Desert Island Discs Revisited

Original version

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Factual: Life Stories

Selected castaway gems from the BBC Desert Island Discs archive.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: Pride: Nicola Adams

Nicola Adams

Pride

Desert Island Discs

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Desert Island Discs Revisited, Pride, Nicola Adams

Nicola Adams, boxer and Olympian, shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young.

4 Extra Debut. From Drake to Tchaikovsky. Olympic Gold Medallist boxer Nicola Adams shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From 2016.

Kirsty Young’s castaway is Nicola Adams. 

She made history when she won the first ever Olympic gold medal in women's boxing at London 2012, retaining it in Rio 2016.  She is the first woman fighter to hold European, World, Commonwealth and Olympic titles.  

Having watched classic Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard fights on TV as she was growing up, she entered the ring for the first time at a working men’s club when she was only 13.  When she was 14, her mother contracted meningitis and for several months Nicola looked after herself and her younger brother.  She turned to acting in order to help fund her boxing training, appearing as an extra in Coronation Street and Emmerdale.  She first represented her country when she was 18. In 2009 it was announced that women’s boxing would feature for the first time at the London Olympics, although before her selection for Team GB she fell down stairs and had to recover from a fracture in one of her vertebra. 

In 2012 she topped The Independent newspaper’s Pink List of the most powerful LGBT people in public life, was made an MBE for services to boxing in 2013 and received a 'Paving The Way' award at the 2016 Mobo awards.

DISC ONE: Summer Sixteen - Drake
DISC TWO: Moment 4 Life - Nicki Minaj
DISC THREE: New York, New York - Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin & Gene Kelly
DISC FOUR: Jamming - Bob Marley & The Wailers
DISC FIVE: In the End - Linkin Park
DISC SIX: Roses - The Chainsmokers featuring Rozes
DISC SEVEN: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy - Performer: New York City Ballet Orchestra, conductor: David Zinman 
DISC EIGHT: Set You Free - N‐Trance

BOOK CHOICE: A Short History of Almost Everything by Bill Bryson
LUXURY CHOICE: A games console
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Roses - The Chainsmokers featuring Rozes

Producer:  Cathy Drysdale

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: Pride

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Collection of castaways to mark Pride 2023

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