Category Archives: Desert Island Discs

‘It’s the front line of being British’: Clive Myrie on hosting BBC election night, and the racism he has endured

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The news anchor, who will present the programme with Laura Kuenssberg, has spoken on Desert Island Discs about the insults and threats he has experienced as a broadcaster

Clive Myrie has detailed the racism he has experienced during his broadcasting career, as he prepares to present the BBC’s general election night programme.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast on Sunday, the 59-year-old listed some of the insults and threats he has endured, including being sent faeces and pictures of gorillas in the post.

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Bishop of Chelmsford recalls fleeing Iran in 1980 after brother’s murder

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Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani tells Desert Island Discs how she came to UK at 14 after deadly ambush of elder brother

The Bishop of Chelmsford has told of how her brother was murdered in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, leading her to flee to Britain as a child.

On Sunday, the Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani will tell BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about the day her brother Bahram, 24, was killed in an ambush on 6 May 1980, when she was 14.

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Adam Kay tells of life ‘transformed’ by two babies

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Writer of comic medical memoir This is Going to Hurt reveals surrogacy on BBC’s Desert Island Discs

Adam Kay, the author of This is Going to Hurt, the bestselling “secret diary” of a junior doctor, is now the father of two babies, he has revealed.

Kay, who was portrayed by Ben Whishaw in the Bafta-winning BBC1 adaptation of his comic memoir, said life with his husband, TV producer James Farrell, has been “absolutely transformed for the better” by the arrival through surrogacy of their two children.

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‘I kept my alcoholism secret on Mission: Impossible set,’ Simon Pegg reveals

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The actor, now recovered, tells BBC’s Desert Island Discs he became ‘very sneaky’ about his drinking in the early 2000s

Simon Pegg faced his own mission impossible, tackling both his addiction and eventual recovery, while working on the major Hollywood film franchise alongside Tom Cruise, he will explain in a revealing radio interview on Sunday morning.

Speaking of a secret reliance upon alcohol that he hid while working on film sets in the early 2000s, Pegg admits: “You become very sneaky when you have something like that in your life.”

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Former Desert Island Discs host Kirsty Young to return as Christmas guest

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Long-time presenter will share her thoughts on the Queen’s funeral in BBC festive schedule highlight

The turntables will be turned on Kirsty Young this Christmas Day, the BBC has revealed, when the former Desert Island Discs presenter is to be asked to choose eight of her favourite pieces of music as a castaway on the famous show.

Young, who has marooned almost 500 other guests on the fictional island in her time, revealed this weekend that she found it strange to be at the other end of the famous Radio 4 format: “It was a slightly discombobulating and thoroughly enjoyable experience,” she said, adding: “Although making anyone narrow down their favourite discs to just eight is frankly unreasonable. It’ll never catch on.”

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Deborah Levy: I used writing as therapy to help me talk again after jailing of my father

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Acclaimed novelist reveals she became almost silent as a child due to stress

Novelist Deborah Levy first discovered writing as a kind of therapy when her voice disappeared as a child, she has revealed.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the popular British writer, acclaimed for her Booker Prize-shortlisted novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk, said her voice gradually got quieter during her schooldays in South Africa.

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Mel C speaks out: trying to be the perfect Spice Girl made me ill

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Melanie Chisholm tells Desert Island Discs of her struggle to cope with fame

Melanie Chisholm, the former Spice Girl Mel C, dates her past struggle with eating disorders and depression back to an incident at a Brit awards ceremony, she reveals on Desert Island Discs on 23 February.

In 1996, before the girl group was officially launched, Chisholm was almost chucked out of the Spice Girls for unruly behaviour, following “a scuffle between me and Victoria” that she has only recently admitted to.

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Suits co-star warned Meghan her ‘world is going to be forever changed’

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Wendell Pierce, the Duchess of Sussex’s co-star on the legal drama Suits, feared for her privacy after her engagement

The actor Wendell Pierce reveals today he warned Meghan Markle, his former co-star on the legal drama Suits, that her world would be “forever changed” by her relationship with Prince Harry.

Pierce, 55, who played Robert Zane, a successful lawyer and father to Markle’s character, Rachel Zane, on the show, worked alongside Markle for four years after joining the series in 2013. “It was great,” he recalled. “She’s a really good actress and was always sweet, always kind.”

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