Desert Island Discs

Dwayne Fields is an explorer and broadcaster who was appointed the UK’s Chief Scout in 2024. He is the first black Briton to reach the Magnetic North Pole. His television work includes fronting the series 7 Toughest Days and co-presenting Endurance: Race to the Pole, and Expedition: Search for the Nile, with fellow adventurer Ben Fogle.
Dwayne was born in Jamaica and was brought up by his great-grandmother for the first few years of his life. When he was six he moved to north London to live with his mother. He struggled to adapt to his new surroundings until he found his way to a Cub Scouts meeting where he experienced a sense of belonging for the first time since his arrival.
As a teenager, he grew up surrounded by gang violence and experienced a serious knife attack when he was 19. A few years later, during a heated confrontation, he had a gun pointed at him. The gun misfired twice and he survived. This shocking incident spurred Dwayne to change his life and challenge himself to inspire other young people to do the same.
In 2010, he walked 400 nautical miles to reach the Magnetic North Pole. In 2019, he co‑founded the WeTwo Foundation with explorer and wild camper Phoebe Smith. The Foundation gives young people from challenging backgrounds the chance to experience life‑changing adventures
Dwayne lives in Peterborough with his wife Angelique, and their five children.
DISC ONE: Three Little Birds - Bob Marley And The Wailers
DISC TWO: Dance With My Father - Luther Vandross
DISC THREE: I Miss You - DMX feat. Faith Evans
DISC FOUR: The Loco-motion - Kylie Minogue
DISC FIVE: Here I Come - Dennis Brown
DISC SIX: You’re the Apple of My Eye - Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton
DISC SEVEN: Roar - Katy Perry
DISC EIGHT: I'm Still Standing - Elton John
BOOK CHOICE: The Untold Railway Stories: Celebrating 200 Years of Passenger Railways edited by Monisha Rajesh
LUXURY ITEM: A multi-functional pocket knife
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Three Little Birds - Bob Marley And The Wailers
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley

Roula Khalaf is a journalist and the first woman to serve as editor of the Financial Times in its 138‑year history. She joined the paper in 1995 as North Africa correspondent, covering the Algerian civil war before reporting more broadly across the Middle East, including Syria, Iran and Iraq, and later the Arab Spring.
Roula was born in Beirut and grew up there during the Lebanese civil war which began in 1975. She studied communications at Syracuse University in New York State and then completed a Master’s degree in International Affairs at Columbia University.
She joined Forbes Magazine in 1989 before relocating to the UK. Her work has earned several awards, including Foreign Commentator of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment in 2016 Awards and the Foreign Press Association’s Feature Story of the Year for her reporting on Qatar in 2013.
Roula has two children with her husband Assaad and lives in London.
DISC ONE: Misunderstanding - Genesis
DISC TWO: Dernière Danse - Indila
DISC THREE: Oghneyat Al Bostah - Ziad Rahbani
DISC FOUR: Feeling Good - Nina Simone
DISC FIVE: Zina - Babylone
DISC SIX: Ya Laure Houbbouki - Fairuz
DISC SEVEN: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
DISC EIGHT: 7 Seconds - Youssou N’Dour ft Neneh Cherry
BOOK CHOICE: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin
LUXURY ITEM: A notebook and pen
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Ya Laure Houbbouki - Fairuz
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley

Richard Young is a photographer who was once known as the “king of the paparazzi”.
His portfolio is a who’s who of some of the biggest stars in film, music, stage and popular culture from the past fifty years. From gatecrashing Elizabeth Taylor’s party for Richard Burton’s 50th at the Dorchester to later being invited to photograph her Damehood celebrations. He can count the first photographs of Paul Getty Jr. after his kidnapping as just one of his many scoops.
He was born in Hackney to a Jewish family and his father ran a hosiery stall in Berwick Street market for more than sixty years. Richard has dyslexia and after being expelled from school at fourteen, he went to Soho and landed a job in fashionable clothes shop frequented by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, David Hockney and Francis Bacon.
A two-year stint in New York followed, working as a studio assistant at Electric Lady Studios, before he returned to London and found himself in a bookshop handed a camera and told to get on with photographing authors.
For the past fifty years, he has lived a nocturnal, high octane life of private jets, parties and exclusive events, eventually becoming as much a fixture in the world of celebrity as the people he photographed.
Richard lives in London with his wife Susan. His photography gallery is in London and has visitors from around the world.
DISC ONE: Rehab - Amy Winehouse
DISC TWO: Just Walkin’ in the Rain - Johnny Ray
DISC THREE: Cosmic Dancer - T. Rex
DISC FOUR: Positively 4th Street - Bob Dylan
DISC FIVE: Point Blank - Bruce Springsteen
DISC SIX: Isn’t It a Pity - George Harrison
DISC SEVEN: A Beautiful Day - Queen
DISC EIGHT: The Gypsy’s Wife - Leonard Cohen
BOOK CHOICE: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
LUXURY ITEM: Caviar
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Point Blank - Bruce Springsteen
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
Desert Island Discs has cast other photographers away to the island over the years including David Bailey, Sally Mann and Vanley Burke. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

Tahra Zafar is a costume and creature effects designer.
She designed the Paddington Bear puppet featured in the hit West End production Paddington: The Musical.
Born into a theatre family, she grew up with an Armenian American father who worked as a choreographer in the first West End production of West Side Story, and a mother who moved from a career as a ballerina to theatre work around the world. Her interest in making began early, helping her father with practical projects such as restoring their house, even learning to build walls and spending her spare time model making, with Airfix creations suspended from her bedroom ceiling.
After studying theatre design at Central Saint Martins, she began her career making theatre costumes. She spent some time at the Jim Henson creature workshop where she made some of the creatures for the first Harry Potter film including Hedwig the owl and Scabbers the rat.
After her daughter was born, Tahra worked on some of the characters for In the Night Garden with her daughter, a willing judge of what worked for toddlers.
In 2012, Tahra was in charge of 23,000 costumes for the London 2012 Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. This role included an audience with the late Queen to ensure the wig and dress were correct for Her Majesty’s stunt double when that iconic skydive was performed at the Olympic opening ceremony.
Tahra lives in London with her daughter.
DISC ONE: Thunderbirds (Main Theme) - The Barry Gray Orchestra
DISC TWO: Gee, Officer Krupke. Composed by Leonard Bernstein and performed by Leo Kharibian, Norman Furber and Vince Logan
DISC THREE: Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 In D Minor (movement six) Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and performed by Berlin Philharmoniker, Wiener Singverein and conducted by Herbert von Karajan
DISC FOUR: Brazil – Geoff Muldaur
DISC FIVE: Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
DISC SIX: Groove Is in the Heart - Deee-Lite
DISC SEVEN: Eclipse - Pink Floyd
DISC EIGHT: Take Five - Dave Brubeck

BOOK CHOICE: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Complete Books by Douglas Adams
LUXURY ITEM: A set of art materials and a storage box
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Eclipse - Pink Floyd
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
Desert Island Discs has cast other costume designers away to the island over the years including Oscar winners Jenny Beavan and Sandy Powell. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

Professor Michele Dougherty is President of the Institute of Physics and Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London. She was appointed Astronomer Royal last year – the first woman to hold the post in its 350-year history.
She was brought up in Durban in South Africa and studied for a Bachelor of Science degree in applied maths at Natal University. After completing a Master’s and PhD she took up a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany where she investigated solar wind and galactic wind outflows.
In 1991 she joined Imperial College London where she helped devise a magnetic field model for the Ulysses mission. In 1997 she became principal investigator for the magnetometer instrument on board the Cassini probe which was sent to study Saturn and its system.
She is currently lead investigator for the J-MAG magnetometer instrument on the European Space Agency's JUICE mission (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) which launched in 2023. It will reach Jupiter in 2031 and spend at least three years observing the planet and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Michele was appointed CBE in the 2018 New Years Honours List for services to UK Physical Science Research.
DISC ONE: Puccini: Turandot, Act III: Nessun dorma! Performed by Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), John Alldis Choir, Wandsworth School Boys Choir and London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta
DISC TWO: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85: III. Adagio. Composed by Elgar. Performed by Jacqueline du Pré (cello) and London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
DISC THREE: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19: III. Moderato. Composed by Tchaikovsky. Performed by Frank Peters Zimmerman (violin), and Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Lorin Maazel
DISC FOUR: We Three Kings of Orient Are - Robert Shaw Chamber Singers
DISC FIVE: Dancing Queen - ABBA
DISC SIX: Dance With My Father - Luther Vandross
DISC SEVEN: Franck: Panis Angelicus. Performed by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano), English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Barry Rose
DISC EIGHT: Pie Jesu (From Requiem) Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Performed by Malakai Bayoh, Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School and London Mozart Players, directed by Scott Price

BOOK CHOICE: The Lord of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
LUXURY ITEM: An assortment of wine
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85: III. Adagio. Composed by Elgar. Performed by Jacqueline du Pré (cello) and London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley
Desert Island Discs has cast many space experts away to the island over the years including NASA's Dr Nicola Fox, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the astronauts Tim Peake and Chris Hadfield. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.