt he was written off because of his scruffy clothes. He had a short temper and would often get into fights as a child, sometimes beating people up for no reason. Soon he discovered that mugging was an easy way to get funds and terrorised his neighbourhood, although he never used knives - just his fists. Heading nowhere fast, George was saved by The Job Corps, a project started by President Lyndon Johnson which aimed to get training and jobs for young people with few opportunities in life. It introduced him to boxing and he began to train seriously. George won the gold medal for heavyweight boxing at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 and became a professional boxer. He defeated Joe Frazier in 1973 and became heavyweight champion at the age of 24. After being defeated by Muhammed Ali at the infamous Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, George took up religion and became a preacher, giving up boxing for good, or so he thought. By the mid-80s George was short of money: he was building a community centre and wanted it to be well stocked with equipment. So he returned to the only honest way he knew of making money. Ten years out of practice in 1987 when he was 38, George started to train again. Remarkably, on 5 November 1994, at the age of 45, George won the heavyweight title for the second time - this time against Michael Moorer, aged 26, by a knockout in the 10th round. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: All You Need Is Love by The Beatles Book: An anthology of poems which include the poem Waiting by John Burroughs Luxury: A pillow

Patricia Daniels was born in 1956 in Miami, Florida. After her parents divorced she moved with her mother and two brothers to Montreat, North Carolina. Her mother suffered from depression and sought help from the Reverend Billy Graham. The reverend's wife, Ruth Bell Graham, became Patricia's friend and mentor and encouraged her to write. She particularly loved telling ghost stories, and would scare the children in her neighbourhood at Halloween. Patricia majored in English at Davidson, a private liberal arts college in North Carolina and married one of her professors, Charles Cornwell. The marriage lasted 10 years, by which time Patricia had progressed from a summer job compiling TV listings for The Charlotte Observer to crime reporter to a job at the medical examiner's office in Virginia. It was all good research for her crime novels, but her first published book in 1983 was A Time for Remembering, a biography of Ruth Bell Graham. Patricia had had three thrillers rejected by publishers so she tried again, this time changing a minor character, Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner for Virginia, into her main protagonist for the book Postmortem. Postmortem was initially rejected by seven major publishing houses and finally accepted at the very end of 1988. It was a huge success and made her the only author ever to win all four major mystery awards in a single year on both sides of the Atlantic - The Edgar, The John Creasey, The Antony and the MacAvity. Thirteen novels later, she is still producing best sellers and has most recently published a book investigating Jack the Ripper. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Pachelbel Canon by Johann Pachelbel Book: Essay on population by Thomas Malthus Luxury: An endless supply of notebooks and pens

Rowan Williams grew up in Swansea and Cardiff. He enjoyed reading, being outdoors and acting in school plays. He remembers attending church every day in Holy week, getting involved cleaning out the store rooms and making a bonfire of the rubbish. In his later teenage years he was inspired by the excellent choir, youth activities and Canon Eddie Hughes, vicar of All Saints, Oystermouth. Rowan went to Cambridge to study theology and for a time he was torn between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. He decided on the latter and soon after, when he was 28 years old, he was ordained as a priest. He spent the next few years lecturing and working with students and the local community. He became professor of Divinity at Oxford University. He left academic work to take up the post of Bishop of Monmouth in 1991 and in 1999 he was elected Archbishop of Wales. Rowan was officially confirmed on 2nd December as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He is also a philosopher, a poet, and a linguist who speaks seven languages. He has written a number of books on the history of theology and spirituality and published collections of articles and sermons as well as two books of poetry. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Opening of Solo Cello Suite 1 in G Major by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Collection of poems by W H Auden Luxury: A piano

Sinead Cusack was born in Ireland into a acting dynasty. Her first ambition, whilst at convent school, was to be a saint. But her behaviour didn't match her early aspiration: as a teenager she was nearly expelled from school for dramatising the Profumo affair for the headmistress's feast day. Her first professional part was at the age of eleven when her father, the actor Cyril Cusack, cast her in an adaptation of Kafka's The Trial at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. She played a deaf mute - she says perhaps he did it to keep her quiet, because he wasn't keen for her to pursue acting and said she would never be a classical actress. Sinead's first roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, whilst she was still at university. She came to London, where she took over from a pregnant Judi Dench in London Assurance in 1975. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company which, she says, taught her all she knows. For Our Lady of Sligo (1998), in which Sinead played the lead role of Mai O Hara and showed in Ireland, on Broadway and at the National, she received the 1998 Evening Standard Award for Best Actress and 1998 Critics Drama Award for Best Actress. She was also nominated for Best Actress/Drama Desk Award and for Best Actress for Olivier Award.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Pie Jesu from Faure's Requiem by Gabriel Fauré Book: Collected plays by Anton Chekhov Luxury: A big hat with a lot of muslin

Sue Lawley's castaway is dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in 1950s rural Jamaica. He lived in a farming community and looked after the animals, helping with the sugar harvest and fetching firewood. He lived with his grandmother after his parents separated, loving being the man of the house. She would entertain the young Linton, who she called "me husband", with folk songs, stories and ghost stories. In 1963, when he was eleven years old, Linton came to live in England. It was a huge contrast: "I had this childhood idea that literally the streets of London would be paved with gold and everybody living affluent lifestyles. So it was a bit of an eye-opener for me when I came and saw all these grey buildings with chimneys and smoke coming out of them and to see a white person sweeping the street!" He experienced racism at school, from peers and teachers alike, and became interested in the black movement. He joined the British Black Panthers in his teens, discovered black literature and began to write poetry of his own. He gained a sociology degree in the mid-1970s and had poems, inspired by politics and the Black movement, published in the journal Race Today. He soon became known for his poetry written in dialect and would often use reggae music to accompany it. He still tours with his band and can command stadium-size stages. Linton Kwesi Johnson became one of only two living poets to be published in a Penguin Modern Classic in 2002. He says "I've made a small contribution to bring poetry back to the people."During the interview, Linton Kwesi reads extracts from the following poems: 'Sonny's Lettah' taken from Inglan is a Bitch, 'Five Nights of Bleeding (for Leroy Harris)' from Things an Times and 'New Craas Massahkah (to the memory of the fourteen dead)'.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Embraceable You by Charlie Parker Book: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Luxury: A bass guitar

John Malkovich makes his film directorial debut this year with The Dancer Upstairs. He's best known for his laconic sophistication in films such as Dangerous Liaisons, In the Line of Fire and The Man in the Iron Mask. He was celebrated in 1999's Being John Malkovich, in which he played himself. Malkovich was born in rural America, where his family ran the local newspaper. He attended Illinois State University but soon changed his major from environmental studies to drama. He and two friends formed the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, an experimental theatre company, in 1976. Based in Chicago, it became one of the most exciting regional groups in America. Malkovich acted in, directed and helped on dozens of plays, while earning money painting houses and driving school buses. In 1983 Malkovich made his New York debut in an off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's True West and won an Obie award for his performance. This led to the role of Biff in the 1984 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, in which Dustin Hoffman played Willy Loman. Their performances were captured for posterity in a film version a year later. John has received three Oscar nominations for Places In The Heart, The Killing Fields and In the Line of Fire. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Who Knows Where The Time Goes by Nina Simone Book: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Luxury: A cappuccino maker