Programme Information

Thursday 15 January 2009

BBC RADIO 2 Thursday 15 January 2009

Award-winning singer-songwriter James McMurtry can be heard in session in tonight's programme.

The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry, James was one of the major winners at the 2005 Americana Music Awards (AMA) for his album, Childish Things, and his song, We Can't Make It Here, a political commentary criticising George Bush's economic policy. His anti-war song, Cheney's Toy, from his most recent album, Just Us Kids, was also nominated for AMA song of the year in 2008.

Bob Harris recorded this session in Nashville in September 2008 during the week of the Awards.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Bob Dylan continues his travels Around The World. From Liverpool to Jamaica and Loch Lomond to Rome, Bob hits the high road and the low road in this second part of a musical journey to all points of the compass.

This week's eclectic mix of music includes Ferry 'Cross The Mersey by Gerry & The Pacemakers, Africa by Celia Cruz, When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano by The Ink Spots, I Come From Jamaica by Chris Powell & His Five Blue Flames, Japanese Girl by Lloyd Clark, Loch Lomond by Maxine Sullivan, Arrivederci Roma by Dean Martin and (I'd Go The) Whole Wide World by Wreckless Eric.

Presenter/Bob Dylan, Producer/Phil Hughes

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BBC RADIO 3 Thursday 15 January 2009

Donald Macleod continues his exploration of the music of Handel using John Mainwaring's Memoirs Of The Life Of The Late George Frederic Handel (1760) as his primary guide.

In the fourth programme, Donald takes listeners through the 1720s and 30s, when Handel spent most of his time writing operas for the London stage. Mainwaring paints a colourful picture of the endless internal rivalries between singers, composers, management and noble patrons in the over-heated world of English theatres. The soap operas off-stage often seemed to rival the onstage productions, and star-struck London lapped it all up, in a precursor of today's celebrity gossip columns.

Meanwhile, Mainwaring curiously fails to mention the small matter of the new King's coronation, when Handel would cement his place as Britain's chief composer.

Music includes Handel's Scipione: Scoglio d'immota fronte; My Heart Is Inditing; Parnasso In Festa: Opening Of Part II; and Israel In Egypt: End Of Part II.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Chris Taylor

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BBC Radio 3 marks the 250th anniversary year of Handel's death with a complete cycle of his operas: every Thursday afternoon in Afternoon On 3. Forty two operas are to be broadcast across the year in chronological order. This is a first and has never been done before. Until recently it wouldn't have been possible as the recordings did not exist. The Radio 3 series features the greatest Handel opera CDs from the last 25 years – including some brand new ones – alongside concert and stage performances from the UK, Europe and beyond.

Today's opera is the second in the series – Rodrigo, Handel's first opera for Italy, written age 22. It was actually his third opera, not his second – immediately after last week's Almira he wrote another opera for Hamburg called Nero, but the music of that is lost.

Although the plot is fictional, most of the main characters really existed, including Rodrigo himself. He was Duke of Baetica and last of the Visigothic kings of Spain – "a man of the utmost wickedness", says a note at the start of Handel's original libretto – who was killed by Moslem invaders at the Battle of Guadalete on 19 July 711.

Not quite all the music of Rodrigo has survived, but there are various guesses about how to fill the gaps. A critical edition was published in 2007, but hasn't yet been recorded. Alan Curtis made his own edition for the recording played today.

The cast includes mezzo-soprano Gloria Banditelli (Rodrigo); sopranos Sandrine Piau (Esilena), Elena Cecchi Fedi (Florinda) and Roberta Invernizzi (Evanco); tenor Rufus Müller (Giuliano); and contralto Caterina Calvi (Fernando). The conductor is Alan Curtis.

Presenter/Louise Fryer, Producer/Helen Garrison

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Martin Handley presents a Royal Ballet 50th Anniversary revival of Frederick Ashton's Ondine, choreographed for the legendary Margot Fonteyn and scored by Hans Werner Henze. The ballet tells the tragic tale of Palemon, a mortal who falls in love with the water nymph Ondine, but who betrays her and dies in their last embrace.

The scoring reveals Henze's fascination with human gesture and movement as an inspiration for his own composition, as well as evoking Ondine's beautiful watery underworld. Martin is joined by the Royal Ballet's music director, Barry Wordsworth, to discuss Henze's specially commissioned music for the ballet.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Emily Kershaw

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Sean Spence is Professor of Adult Psychiatry at the University of Sheffield. As part of this year's BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking festival of ideas, Sean Spence came to Liverpool to deliver a talk on the ethics of using pharmacology to regulate human behaviour.

"Imagine," he says, "if every human being on the planet thought at the beginning of each day: 'Will I harm someone today?'"

If an antisocial individual shows a desire to change their behaviour and accepts medication, are we assisting that patient or engaging in social control?

Professor Spence argues that, in the cases of those who wish to reduce their risk to society, clinicians are not engaged in coercive, imposed control but in what he calls "collaborative pharmacology".

Recorded in front of an audience at Liverpool's Foundation for Creative Art and Technology and hosted by Bidisha.

Producer/Fiona McLean

BBCRadio 3 Publicity

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Mark Lawson takes The Murders In The Rue Morgue and celebrates Edgar Allen Poe's pioneering spirit, as The Essay continues to explore the enduring legacy and cult status of Poe in the bi-centenary of his birth in January 2009. He reveals how many of the defining characteristics of contemporary crime fiction can be traced back to this classic tale.

Journalist, broadcaster and author Lawson has also written a number of radio plays, including The Man Who Had 10,000 Women, about Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon. His fiction and drama is largely concerned with politics and popular culture in Britain and America. He has twice been voted TV Critic of The Year and has won numerous awards for his arts journalism.

Presenter/Mark Lawson, Producer/Gemma Jenkins

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

BBC RADIO 4 Thursday 15 January 2009

In Triple Espresso, Marinetti And The Futurists, presenter Richard Cork explores how Futurism exploded onto the art world.

In 1909, Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti took it upon himself to bring Italy into the 20th century, publishing his Futurist manifesto in the Parisian newspaper, Le Figaro, warning the art world that a new Italian art and poetry had arrived.

Futurism was the first movement in the history of art to be engineered and managed like a business. It had a close relationship with the world of advertising and, like a business, it promoted its product to a wide audience.

Richard explores how Futurism took the European art world by storm and examines how the movement suffered a severe blow in the First World War, when several of its leading figures were killed, and how this led to Marinetti joining forces with Mussolini.

Presenter/Richard Cork, Producer/Kate Bland

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Today's Afternoon Play offering commemorates the day, 40 years ago, when a young Czech student, Jan Palach, set fire to himself in Prague, in January 1969.

Written by David Pownall, the play explores Palach's state of mind as the young man makes his final, fateful journey from his home outside Prague into the centre of the city. Palach was neither a terrorist nor a fanatic and did not intend to make a great statement about the communist regime. He believed that his fellow-countryman had become politically and morally lethargic and had to be confronted by the reality of their situation.

Jan Palach is played by Karl Davies.

Producer/Jane Ellison

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The Investigation Ep 1/4 Thursday 15 January 8.00-8.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Simon Cox challenges orthodoxy and reveals the real story behind some of the issues that appear in the news, in the first in another series of headline-making investigations.

In the first programme, Simon examines the role of the United Nations' principal human rights body, The Human Rights Council. Since its creation two years ago, it has been accused of being weak, so Simon investigates whether it is fulfilling its role in protecting people against violence and persecution.

Presenter/Simon Cox, Producer/Sally Chesworth

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Thursday 15 January 2009

Russell Fuller presents all the day's sports news and, from 8pm, a 5 Live Sport special examining finance in football. At 9pm, Mike Costello and Steve Bunce discuss the latest boxing news in 5 Live Boxing.

Presenter/Russell Fuller

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

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BBC ASIAN NETWORK Thursday 15 January 2009

Sandra has sent a present to Jaggy and Simran on Darren's behalf, as the Asian drama continues. He needs to win friends at the football club – starting with Jaggy. Later, Darren sees Jaggy and pleads for a chance to prove he has changed, but can he convince Jaggy to listen?

Meanwhile, Rozena is at the hospital, dreading her 12-week scan. As the sonographer carries out the routine, Rozena takes Sameer's hand and braces herself for the verdict...

Sandra is played by Anita Dobson, Jaggy by Jay Kiyani, Simran by Balvinder Sopal, Darren by Samuel Kindred, Rozena by Pooja Ghai, the sonographer by Manjeet Mann and Sameer by Alex Caan.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

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