Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

4 Extra Debut. From Captain Beefheart to Ralph Vaughan Williams. Poet Ian McMillan shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From 2010.

From Captain Beefheart to Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young.

Forty years ago, Ian was working in a factory gluing together tennis ball halves. Then he got a grant, chucked in his job and devoted himself to writing and performing.

These days he's known as the Bard of Barnsley and his appeal stretches from the terraces of his local football club to the balcony of the London Coliseum... he is poet in residence at both Barnsley FC and the English National Opera...

He still lives in the village where he was born and he considers and analyses British culture from his very particular vantage point in south Yorkshire.

He says: "You can do the universal in the local, I always think. You can see all the changes that have happened all over the world in the 20th and 21st centuries in microcosm."

First broadcast on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 in November 2010.

45 minutes

Last on

Thu 2 Sep 2021 21:00

Broadcasts

  • Sun 29 Aug 2021 10:00
  • Sun 29 Aug 2021 21:00
  • Thu 2 Sep 2021 11:00
  • Thu 2 Sep 2021 21:00

The Desert Island Discs podcast

Subscribe or download individual episodes.

Listen to over 2,000 programmes

Click above to browse castaways, from 1942 to today.

Articles

Read the surprising things we've learned about some stand-out castaways.