Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

From Joni Mitchell to The Smiths. Filmmaker Louis Theroux shares his castaway music choices with Lauren Laverne. From 2019.

Filmmaker Louis Theroux is castaway by Lauren Laverne.

Louis Theroux is a television documentary maker. He has received two BAFTAs and a Royal Television Society Award for his work which includes the series Louis Theroux鈥檚 Weird Weekends and When Louis Met鈥

Born in 1970, and brought up in south London, he is the son of the American writer Paul Theroux and the 麻豆社 World Service radio producer Anne Castle. He was privately educated at Westminster School and read History at Oxford, graduating with a first. He moved to the USA where he was introduced to the American documentary maker Michael Moore and started making segments on unusual subcultures for Moore鈥檚 show TV Nation. He was given his own series 鈥 Louis Theroux鈥檚 Weird Weekends 鈥 by the 麻豆社 in the late 1990s and, after three series, he went on to present two series of When Louis Met鈥, which included Neil and Christine Hamilton, Max Clifford, Chris Eubank and Jimmy Savile.

Since then, he has made dozens of documentaries, many of them in the USA. In 2016, he revisited his encounters with Jimmy Savile in the wake of Savile鈥檚 death and the surfacing of allegations of child sexual abuse. The same year, his only feature-length film, My Scientology Movie, was released. His most recent documentaries dealt with sexual assault on American campuses, mothers with post-natal mental illness, and escorting.

DISC ONE: Marvin Gaye - All the Way Around
DISC TWO: Murray Head - Heaven on Their Minds
DISC THREE: The Smiths - Panic
DISC FOUR: Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full (Seven Minutes of Madness - Coldcut Remix)
DISC FIVE: Bob Dylan - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
DISC SIX: Fat Joe - What's Luv? (feat. Ashanti)
DISC SEVEN: Joni Mitchell - California
DISC EIGHT: Ant么nio Carlos Jobim & Herbie Mann - One Note Samba

BOOK CHOICE: Remembrance of things Past 鈥 Marcel Proust
LUXURY: 40,000 piece Jigsaw puzzle
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: 鈥淗eaven on their Minds鈥 from the album Jesus Christ Superstar

Presenter: Lauren Laverne

Producer: Cathy Drysdale

First broadcast on 麻豆社 Radio 4 in May 2019.

Release date:

45 minutes

On radio

Sun 1 Mar 2026 06:00

Broadcasts

  • Sun 1 Mar 2026 06:00
  • Sun 1 Mar 2026 11:00
  • Sun 1 Mar 2026 17:00
  • Mon 2 Mar 2026 01:00

The Desert Island Discs podcast

Subscribe or download individual episodes.

Listen to over 2,000 programmes

Click above to browse castaways, from 1942 to today.

Articles

Read the surprising things we've learned about some stand-out castaways.