David Mitchell
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2009
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is comedian David Mitchell. Mitchell has won two Bafta awards and, as a sitcom actor, sketch show writer and humorous columnist, has never been in greater demand.
But as a child, Mitchell was sure he wasn't funny and it was only when he was at university, he says, that he learnt how to have fun. It is now just the rest of his life that Mitchell needs to address - beginning, he says, by tidying up his flat and then, maybe, even getting a girlfriend.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Rainbow Connection by Jim Henson Book: Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Luxury: DVDs of sitcoms and DVD player.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2009. My cast away this week is the comedian David Mitchell. As a teenager he was something of a swat, suffered crippling shyness and would |
| 0:35.6 | rather stay in and watch telly than join any of the clubs or sports that his peers |
| 0:39.2 | enjoyed. Now he's won an armful of awards for his TV and radio sketch shows and for the channel for sitcom Peep Show in which he stars alongside his comedy partner Robert Webb. |
| 0:50.0 | It was written especially for them and portrays the broadly dismal lives of two flatmates, |
| 0:55.6 | failing to take life by the scruff of the neck and living in some squaller. |
| 0:59.8 | I think the reason it works has a lot to do with just being honest about what your life is like, he says. |
| 1:05.0 | So it's quite consoling if you feel ever so slightly isolated or not quite in the mainstream or a complete loser to see us doing considerably worse. |
| 1:15.4 | So I'm guessing David Mitchell that you're a sort of glass half empty kind of a guide. |
| 1:20.7 | Does that seem unfair? |
| 1:22.0 | No, I am a glass-health empty person I suppose, but I like to think I don't think it's the end of the world that the |
| 1:28.4 | glasses are empty. I do acknowledge that there's something in the glass. And what about Peep show? |
| 1:34.0 | You play this character, Mark Corrigan. |
| 1:37.0 | He does look a bit as though his mother is still buying his clothes for him. |
| 1:41.0 | How would you describe him? What sort of man is he? Primarily I'd say he's unhappy and he doesn't like himself |
| 1:49.2 | and he feels he has an inability to do the things society requires of him and his desperation is to break in and gain acceptance. |
| 1:59.0 | I think he's neither loathsome nor commendable. I think he's like a lot of people probably a little |
| 2:04.8 | bit worse than average. I said in the introduction that the part was written for you that I suppose |
| 2:10.3 | that can't be an entirely comforting thought then is a part that belongs to David Mitchell. |
| 2:16.5 | No, it's not a comforting thought and the number of times people say you're so like your character |
| 2:20.8 | beef show are not comforting moments. I console myself with the thought that, well, obviously he's like me because he looks and sounds like me. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.