Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-201030 Mars 2008

Penelope Wilton

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actress Penelope Wilton. Her first love is the theatre and she's been highly acclaimed for her stage work in plays by Ibsen, Shaw, Shakespeare, Beckett - she relishes and shines in the difficult roles. Yet as one of our leading classical actresses she has no qualms about turning her talents to TV and film - Calendar Girls, Shaun of the Dead and Dr Who are among her more recent on screen appearances.

In-spite of being one of our best regarded actresses she is intensely private, intent upon disappearing into the lives of her characters. Penelope says that thing about being an actor is that you turn into other people, you have to hide yourself a bit in order to let that other person come out. People should see the character on the stage, not the actor.

Penelope grew up the middle of three girls and says that her mother was frail and often ill - she says this taught her to be self contained: "I was always worried that I would hurt her by taking a different view so one was sort of being terribly amenable - well of course that’s not in one's nature, I’m quite sharp and rather argumentative."

Favourite track: The 2nd movement of String Quintet in C Major by Franz Schubert Book: An anthology of 20th Century European poetry Luxury: An open-air cinema with a selection of films

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Sandie Shaw

Kirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sandie Shaw. With her melodic, velvety voice, bare feet and Sassoon bob she was the epitome of everything that was swinging about the '60s. She was just 17 when s...

26 Dec 201035min

Nick Park

Kirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park.His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit: Gromit the silent but wise dog; Wallace, his well meaning owner with notably less brai...

19 Dec 201036min

Sir Torquil Norman

Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman. He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmot...

12 Dec 201035min

Frances Wood

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Frances Wood. As head of the Chinese collection at the British Library she is the gatekeeper to some of the rarest printed texts in the world. Her l...

5 Dec 201035min

Robert Harris

Kirsty Young's castaway is the best-selling writer Robert Harris. He was, apparently, a political junkie from a young age; he was just six when he wrote the essay: 'Why me and my dad don't like Sir Al...

28 Nov 201037min

Alice Cooper

Kirsty Young's castaway is the rock musician Alice Cooper.As a teenager he says it was British music that he tuned in to - listening to The Beatles, The Yardbirds and The Who. He realised that while ...

21 Nov 201036min

Anna Del Conte

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cookery writer Anna Del Conte. Born to a wealthy Milanese family, she arrived in Britain in 1949 where her Italian ingenuity with food was sorely needed in a nation stil...

19 Nov 201036min

Ian McMillan

Kirsty Young's castaway is the poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Thirty years ago he was working in a factory gluing together tennis ball halves. Then he got a grant, chucked in his job and devoted h...

7 Nov 201037min