Sue Perkins
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2017
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the comedian and TV presenter Sue Perkins.
She and her friend Mel Giedroyc first appeared as a comedy duo at the Edinburgh Fringe over 20 years ago and together they presented the first seven series of The Great British Bake Off.
Born at the end of the 1960s, Sue grew up in Croydon, the eldest of three siblings. By her own description a "shy and awkward" child, she nonetheless made it to Cambridge University to study English. She and Mel met at a Footlights open mic gig soon after she'd arrived. Their first joint high-profile success was landing a new live daytime programme on Channel 4 called Light Lunch, which turned them into household names.
Sue also formed a second presenting partnership, making historical food programmes with Giles Coren. When she was 38 she was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour which left her unable to have children. Sue has been in a relationship with the TV presenter Anna Richardson since 2013.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. |
| 0:05.0 | Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:09.0 | This is an extended edition of the original broadcast. |
| 0:13.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio broadcast. |
| 0:17.0 | For more information about the program, please visit bbc.co.uk-radio4. |
| 0:30.0 | Music |
| 0:45.0 | My custom way this week is the TV presenter Sue Perkins. |
| 0:49.0 | With her ready wit and genuine warmth, she is one of our most recognizable small screen stars. |
| 0:55.0 | Plying her trade for 20 years now, it was, of course, the irresistible recipe of steaming great |
| 1:01.0 | poods and sauce equips that ensured her household name status. |
| 1:05.0 | Along with her long-term comedy partner Mel Gedroydch, she made the great British Bake-Off so much more than just another disposable teleformat, |
| 1:14.0 | turning it into a rating sensation and a national obsession. |
| 1:19.0 | These days, she wears her considerable celebrity with rye a plomb and her travel-oddacy documentaries and best-selling memoir, |
| 1:27.0 | hints that someone keen as much for understanding as approval. |
| 1:31.0 | She says, I am an appalling, appalling, softy. |
| 1:36.0 | But somehow somewhere along the line I've learned how to hide it, hide that sentimentality and vulnerability. |
| 1:43.0 | I do it with words, bluster. |
| 1:45.0 | It fortifies me against the outside world. |
| 1:48.0 | Take away the words and I am lost. |
| 1:51.0 | So welcome, Sue Perkins. |
| 1:53.0 | Plenty of words today. |
... |
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.