Desert Island Discs

This week BBC Radio has a rare piece of cross-network co-operation when one long-running programme pays tribute to another. Tomorrow night Friday Night is Music Night celebrates Desert Island Discs in a special two-hour concert.

For this post I’m going back to Sue Lawley’s first programme in 1988. She had just taken over the hot seat from Michael Parkinson. As an interviewer, she told the Radio Times, she falls between Parky and Roy Plomley (programme creator and host from 1942 to 1985). “I’m terribly aware it mustn’t be any kind of interrogation – it calls for a very gentle style. You tamper with the fundamentals at your peril, but I would like to take three or four steps back and recapture the mystique of the desert island.”

Sue’s first castaway was Quintin Hogg, better known as Lord Hailsham. The programme was broadcast on Sunday 27 March 1988 and you can find further details on the Desert Island Discs website. Here’s an edited version of the programme.

Desert Island Discs

From January 1992 a BBC tv promo for the Radio Times when the programme was celebrating its 50^th birthday.

Read more about Desert Island Discs on Suite 101.