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Desert Island Discs Podcast Transcripts

BBC Radio 4 · 1,797 episodes with transcripts

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Spoken has transcripts of 1,797 Desert Island Discs episodes, with the speakers named. The newest listed here is from October 21, 2026.

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  | while IFS=' ' read -r id title; do
      slug=$(echo "$title" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr -cs 'a-z0-9' '-' | sed 's/-*$//')
      [ -f "${id}-${slug}.md" ] && continue
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        -o "${id}-${slug}.md" \
        https://spoken.md/transcripts/$id || rm -f "${id}-${slug}.md"
      sleep 0.34
    done

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Latest Desert Island Discs transcripts

Anthony Joshua on his love for his mother

October 21, 2026

Lauren Laverne (0:13)

Hi, it's Lauren Laverne and this is Desert Island Discs Postcards, a selection of some of our most memorable moments from the thousands of people we've cast away to our imaginary desert island.

Today's postcard comes to you from the heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Joshua. He made his comeback a couple of months ago after surviving a car crash which killed two of his friends last year. When I interviewed him in 2024, he credited his mother for bringing him up alone following his parents' divorce.

Anthony Joshua (0:42)

The cycle of life, right, will mean one day my mum won't be here with me. And it hurts already to think that because she's done so well to raise someone like me.

Tough, hard-headed, hard-working son. And I know how tough it must have been for her. You know, she was a single mum at a certain stage in her life. And now as a dad, I really applaud her for the effort she put in raising me and my sister.

Lauren Laverne (1:20)

Every step of the way.

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