TELEVISION / Long Runners: No 31: Desert Island Discs

Age: 52. It started in 1942. The first castaway was the comedian Vic Oliver.

Creator: Roy Plomley. He is supposed to have thought of it in a flash one night in his pyjamas in deepest Hertfordshire (but later admitted that he may have been inspired by an idea seen in Rhythm magazine in the 1930s).

Frequency: once a week at Sunday brunchtime, repeated the following Friday morning, for 42 weeks a year.

Audience: around 1.5m listeners. Two million tuned in to the 50th-anniversary edition in 1992 when John Major was cast away (he chose a full-size replica of the Oval cricket ground as his luxury).

Who presents it? Plomley did until he retired to a desert island in the sky in 1985. He was succeeded by Michael Parkinson, who was widely criticised for taking the programme down the slippery slope towards chat-showdom, and replaced by Sue Lawley in 1988.

Formula: an informal interview with a distinguished person marooned on an imaginary desert island, who chooses the eight records he (or, sometimes, she) would like to take with him. The island was originally conceived as bare save for a gramophone. Plomley had something very specific in mind - small, uninhabited and in the Caribbean. The island has changed over the years though. After the 100th programme, the rules were relaxed to allow a luxury to be brought along with the records. In a further fit of liberalism, a choice of book was allowed and the island was furnished with copies of the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Lawley introduces the castaway, summing up their achievements, before embarking on a series of gently probing questions designed to link up - sometimes tenuously - with the records. The end is marked by the choice of the luxury, the book and the inevitable 'Thank you for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs'.

Most popular books: Encylopaedia Britannica (since outlawed as a cop-out), War and Peace, A la recherche du temps perdu and the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Most popular music: Beethoven's Choral Symphony, Debussy's Clair de lune, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Most unusual choices: Anthony Hopkins chose the sound of D-type Jaguars racing at Le Mans. For his luxury, Oliver Reed plumped for an inflatable rubber doll. Norman Mailer wanted 'a stick of the finest marijuana' and Artur Rubinstein chose a revolver.

Dullest choice: Margaret Thatcher wanted a photo album of her children.

Has anyone refused to appear? Yes: Lord Olivier, Albert Finney, the Prince of Wales and George Bernard Shaw ('No. Too busy with more important things. GBS').

Secret of its success: it takes a commonplace idea - asking a famous person about their life - and gives it a very gentle spin. Somehow the conceit of the island releases the inhibitions of the interviewee, and casts a new light on the most familiar figures.

Theme tune: Eric Coates's 'By the Sleepy Lagoon', a soothing violin piece with herring-gull cries and lapping water - instantly recognisable. It was once re-recorded using more likely tropical birds after ornithologists' complaints - the gulls were later reinstated by popular demand.

Little-known facts: all three presenters have been castaways at least once. Comedian Arthur Askey made a record four appearances.

Any rumpuses? Diana Mosley, widow of the fascist Sir Oswald, was scheduled on three possible dates in 1989, all of which were sensitive in the Jewish calendar. The BBC's embarrassment was compounded when she said the Holocaust had not taken place (provoking more than 200 calls from angry listeners and an apology from the chairman of the BBC). Pamela Stephenson's revelations about her LSD experiences were cut from the programme in 1982.

Rivals: Celebrity Choice on Classic FM, although Olivia Seligman, DID's producer, does not agree, claiming that the show is unique and has 'a place at the heart of the British public'.

Anything that makes you want to kick the set in? Yes: why do they only ever play extracts from the discs? It's more like Desert Island Clips.

The bottom line - is it any good? Yes. It's still a brilliant idea. But it is paying the price of its established status - the tone can get syrupy and cosy, and Plomley's genuinely interested and open style is still missed.

(Photograph omitted)