Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

Kirsty Young's castaway is Barry Manilow. He has been a hugely successful performer for more than 30 years but, in this intimate interview, Manilow describes how it was never the career he intended to have. He always knew he would be a musician, but thought his future lay behind the scenes, not at the front of the stage. Brought up by his mother and grandparents in Brooklyn, money was always scarce and family life often difficult - but when there was music playing in their apartment, Manilow says, the home was a happy one.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland Book: Man vs Wild - Survival Techniques from the Most Dangerous Places on Earth by Bear Grylls Luxury: A piano.

Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor David Tennant.

He has been voted the best Dr Who ever and has redefined the Time Lord for a generation of parents and children.

As a child he was a huge fan of the programme; he reckons he only ever missed one episode, wore a long stripy scarf and queued up to meet Tom Baker and get his autograph. As a role, he says, it appealed not just to his adult self but to the eight-year-old boy who was just below the surface

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs].

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Victoria Wood. For decades she has been one of our best-loved writers and performers. The television series she's made - including Acorn Antiques, Dinnerladies and Housewife 49 - have won her a devoted following as well as stacks of awards.

But, in a moving and open interview, she describes how, as a teenager, she felt she was a misfit - she had few friends, she struggled with her weight and at school she used to steal other people's homework. She joined a youth theatre and it was, she says, the saving of her. She found like-minded people and a sense that she had something to offer.

She is very careful about how much of her own life she puts into her work. She doesn't mind saying she cuts her pubic hair with nail-scissors, but rarely discusses her children on the stage. Now she is embarking on her next project. She says she is too anxious to talk about it, except to say it will look at the life of a middle-aged woman whose marriage has foundered.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: What a Fool Believes by The Doobie Brothers Book: A big book by Charles Dickens Luxury: A bumper book of Sudoku with blank pages & pens.

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Peter Maxwell Davies.

He is one of Britain's greatest living composers. His career has seen him go from enfant terrible and champion of new music, writing pieces such as Worldes Blis and Eight Songs for a Mad King, to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Music. Peter Maxwell Davies was born in Salford, near Manchester, in 1934. Whilst studying at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music he formed the key friendships which were to influence his musical career - with Harrison Birtwhistle, Elgar Howarth, Alexander Goehr and John Ogdon. It was during the 60s that Peter composed some of his most influential works - including often cacophonous, expressionist pieces like Vesalii Icones, St. Thomas Wake and Worldes Blis. Music-theatre pieces like Eight Songs were groundbreaking in their use of drama, as well as music. He is fascinated by the mathematical structures and patterns that exist in nature - and tries to replicate them in his music. For more than 30 years he has lived on and been inspired by the Isles of Orkney where, he says, the sounds that surround him creep into his music almost without him knowing it.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Victimae Paschali Laudes by The Benedictine Monks of Silos Book: Sanskrit dictionary Alternative to Bible: Bhagavad-Gita Luxury: Copper plate engravings of Durer's Passion

Kirsty's castaway this week is the comedian and actor, Bill Bailey. Lauded for his hugely inventive stand up, he has carved out a highly successful career with an altogether atypical approach. He's a familiar face on television from his regular appearances on quiz shows Have I Got News for You, QI and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

At school he was a gifted pupil who gave up on his education and a pitch-perfect piano student who flunked his music school entrance. He started drifting as a teenager and gave up on university within days of arrival - he says he was looking for the next challenge, and that turned out to be stand-up comedy. He loved having to think on his feet and found the laughter of strangers intoxicating.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads Book: The collected works by W. Somerset Maugham Luxury: A pack of cards.