TOMORROW sees the 75th anniversary of Desert Island Discs, the longest-running programme on British radio.

It has been well trailed that tomorrow’s guest is David Beckham, who needs no introduction, but will current presenter Kirsty Young ask him if it’s true that the Manchester United canteen server once asked him if he wanted a whole pizza, only for David to reply “nah, just two halves as usual?”

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

ROY Plomley was a freelance broadcaster who was about to go to bed one evening in 1941 when the idea of the show occurred to him.

He famously sat down in his pyjamas and typed out his pitch to the BBC, where Leslie Perowne, head of Popular Record Programmes, seized on it with alacrity.

They agreed the format of a guest, to be known as the castaway, choosing eight “gramophone records”, as the script stated, to take with him or her on to a desert island. Eric Coates – himself a castaway in 1951– was commissioned to write the theme tune and came up with By A Sleepy Lagoon, still used to this day.

The first programme was broadcast on January 29, 1942, with the guest being Vic Oliver, the Austrian-born actor and comedian. Plomley introduced him as “comedian, lightning club manipulator, violinist and comedy trick cyclist” who had a very famous father-in-law: Winston Churchill.

Plomley himself was a castaway in 1942, interviewed by Perowne, though it should be said that in the early years DID did not feature serious interviews, as the programmes were all scripted.

It is also a little known fact that DID was taken off the air in a BBC reshuffle in 1946, returning in January, 1951, when the first guest was the actor Eric Portman. That he was gay was never mentioned in those days when homosexual acts were criminal offences.

HAS THE FORMAT EVER CHANGED?

IN the days of wartime austerity, even taking eight records was seen as extravagant, but by 1951, rationing had eased a little and Plomley and the producers added a book and a luxury item – always an inanimate object - to the records.

The first luxury item was chosen by the actress Sally Ann Howes – later to star in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – who chose garlic.

That year also saw the tradition of giving the castaway the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible and asking the guest to choose another book.

The other tradition of a gentle pre-arranged interview also changed as the years went on, and the presenters began asking about key moments in the lives of the castaways.

WHO HAVE BEEN THE PRESENTERS?

PLOMLEY reigned supreme until his death from pleurisy in 1985 at the age of 71. He was always too polite to ask any harsh questions and just about had a fit when the author Norman Mailer asked for a “stick of marijuana” for his luxury in 1979. Oliver Reed also told Plomley that he wanted a “blow up doll” but somehow that broadcast has been lost. Michael Parkinson took over from Plomley and only lasted two years but he did break the Plomley mould by asking serious questions.

By common consent, however, Parkinson’s best DID was in 1987 with Kenneth Williams, whose comedic and musical genius shone through.

Sue Lawley replaced Parky, and interviewed Barry Humphries in his Dame Edna Everage guise. He/she asked for bridesmaid Madge Allsop as the luxury item on grounds that she was an inanimate object – and Lawley allowed it.

Kirsty Young took over from Lawley in 2006 and the former continuity announcer with BBC Scotland and STV newsreader is still going strong and is reckoned by some aficionados to be the best of all the presenters. One smitten guest was David Dimbleby who asked that his luxury be Kirsty Young – she politely declined.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE MOST POPULAR CHOICES?

AMAZINGLY, the top eight musical pieces are all classical: Beethoven, Symphony No 9 in D minor Choral; Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor; Schubert, String Quintet in C major; Beethoven, Symphony No 6 in F Major Pastoral; Elgar, Pomp & Circumstance March No 1 in D Major (Land of Hope and Glory); Beethoven, Piano Concerto No 5 in E Flat Major (Emperor); Elgar, Enigma Variations Nimrod; Beethoven, Symphony No 7 in A major.

War and Peace is among the most requested books. George Clooney said he would need it for toilet paper, while showjumper Harvey Smith said he didn’t want a book as he’d never read one in his life. The most requested luxury is a piano, asked for by nearly 200 of the 3,100 castaways.

Arthur Askey and Sir David Attenborough jointly hold the record of four DID appearances.

ANY BIG SHOCKS OVER THE YEARS?

PLENTY. The film director Otto Preminger chose his own memoirs as his book, pianist Mouray Lympany chose eight of her own recordings in 1979, Stephen Fry asked for a suicide pill as his luxury in 1988, and in 1989 Lady Diana Mosley infamously said the Holocaust did not kill six million Jews.

Young’s questioning gained a real scoop in 2007 when Yoko Ono revealed that she and her husband John Lennon had discussed aborting her son Sean.

In 1971, John Cleese wanted two luxuries – “a life-sized model of Margaret Thatcher and a baseball bat”. How prescient he was.