The Desert Island Discs Show represents the idea of “what discs would you choose if you were cast away on a desert island? “. The show hosts some characters who discussed their choices of the discs if they were in that situation. the main characters were: Angie Hobbs the Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, Dame Wendy Hall Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, the writer Malcolm Gladwell, and the novelist Zadie Smith. Those characters were interviewed by Kristy Young the host of Desert island discs show.
Kristy Young designed the show this way (choosing 8 discs) if they were alone in a desert island to find out what social events happened in their lives and in this way the guest will choose the discs that influenced his/her life. Each character chose 8 songs to have if they were alone in the desert island. The characters choices of these songs were according to a relevant event that happened in their lives and the show discusses the growing up of each character to know the reason why they made those choices, and each of those discs was represented in different times of their lives.
Kristy young interests were mostly on four main things in the characters lives, the first one was the “growing up” of the guest, the childhood, whether he/she came from a wealthy or a poor family and what things effected the character in childhood, second thing Kristy interested in was the religious background. third thing was the education of the guest and environment that he/she got this education from, last thing was the social life status of the guest, whether the guest was married or not, had children, and if he didn’t what were the reasons .
The characters had a variable answers to Kristy’s question ,for Angie Hobbs her childhood began roughly by the death of her disabled young sister, and she was only 11 years old, this effected some of her discs choices, but for Zadie Smith her childhood started in a different way, she used to have a good voice and that led her to sing in hotels and houses in some occasions, that effected some of her discs choices beside that most of her other choices reminded her with her parents and also because her husband liked that disc.
When it comes to education Dame Wendy Hall for example was the first woman to teach mathematics in the college and that was a hard thing to do, because she had to teach group of men only but that didn’t stop her to keep on. When it comes to social life each character had different life style such as Angy Hobbs who was married for a while and always wished to have children and struggled to have one until she got a child in her 30s .
Unlike Dame Wendy Hall who didn’t want to have children because she wanted to focus on her career life. And in my opinion the way Kristy Young used the facts and life details to know how they made their choices was wise and intelligent, and those details were factors of choosing the desert island discs
