Sir Gregory Doran, director

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

Sir Gregory Doran is the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He spent a total of thirty five years with the RSC directing fifty productions in the UK and abroad. He’s been called “one of the great Shakespeareans of his age” and has won multiple awards for his work.

Born in 1958, Greg was brought up near Preston and played a number of female Shakespeare roles when he was a young pupil attending an all-boys secondary school.

He went on to study English and Drama at Bristol University followed by a stint studying classical acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

After a few bit parts in TV sitcoms and a spell at Nottingham Playhouse, Sir Greg decided that he would prefer to carve out a career as a director. He went on to stage some of the most critically acclaimed theatre productions – including an all-black cast of Julius Caesar and took Titus Andronicus to South Africa.

More recently, he has been touring the globe on his Shakespeare’s First Folio tour to look at as many different copies of the texts as possible.

He survives his husband, the actor Sir Anthony Sher whom he met in 1987 whilst they were both part of a production of the Merchant of Venice at the RSC in Stratford. Sir Greg lives in London.

DISC ONE: Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17, Act 1: Duetto. "Son nata a lagrimar" (Cornelia, Sesto) Composed by Georg Friedrich Händel and performed by Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto) Philippe Jaroussky (counter tenor) Oreo 55 (Orchestra) DISC TWO: Sicut cervus – The Choir of Preston Catholic College DISC THREE: Born Free - Matt Monro DISC FOUR: It’s Raining Men - The Weather Girls DISC FIVE: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - Paul Simon DISC SIX: J.S. Bach: Cantata \"Ich habe genug\" BWV 82: I. \"Ich habe genug, ich habe den Heiland\". Performed by Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Berliner Barock Solisten, conducted by Rainer Kussmaul DISC SEVEN: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414: 2. Andante. Composed by Mozart and performed by Alfred Brendel (piano) and Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner DISC EIGHT: Where the Bee Sucks - Paul Englishby, Royal Shakespeare Company BOOK CHOICE: A 1609 copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets LUXURY ITEM: A shelf of photo albums CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414: 2. Andante. Composed by Mozart and performed by Alfred Brendel (piano) and Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner

Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Sing Sing and I'm Simon Jack. And Good Bad Billionaire is back. It's the podcast
0:06.2	exploring the lives and livelihoods of some of the world's richest people, but this time there's
0:10.6	a twist. On Good Bad Dead billionaire, we are looking back on the lives of some titans of
0:15.6	US industry. Like the first ever billionaire, John D. Rockefeller. The founder of the Ford
0:20.3	Motor Company, Henry Ford.
0:21.9	And the First Lady of Wall Street, Hetty Green.
0:24.3	And Simon and I are asking you if they were good, bad or just another billionaire.
0:28.4	Good bad billionaire.
0:29.5	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:33.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:37.0	Hello, I'm Lauren Levern, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4.
0:41.8	Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:49.2	For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds.
0:56.7	Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else.
1:01.1	I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the theatre director Sir Gregory Doran.
1:28.3	As former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he's been called one of the greatest Shakespeareans of our age.
1:35.3	He stepped back in 2023 after 10 years in post, 35 years with the company and after directing 50 productions.
1:43.4	His contribution to the exploration and evolution of Shakespeare's
1:47.0	work may be unmatched. He staged every play in Shakespeare's first folio, including the landmark
1:53.1	2008 production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant and Sir Patrick Stewart. He set Julius Caesar in
1:59.6	modern-day Africa, created the RSC's first
2:02.1	gender-balanced Shakespeare play and brought Dame Judy Dench back to the company after 25 years.
	...

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