Desert Island Discs

Kemi Badenoch is the Conservative MP for North West Essex and the Leader of the Opposition.
Since winning her seat in 2017, she has held cabinet positions as Minister of State for Equalities under Boris Johnson and Secretary of State for International Trade under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. She became leader of the Conservative Party in 2024 after Rishi Sunak’s resignation and is the first black person to lead a political party in Britain.
Her Nigerian parents came to Britain for medical treatment and Kemi was born in a private hospital in Wimbledon in January 1980. Her parents returned with their newborn daughter, and she was brought up in Nigeria in an affluent suburb of Lagos.
After a series of military coups and economic downturns, her family, along with many other middle-class families in Nigeria saw their wealth decline and Kemi was sent to London to study for her A levels.
Instead of following her parents into medicine, she chose to pursue Computer Systems Engineering and went to Sussex University. A well-paid career in IT followed and she joined the Conservative Party aged twenty-five where she also met her husband, Hamish.
Her first attempt at becoming an MP was in 2010 in Dame Tessa Jowell’s former constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood constituency in London. She finished third behind the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates.
In 2017, she was selected for the Saffron Walden seat and became an MP.
She lives in London with her husband and three children and divides her time between Westminster and her constituency of North West Essex.
DISC ONE: The Story of Tonight - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Okieriete Onaodowan, Daveed Diggs, Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton
DISC TWO: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
DISC THREE: Wonderful World - Sam Cooke
DISC FOUR: Be Still - Aled Jones and English Session Orchestra
DISC FIVE: Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) - Baz Luhrmann
DISC SIX: Love is All Around - Wet Wet Wet
DISC SEVEN: Carry You Home – Alex Warren
DISC EIGHT: Dear Theodosia - Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda

BOOK CHOICE: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
LUXURY ITEM: The Marvel Movie Collection with a solar-powered DVD player
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
Desert Island Discs has cast many politicians away to the island over the years including Sir Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon, Sir Vince Cable, Theresa May, Ed Miliband, Boris Johnson and Margaret Thatcher.

Adeel Akhtar is an award-winning actor whose breakthrough role came in 2010 when he starred in Chris Morris’s black comedy Four Lions.
He won his first BAFTA for Best Actor in 2017 for his role in the BBC drama Murdered by My Father. His second, for Best Supporting Actor, came in 2023 playing Andy Fisher in the BBC series Sherwood.
Adeel was born in Hounslow in West London and grew up in Buckinghamshire. He discovered a love of acting at school when he and a group of friends put on a production of Harold Pinter’s play The Homecoming. He read law at university but in 2002 followed his true passion and took a drama course at The Actors Studio in New York.
He got his first screen part playing one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 in the television docudrama Let’s Roll: the Story of Flight 93. He has gone on to stretch his talents playing roles in the television series Fool Me Once, The Night Manager and Killing Eve. More recently he appeared on stage in The Cherry Orchard and a new play called The Empire.
Adeel lives in London with his wife, documentary maker Alexis Burke, and their two children.
DISC ONE: The Weight - Aretha Franklin
DISC TWO: Jamaica Farewell - Harry Belafonte
DISC THREE: Danny Nedelko - Idles
DISC FOUR: First Big Weekend - Arab Strap
DISC FIVE: After Hours - Velvet Underground
DISC SIX: Time to Pretend - MGMT
DISC SEVEN: People’s Faces - Kae Tempest
DISC EIGHT: Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips
BOOK CHOICE: A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
LUXURY ITEM: A solar-powered air fryer
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley
Desert Island Discs has cast many actors away to the island over the years including Cillian Murphy, Stephen Graham, Lesley Manville and Helen McCrory. Adeel’s friend Meera Syall is in our archive too. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

Jesse Armstrong is a British author, screenwriter, and producer.
He has written several award-winning TV comedies and satirical dramas and won many accolades for his work including two BAFTA TV Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three Writers Guild of America Awards. His hit HBO series Succession has won nineteen Emmys.
Jesse was born and educated in Oswestry, Shropshire, and attended Manchester University where he studied American Studies as an undergraduate and American History for his Masters. After university, he worked as a researcher for a Labour Member of Parliament for a couple of years it was an experience that would later inform his time as a writer on The Thick of It.
He met his writing partner, Sam Bain, at Manchester University and together they created and co-wrote 9 seasons of Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning comedy Peep Show and 4 seasons of the student comedy Fresh Meat.

During this time, he also wrote for the political satire series The Thick of It and co-wrote the film In the Loop, the latter of which earned him Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also co-wrote the films Four Lions and Downhill and wrote and directed the television film, Mountainhead.
He was the creator and show-runner of the hit HBO TV show Succession, a drama about a fictional powerful media family with the plot centring around which child would succeed the father played by Brian Cox. Succession won a total of 19 Emmys including Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for each of Succession’s four seasons.
He lives in London with his wife and has two children in their twenties.
DISC ONE: A Day in the Life - The Beatles
DISC TWO: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
DISC THREE: Debaser - Pixies
DISC FOUR: Georgia on my Mind - Billie Holiday
DISC FIVE: The Magic Number - De La Soul
DISC SIX: New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down - LCD Sound System
DISC SEVEN: Dream Song 28: Snow Line. Written and read by John Berryman
DISC EIGHT: Violin Concerto in D Major, RV 234 “L’inquietudine” 1: Allegro. Composed by Antonio Vivaldi and performed by Walter Gallozzi and I Musici
BOOK CHOICE: The Norton Anthology of Poetry
LUXURY ITEM: A football
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Georgia on my Mind - Billie Holiday
Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor
Desert Island Discs has cast many TV writers away to the island over the years including Russell T Davies, Sally Wainwright and Abi Morgan. You’ll also find the stars of Peep Show, Robert Webb and David Mitchell in there too along with the actor Brian Cox who played the patriarch, Logan Roy, in Jesse’s hit TV series, Succession. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

Jojo Moyes is a British novelist and screenwriter.
She began her writing career as a journalist and worked at the Egham and Staines News, Independent and South China Morning Post.
Whilst working nightshifts on the Independent, she pursued her novel writing ambitions and wrote books by day. Her first few books were well received but did not topple the best seller lists. That all changed in 2012 when her novel You Before Me was published. Readers fell in love with the story of Louisa Clark, who takes a job looking after an angry young quadriplegic man. The book sold fifteen million copies, was made into a film and Jojo wrote two sequels. Her novels are beloved of book clubs and have sold in excess of fifty seven million copies and have been translated into forty-six languages.
Jojo lives in London.
DISC ONE: Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Laughing Version) (Live) - Elvis Presley
DISC TWO: Golden Slumbers - The Beatles
DISC THREE: Silly Games - Janet Kay
DISC FOUR: The Art Teacher - Rufus Wainwright
DISC FIVE: Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore in C, K.339: 5. Laudate Dominum omnes gentes (Ps. 116/117) Composed by Mozart and performed by Edith Mathis (soprano), MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig (choir), Staatskapelle Dresden (orchestra), conducted by Peter Schreier
DISC SIX: Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell
DISC SEVEN: A Better Time to Meet - Adrianne Lenker & Buck Meek
DISC EIGHT: Je L’Aime à Mourir - Francis Cabrel
BOOK CHOICE: The complete works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
LUXURY ITEM: A mechanical horse
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Laughing Version - Live) - Elvis Presley
Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor
Desert Island Discs has cast many writers away to the island over the years including Helen Fielding, Marian Keyes and Dame Jilly Cooper. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

Kate Winslet is an actor who achieved global fame playing Rose DeWitt Bukater, opposite Leonard DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, in the 1997 James Cameron epic Titanic. During her career she has won five BAFTAs, two Emmys, five Golden Globes and an Academy Award for her role in the Reader.
Kate was born in Reading in 1975 and attended Redroofs School for the Performing Arts in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Her film debut came in 1994 when she played a teenage killer in Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures. The following year she played Marianne Dashwood opposite Emma Thompson’s Elinor in Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee. Kate’s performance earned her a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
She went on to consolidate her reputation as one of the most versatile actors of her generation by starring in a list of popular and critically acclaimed films including Hideous Kinky, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Holiday.
Last year Kate directed her first film, Goodbye June, starring Helen Mirren, Timothy Spall and Andrea Riseborough.
Kate has three children and lives in West Sussex with her husband Ned and her family.
DISC ONE: Georgia on my Mind - Roger Winslet and Sophie Breakenridge
DISC TWO: Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs - Brian and Michael
DISC THREE: Kiss from a Rose - Seal
DISC FOUR: Summertime - Ella Fitzgerald
DISC FIVE: Nuvole Bianche - Ludovico Einaudi
DISC SIX: Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi - Radiohead
DISC SEVEN: Blue Ridge Mountains - Fleet Foxes
DISC EIGHT: Pump up the Jam - Technotronic

BOOK CHOICE: Outside: Recipes for a Wilder Way of Eating by Gill Meller
LUXURY ITEM: Freshly ground coffee
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Georgia on my Mind – Roger Winslet and Sophie Breakenridge
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley
Desert Island Discs has cast many actors away over the years including Dame Emma Thompson, Cate Blanchett and Dame Helen Mirren. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.