Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000 - Mike Leigh OBE

The castaway on Desert Island Discs this week is the filmmaker and director Mike Leigh. He first came to public attention on a dark and stormy evening when 16 million people tuned to BBC1 to watch his film Abigail's Party. It was also the night that ITV was blacked out by a strike, there was a highbrow documentary on BBC2, and Channel 4 didn't exist. His recent films Secrets and Lies and Naked won top awards at Cannes, building on the recognition he received for his earlier, more gentle portrait of working-class life - Life is Sweet. He explains to Sue Lawley how his early films were inspired by the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett and Francois Truffaut.

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

Favourite track: Clarinet Concerto in A Clarinet Concerto in A Major K622 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Luxury: Lavatory and lavatory paper

Published on Sunday, 21st September 1997.

Available Podcasts from Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000

Subscribe to Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000

We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the Desert Island Discs: Archive 1996-2000 webpage.