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Composer
214 episodes
Chosen over the decades
214
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
The Duchess of Kent on her first memory of music from a Victorian musical box
Nigel Lawson on switching from maths at Oxford before he was found out
Josephine Barnes on her father becoming a mature undergraduate at Oxford aged 44
Robert Runcie on turning back to rescue a crewmate from a burning tank
David Essex on the music from a Soho basement that felt like a star over Bethlehem
How a desire to be a poet got Vernon Scannell sent to a psychiatrist
Julian Critchley on being summoned by the chief whip for modelling a suit
Anthony Andrews on his only memory of his father coming home with a drum
Stan Barstow on the moment a book by H.E. Bates showed him what to write about
How a tip-off about concentration camps sent Shirley Williams to America
John Mortimer on playing all the parts in Shakespeare as an only child, including duelling with himself
Julia McKenzie on her first job as an understudy after only seeing the show three times
John Osborne on how a press officer coined the ‘angry young man’ label in a pub
Christopher Leaver on his earliest memory of a ship's cabin flooding
How Malcolm Muggeridge learned in the Soviet Union that power cannot make men good
Julian Lloyd Webber on choosing the cello to get out of practising the piano
Frederick Ashton on being riveted by Anna Pavlova's performance aged 13