TIMECODE NAME Dialogue MUSIC 00.00.01 NARRATOR This is the BBC Academy Podcast, essential listening for the production, journalism and technology broadcast communities, your guide to everything from craft skills to taking your next step in the industry. 00.00.14 CHARLES Hello and welcome to the BBC Academy Podcast with me, Charles Miller, Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs recently celebrated its 75th Anniversary, with David Beckham appearing in the anniversary edition; we’re going to be finding out about how the series is made, with its series producer, Cathy Drysdale, welcome Kathy. CATHY Nice to be here. 00.00.34 CHARLES Of course not many people are going to end up actually working on Desert Island Discs but I think anyone whose job involves booking and working with contributors, especially high profile ones would like to understand how the series works. So can I start off by asking you, what does your production team consist of? 00.00.50 CATHY I am the series producer and produce most of the programmes and I work four days a week, I have a producer on the team who works three days a week, she produces some of the programmes, but also produces sets of research notes for the series, and we have another assistant producer who also works three days a week who does the majority of the research. We have two days of a production coordinator who deals with the logistics, who sources the music and generally keeps the show on the road. 00.01.23 CHARLES So there actually isn’t a single person who’s working full time? CATHY No. CHARLES Amazing. 00.01.27 CATHY All three of the women who work on the programme we’re all mothers, we’ve all worked part time, we are really flexible as a team, sometimes we record two programmes a week’s sometimes you know we’re doing research interviews on days that we’re not scheduled to work so we’re a really flexible team and that really works. CHARLES So you’re producing forty-two programmes a year [yes], how far ahead do you know who is going to be on a programme? 00.01.53 CATHY Well with Marin Alsop the wonderful conductor we actually put a date in her diary a year before we recorded with her because we knew that she would be flying into the country, conducing a Prom, receiving an award and then she called in to our studio on her way back to Heathrow to fly out again. So with the calibre and profile of the people we are often recording with, we are often trying for them for years, but we will put dates in the diary at least a year ahead if that is what it will take to get them. CHARLES Now if you are sitting around as a production team and going through names and somebody comes up with a good idea, what is the best way of approaching them first, what form of communication would they receive? 00.02.44 CATHY It varies to be honest I mean we try and get as close to them as we www..co.uk/academy

can, but almost invariably its via their publisher or their PR or their Agent, and we will either call them up or more often than not e- mail and introduce ourselves and say we would very much like X, Y or Z to be on the programme. Generally speaking almost always people know the programme, if they are an overseas guest and an American for example then we will always include an explanation of the programme, some examples, some relevant examples of previous guests that we’ve had on. 00.03.25 And explain a little bit about you know what is required. The key thing is that an awful lot of the people that we have on, they are used to very time limited interviews which are specifically to promote their latest film, book, album, whatever. That’s not the game we’re in and we’re asking for a minimum of ninety minutes of their time, which is enormous and we want them to come to us and sit in our studio and take part in an interview that is very different from the usual. So it’s a big ask. CHARLES And when you get an initial response do you normally get a yes or a no and that’s it or is there a lot of well maybe? 00.04.10 CATHY It’s rarely as; well no it is sometimes as straightforward as that. CHARLES If it’s a no what chance is there of overturning that? 00.04.18 CATHY It’s very difficult to know, sometimes people will just say, sorry no time, not in the country for long enough or not available or you’re asking for too much time or whatever. There’s no actual set pattern. CHARLES There are many programmes where people have to try and get big name people into studios or to do bits of filming or whatever, what are your sort of general bits of advice would you give for how to land a big name guest? 00.04.46 CATHY Well, we are really fortunate in that the profile of the programme and the format of the programme are so well known and so loved, so in many instances we’re pushing at an open door, otherwise I think it is to really try and be as flexible in terms of your logistics as you can be, I mean there’s so many things you can’t be flexible on, but if you can be flexible you know if you can start recording an hour earlier, if you can you know record on a different date, if you can fit the research around to suit them, I think that is the thing that will make a difference for people. CHARLES Don’t quite a lot of people say I’m too busy or it doesn’t fit into my schedule, just as a way of saying no politely? 00.05.32 CATHY What I can say about that is, some people are very hard to pin down, we’re very keen to get them and they’re very hard to pin down, and we will give it a few months and then I will say to their people, you know honestly we’re a really, really small team, we have limited resources and we really don’t want to waste your time or take up any more of your time than is absolutely necessary, is this something that whoever it is, is interested in doing but we just can’t find it, or actually would they really rather we left it? 00.06.07 And we’re happy to do that because that sort of chasing and I’m sure people listening will know thta you know it is very, it can be really soul destroying, keeping going back to people and saying, you know is this possible, have you got any more you know www.bbc.co.uk/academy

possible dates for me and so on, we do cut our losses, we’re up front with them and say you know what, just let us know and we’ll move on. CHARLES And what about if they say well yeah, if it’s the agent, he or she is keen to do the programme but they’re very worried that you’re going to be asking about their first husband or first wife or some bankruptcy or something like that, what happens then? 00.06.45 CATHY There’s never any agreement, not to ask questions about anything, what we do do is that we’re mindful of sensitivities, and so it is helpful for us to know if there are particularly sensitive areas and we will handle them sensitively, I mean there’s no sort of template for this, but you know we’re not the Today programme, neither are we a TV chat show sofa, it’s a personal interview charting the key moments influences, people, events on that persons route to where they are today and therefore for the integrity of the programme and also for the guest, we need to ask the questions that the listeners would expect us to ask. 00.07.30 And that is how we explain it. But we also say, you know we will ask any question that we would like to, but obviously the guest is completely free to answer in whichever way they wish, as is obviously their right. But we don’t agree questions in advance. CHARLES Okay so if somebody says fine, I’d like to do it, I can do it on this particular date, from their point of view what happens between then and turning up in the studio? 00.07.56 CATHY Well we have a generic briefing document which lays out the format of the programme and our process and what to expect and times and places and so on. CHARLES Because they’ve got to choose their luxury and all of that sort of thing? 00.08.06 CATHY All of that sort of thing, so they get a briefing document on that, we’re obviously always happy to answer any questions they or their team have. But what will happen in general is that either Sarah or Christine, who do the research, will make a date in their diary to go and visit them to get their track choices and their reasons for choosing them and ask them any biographical detail that we don’t know about and answer any questions they have about the programme. 00.08.35 So that research chat is a really, really important part, it’s the bedrock of any interview. CHARLES But your researcher will have done a lot of work already to brief themselves? 00.08.45 CATHY They will have done a, they absolutely put together a great deal of research before they go and visit the guest, so they will know what the gaps are in a sense. CHARLES How much time do you ask from the guest for that interview then? 00.08.58 CATHY On average it’s an hour, sometimes it can be a lot longer. CHARLES So it’s not taking them out to a posh lunch or anything? 00.09.02 CHATHY Oh no, gosh no, no our budget doesn’t run to that. No we go to them, preferably in their home but sometimes elsewhere, www.bbc.co.uk/academy

sometimes it can be here in , and sometimes it’s on the phone, especially if they’re in America. And very occasionally with the most high profile stars we don’t get a research interview at all. 00.09.28 But we will get their track list and the reasons and that will probably be via e-mail, it’s enough to structure the interview which is what we do, we structure the interview around the choice of music. CHARLES I must ask you this because you’ve led straight into it. In Tom Stoppard’s, The Real Thing, there is a character who is busy trying to choose his favourite records for Desert Island Discs and there is a debate about whether the records are just your favourite bits of music or whether they are bits that represent important turning points in your life, now what’s the answer to that? 00.10.08 CATHY How we brief our guests is that what works really well is if they choose pieces of music that have been important to them throughout their lives, or at particular moments in their lives. And we find that really works well in general as a format. So we often have the records that they heard their parents listening to, that they were brought up to, you know that they heard at their first disco, in their wedding reception, something like that. CHARLES Well this is interesting because the character then will know that he was right to pick Da Do Ron Ron, because it reminded him of his skiing holiday in Zermatt. CATHY Exactly. CHARLES I can imagine your really big American star is just going to turn up and do the show, people who are very honoured to be on the show I slightly wonder whether, do they sort of over prepare and almost see it as you know the chance they’ve got to sort of explain their lives and for posterity really? 00.11.10 CATHY I do think people arrive in various degrees of nervous anticipation, which is entirely understandable. And you know we are accustomed to reassuring people that it’s a conversation and we just want to hear about them, in their own words and to try and reassure them that this is meant to be an enjoyable experience for them, I think Kirsty is obviously an extraordinary interviewer but she’s extremely good at putting people at their ease. 00.11.45 You know the whole setup is to make the recording as intimate an experience as it possibly can be and to allow them to really relax and enjoy the experience. CHARLES Let’s just go back one step in the process if we may, what kind of brief does get? 00.12.02 CATHY Both Kirsty and I as the producer or Sarah if she’s doing the producing, we get a detailed set of research notes, which includes a timeline of the person’s life and then that is expanded into a retelling of their life. CHARLES So how many pages roughly would that be? 00.12.21 CATHY Oh I wouldn’t want to specify really, I mean it 20, 30 pages it can be, and that’s because its illustrated with quotes from them, we try really, really hard to get down on paper, in the research, what they have said about themselves, a lot of these people have been www.bbc.co.uk/academy

written about a lot, we like to go to the horse’s mouth, we like to often, and do quote back to them what they’ve said about things and then ask them more about that because we think that’s the right way to go about things. CHARLES Quite often their surprised to hear it aren’t they? 00.12.54 CATHY Sometimes they are, sometimes its inaccurate, they’ve been miss quoted, so but we try really hard to do that so it’s an in depth set of research notes which include and then in addition to that we have a relevant cuttings, often profile and biographical in-depth interviews, and then we have also a selection of resources, so books they’ve written, films they’ve been in, radio programmes where they’ve been interviewed, you know something again, Ted talks they’ve done. 00.13.26 Things that they’ve done themselves, and then a list of their music and the reasons why they’ve chosen them and so Kirsty and I get that and then it’s on the basis of pulling all of that together that we work together on the structure and including the questions that we’re going to ask. And then that’s what Kirsty takes into the studio, but of course then in the moment all sorts of other things come up and she goes in the direction that she thinks will make the best programme and it will be best for the guest. CHARLES And if you’re producing what kind of communication if any do you have with her actually during the recording? 00.14.01 CATHY I’ve got talkback to her. CHARLES So into her ear you can? 00.14.05 CATHY And she’s brilliant at receiving talkback, I mean quite often she can, I can I’ve put talkback down and I’m suggesting a question and before I’ve even finished she’s asking it, so there’s a lot of trust there, an awful lot of the time I know I don’t have to put that talkback down because i know she will have clocked exactly what I’ve clocked, and she follows it up. CHARLES Well let’s just stop there for a moment and hear a little bit from one of the programmes, this is from a recent show with the rugby referee, Nigel Owens and Nigel told Kirsty that when he was still living at home in Wales, as a teenager he knew he was gay but he couldn’t bring himself to tell his parents, and he was absolutely desperate. 00.14.51 NIGEL I did something one night that I, that I will regret for the rest of my life. I left a note for my mum and dad erm left the house at about four o’clock in the morning, I used to work on a farm so I had a shotgun in the house I had loaded the shotgun, left with Paracetamol’s and a bottle of whisky and erm for what I put my mum and dad through when they must have woken up and saw that note and knowing that they were probably never going to see their only son ever again. I overdosed on the Paracetamol’s and the whisky and erm slipped into a coma, and then my mum and dad obviously phoned the police, there was a police helicopter out looking for me and family and friends and everybody searching for me. 00.15.28 KIRSTY And by this time you were out in the fields? 00.15.29 NIGEL I was out in the mountains right above the house, looking down at www.bbc.co.uk/academy

where I was brought up in the mountains above me and if I hadn’t gone into the coma I have no doubt I’d have ended my life because the shotgun was lying on my chest, underneath my chin ready to pull the trigger and because I slipped into a coma I couldn’t do it. The doctor told me, another twenty minutes and it would have been too late to save you and erm my mum said, if you ever do anything like that again then you take me and your dad with you because we don’t want to live our life without you and erm I sat up in bed and cried that night really and, and realised I need to grow up. 00.16.09 NIGEL Refereeing that World Cup Final between Australia and New Zealand in front of 85,000 people and millions of people watching at home, scrutinising every single decision you make under huge amount of pressure was nothing compared to the challenge of accepting who I was and accepting who I was then saved my life. KIRSTY Nigel I have nothing to ask and nothing to add, I just want you to tell me about this next piece of music. CHARLES Well Cathy what did you make of that? 00.16.37 CATHY Oh it’s just, it was an amazing recording, my colleague Paula McGinley produced this edition and when they came back from the studio everybody said oh my goodness me and that was just an amazing recording and what’s so wonderful, apart from obviously Nigel’s bravery in talking the way he does is that him talking so openly and honestly about the worst moment in his life, has such an impact on the audience. 00.17.14 The wonderful thing about the format is that in the retelling of people’s stories and the way they have dealt with the most difficult moments in their lives, they inspire other people, they help other people. CHARLES Yes, you mentioned earlier that you ask people to be available for ninety minutes, for the studio recording, I presume there’s quite a lot of editing goes on that you record quite a lot more and we hear the best forty-five minutes, how much editing is there? 00.17.47 CATHY There is a lot of editing, I mean it’s what my predecessor Leanne Buckle used to call a very intense edit, because you just want to make sure that you have absolutely, faithfully represented the encounter that took place on the day, how they presented themselves, what they said what we asked them and the story they had to tell. CHARLES If somebody says during the recording, oh I rather wish I hadn’t said that or I didn’t’ say that the right way, what happens then? 00.18.14 CATHY Oh during the recording or immediately afterwards, if they feel that they could have expressed themselves better then yes, that’s only fair, but often, if people say oh I didn’t, I wasn’t, I didn’t say that very well, it’s probably because they were very nervous and it tends to be at the beginning of the programme before they’ve sort of settled in, which is also entirely understandable. And sometimes they will have told a story in a format this is I know, is going to be too long for me to be able to edit so I will ask them, could you possibly retell that story or introduce that record again because I’m really not going to be able to include all of what you

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said. CHARLES Since you’ve been series producer have you introduced innovations to the format of the show at all or can anybody do that or is it just something that can’t be done? 00.19.16 CATHY I don’t really think there’s any, there’s certainly no desire to change the format that anybody has communicated to me. I haven’t changed it, we’ve added back in a bit of sea wash, at the beginning of the signature tune and at the end of the programme because when I was listening to some of the programmes from the 1960s, really crackly horrible old recordings, but how fantastic, the programme starts and ends with sea wash and I just thought well that’s perfect. 00.19.43 And we’ve already had e-mails and Tweets from people saying oh that’s really good. So I’m afraid that’s about the only innovation I can claim. CHARLES I’m sure one of the most common suggestions for television programmes is a television version of Desert Island Discs, would that work? 00.20.03 CATHY It’s not something that we talk about, the intimacy that we create in the studio is really important, I think we all feel that it’s really, really important that it is Kirsty and the guest and the introduction of cameras and all the attendant, dare I say it, fuss, I think would really detract from what the listeners get, which is, I hope, a seat at the table, with Kirsty and her guest, where they really get a sense of who that person is, what they’re like, what they’re like on the day, how they are with Kirsty, and their eavesdropping on a really hopefully, fascinating conversation. CHARLES And finally if somebody’s listening to this and they think they would love to work on Desert Island Discs, what kind of a person and what kind of skills are you looking for? 00.21.01 CATHY First of all I have to say I get a great deal of requests to come and work on the programme and I always have to say that I’m really sorry there are no vacancies. You have to be a really good researcher that’s absolutely vital, as ever, it’s the ability to get on with people, the ability to put people at their ease, the ability to be clear about what it is that you want from them, but also, the ability to cope with difficult moving, sometimes distressing situations where you know we are used to people crying, because of what they’re remembering and what they’re talking about. And you need to be sufficiently robust in yourself and self confident that you’re able to deal with those sorts of situations. 00.21.53 I think the other things is, you also need to be able to not be intimidated or over excited by who you have in your studio. I mean there is absolutely no doubt that when I’m looking through the glass and I see there talking to Kirsty I am pinching myself, I allow myself five seconds of pinching and that’s it and then you have to be completely professional and focus on getting the very best interview you can from whoever you have in your studio. CHARLES Well thank you very much Cathy. Thanks to Cathy Drysdale and you can hear the next edition of Desert Island Discs on morning at 11.15 on Radio 4 and catch up with more than two www.bbc.co.uk/academy

thousand past editions on the Desert Island Discs website. You can also listen to our previous podcasts, more like two hundred than two thousand, on the BBC Academy Website and do please follow us on Twitter and Facebook, we are @bbcacademy. From me, Charles Miller thanks very much for listening. 00.22.53 MUSIC 00.22.54 NARRATOR You’ve been listening to the BBC Academy Podcast, if you want to find out more about this topic or to hear previous shows search online for the BBC Academy. 00.23.03 MUSIC 00.23.09 END OF RECORDING

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