Desert Island Discs

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Desert Island Discs: Dame Prue Leith, writer and broadcaster

Dame Prue Leith, writer and broadcaster

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Dame Prue Leith, writer and broadcaster

Dame Prue Leith, writer, shares the soundtrack of her life with Lauren Laverne.

Dame Prue Leith, writer and former restaurateur, shares the eight tracks, book and luxury item she would want with her if cast away on a desert island. With Lauren Laverne.

Dame Prue Leith is a broadcaster, writer, former restaurateur and a judge on the television show the Great British Bake Off.  

Prue was born in Cape Town, South Africa, during the era of Apartheid. After leaving school she moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, but decided that her future lay in food, and took a Cordon Bleu cookery course in London.  She set up her own catering business from her bedsit, where space was so tight that she washed lettuces in the bath.

In 1969 she opened Leith’s, her own fine dining restaurant, in Notting Hill in west London.  Leith’s was awarded a Michelin star in the 1980s.  She went on to write columns and cookbooks and became a regular broadcaster about food, on shows including the Great British Menu.  In 1975 she opened Leith’s School of Food and Wine which trains professional chefs and amateur cooks. 

Prue replaced Mary Berry as a judge on the Great British Bake Off in 2017.  She has written eight novels and lives with her husband in Gloucestershire. 

DISC ONE: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by The Beatles   
DISC TWO: Ugly Duckling by Danny Kaye
DISC THREE: Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika by Ladysmith Black Mambazo   
DISC FOUR: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (I) composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and performed by Sir Neville Marriner (violin), Academy Of St Martin-in-the-Fields Orchestra and conducted by David Willcocks
DISC FIVE: 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford  
DISC SIX: Skylark by Aretha Franklin 
DISC SEVEN: Chopin, Nocturne No. 2, op 9 in E flat major, played by Elisabeth Leonskaja
DISC EIGHT: Big Spender by Shirley MacLaine 

BOOK CHOICE: Ulysses by James Joyce
LUXURY ITEM: Writing materials  
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika by Ladysmith Black Mambazo      

Presenter  Lauren Laverne
Producer  Paula McGinley

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Desert Island Discs

Dame Prue Leith, writer and broadcaster

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