Desert Island Discs Revisited: TV's History Castaways - David Olusoga

DESERT ISLAND DISCS REVISITED: TV'S HISTORY CASTAWAYS - DAVID OLUSOGA (320kbs-m4a/98mb/42mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 16th March 2025

Historian David Olusoga is castaway by Lauren Laverne.

David is an historian, writer and broadcaster who has presented a range of programmes including the BBC's A House Through Time and Civilisations.

He is currently professor of public history at Manchester University.

Born in Lagos, the second child to a Nigerian father and a British mother, David was brought up by his mother in Gateshead after his parents' marriage broke down. As a child he and his siblings experienced sustained racism and he remembers school as a place of violence and cruelty.

He credits his mother's tenacity and her determination to educate her children for his later success in getting to university and establishing a career in TV.

His love of history developed from a young age, thanks to one of his teachers who taught him why an understanding of history matters. Watching TV documentaries also opened up a world of possibility and David fondly recalls programmes from the 1980s presented by the historian Michael Wood, who made history seem cool in the eyes of the young schoolboy glued to the TV in his Gateshead council house.

In 2020, David delivered the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival in which he talked candidly about his loneliness at being the only black person on a production team and the difficulties he had trying to explain the racial implications of how, for example, people in Africa were often portrayed on screen.

BOOK CHOICE: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An Age Like This, 1920-40
LUXURY ITEM: Acoustic guitar
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson

Presenter: Lauren Laverne

Producer: Paula McGinley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2021.

Fela Kuti - Zombie
Aunt Molly Jackson - Roll On Buddy
Bessie Smith - Black Mountain Blues
Dr Alimantado - Just The Other Day
Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground
Geeshie Wiley - Last Kind Words
Bob Marley & The Wailers - You Can't Blame The Youth (Live At The Record Plant '73)
Aretha Franklin - Precious Lord, Take My Hand / You've Got A Friend