Desert Island Discs

This week's castaway on Desert Island Discs is an actor. In Britain, he's best known for his appearances in My Beautiful Laundrette, The Chess Players and The Jewel in the Crown. In India he's a megastar who can't walk the streets without being mobbed.This morning Saeed Jaffrey traces a career which has taken him from India, to New York, to London and back home to India. Beginning with his childhood as the son of a brilliant mimic, he describes his early struggles to establish himself, and the famous stars he's met along the way.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Hobo Blues by John Lee Hooker Book: Complete Works by Mirza Ghalib Luxury: Case of Black Label and Dom Perignon

This week's castaway on Desert Island Discs has all the qualifications she needs for her job. A journalist, she learnt her craft in the 1960s when she interviewed rock star legends like Mick Jagger, Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin.She's also a single mum, frequently experiences deep bouts of depression and finds that many of her lasting relationships are with alcoholics. The agony aunt Virginia Ironside describes to Sue Lawley how her life and her work are inseparably entwined.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Hot Tomales by Will Grove-White Book: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale Luxury: Big bag of plaster to make heads of friends

Only this week's castaway on Desert Island Discs could place the singer Madonna in the same picture as the Madonna and Child, or follow a painting of the National Gallery's 10 most beautiful faces with a collection of its nine prettiest bottoms. Today the pop artist Peter Blake explains to Sue Lawley how his work is inspired by his favourite things; like Marilyn Monroe and Max Miller for the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album cover in the 1960s, or his more recent painting of Tarzan and his family at the Roxy Cinema in New York. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: When The World Was Young by Peggy Lee Book: Lempieres' Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk Luxury: A gym

When designing the interior of Sunninghill for the Duke and Duchess of York, this week's castaway on Desert Island Discs rummaged through the cellars at Buckingham Palace in search of just the right treasure. She's also coloured Ringo Starr's library cranberry red, and suggested tasselled tie-backs for Rod Stewart. Nina Campbell is one of Britain's top interior designers and a devotee of the English country house style, although, as she admits to Sue Lawley this week, she never goes near the country - it's too wet and windy.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Design For Living by Flanders & Swann Book: A photograph album Luxury: A bed

This week's castaway is an adventurer - the travel writer Redmond O'Hanlon. He's trekked to deserted mountain tops for a glimpse of the rare Borneo rhinoceros, paddled through river swamps to find the Congo's mythical monster, and, deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, he stayed with the most violent people on Earth, the Yanomari Indians.Along the way, he's encountered scorpions, vipers and a giant catfish "which can take your foot off at the ankle", all in search of a story. As he tells Sue Lawley, although his long-suffering companions survive the journey, they vow never to travel with him again - not even to High Wycombe. He's planning a trip to New Guinea - so will Sue agree to accompany him?Some aspects of this programme may upset some listeners.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Clarinet Quintet in A: 2nd Movement by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: A pair of green, insulated Leica binoculars 8 X 20

It was while studying for a degree in psychology that this week's castaway decided to change the direction of her life and become a neuroscientist. As she dissected a slice of pickled brain, she found herself wondering whether this was the part that generated a love of Beethoven, or held the memory of a sunny, summer day. From that moment, she determined to try to discover how our personalities and thoughts derive from this slurry of soggy tissue. Twenty years later, Professor Susan Greenfield is now one of the foremost thinkers on the question of consciousness, and a leading researcher into the causes of Parkinson's disease.[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 Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa Luxury: An endless supply of curry

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is a chef. His food is the culinary equivalent of haute couture, but in the 1980s Nico Ladenis was known as much for his temper tantrums as his truffle sauce. His refusal to offer his customers salt and pepper, and his insistence as to how they should eat their meal, caught the headlines more frequently than his fine cooking. But, as he tells Sue Lawley, these days he has come out of the kitchen and become a cooler and much calmer man.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Onward Christian Soldiers by Sullivan/Baring-Gould Book: Beau Jeste by P C Wren Luxury: Cantona's Manchester United football shirt

This week's castaway on Desert Island Discs grew up in a conventional white South African family. Shielded from the true history of her country under apartheid, she played in the shadow of a Pretoria prison where many hundreds of black men and women were hanged, and never questioned what went on there. Then Mary Benson read the book Cry the Beloved Country. From that moment on, she became a ceaseless campaigner for the rights of black South Africans and dedicated her life to documenting their struggle. This week she talks to Sue Lawley about her search for a purpose to her life and chooses the music which has meant most to her.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Eroica Variations Opus 35 Fourth Bagatelles, Opus 126 by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Unpublished Notes by Athol Fugard Luxury: Telescope

He's created a world full of wizards and witches, and his most popular character is Death. The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is one of Britain's best-selling authors. Terry Pratchett has written over 30 books, and sells more than one million copies each year. But as he tells Sue Lawley this week, he will never win the Booker Prize because, in this country, fantasy fiction is frowned upon.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Thomas The Rhymer by Steeleye Span Book: Edible Plants of the South Seas by Emile Massal Luxury: The Chrysler Building

When this week's castaway was a child his mother had a heart attack. Her doctor gave him two pieces of advice. "Never", he said, "get angry with her. And always try to make her laugh". This was to have a profound effect on his life; affecting both his career and his personal relationships.Gene Wilder talks to Sue Lawley and remembers his starring roles in films like Blazing Saddles and The Producers.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Don't Explain by Nina Simone Book: The Notebooks of Captain Georges by Jean Renoir Luxury: Earl Grey tea