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Neil Tennant

Kirsty Young invites pop musician Neil Tennant to choose eight records to take to Radio 4's mythical desert island.

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the singer and songwriter Neil Tennant. He is best known as one half of The Pet Shop Boys which, over the past 20 years, has been one of Britain's most successful and popular bands, noted for combining dance music with witty lyrics and delivering them in a uniquely English style. As a teenager growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne, he felt himself to be an outsider at school, but found friends in an amateur theatre company. Yet he always felt his life would be different to theirs and used to tell them that he would become a celebrated pop star.

But Neil was 30 when he finally left his day job as a writer for Smash Hits magazine to pursue the musical interests that had dominated his life since he was a teenager. By that time, he was anxious that he had missed the boat. Now, as well as continuing to release records with The Pet Shop Boys, he has branched out into other forms of composition, writing a live score for the film Battleship Potemkin, a West End musical and being involved in collaborations with Robbie Williams and the Scissor Sisters, among many others.

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

Available now

45 minutes

Last on

Fri 9 Feb 2007 09:00
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 FM

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Music Played

  • Rex Harrison

    Why Can't the English?

    • My Fair Lady: Original Soundtrack.
    • CBS.

  • The Beatles

    She Loves You

    • Past Masters Vol 1.
    • Parlophone.

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams

    Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

    Orchestra: Sinfonia of London Conductor: Sir John Barbirolli

    • Barbirolli conducts English String Music.
    • EMI.

  • David Bowie

    Changes

    • Best of Bowie.
    • EMI.

  • Shannon

    Give Me Tonight

    • Shannon: The Collection.
    • Castle.

  • Billie Holiday

    Good Morning, Heartache

    • Golden Greats.
    • MCA.

  • Castaway's Favourite

    • Dusty Springfield

      I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore

      • Dusty in Memphis.
      • Rhino.

  • Dmitry Shostakovich

    Symphony No. 5 in D minor - 1st movement

    Orchestra: New York Philharmonic Conductor: Leonard Bernstein

    • Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 5 & 9.
    • Sony Classical.

  • Book Choice

    • The Human Comedy - Honore de Balzac

  • Luxury Choice

    • DVD projector and DVDs

Credits

Presenter Kirsty Young
Interviewed Guest Neil Tennant

Broadcasts

  • Sun 4 Feb 2007 11:15
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Fri 9 Feb 2007 09:00
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 FM

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