Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the poet Dr Jack Mapanje who is one of the most important living African poets. He was born into a poor household in a typical African village in 1944, when Malawi (then Nyasaland) was a British colony, but while he was still a child it became p ...Show more
Dame Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova was born Lilian Alice Marks in December 1910, in a two-bedroom flat in Finsbury Park, London. She began ballet classes because she was flat footed and knock kneed. Her natural talent, when she was ten, was spotted by Diaghilev, the Russian artistic impresario ...Show more
Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. His musicals dominate London's West End, including Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Starlight Express. He traces a career which began more than 30 years ago when he teamed up with Tim Rice to write Joseph and the Amazing Tech ...Show more
Gary Barlow, musician and Take That lead singer, has written more than a dozen chart-topping songs, and has received six Ivor Novello awards including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Born in Cheshire in 1971, his interest in music was sparked at an early ...Show more
A variety of labels can be stuck on this week's Desert Island Discs castaway - from rock musician to experimental artist, from visual sculptor to composer and intellectual guru of the rock world. He is Brian Eno, and he started his career by making music playing with tape recorde ...Show more
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the television star Simon Cowell. Simon Cowell is one of our most successful pop music moguls. He is the mastermind behind more than 100 number one songs in Britain and abroad and Westlife, whom he signed, holds the record for having seven conse ...Show more