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Desert Island Discs

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.

Desert Island Discs: Jimmy McGovern

14/01/1996

Jimmy McGovern

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Jimmy McGovern

Sue Lawley's castaway is playwright and screenwriter Jimmy McGovern

Sue Lawley's castaway is playwright and screenwriter Jimmy McGovern.

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the playwright Jimmy McGovern. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about the TV series Cracker - one of the top television series of the 1990s - about how much of the central character, Fitz, is modelled on himself, how he feels about the violent world it portrays and about why we are fascinated by criminal psychology. For seven years a writer on Brookside, he'll be describing how the phenomenal success of Cracker led to the reviving of his previously-rejected scripts for films like Priest and Hearts and Minds. He'll also be relating how the man who has since made a living out of words had such a bad stammer as a child that he was largely unintelligible. 

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

Favourite track: When I Fall In Love by Nat King Cole
Book: Ulysses by James Joyce
Luxury: Haemorrhoid ointment

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Letter from America by Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics from 1946 – 2004.

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics, as broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 1946 – 2004.

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics. Over 900 programmes, as broadcast from 1946 – 2004.

Letter from America by Alistair Cooke: Hilary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Smith

Hilary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Smith

BBC Radio 4 - Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, Hilary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Smith

The controversy surrounding Hilary Clinton's involvement in the presidency and the actions of Mrs Roosevelt and Mrs Adams, are the subject of a comparison by Alistair Cooke.

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