Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. The My castaway this week is the comedian John Bishop. His success has been fast and furious,

catapulting him to the front line of the entertainment business.

It started with a sort of midlife crisis as his marriage broke down, his stand-up career

got started.

Twelve years ago, he'd never even set foot on a stage. Now he sells out major venues.

He's also just raised 4.2 million pounds for sport relief by completing at a

290 mile triathlon in five days. Growing up on a Merseys

council estate, his early ambition was to play football for Liverpool, otherwise

he thought he might find a way out by winning the pools or joining a band. He says of his success now,

I feel like I've nicked someone else's life. Somewhere there's a sales rep going,

haven't I got a gig tonight? Is it true, John Bishop, that when you told your three stuns,

you were going to give up your job and try your hand as a stand-up? The first thing they said very quickly was,

but you're not funny. Yeah, and they often repeat that now. And your first spot then was in your early

30s? You were around about 30s? No, no. It was just before my 35th birthday.

Okay. That split up with Melanie and my wife and I worked in a pharmaceutical industry and so where I was

running a sales team which I couldn't guarantee when I could have the kids from Monday to Friday.

And I didn't want to be one of these dads you just had them on Sunday afternoon

and sat in McDonald's trying to buy happiness in a meal.

So I said I'll have them every weekend and so I picked them up from school

...