Noticing lxxviii - Desert Island Discs

In the book I'm working on (and just finished, praise be!), the author mentions a BBC show called Desert Island Discs. I'd never heard of it, but of course, I don't regularly listen to BBC4. (Though these days I easily could, via Sonos and "My Radio." Maybe I'll program it in.)

The show was first broadcast in January 1942, on the wartime BBC Forces Programme. It has played uninterrupted since. Guests are asked to imagine themselves as desert island castaways, and to choose eight recordings (typically music), a book, and a luxury item—inanimate and of no use for escaping the island or communicating with the outside world—that they would want to have with them. (They are automatically given the works of Shakespeare and the Bible or a similar religious or philosophical tome.) They then discuss their choices in the context of their lives.

What a fabulous idea!

The most requested luxury item has been a grand piano; the most requested books, Jane Austen or Charles Dickens; and the most popular piece of music, the "Ode to Joy."

Very few episodes from the first twenty years of the show still exist, either because they simply weren't recorded or because the BBC had a policy of eventually wiping recorded shows. The earliest show known to exist is from 1951, with actress Margaret Lockwood. The online archive as of today comprises 2,239 episodes, with upcoming shows listed as well (for live streaming?).

There are various Desert Island Disc Collections, such as Oscar winners, motivational women, those who chose telescopes as a luxury, and satirists.

I'm going to check this show out. As I scroll through a few of the interviewees, I'm intrigued, for example, by

The Kumasi Market (1962)

Maya Angelou, who in 1987 chose Max Roach, Robert Flack, Stevie Wonder, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, George Gershwin, and Ray Charles; the edited volume Negro Caravan; and The Kumasi Market painting by John T. Biggers.

Zadie Smith: her book, À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust; a few of her music choices: Billie Holliday's "Easy Living," Prince's "Pop Life," and Mozart's Requiem.

Gloria Steinem, in 2016: her music choices include Petula Clark's "Downtown," Mozart's Queen of the Night aria "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen," Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," and Antonio Vivaldi's "Winter"; her book: Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

George Clooney, in 2009: music includes Pink Floyd, Dinah Washington, Bobby Darin, and (seriously, George?) William Shatner doing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; his book: War and Peace. He also requested an anchored yacht as his luxury item (the moderators, Wikipedia notes, grew increasingly lax as to what was allowed in this category—seems like with a luxury yacht, even one at anchor, you could pretty easily flee the island... unless perhaps it had no fuel?).

And so on: there are 2,235 more interviewees to choose from. No end of fun! I will definitely be checking this show out. Maybe I'll start with George, to see what he was thinking with his "Lucy" choice.

And now, to ponder what my own choices would be. It's not that easy... But there would definitely be Mozart. Probably the 21st Piano Concerto, K. 467.