My Desert Island Dinner Party

An introvert’s tactical guide to ten extraordinary guests, a difficult seating plan and the occasional emergency substitution.

Having worked my way through Desert Island books and albums, it was perhaps inevitable that sooner or later I’d get around to people.

The usual question is: If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to dinner, who would you choose?

But that’s far too easy.

Give me the whole of human history and within minutes I’m wrestling with Jesus, St Paul, Shakespeare, Churchill, C. S. Lewis and several thousand years’ worth of people who changed the world. Before long it stops being a dinner party and starts looking like a particularly ambitious episode of Question Time.

So I needed some rules.

Second, my guests must have been alive during my lifetime. I was born on 16 November 1965, so anybody who died before then is ineligible. This rather painfully rules out C. S. Lewis, who would otherwise almost certainly have had a chair.

Third, this is not a list of the ten people I most admire, or even the ten people I would most like to meet.

It’s a dinner party.

I actually have to spend an evening with them.

That distinction turned out to matter rather more than I expected. John Lennon, for example, was one of my first choices. Fascinating, brilliant, pivotal to much of the music I love. But fascinating doesn’t necessarily mean someone you want sitting opposite you for four hours over dinner.

A table containing ten extraordinary people could still make for a dreadful evening. I’m an introvert. Put ten enormous personalities around a table and there is a reasonable chance I would spend my own imaginary dinner party quietly refilling everybody’s wine glasses.

So I need storytellers, certainly, but also listeners. Humour without ten comedians. Faith, but different expressions of it. Music, books, ideas, nature, culture, disagreement and people who can disagree without throwing the pudding.

And finally, because somewhere along the way I started treating this increasingly like team selection, I’ve allowed myself a substitutes’ bench.

Guests can therefore be introduced during the evening according to injuries, tactical requirements, the direction of conversation or an unacceptable deterioration in its quality.

So, here is the starting ten.

1. Paul McCartney

If I’m only allowed one Beatle in the starting line-up, it probably has to be McCartney.

There is the music, obviously. The Beatles alone could fill an evening before we got anywhere near Wings, songwriting, recording, fame or what it feels like to have spent more than sixty years as one of the most recognisable people on Earth.

But I’d particularly like to talk about creativity.

Where do songs come from? Why does one melody last for generations while another disappears? What happens when two extraordinarily creative people disagree?

The temptation to ask too many Beatles questions would be considerable.

I’d try to behave myself.

2. Victoria Wood

Originally Billy Connolly had this chair.

Then I realised I didn’t necessarily need another person capable of taking over the room.

Victoria Wood brought something different: humour built from observation, the ridiculousness of ordinary life, writing and music.

Funny without needing to be the loudest person there.

And when the conversation became impossibly earnest, as I confidently expect it would at various points, I’d trust her to say something that punctured the whole thing beautifully.

3. Dolly Parton

Dolly displaced Daniel Finkelstein, which probably tells you something about how the selection process evolved.

Finkelstein would bring politics, history, journalism, football and serious thought.

Dolly brings music, generosity, warmth and joy.

I decided I wanted the latter.

And what a life to talk about: poverty, ambition, songwriting, business, philanthropy, faith and decades of extraordinary fame.

Most importantly, she strikes me as someone who might make everybody else at the table better company.

Every dinner party needs somebody like that.

4. Terry Pratchett

I love people who make you laugh and then, almost without you noticing, make you think about something quite profound.

Pratchett could do that.

Behind the fantasy and jokes were observations about people, institutions, belief, prejudice, power, death and the general absurdity of being human.

I suspect he’d have something interesting to say to almost everybody there.

And possibly understand my predicament as the introvert who somehow organised all this.

5. J. K. Rowling

This selection may make the seating plan more complicated.

But perhaps that’s partly the point.

Rowling brings storytelling, imagination and the extraordinary experience of creating something that became embedded in worldwide popular culture.

She also brings the distinct possibility of disagreement.

A good dinner does not require everyone to have the same opinions. In fact, an evening involving nothing but polite agreement would probably become rather dull.

So I have another rule:

Nobody gets excluded simply because another guest might disagree with them. Everybody does, however, have to behave themselves over dinner.

6. David Attenborough

Where would you begin?

Nature, travel, broadcasting, science, climate, humanity’s relationship with the planet.

But also an extraordinary sweep of history witnessed at close quarters through decades of broadcasting.

Attenborough helps balance the table too. He can take the conversation somewhere entirely different.

And I imagine him as someone who would actually listen before speaking, which by this point in proceedings may prove invaluable.

7. Dame Judi Dench

Theatre, Shakespeare, film, comedy and what must be an extraordinary collection of stories.

I’d want to know what great acting actually involves. Do actors ever stop being frightened before a performance? What does Shakespeare mean after a lifetime of performing his work? What separates someone technically brilliant from someone an audience simply cannot stop watching?

And after several courses of faith, politics, justice and the meaning of life, a few wonderfully indiscreet theatre stories might be exactly what we need.

8. Martin Luther King Jr.

Perhaps the guest whose place requires least explanation.

Faith. Justice. Civil rights. Courage. Leadership.

But I’d want to hear less about the famous speeches, which I can already read and listen to, and more about the person behind them.

What happens when courage is required of you rather than admired from a safe distance? What does faith look like when there is a genuine cost attached to it? How do you persuade people rather than merely defeat them?

And what would King make of the world now?

Faith matters enormously in my own life. It would be rather strange to construct my perfect dinner and discover that Christianity had somehow been squeezed into a corner between the music and the cheese course.

Which brings me to…

9. John Wimber

Possibly the least predictable choice, which is one reason I like it.

Before faith changed the direction of his life, Wimber was a professional musician, playing keyboards and saxophone and singing. He performed with The Paramours alongside Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, before Medley and Hatfield went on to become the Righteous Brothers.

So he has an unexpected connection to the musical half of my table before we’ve even begun talking about Christianity, the Vineyard movement or the rather dramatic change in direction his own life took.

I’d want to talk about faith as experience as well as theology. Healing. Doubt. The supernatural. The things that refuse to fit neatly into boxes.

Putting Wimber somewhere between McCartney, Pratchett and Attenborough could produce an extraordinary conversation about faith, evidence, experience and mystery.

Or completely ruin dinner.

Either way, I’d like to be there.

10. Aretha Franklin

A relatively late addition who now feels indispensable.

Music, gospel, church, civil rights and, of course, that voice.

With Martin Luther King Jr. at the table, the civil-rights connection would not be theoretical: Aretha sang at his funeral. With Wimber, McCartney and Dolly there too, she connects gospel, soul, popular music, faith and the extraordinary ways in which a song can carry a whole community’s history.

She also brings a life large enough to match almost anybody else’s: the daughter of a preacher, a musical prodigy, a woman navigating fame and a notoriously hard industry, and an artist whose technical brilliance somehow never sounded merely technical.

And unlike some of the more argumentative members of this imaginary party, I suspect she could end a difficult conversation simply by sitting down at the piano.

And if somebody happens to wander over to the piano after dinner, I think I’ve assembled a fairly useful little group.

Before dinner

One thing has occurred to me.

Putting everybody immediately into an allocated seat is much too controlling, even for an imaginary dinner party.

So we’ll start with drinks.

Wine, champagne, beer, soft drinks, whatever people want. No seating plan yet. Everybody standing around and finding their own conversations.

This may actually be the bit I’d most like to watch.

Who finds whom?

Does McCartney make straight for Aretha? Does Dolly end up talking to King? Does Pratchett corner Attenborough? Does Dame Judi Dench discover she’s unexpectedly fascinated by John Wimber?

And, most importantly, this gives everyone the opportunity to meet before I intervene and separate them according to my carefully constructed masterplan.

Because then we sit down.

And I’m afraid there is a seating plan.

The seating plan

It’s a long table.

I sit at one end, with Victoria Wood and Dolly Parton nearest to me.

This is both cowardice and prudent hosting.

Should conversation stall, become unbearably profound or threaten to descend into open warfare, I want immediate access to two people with a reasonable chance of restoring morale.

From my end of the table:

There is, despite appearances, some logic to this.

Wood and Dolly are nearest the host, should morale require immediate attention.

McCartney and Aretha are opposite each other, because occasionally the obvious musical pairing is simply too good to resist.

Wimber and Pratchett get faith, doubt, experience, death and the human condition, with a reasonable chance of either brilliance or trouble.

Attenborough and King have stewardship, humanity, justice and the future of the world. I suspect I may need to wander down that end occasionally.

And Dench and Rowling get theatre, storytelling, imagination and the strange experience of creating characters who eventually acquire lives beyond their creators.

Rowling is also safely close to both King and Dench.

This may prove either diplomatic genius or a catastrophic miscalculation.

I will let you know.

The substitutes’ bench

This is where things became painful.

These aren’t people ranked eleven to twenty. They’re tactical alternatives. Change one guest and you could change the whole evening.

Daniel Finkelstein

Politics, history, journalism, football and thoughtfulness. He actually started in the ten before being displaced by Dolly Parton.

I’d apologise, but frankly I think I’d rather have Dolly at dinner.

Maya Angelou

Literature, civil rights, spirituality and an extraordinary life. Her omission is tactical rather than personal. With King and Aretha already at the table, that part of the conversation risks becoming disproportionately strong.

Victoria Coren Mitchell

Writing, journalism, poker, wit, questions and competitive instincts.

Any table containing this many celebrated people could probably use somebody prepared to puncture pomposity.

Karen Carpenter

Sometimes your reasoning doesn’t need to be terribly sophisticated.

I could listen to that voice all evening.

Tim Keller

If Wimber represents faith and experience, Keller offers faith and reason.

I’d genuinely like to hear both.

Unfortunately, I only have ten chairs.

Desmond Tutu

Another horrible omission.

Faith, reconciliation, justice and humour.

At some point I began to realise my substitutes’ bench was becoming better than many people’s actual dinner parties.

Alex Ferguson

This one hurts.

I’m a Manchester United supporter. Surely Ferguson was automatic?

Apparently not.

Still, it’s a long evening:

“Coming on for Finkelstein in the 84th minute, Alex Ferguson; immediately unhappy with the seating plan, the wine list and the referee.”

I suspect he’d cope.

Billy Connolly

A wonderful storyteller I could happily listen to for hours.

But Victoria Wood ultimately got the comedian’s chair because her quieter observational humour felt better suited to this particular table.

If conversation starts flagging, Connolly will be stripped and ready on the touchline.

Brené Brown

Courage, vulnerability, shame, belonging, leadership and all the messy mechanics of being human.

There is a danger she could make things a little earnest.

That’s easily solved.

Sit her next to Victoria Wood or Dolly Parton.

John Lennon

And then there is the wildcard.

Possibly the most dangerous substitute in dinner-party history.

Lennon was in my original ten before I realised that being fascinated by someone is not necessarily the same as wanting to spend an entire evening with them.

But I’m certainly not sending him home.

John Lennon is sitting on the bench specifically to come on and disrupt everything if required.

If conversation becomes too comfortable, if everyone starts agreeing, if McCartney begins looking altogether too relaxed…

Lennon gets the nod.

Imagine it.

Dessert is cleared.

A spare chair appears.

Nobody has warned Paul.

Sometimes tactics require courage.

And afterwards…

After dinner, the seating plan is abolished.

We’ve done enough social engineering for one evening.

Coffee, port, whisky, chocolates, perhaps more wine for those still standing. Everyone moves somewhere more comfortable and the conversations can split into smaller groups.

And I think this might be when the evening really gets interesting.

Perhaps somebody finds the piano.

Perhaps McCartney, Aretha and Dolly drift towards it.

Perhaps Wimber joins them.

Perhaps Victoria Wood does.

Perhaps King sits elsewhere talking quietly with Attenborough while Pratchett and Rowling compare notes on what happens when millions of readers decide that characters you invented partly belong to them.

And perhaps I finally get the chance simply to sit quietly with a glass of whisky and listen.

Which, if I’m honest, is probably what the introvert who organised this whole ridiculous event wanted all along.

Last orders

So there they are:

Paul McCartney. Victoria Wood. Dolly Parton. Terry Pratchett. J. K. Rowling. David Attenborough. Dame Judi Dench. Martin Luther King Jr. John Wimber. Aretha Franklin.

Five women. Five men.

That wasn’t one of my original rules, but I’m rather pleased it happened naturally.

There is music everywhere, but from completely different traditions. There are writers and storytellers, faith and doubt, humour and seriousness, nature and culture, extraordinary public lives and very different experiences of the world.

Some would agree profoundly.

Some almost certainly wouldn’t.

That’s the point.

I’ve assembled ten of the most interesting people I can imagine, several of them formidable personalities, given them wine, introduced a handful of subjects on which they may profoundly disagree…

…and put an introvert in charge of the dinner party.

What could possibly go wrong?

Still, if it all becomes too quiet, I have options.

John Lennon is warming up.

And somewhere around the 84th minute, Sir Alex Ferguson is arguing with the fourth official.

I think we’re going to need more wine.