Jack Vettriano

Jack Vettriano

Author: BBC Radio 4 March 28, 2004 Duration: 34:12

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Jack Vettriano.

Jack Vettriano is the painter of Britain's most popular work of art. More than a million prints and posters have been sold of his work The Singing Butler since the original was bought for just over £4,500 in 1991. It shows a glamorous couple dancing on the beach while a maid and butler hold umbrellas over their heads to shield them from the rain. The original is due to go under the hammer, once again, in April and this time is expected to fetch hundreds of thousands of pounds. Vettriano has enjoyed painting since he was in his 20s after a girlfriend gave him a set of watercolours. But he did not devote himself full time to art until the late 1980s when he was nearly 40. Since then, his rise has been meteoric and the public have clamoured both for his romantic, nostalgic views of a world gone by and for his far darker works that depict the sexual tensions between men and women.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan Book: SUMO by Helmut Newton Luxury: Triptych, May - June 1973 by Francis Bacon


The Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005 podcast opens a unique window into a pivotal era, drawing from the BBC Radio 4 archives. This isn't just a collection of interviews about music; it's a deeply personal exploration of life, ambition, and memory through the voices of the early 21st century. Each episode presents a guest from this period-be they an artist, a politician, a scientist, or an activist-facing the program's enduring and revealing premise: selecting the eight pieces of music they would take if stranded alone. The conversation that unfolds around these choices is where the magic happens. The host gently guides them from their selections into stories of childhood influences, career-defining moments, personal triumphs, and profound losses. You'll hear the crackle of a vinyl record lead into a confession, or a symphony cue a tale of resilience. Listening to this podcast feels like uncovering a time capsule of cultural and emotional history, where a pop song can explain a political stance and a classical adagio can frame a love story. It’s an intimate study of character and a testament to how the soundtrack of our lives shapes our identity. These archived conversations, preserved in this podcast, remain compelling because they bypass the superficial, using music as the key to unlock genuine human experience.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005
Podcast Episodes
Bill Cullen [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:36
This week, Sue Lawley's castaway is the Irish businessman and writer Bill Cullen. He was one of 14 children born to William Cullen and Mary Darcy. His childhood, in the tenement slums of inner-city Dublin was one of extr…
Herbert Kretzmer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:55
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the journalist and songwriter Herbert Kretzmer. Born in South Africa in 1925, he came to Europe after World War II. For a while he lived in Paris, playing piano in a bar. He rubbed shou…
Nigella Lawson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:13
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the broadcaster, cook, mother and domestic goddess Nigella Lawson. She came from a privileged background - her father, the former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, her mother the so…
Nick Hornby [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:30
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the internationally successful author Nick Hornby. Originally from suburban Maidenhead, his obsession with football, as chronicled in the autobiographical Fever Pitch, began after his p…
Bryn Terfel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:15
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. Still only in his 30s, he's sung at the world's biggest opera houses and can pick and choose where he works and the productions he wants to star in.…
Barbara Taylor Bradford [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:35
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the popular novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford. Born in Upper Armley, Leeds, by the age of 16 Barbara had graduated from the typing pool and was a cub reporter in the newsroom of the York…
Daniel Libeskind [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:12
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the architect Daniel Libeskind. Daniel Libeskind's parents were Polish Jews. Daniel himself was a prodigiously talented musician, but the family couldn't afford the attention a piano wo…
Bishop John Sentamu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:23
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is The Bishop of Birmingham, John Sentamu. When John Sentamu was born, the sixth of 13 children, near Kampala in Uganda in 1949, he was so small the local bishop was called in to baptise h…
Mark Tully [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:18
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the veteran broadcaster Mark Tully. Born in Calcutta and with ancestors who were involved in the Indian Mutiny, he has a love of India in his bones and has made his career reporting it.…
Vittorio Radice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:32
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Vittorio Radice. Born in 1957 and brought up near Lake Como, Radice is the son of a furniture retailer. He surprised himself and his family by studying agriculture at Milan University,…