Desert Island Discs, conceived by Roy Plomley, is a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29th January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio. Guests are invited to imagine themselves cast away on a desert island, and to choose eight pieces of music, originally gramophone records, to take with them; discussion of their choices permits a review of their life. Excerpts from their choices are played or, in the case of short pieces, the whole work. At the end of the programme they choose the one piece they regard most highly. They are then asked which book they would take with them; they are automatically given the Complete Works of Shakespeare and either the Bible or another appropriate religious or philosophical work.
