Sunday 27 Dec 2009
Programme Information
Network Radio BBC Week 31: 1-7 August 2009
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Network Radio BBC Week 31: Saturday 1 August 2009
BBC RADIO 2 Saturday 1 August 2009
Mark Radcliffe presents an hour of highlights from the Cambridge Folk Festival 2009.
The Zutons, Booker T, Adrian Edmondson And The Bad Shepherds and Martin Simpson are among the performers at this year's Cambridge Folk Festival, one of the highlights of the summer for fans of live music.
Another "cool as folk" line-up features the best in contemporary roots music. The festival bill this year also includes rare performances from legendary performers such as The Waterson Family and Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as some of the trailblazers of the current folk revival, including Bellowhead, Cara Dillon and Jim Moray.
BBC Radio 2's coverage continues on Wednesday evening at 7pm when Mike Harding presents highlights from the festival in his weekly show.
Extensive online coverage of the festival can be found at bbc.co.uk/radio2.
Presenter/Mark Radcliffe, Producer/Viv Atkinson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
New Orleans guitar virtuoso and "king of slydeco" Sonny Landreth plays a live session in Bob Harris's show this week.
Sonny talks about his recent releases and tours, his inspirational friends and collaborators Bonnie Raitt and John Hiatt as well as the influence he takes from Jimi Hendrix.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Saturday 1 August 2009
Catherine Bott introduces highlights of a concert by recorder ensemble La Ciaccona, recorded in the Castle in Grandson, Switzerland, with Italian baroque music by Vivaldi, Merula, Albinoni and Veracini.
The programme also includes a feature showcasing some of the finalists in the Young Artists' Competition at the York Early Music Festival 2009.
Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Rebecca Bean
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Guitarist Joe Pass recovered from narcotics addiction to launch a stellar international career as one of the finest exponents of his instrument in jazz history. Alyn Shipton is joined by guitarist John Etheridge to select highlights from Pass's voluminous catalogue, including his work with Oscar Peterson and his multi-volume series, aptly titled Virtuoso.
Joe Pass's first recordings were made in 1962, with a group of recovering addicts, at the Synanon centre in California. Hailed by critics as the brightest new star on the guitar to have emerged for 20 years, Pass began recording for Pacific Jazz in the Sixties.
His career almost floundered in the early Seventies but, impresario Norman Granz recognised his exceptional talent and began featuring him on record and in concert, with his stable of artists, including Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Granz also launched the remarkable series of "virtuoso" albums on which Pass's reputation as jazz's finest unaccompanied solo guitarist was built.
Presenter and Producer/Alyn Shipton
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 22 – A Celebration Of MGM Film Musicals
John Wilson and his hand-picked orchestra celebrate 75 years of MGM musicals, live, from the Royal Albert Hall, with songs from unforgettable movie classics, including The Wizard Of Oz, Meet Me In St Louis, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, High Society, Gigi and Singin' In The Rain.
Kim Criswell, Curtis Stigers and Sir Thomas Allen are among the performers. This Prom is also broadcast, live, on BBC Two.
Presenter/Petroc Trelawny, Producer/Brian Jackson
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Saturday 1 August 2009
The Money Grab Ep 1/2
Alvin Hall charts the boom in executive pay, both in the UK and the United States.
He speaks to traders, lawyers and the head hunters who hire the top talent, to pick apart the reasoning that has justified the rise in multi-million pound pay packets. Are the world's top CEOs really worth the eight-figure sums paid to them?
He also meets some of the other beneficiaries of these mega-salaries, who have also found themselves "in the money" as CEOs splash the cash in high-end restaurants, or on holiday homes in exclusive resorts. But how long can it last? Will the world's ongoing economic woes curtail corporate compensation packages, and is this the dawn of a new age of frugality?
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Last Night, Another Soldier..., written by Andy McNab, is based on the lives of four soldiers and told mainly from the perspective of 18-year-old new-boy David Briggs.
Briggsy is just three weeks into his first posting in Afghanistan as part of an eight-man rifle section.
His battalion is already half-way through their six-month tour in Helmand Province and, to date, has suffered 13 casualties. Their key mission is to take control of the highly valuable poppy fields. The last few months have taken their toll and the young men are in terrible state – with scruffy beards, peeling noses and lips burnt by the Afghan sun. In addition, the Taliban are proving highly competent adversaries. However, despite the hardships, the men are enjoying their time. These lads now have experience, alongside their skills, and are fast becoming the best soldiers the army has ever had.
When Briggsy is injured during his first contact with the Taliban, he struggles to persuade Sergeant Mackenzie that he is physically and mentally ready to go back into the field. Through his encounters with seasoned medic Emma Rankin and his discussions with the soldiers in his rifle section, Briggsy begins to understand something of the lasting effects of war. This knowledge leads him to attempt to contact his absent father for the first time.
The story cuts between high-octane battle scenes and the everyday reality of life on a British Army Forward Operating Base.
Rifleman David Briggs is played by Russell Tovey, Corporal Toki Vunibaka by Damian Lynch, Paul Rider plays Rifleman "Flash" Harris, Lloyd Thomas plays Rifleman Si Preston, Stephen Hogan plays Sergeant Mackenzie, Caroline Guthrie plays Corporal Emma Rankin and Briggsy's mum is played by Janice Acquah.
Producer/Vernee Samuel
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Saturday 1 August 2009
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch presents 5 Live Sport, live, from Edgbaston, Birmingham, with coverage of the third day of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia. Pat Murphy, Jason Gillespie and Dominic Cork provide expert analysis.
There is also racing commentary from glorious Goodwood with Cornelius Lysaght and John Hunt.
At 6.30pm, there is live coverage of the World Swimming Championships in Rome, with Bob Ballard, Steve Parry and Karen Pickering.
Producer/Ben North
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Saturday 1 August 2009
Test Match Special
The Test Match Special team, led by Jonathan Agnew present live, uninterrupted coverage of the third day's play of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia from Edgbaston.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Sunday 2 August 2009
BBC RADIO 1 Sunday 2 August 2009
BBC Switch Road Trip, a week of teen-focused fun from around the UK, is launched today. From Monday 3 to Friday 7 August, DJs Annie Mac, Nick Grimshaw and Aled Haydn-Jones travel around the UK, appearing at some great under-18s' club nights and meeting UK youngsters. The team also gains exclusive access to some favourite teen artists and goes behind the scenes at one of the country's best-loved TV soaps.
Tonight's show brings all the news from the Underage Festival in London's Victoria Park and rising UK star Tinchy Stryder, who performed at the festival earlier in the day, pops into the studio for a chat.
Throughout the week there will be live inserts in Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show (Monday-Friday, 10am-12.45pm) and Nick Grimshaw's evening show (Monday-Thursday, 10pm-12midnight) also features news from the trip.
Presenters/Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw, Producer/Megan Carver
BBC Radio 1 Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Sunday 2 August 2009
This week, Aled Jones says Good Morning Sunday to jazz singer-songwriter Melody Gardot and Rabbi Pete Tobias.
Melody's second studio album was released earlier this year to critical acclaim, but she only started singing seriously following an accident, when she received music therapy to aid her recovery.
Rabbi Pete Tobias discusses the week's news from a faith and ethics perspective and gives the Moment Of Reflection.
Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Hilary Robinson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Elaine Paige talks to Patina Miller in this week's programme.
Patina, the American star of the new West End production of Sister Act, talks to Elaine about her Essential Musicals, which include Sunday In The Park With George, Hair and Spring Awakening.
Presenter/Elaine Paige, Producer/Malcolm Prince
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Brian D'Arcy explores the impact of change and transformation in people's lives – and the world around them – through well-loved hymns and reflections.
This week's featured choir is the Leeds Methodist Choir, directed by Paul Dewhurst. The organist is Thomas Leach and hymns include O Love Divine How Sweet Thou Art and Tis Good Lord To Be Here.
Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Sunday 2 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 23 – Evolution
Sarah Walker introduces a Darwin-inspired, Evolution-themed BBC Proms extravaganza for children and families celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. The Prom includes a world première from drum-and-bass DJ-turned-classical-composer Goldie.
CBBC presenters Gemma Hunt and Barney Harwood host this family Prom inspired by the natural world, with special guest Sir David Attenborough. Mankind is represented in Copland's iconic Fanfare; and the concert ends in a galaxy far, far away with John Williams's unforgettable music for Star Wars.
DJ and drum and bass producer Goldie renews his acquaintance with the BBC Concert Orchestra after last year's conducting competition, Maestro, on BBC Two. This time, however, he's trying his hand as a composer. His Darwin-inspired BBC commission, Sine tempore, is his first work for classical orchestra.
Goldie's musical journey can be followed in Classic Goldie, a two-part series which is on BBC Two on Friday 31 July at 9pm, and Friday 7 August at 9pm.
Presenter/Sarah Walker, Producer/Neil Varley
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
In Darwin's day, before the roar of traffic filled the streets of London, one might just have heard the roar of jungle animals. From medieval times, the city has been home to exotic captive creatures from around the world. Many were presented to Kings and Queens as symbols of Royal power. Others were tortured and killed for the entertainment of a blood-thirsty public.
Richard Foster takes a walk on the wild side and discovers lions in the Tower, an elephant with toothache in The Strand and a camel dancing on London Bridge.
Presenter/Richard Foster, Producer/David Gallagher
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Lucie Skeaping presents a concert of organ music recorded at Stift Zwettl Abbey in Lower Austria. Ton Koopman performs solo works by JS Bach and Spanish composer Pablo Bruna, as well as two concertos by Handel and Haydn, with the orchestral accompaniment provided by Koopman's own ensemble – Amsterdam Baroque.
Stift Zwettl Abbey is part of a sprawling Medieval Cistercian monastery that nestles in the bend of the River Kamp. Over the centuries it has been plundered and rebuilt many times, and it now houses a huge collection of manuscripts and artefacts looked after by the 23 or so monks who live there, and who still manage the surrounding agricultural land, fish farm and vineyards. Each summer, they play host to an annual organ festival, which was the occasion for this recording.
In the second part of the programme, Catherine Bott presents the second of her four features from the Young Artists' Showcase at the 2009 York Early Music Festival.
Presenters/Lucie Skeaping and Catherine Bott, Producer/Les Pratt
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 24 – BBC Symphony Orchestra
Berlioz's spectacular and gargantuan Te Deum sees conductor Susanna Mälkki marshalling vast massed choirs of adults and children, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and organist Simon Preston. At its 1855 Paris première, the work involved almost 1,000 performers. The concert, which is broadcast live from London's Royal Albert Hall, also includes a world première BBC commission, From Trumpet, by young Paris-based British composer Ben Foskett. This is followed by Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.
This Prom is repeated on Friday 7 August at 2.15pm.
Presenter/Penny Gore, Producer/Ann McKay
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
As part of the Proms Literary festival's Victorian season, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion introduces a personal choice of poems by another Poet Laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson. Actress Fiona Shaw performs Andrew's choices, including excerpts from In Memoriam and The Lady Of Shallot, in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music.
Two hundred years after Tennyson's birth in 1809, Andrew Motion talks to Matthew Sweet about the poet being much stranger than originally thought. He was a troubled figure, rhapsodic in his poetry, both antiquated and modern. In his life he was touched by great joy and tragedy, yet he was always willing to grasp the great issues of the Victorian age; history, faith and evolution.
Presenter/Andrew Motion, Producer/James Cook
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Two hundred years after the birth of Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet Ruth Padel investigates who he really was and explores the way in which his legacy is felt today, especially in music, poetry and fiction. In conversation with figures as diverse as poet and former Laureate Andrew Motion; novelists Andrew O'Hagan and Adam Foulds; poet Jo Shapcott; rock musician Dani Filth; and academics Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Angela Leighton, she hears how the figure of Tennyson has been an inspiration to them.
To many people today, Tennyson is an iconic image of the Victorian era. He is known as Queen Victorian's Poet Laureate – an imposing figure with a beard and cape and the author of long poems, often based on myths and legends. But this image hides other facets of Tennyson and obscures the fact that many creative artists today are drawing on his work.
Ruth investigates the real Tennyson behind the image of grandeur – a man whose family members were prone to breakdowns, alcoholism and madness. And she hears how these concerns led to Tennyson's ability to articulate neurosis and loss in his work even though, as Poet Laureate, he became an establishment figure.
Presenter/Ruth Padel, Producer/Emma Kingsley
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Sunday 2 August 2009
This week's castaway is interior designer Nicky Haslam.
Nicky speaks to presenter Kirsty Young about his life and his favourite music and also describes how he thinks he would cope on BBC Radio 4's mythical island.
Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
In Scotland's first Homecoming Year, Sally Magnusson discovers why Scottish genealogy records are some of the best in the world.
Genealogist Nick Barratt unearths misty ancestral tales and clan history queries in a special edition of Tracing Your Roots, recorded at the Strathclyde University International Genealogy Festival in Glasgow.
Presenter/Nick Barratt, Producer/Claire White
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Ruth Ep 1/3
Orphaned just before her 16th birthday, Ruth Hilton is apprenticed by her guardian to the tyrannical Mrs Mason – dressmaker to the gentry – in director Ellen Dryden's adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's controversial novel.
The work is hard and unrelenting. Although Ruth's sewing leaves much to be desired, her striking beauty, modesty and grace prove very useful to her employer.
She is sent to the Grand Ball at the Shire Hall to wait in the ante-chamber to the ballroom, with her sewing kit, ready to do any running repairs to the ladies' dresses. At the ball, Ruth attracts the attention of Mr Bellingham, a handsome, bored, young gentleman with an eye for beauty.
She encounters him again when out on an errand for Mrs Mason, when he dashingly saves a boy from drowning. He recognises Ruth, who had tried, unsuccessfully, to help the boy, and asks her to meet him after church to report on the boy's progress. These Sunday meetings become a regular feature. Mrs Mason always escapes from the workroom on Sundays, leaving the apprentices to make their own arrangements. Ruth, with no family to go to, spends wretched Sundays with little or no food and no fire, even in the depths of winter. Her trysts with Bellingham become the exciting highlight of her week.
Disaster strikes, though, when Mrs Mason sees them together. She dismisses Ruth on the spot and orders her never to come near her establishment again. Bellingham declares his love for Ruth and she shyly admits that she loves him. But she wonders if their love will survive...
Ruth was Mrs Gaskell's second novel and it outraged the public. The cast features Laura Rees as Ruth, Anton Lesser as Benson, Anne Reid as his sister, Faith, Marcia Warren as Sally, Rory Kinnear as Bellingham, David Schofield as Mr Bradshaw and Amy Ewbank as his daughter, Jemima.
Producer/Richard Blake
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet Sean O'Brien explores Ulysses, one of his greatest and best-loved poems, from the singular story of its tragic origins to its many meanings for readers today.
Tennyson's much-loved and frequently anthologised poem has always been a favourite of award-winning poet Sean but he has never fully analysed why.
The poem starts with the Greek hero on the shores of Ithaca, justifying his reasons for leaving his faithful wife, Penelope, once more, to set off and travel again. It ends with the famously rousing lines: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."
Sean sets out to learn more about the poem and its enduring appeal. He hears from Homer scholar Oliver Taplin and Dante scholar Martin McLaughlin about Tennyson's sources for the poem and its surprisingly ambiguous hero, and then learns from Victorian experts Seamus Perry, Robert Douglas Fairhurst and Linda Hughes, about the tragedy in Tennyson's young life that led him to write this poem about an old man, when he was just 24.
This is a poem about bereavement and death but, as poet Vicki Feaver explains, it is also about the personal struggle in everyone between comfort and adventure, between the familiar and the unknown, between accepting life as it is and striving ever onward.
Producer/Beaty Rubens
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Sunday 2 August 2009
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch is at Edgbaston in Birmingham, with live coverage of the fourth day of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia. Alongside Mark, providing expert analysis, are Pat Murphy, Jason Gillespie and Dominic Cork.
There's also regular rugby league updates from Bradford Bulls versus Harlequins and Castleford Tigers versus Hull Kingston Rovers in the Super League.
From 6pm there's live coverage of the final day of the World Swimming Championships in Rome, with Bob Ballard, Steve Parry and Karen Pickering.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Graham McMillan
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Sunday 2 August 2009
Test Match Special
Uninterrupted coverage of the fourth day's play of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia comes live from Edgbaston, Birmingham, with commentary from the Test Match Special team, led by Jonathan Agnew.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Sunday 2 August 2009
Madness singer and Muswell Hill's favourite son Suggs takes over the Month Of Sundays on BBC 6 Music during August. He makes a welcome return to the station as a DJ, having been part of the launch line-up in 2002, playing listeners his favourite tunes and those that have influenced his hugely successful career as a musician.
Suggs and Madness recently performed for 6 Music on an open top bus as part of the Camden Crawl.
Presenter/Suggs, Producer/James Stirling
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Listeners can enjoy Fairport Convention's original vocalist Judy Dyble in conversation with Stuart Maconie on the Freak Zone tonight.
They discuss Judy's career, from the original incarnation of Fairport Convention through to cult acid-folk outfit Trader Horne, via the quirky pre-King Crimson band Giles, Giles And Fripp, on the eve of the release of her new solo album, Talking With Strangers.
Presenter/Stuart Maconie, Producer/Henry Lopez-Real
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Monday 3 August 2009
BBC RADIO 2 Monday 3 August 2009
Zoe Ball sits in for Ken Bruce this week as Simple Minds' front man Jim Kerr reveals his favourite songs in Tracks Of My Years.
Jim's choices include classics from David Bowie, The Pretenders, Grace Jones and The Rolling Stones.
Two more contestants battle it out on PopMaster, and Zoe also presents the regular features for Record and Album Of The Week and the Love Song.
Presenter/Zoe Ball, Producer/Gary Bones
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer, Jack Bruce is Paul Jones's special guest this week.
Jack began his musical career with a cello scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music, he played double bass in dance bands, jazz groups and with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organisation, before accepting Ginger Baker's invitation to join Cream.
Together with Eric Clapton, the trio sold 35 million albums in just over two years. Cream split in 1968, at the height of their popularity, but they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993 and re-formed for a series of live dates in 2005.
Presenter/Paul Jones, Producer/Paul Long
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Dave Pearce's alphabet of disco classics travels from S to V, as Disco Anthems reaches its penultimate edition.
Alongside essential disco tunes from Sister Sledge, Sylvester and The Trammps, Dave digs deep into his record collection to find some other forgotten classics that have influenced modern dance music, including legendary producer Norman Whitfield's tune You+Me+Love, recorded by The Undisputed Truth in 1979.
Presenter/Dave Pearce, Producer/Rowan Collinson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Monday 3 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
BBC Proms Chamber Music 2009
The Belcea Quartet (composed of former members of BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artist scheme) has established itself as one of the most dynamic and engaging string quartets today. In this concert, live from Cadogan Hall, London, they pay homage to two anniversary composers – Haydn and Purcell.
Haydn's Quartet in F sharp minor (Op 50/4) was written in the 1780s while Britten's atmospheric and evocative String Quartet No. 2 was composed in 1945 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell. The finale is an extended set of variations.
This BBC Prom will be repeated on Saturday 8 August at 2pm.
Presenter/Suzy Klein, Producer/Emily Kershaw
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 25 – BBC National Orchestra Of Wales
Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer brings the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to the BBC Proms for the première of a new triple concerto by his Swiss compatriot, Michael Jarrell. Co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3 with the Orchestre de Suisse Romande, Sillages refers to the wake of a ship through water, and, likewise, the trail of orchestral sound left behind by the three woodwind soloists.
The Royal Albert Hall stage then fills with 33 wind players, 36 brass and 20 percussionists to give full dramatic effect to Berlioz's Symphonie funèbre et triomphale. Written to commemorate the fallen heroes of the 1830 revolution, Berlioz himself conducted it with a military band of 200 (though that was for the open air).
Beethoven's Eroica Symphony completes tonight's programme. Initially inspired by his hero Napoleon, directing world events at the forefront of the French revolution, Beethoven baulked at giving it the title Bonaparte when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor, but the idea of celebrating great revolutionary ideals lived on.
This Prom will be repeated on Monday 10 August at 2.00pm
Presenter/Tom Service, Producer/Tim Thorne
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Tonight's Prom by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has two intervals during which BBC Radio 3's Twenty Minutes features two new pieces of writing, recorded on location and exploring features of great significance to the landscape, wildlife and psyche of Wales – hills.
In the first interval, Horatio Clare climbs from the bottom (where his mother now lives) to the top of the hill in Cwmdu, in the Black Mountains where he grew up on a sheep farm. As he climbs, he describes the geology, flora and fauna of this wild place. Horatio also tells the stories of local people and reflects on how the hill formed him.
In the second piece, painter and writer Osi Rhys Osmond walks around and up Mynydd Machen, to where spoil from the Risca colliery was hauled more than 1,000ft up, then dumped. His piece is about how, as the coal industry disappeared, many such tips were flattened in a three-dimensional air-brushing of history, or perhaps because they were too painful a memory. But some were fought for and have remained. He reflects on how the Mynydd Machen tip is being reclaimed by plants, animals and birds – and by people too.
Presenters/Horatio Clare and Osi Rhys Osmond, Producer/Julian May
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Swiss composer Michael Jarrell discusses his new BBC Radio 3 co-commission Sillages and introduces performances of some of his chamber works by students from the Royal Northern College Of Music.
This programme was recorded earlier this evening at the Royal College Of Music.
Presenter/Tom Service, Producer/Brian Jackson
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of poet Alfred Tennyson, who was born on 6 August 1809, four contemporary British poets each choose a single poem or extract from Tennyson, and give a personal account of why it means so much to them. Actor Simon Russell Beale delivers powerful new readings of the poems.
In tonight's programme, Vicki Feaver looks at Ulysses. Tennyson's long poem is about the aged hero of Greek myth, driven to travel onwards even after reaching his home on Ithaca and his long-suffering wife Penelope.
Tennyson was only 24 when he wrote it, soon after hearing of the death of his dear friend Arthur Hallam, but Vicki Feaver believes the poem is about far more than physical travel or coping with grief. For her, Ulysses is about the need of the artist always to move forward – not, in her case, to succumb to benign pressure to tend her garden or be a good grandmother but to pursue her art and to follow Tennyson's rallying cry "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield".
Later in the week, the series features Brian Pattern on Come Into The Garden Maud; Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis on The Kraken; and Kit Wright on Tears, Idle Tears.
Presenter/Vicki Feaver, Producer/Beaty Rubens
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Jez Nelson presents another chance to hear Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson's trio, recorded at the Royal Northern College of Music in October last year.
The trio play music from their album Cantando, including compositions by Spanish tango master Astor Piazzolla and British baroque composer Henry Purcell. Joining Stenson on stage are Anders Jormin on bass and Jon Falt on drums.
Bobo was born in Stockholm in 1944 and has built a reputation as a highly regarded figure with a distinctly European sound. His 38-year relationship with leading jazz label ECM has produced a number of piano trio albums, often drawing inspiration from folk and classical music.
Presenter/Jez Nelson, Producer/Peggy Sutton
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Monday 3 August 2009
Book Of The Week –
Muriel Spark: The Biography Ep 1/5
Born in 1918 into a working-class Edinburgh family, Muriel Spark went on to become the epitome of literary chic.
In 1992, Spark invited Martin Stannard to write her biography, offering interviews and full access to her papers. The result is a compelling portrait of an extraordinary life.
She presented the first 39 years of her life in her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae, politely blurring the intensity of her darker moments: her relations with her brother, mother, son and husband; a terrifying period of hallucinations and subsequent depression; and disastrously misplaced love.
After a difficult marriage – entered into at the age of 19 – and subsequent period of struggle as a poet and critic, it wasn't until she converted to Roman Catholicism in early middle age that Spark began to write novels. Yet she firmly believed from a very early age that she was a writer.
Her first novel, The Comforters, was published in 1954. Seven years and four novels later, she'd gained wide-spread literary acclaim with The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. That book's adaptation into a successful stage play and film, marked Spark's full transition into international celebrity and, from that point, she went to live in New York, then Rome and finally Tuscany where for more than 30 years, until her death in 2006, she shared a house with her companion, the artist Penelope Jardine.
Producer/Kirsteen Cameron
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Woman's Hour Drama – Villette Ep 1/10
Poor and alone, Lucy Snowe is something of a misfit, deeply private – an outsider. All she has is her imagination and her ever-watchful eye. Although terrified, she is witty, passionate and strong-willed.
With neither friends nor family, Lucy escapes England to make her way as a teacher in the fictional French town of Villette. But her struggle for independence is soon overshadowed by her friendship with a charismatic English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster. Charlotte Bronte's modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society whom she can trust with love.
Through Lucy, we meet the rather mysterious owner of the school, Madame Beck, who is always lurking in the shadows; the pretty but vain student, Ginevra; the handsome doctor whom everyone, including Lucy, adores; and the enigmatic master at the school, Monsieur Paul.
Based on Bronte's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels, Villette is celebrated for its dramatic plot and its aching depiction of what it is to be an outsider.
Adapted by Rachel Joyce, Villette stars Anna Maxwell Martin as Lucy. Also in the cast are Sam Dale, Joan Walker, Benjamin Askew, Lizzy Watts and Nell Venables.
Producer/Tracey Neale
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Afternoon Play –
Forty Three, Fifty Nine: Assassins
Rob Jarvis plays Henry, a professional killer sent to Hastings to assassinate a hedge-fund manager in Mike Walker's Forty Three, Fifty Nine, one of an occasional series of BBC Radio 4 dramas which follow one-person's perspective in a single, continuous take, lasting 43 minutes and 59 seconds. Assassins is the third such drama to be broadcast on Radio 4 with two more to come later in the year.
A professional killer with a lifetime of experience, Henry has brought his daughter Cathy along, whom he hopes will one day take over the family business. But all is not right in Henry's mind and what should be a routine job spirals out of control. Henry is having some sort of breakdown, keeps forgetting important things and seems unable to cope when his carefully laid plans go wrong. And Cathy is never around when he needs her. The play follows Henry during the most critical 43 minutes and 59 seconds of his life.
Rob Jarvis plays Henry, Nicholas Farrell plays Bryant, Emily Beecham plays Angela and Meghan Haggerty plays Cathy.
Producer/John Dryden
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
The Romantic Road –
On The Trail Of The German Philosophers Ep 1/5
The Romantic Road embarks on a journey through some of the German cities where the great philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries lived and worked.
It explores the impact that these thinkers have had on each stage of one man's life. From the early romanticism of student days in Germany, via Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, to Ernst Bloch's philosophy of hope and the Kantian responsibilities of parenthood; poet, playwright, and translator Stephen Plaice's series illustrates the power of philosophy to shape personal experience.
Along the way, the series reflects on the Germany which has been locked away behind the two world wars, and examines our contemporary prejudices towards the Germans.
Each episode focuses on a different German city, beginning in the old Prussian capital of Königsberg, now part of Russia, where Kant lived his entire life, and ending in the revitalised capital of modern Germany, Berlin, where the writer discovers, following Hegel's historical dialectic, that the old oppositions of the Cold War have been turned into tourist entertainment.
Presenter/Stephen Plaice, Producer/Chris Wilson
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Benjamin Jealous is the new leader of America's oldest and largest civil rights organisation, the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People. He joins an organisation that begins its 100th year with a funding crisis, an image crisis and dwindling membership.
At 35, Benjamin Jealous is the youngest leader the NAACP has ever selected. He plans to drag the organisation into the 21st century, encouraging new members to use technology to document discrimination, force change and turn the organisation back into the political powerhouse of its prime.
For Benjamin there is still a lot more work to be done. "We came of age just in time to find that our generation had become the most incarcerated people on the planet. People are going to look back and ask, what did you do about it?" he says.
As the organisation gears up for its centennial convention, Guardian journalist Gary Younge talks to Benjamin Jealous and asks whether America still needs the NAACP.
Presenter/Gary Younge, Producer/Barney Rowntree
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
The world's supply of silicon chips relies on a single mining town in North Carolina. Sue Nelson sheds light on the little-known industry operating in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Silicon is the second most common element in the Earth's crust. It's in our mountains and forms the miles of sand on our beaches. But despite this abundance, the world's supply of silicon chips relies on a single mining town in North Carolina.
That's because the small community of Spruce Pine is home to the purest quartz on Earth – and it's essential for making the chips that run every computer, digital radio, washing machine and microwave on the planet.
This uniquely pure mineral is destined to form the mixing bowls and tools that make the manufacture of silicon chips possible. If the quartz is contaminated, then it's useless. But by a stroke of geological luck these rocks, formed in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, are just perfect. Without them, microchip development as we know it would grind to a halt.
Such technologically crucial materials don't come cheap. And with such huge mineral wealth on their doorstep, the residents of Spruce Pine are sitting on a real-life "big rock candy mountain". Mining is the backbone of the local economy and has shaped the area's history, storytelling and bluegrass culture.
But as new quartz deposits are discovered in countries such as Norway, the programme asks whether Spruce Pine's reign could be over.
Chips With Everything meets the locals of this Mitchell County town and digs beneath the surface of this strategically important mineral.
Producer/Fiona Roberts
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Monday 3 August 2009
Mark Radcliffe sits in for Simon Mayo this week, with all the latest news, sport, reviews and in-depth interviews with special guests throughout the week.
Presenter/Mark Radcliffe, Producer/Robin Bulloch
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
Mark Pougatch presents 5 Live Sport live from Edgbaston, Birmingham, with Jonathan Agnew and Geoff Boycott from 7pm as they review the final day's play of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia.
From 8pm, Kelly Cates is joined by special guests for the Monday Night Club discussing the latest football news, debate and banter.
Presenters/Mark Pougatch and Kelly Cates, Producer/Francesca Bent
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Monday 3 August 2009
Test Match Special
Led by Jonathan Agnew, live from Edgbaston cricket ground, the TMS team present uninterrupted coverage of the final day's play in the third Ashes Test between England and Australia.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Monday 3 August 2009
BBC Scotland's Vic Galloway steps into Marc Riley's size nines, while he is on his holidays. The first live session of the week is from Scottish band Findo Gask, comprising Gerard Black on vocals, keyboards and guitar; Gregory Williams on bass, keyboards, guitar and vocals; Gavin Thomson on keyboards, vocals, bass and trumpet; and Michael Marshall on drums, guitar, keyboards and viola.
Findo Gask released their debut, a 12" for Oscarr, the label run by Glasgow's Sunday night mash-up Optimo, last December, they have played with Franz Ferdinand and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy. They tell Vic what they're up to and play him a sample of their work.
Presenter/Vic Galloway, Producer/Michelle Choudhry
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe delves deep into the archive for a selection of Pink Floyd tracks from their Echoes album, recorded at the Paris Theatre in 1971; and for a set by acoustic-electronic whizz Tom Vek at Summer Sundae in 2005.
Gideon's choice of archive session tracks come from tweenie-trio Kitty, Daisy and Lewis; the avant garde Beth Jeans Houghton; the not-extinct Dodos; and The Visitors taken from John Peel's session archive.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Monday 3 August 2009
Key players and political insiders from both sides tell the story of Iran's relationship with the West over the last 30 years in this three-part documentary.
Today's concluding episode examines the inside story of Iran's confrontations with the West over its nuclear ambitions. The rise of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the consequences of 9/11 and the increasingly delicate negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme are recounted in telling detail by the leading political players of the time – John Bolton, Jack Straw, President Putin, President Mohammad Khatami, Condoleezza Rice and Ali Larijani.
Producer/Norma Percy
BBC World Service Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Tuesday 4 August 2009
BBC 1XTRA Tuesday 4 August 2009
Mistajam – Live From Ayia Napa
During the first week of August, BBC 1Xtra's Mistajam broadcasts live from one of the summer's best party destinations, Ayia Napa.
Live from the Villa 1Xtra, Mistajam brings listeners the biggest Napa anthems, guest DJ mixes, artist acoustic moments as well as the usual mix of the best in black music.
Mistajam is joined by fellow 1Xtra DJs throughout the week – including DJ Cameo, who broadcasts his UK garage show live on 4 August, and DJ Target's Closing Party, which is broadcast live on 8 August.
1Xtra Breakfast Show presenter Gemma also reports from Ayia Napa into the daytime shows throughout the week, and updates listeners with all the happenings from Villa 1Xtra as well as bringing her own unique take on what's hot and what's not in Napa.
Presenter/Mistajam
BBC 1Xtra Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Tuesday 4 August 2009
Playwright and director Kwame Kwei-Armah tells the story of playwright Thomas "Tennessee" Williams, exploring the creative influence of his childhood home.
Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1911 and spent a great deal of his childhood in Clarksdale, living in the church rectory with his grandparents, mother and sister, while his travelling salesman father was largely absent.
The rich heritage of his religious upbringing in the Deep South has influenced his plays. Many refer to actual places in Coahoma County and some of his most famous characters – Blanche, Brick, Baby Doll, Stella and Amanda Wingfield – are named after real-life Clarksdale residents.
The Annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival was established in 1993 to celebrate both his talent and the cultural heritage immortalised in dramas like The Glass Menagerie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar Named Desire and Orpheus Descending. The Clarksdale festival is held in mid October and plays are performed on porches and in venues, offering an authentic backdrop to the action.
Contributors include residents of Clarkesdale; aficionados of Tennessee Williams's work; the American musician Charlie Musselwhite; and some of the actors who have taken on his characters, including Brenda Blethyn.
Presenter/Kwame Kwei-Armah, Producer/Carmel Lonergan
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Marc Riley dips into the BBC's archives once again and unearths another seminal interview, as he continues his journey in the Musical Time Machine.
This evening, he transports listeners back to 1977 – the year that Elvis Presley died, EMI fired The Sex Pistols and Star Wars fever hit Britain.
It was also the year that John Tobler spoke to Debbie Harry and Chris Stein just before Blondie broke in the UK with the release of Denis. The programme features uncut extracts from an interview that was broadcast on BBC Radio 1's Rock On show on 5 November 1977.
Debbie and Chris discuss the early bands they were in, the New York scene, meeting Phil Spector and their disgust at a Donna Summer record.
Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Ian Callaghan
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Tuesday 4 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 26 – BBC National Orchestra Of Wales
Felix Mendelssohn features as one of BBC Radio 3's four Composers Of The Year and tonight's BBC Prom brings together two works from opposite ends of his life – his early first symphony, written when he was only 15, and his lyrical violin concerto. The featured soloist is the exciting German violinist Isabelle Faust, who makes her BBC Proms debut.
Principal conductor Thierry Fischer and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales also perform music by the distinguished Swiss composer Heinz Holliger. (S)irató is an anguished lament for Holliger's Hungarian teacher Sándor Veress, to whom the piece is dedicated. Fragments of Hungarian folk songs – collected by Bartók – revolve around a slowly evolving mass of orchestral sound. There's even a part for that most Hungarian of instruments, the cimbalom.
Finally, Prokofiev's ballet score for Romeo And Juliet reveals all the intimacy, tragedy and tenderness of Shakespeare's drama, as heard in this suite, selected by tonight's conductor.
This Prom will be repeated on Tuesday 11 August at 2.30pm.
Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Tim Thorne
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
As part of the Proms Literary Festival Victorian season, Matthew Sweet is joined by Roy Hattersley and Valentine Cunningham at the Royal College Of Music to champion the Victorian novel in all its forms. From the elegance of Jane Austen and the thrilling sensation novels of Wilkie Collins, to the stately realism of George Eliot and the bleakness of Thomas Hardy, the Victorian novel is a treasure trove of literary riches.
Roy and Valentine argue that these should still be seen as pinnacles of English literature and their mix of character, social upheaval, storytelling, melodrama, malign fate and high style suffuse a commitment to portray the whole of life that is as relevant today as it ever has been.
Tonight's programme was recorded in front of an audience earlier today at the Royal College Of Music.
Presenter/Matthew Sweet, Producer/James Cook
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Norman Lebrecht talks to Michael Kaiser this week, as he continues his series of interviews. Known as "the turnaround king" of performing arts, Kaiser has saved numerous artistic organisations from closure. The American describes himself as "very gloomy" about the effect of the current economic situation on the creative world and says a lot more damage will be done to many more artistic companies by the recession.
Advocating spending more money on the arts in a time of economic difficulty, he also reflects on the turbulent years he spent rebuilding the Royal Opera House over a decade ago, on how he struggled to get the support of the New Labour government and how his time working in Britain was the biggest challenge of his career.
Presenter/Norman Lebrecht, Producer/Jeremy Evans
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 27 – London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta and Sir Harrison Birtwistle have formed a close bond over the last four decades. Under the baton of their co-founder, David Atherton, they revisit three of the composer's early works – all of which the ensemble originally premièred – in tonight's BBC Prom, live from London's Royal Albert Hall.
One of the themes of this year's season is 1934, England At The Crossroads, the year Birtwistle was born, and a turning point for British music in the 20th century.
Verses For Ensemble showcases the virtuosity of the ensemble with brass, wind and percussion all vying for the listener's attention. In Silbury Air and Carmen arcadiae mechanicae perpetuum, Birtwistle explores the mysterious and the mechanical with imaginary landscapes and colliding musical ideas.
Presenter/Verity Sharp, Producer/Tom Nelson
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Tuesday 4 August 2009
For 40 years it was the mythical flagship of Frenchman Jacques Cousteau. Now with restoration underway on the Calypso, Nick Haslam sets out to re-evaluate the legendary yet highly controversial French underwater explorer – shedding light on the bitter battle over Cousteau's legacy and his boat.
A pioneer of nature documentaries, Cousteau's series, The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau, had an enormous impact on the Seventies. The films of sea-life, coupled with Cousteau's natural history lectures, are credited with spawning the environmental movement but, according to Cousteau, the real star was always the Calypso, acting as a kind of running theme.
The scene of Cousteau's greatest triumphs, the Calypso, is, and always has been, really, run by women. Behind the scenes it was Simone rather than Jacques who held the reins, selling her jewellery to pay for fuel when money was tight. But, unknown to the crew, Jacques had another life and other children by an air stewardess called Francine – who now owns the Calypso, which sunk in Singapore harbour months before Cousteau's death.
The programme features contributions from Jean Michael Cousteau, Jan Cousteau and men of the Calypso – Albert Falco, Jacques Renoir, Bernard Delemotte and Ted Turner.
Presenter/Nick Haslam, Producer/Emily Williams
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Aled Jones tells the curious story of composer Carlo Gesualdo – Third Prince of Venosa, Eighth Duke of Gesualdo – who was the primary suspect for the murder of his wife and her lover.
As the programme explores the strange values of four centuries ago, it is tempting to see a relationship between the double murder, for which he was famed throughout Italy, and his music. Yet as Gesualdo's biographer Glenn Watkins states, it was the custom in Italy for a man to uphold his family's honour.
A visit to Gesualdo's castle, currently being restored, takes listeners to the scene of his country retreat. But the biggest key to his state of mind is, perhaps, his music. Gerald Place and the fellow singers of the Gesualdo Consort demonstrate some of the music's beauty, and intrinsic peculiarity, as the composer sets up extraordinary difficulties of pitch and intonation. Singing about the torments of love, and about death, listeners perhaps see a parallel between his art and his life.
The merits of Gesualdo's writing have been hotly contested over the centuries, but he is now being appreciated as a composer of great skill – as well as one of a highly complex, yet fascinating character.
Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Geoff Ballinger
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Great Lives Ep 1/9
Matthew Parris returns with a new series of BBC Radio 4's biography programme, Great Lives, as he challenges nine new guests to argue the case for their heroes.
In today's opener, which forms part of the celebration of the bicentenary of Tennyson's birth, Andrew Motion argues for Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Ann Thwaite provides the details on a frequently troubled life, while Matthew finds himself surprisingly won over by the great Victorian's solemn style.
Further programmes in the series include David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, on Joe Slovo, the Jewish barrister who became a leading member of the ANC; Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy on Freya Stark; George Galloway on John Cornford, a poet killed in the Spanish Civil War; and Boris Johnson on Samuel Johnson.
Presenter/Matthew Parris, Producer/Miles Warde
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Matthew Hill explores the ties between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, in Rewriting The Psychiatrist's Bible.
The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Health Disorders (DSM) is currently being revised. It has a huge influence, not only in the United States where it is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), but globally. In Britain, most psychiatrists would not get their work published if they did not follow the DSM diagnostic guidelines.
Panellists are selected by the APA. Its critics say the manual provides an invaluable service for the drug industry by defining new conditions for which new drugs can be marketed. Previous editions have been heavily criticised for a lack of transparency between the panel members and pharmaceutical companies. But the last edition was published in the Nineties and the APA says that things have changed since then and that this time it will be different. Members of the panel have to declare their interests and there is a limit to the amount they can earn from outside interests.
Also under review is the "Chinese Menu" aspect of its diagnostic criteria and the sheer number of conditions it includes. Many British psychiatrists are concerned about the prospect of bipolar disease in children being added to the next edition – not least because the drugs used to treat the disorder have serious side effects.
For the fifth edition, new conditions under consideration include shopping addiction, internet addiction and sex addiction.
Rewriting The Psychiatrist's Bible investigates whether the APA's new transparency policy goes far enough and whether real conditions are being medicalised or just traits of human personality.
Presenter/Matthew Hill, Producer/Geraldine Fitzgerald
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Tuesday 4 August 2009
5 Live Sport
George Riley presents all the day's sports news and, from 7.45pm, listeners can hear live commentary the of Uefa Champions League third qualifying round, second-leg matches involving British teams.
Presenter/George Riley, Producer/Mark Williams
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Tuesday 4 August 2009
Richard Williams joins Cerys Matthews this week and tells the story of the making of Miles Davis's most celebrated album in his new book The Blue Moment, which has been published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the album's release.
Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Classic country-rockers The Band are in concert for Gideon Coe this evening, and listeners can hear highlights from The Good, The Bad And The Queen's 2006 show at London's Roundhouse.
The archive session tracks come from Moondogs, The Acorn, Yellow Moon Band and "freak folk" outfit Vetiver recorded in the 6 Music Hub last year.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Wednesday 5 August 2009
BBC RADIO 2 Wednesday 5 August 2009
Paul Brady, Lucinda Williams, Eddi Reader and Cara Dillon are among the performers at this year's Cambridge Folk Festival, one of the highlights of the summer for fans of folk music.
Mike Harding presents an hour of highlights with some of the best music from the festival as well as interviews with some of the main-stage artists.
The festival's bill this year includes The Waterson Family, Martin Simpson, Bellowhead and Buffy Sainte-Marie, among many other top names from the world of folk.
Mike Harding says: "The line-up for the Cambridge Folk Festival this year is tremendous, as always. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Paul Brady, Bella Hardy and a new collaboration between three of Ireland's great traditional musicians – Mairtin O'Connor, Cathal Hayden and Seamie O'Dowd. It is also great to see the young talent we've showcased on my show at the festival and the current holders of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, Megan and Joe Henwood, are also on the bill – that makes me feel very proud."
Extensive online coverage of the festival can be found at bbc.co.uk/radio2.
Presenter/Mike Harding, Producer/Kellie While
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Wednesday 5 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 28 – BBC Philharmonic
The first of two consecutive BBC Prom concerts with the BBC Philharmonic under the baton of their Chief Conductor Gianandrea Noseda, comes live from London's Royal Albert Hall.
Joining them is the brilliant young Scottish bassoonist Karen Geoghegan, who makes her BBC Proms debut with Mozart's concerto, written when he was just 18. Continuing the Proms survey of the complete Stravinsky ballets, the concert also features his Scènes de ballet, commissioned for a 1944 Broadway revue. The concert ends with Mahler's powerful and perhaps prophetically tragic Sixth Symphony, a record of one man's heroic struggle against the repeated hammer-blows of fate.
This Prom is repeated on Thursday 13 August at 2.30pm.
Presenter/Rob Cowan, Producer/Mike George
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Wednesday 5 August 2009
Between Ourselves Ep 1/6
Olivia O'Leary returns with a new series of the programme which brings together people with similar experiences.
The first programme looks at people who have become stand-up comics. Shazia Mirza is one of Britain's first Muslim stand-ups, however, her parents wanted her to have a more "respectable" job, so she finished her bio-chemistry degree and became a teacher. She only told her parents that she was doing stand-up the night before she appeared on the television comedy quiz show, Have I Got News For You.
Paul Sinha's family were keen for him to study the sciences and he became a GP. For years his stand-up comedy was a hobby until success at the Edinburgh Festival propelled him into the spotlight.
Olivia asks how these comedians got into stand-up and whether being Muslim, Asian or gay is a help or a hindrance.
Forthcoming topics of programmes in the series include injured soldiers, chefs, barristers and columnists.
Presenter/Olivia O'Leary, Producers/Sara Conkey and Karen Gregor
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Very Amazing – Behind The Scenes At The V&A Ep 1/5
Rosie Goldsmith gains exclusive behind-the-scenes access to London's Victoria And Albert Museum as it attempts to transform itself into a modern museum.
The V&A is changing: by the Nineties, the museum had lost its way; with declining visitor numbers, and in the shadow of the success of Tate Modern, critics were beginning to question the point of the V&A. However, after a £120m investment and as the museum celebrates its 150th anniversary, it has been remodelled and revamped under a 10-year programme of modernisation called "Futureplan".
In the first programme, Rosie looks at the role fashion has had in the new-look V&A; attending a "Fashion in Motion" catwalk show and a "Friday Late" event featuring fashion-related workshops, complete with a DJ and bar. Rosie discovers the strategy behind the V&A's new image, which has included exhibitions on Vivienne Westwood and Kylie Minogue.
Contributors include designer Paul Smith, milliner Stephen Jones, art critic Brian Sewell, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Sir Terence Conran and design commentator Stephen Bailey.
Presenter/Rosie Goldsmith, Producer/Eve Streeter
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Sony Award-winning writer Richard Monks's Afternoon Play tells how an African musician makes his way to England and plays one last concert in an extraordinary setting.
The Tower is a motorway service station, long past its best and in danger of being closed down. Eva is saving money to train as a nurse and send money back to her family in Romania. Working as a cleaner at the service station she comes across Mashama who has crossed the channel in one of the lorries in the car park and agrees to hide him from the authorities. Mashama is a refugee from Zimbabwe; his wife and daughter have been killed and his only possession is an m'bira (an African musical instrument).
But Eva's sheltering of Mashama places her in danger and both of them begin to reflect upon why they have left their respective countries...
Lucian Msamati plays Mashama with Cristina Catalina playing Eva. Carol is played by Lorraine Ashbourne, Stephen Hogan plays the role of Neil and John Lightbody plays Martin Crosby. The m'bira is played by Manuel Jiminez.
Producer/Sally Avens
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
The Odd Half Hour Ep 1/4
Returning for a second series, The Odd Half Hour is the show that looks at that pains of modern life – big and small – with sketches and songs from leading comic talents.
The series stars Stephen K Amos; Jason Byrne; and comic actors Justin Edwards and Katherine Parkinson. It is written by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris; Simon Evans; Justin Edwards; Madeleine Brettingham; Paul Jones and Simon Ounsworth; and Stuart Beale.
Producer/Alex Walsh Taylor
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Andrew Luck-Baker examines whether or not science can stop the new upsurge in the slaughter of African elephants for the booming illegal international trade in ivory.
Twenty years after its ban in 1989, the international ivory trade has rebounded to disturbingly high levels – threatening once more the survival of the elephant across Africa. The renewed levels of poaching have been fuelled by the demand for ivory goods in China and Japan.
Professor Sam Wasser at the University of Washington in Seattle has developed a geographic DNA fingerprinting technique for ivory. His team can extract DNA from ivory samples then compare the genetic signature with those from an Africa-wide database they have compiled. The genes for this genetic map come from hundreds of elephant dung samples which continue to be collected all over Africa.
Andrew speaks to Professor Wasser and officials at Interpol about some of their recent revelations and investigations. The genetic studies are beginning to shed light on the ivory traffickers operations and subsequent insights suggest where it will be most effective to focus law-enforcement efforts.
Other contributors to the programme include elephant research pioneer Cynthia Moss and officials at the government-run Kenya Wildlife Service.
Presenter and Producer/Andrew Luck-Baker
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Wednesday 5 August 2009
George Riley presents the day's sports news and, from 9pm, is joined by Iain Carter for 5 Live Golf.
Presenter/George Riley, Producer/Steve Rudge
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Wednesday 5 August 2009
Vic Galloway is sitting in for Marc Riley and welcomes Player Piano into the studio for a live session.
Player Piano is the nom de plume of Indiana-born, London-bred Jeremy Radway. A talented musician and studio engineer, Jeremy plays all the instruments on all of his recordings – drums, guitar, keys, vocals and handclaps. Jeremy comes in to play his current single Into The Dark for listeners and tell Vic what he's up to.
Presenter/Vic Galloway, Producer/Michelle Choudhry
BBC 6 Music Publicity
New Yorkers Television and New Zealanders The Triffids are Gideon Coe's archive concert choices. Archive sessions are provided by soundtrack remix specialists Tortoise, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Jesus Licks and one of 2009's breakthrough bands, Animal Collective.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Thursday 6 August 2009
BBC RADIO 2 Thursday 6 August 2009
American roots singer-songwriter Carrie Elkin joins Bob Harris on his Country show this week.
Having moved around the United States for several years creating a following in places like Cleveland, Athens, Taos, Steamboat Springs, Colorado Springs and Boston, Carrie finally settled in Austin, Texas, in 2007. She's now become a familiar part of the city's live music community, collaborating with musicians on the alternative scene including her producer Colin Brooks – a member of one of Bob's recent session bands, The Band Of Heathens.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Thursday 6 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 29 – BBC Philharmonic
The BBC Philharmonic's Italian-born Chief Conductor Gianandrea Noseda pays tribute to his native land – and continues the BBC Proms cycle of Mendelssohn symphonies – with the sun-drenched work that the 21-year-old Mendelssohn composed while holidaying in Rome, his Symphony No. 4 in A major.
Inspired by his own student days in Rome, Peter Maxwell Davies's palindromically entitled Roma amor is a serenade to the city, and the first of a cycle of Respighi's Roman trilogy over three consecutive nights begins with his vivid tableaux celebrating the capital's famous pines. American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux joins the orchestra for Rossini's operatic retelling of the Cinderella story – his third stage work for Rome's Teatro Valle.
This Prom will be repeated on Friday 14 August at 2.30pm.
Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Mike George
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Thursday 6 August 2009
Fifty years after the publication of Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar, writer Blake Morrison goes in search of the world it evokes – the story of a frustrated young man in a Northern town, who escapes from reality into vivid fantasies of power and glory.
Blake travels to Leeds, where he traces two stories – that of Billy, who dreams of going to London but never makes it; and his creator, Keith, who did leave and found the kind of success that Billy can only imagine. Walking around the city with his friend Dr Richard Brown, Blake uncovers tales of Keith's life there and how it overlaps with Billy's story.
During the programme, long-term residents and local historians point out the site of the undertakers-cum-estate agents where Keith and Billy worked and the dance hall where Billy and Keith went to meet girls. They reflect on how the society depicted in the novel has changed in 50 years – and how the city has changed as well.
Contributors to the programme include novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, comedian Barry Cryer and Sir Gerald Kaufman MP.
Presenter/Blake Morrison, Producer/Kate Taylor
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
When Nat reveals she hears voices in her head, people around her panic and her life spirals out of control, in today's Afternoon Play. A sympathetic teacher then helps to unlock the obsessive musical way Nat thinks, which is the gift behind her "voices".
Nat is withdrawn and unresponsive and, when she explains what is in her head, her world fills up with concerned professionals and anxious adults worried about her mental health. As pressure builds, Nat feels increasingly unheard and undermined and the voices in her head become discordant and menacing.
She is put on medication which seems to work as the voices stop. But in the silence, Nat's spirit is dulled, she decides she doesn't like the silence and stops the medication. With the help of the supply music teacher, Nat begins the process of finding ways to express what she experiences in her head and control the voices.
The role of Nat is played by Rebecca Ryan, with Elizabeth Berrington playing Miss Davies. Jamil Thomas plays Mix, Wunmi Mosaku plays Shanice, Sue Devaney plays Jane, David Fleeshman plays Paul/head teacher, Jonathan Scott plays the pianist and Emma Johnson is the voice in Nat's Head.
This play is a collaboration between writer Debbie Oates and musician/composer Carol Donaldson. The songs are performed by Chorlton High School, Manchester, and the Royal Northern College of Music Gospel Choir.
Producer/Nadia Molinari
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Thursday 6 August 2009
5 Live Sport
Arlo White is live from Headingley to preview the fourth Ashes Test between England and Australia, which starts tomorrow.
From 8pm, on the Phil Tufnell Cricket Show, Tuffers is joined by special guests to discuss the latest news from the Ashes series.
At 9pm, listeners can enjoy 5 Live Sport's regular look at the latest moves and gossip from the football transfer market, in Window Shopping.
Presenters/Arlo White and Darren Fletcher, Producer/Alex Rice
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Thursday 6 August 2009
Seventies folk super-group Pentangle are in concert alongside Liverpuddlians The Coral, in acoustic mode at last year's Summer Sundae festival.
Gideon Coe also brings listeners some more laid-back vibes from BBC 6 Music's archive session artists, including the multi-faceted North Sea Radio Orchestra, Quickspace, The Voluntary Butler Scheme and the not-as-fierce-as-they-sound Grizzly Bear.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 31: Friday 7 August 2009
BBC RADIO 1 Friday 7 August 2009
BBC Radio 1 In Ibiza
BBC Radio 1 continues to bring the party from Ibiza to the UK this weekend. Judge Jules broadcasts, live, from the Café Mambo radio studio, between 11pm and 1am.
Then, from 1am to 5am, there is an exclusive, extended, Ibiza Essential Mix, playing highlights from the previous week's Cream @ Privilege party, recorded on BBC Radio 1's Ibiza Weekend, featuring 2 Many DJs, Annie Mac, Laidback Luke and Eric Prydz.
BBC Radio 1 Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Friday 7 August 2009
In a collection of programmes, six well-known figures each choose their favourite movie which they review with the assistance of expert contributors.
In this fourth programme, Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp chooses landmark martial arts film Enter The Dragon. It was the first kung-fu film to have been made by a major Hollywood studio and paved the way for the genre of films which have developed into supernatural modern legends such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Enter The Dragon is largely set in Hong Kong in the Eighties, "an impossible place" in the mind of the young Kemp. The film called on the best stunt men in town, the "Seven Little Fortunes", including Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
Producers/Kate Bland and Susan Marling
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Friday 7 August 2009
BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 30 – The BBC Symphony Orchestra
Oliver Knussen, the BBC Symphony Orchestra's new Artist-in-Association, conducts tonight's programme, live, from the Royal Albert Hall. The programme includes: Stravinsky's 1936 ballet, Jeu de cartes; Respighi's Fountains Of Rome; and Balakirev's Oriental Fantasy.
Knussen's own thrilling Horn Concerto also features as well as the first Proms performance of Virga, Helen Grime's dramatic evocation of the electric atmosphere before a storm.
This Prom is repeated on Wednesday 12 August at 2.15pm.
Presenter/Andrew McGregor, Producer/Ann McKay
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Friday 7 August 2009
Chairman Eric Robson is joined this week by panellists John Cushnie, Bunny Guinness and Matt Biggs in meeting members of Brightlingsea Garden Club. Winner of the 2006 Britain in Bloom Award, Brightlingsea has a reputation to uphold.
Also in the programme, Bunny Guinness investigates how Brian Wickenden of St Osyth came to develop a National Collection of Corydalis. She uncovers how this garden acquired its status and what is involved in its maintenance.
Presenter/Eric Robson, Producer/Lucy Dichmont
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Friday 7 August 2009
5 Live Sport
Darren Fletcher presents the Weekend Preview Show with a look ahead to the start of the football season, with the opening matches in the Football League plus Sunday's Community Shield as Chelsea take on Manchester United at Wembley. There is also a review of the opening day's play of the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley.
From 8pm, there's live commentary of the opening game of the Championship season, as recently relegated Middlesbrough meet Sheffield United at the Riverside.
Presenter/Darren Fletcher, Producer/Adrian Williams
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Friday 7 August 2009
Test Match Special
The Test Match Special team, led by Jonathan Agnew, present live, uninterrupted coverage of the opening day's play of the fourth Ashes Test between England and Australia from Headlingley.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Friday 7 August 2009
British four-piece Wild Beasts join Cerys Matthews to play a live session in the BBC 6 Music Hub.
Wild Beasts originated in Kendal in 2002. The band, whose front man, Haden Thorpe, has a distinctive, falsetto, voice, have just released their second album, Two Dancers. They interrupt their busy festival schedule to talk to Cerys and play some tracks from the new album.
Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Rock trio Blanco Diablo join Bruce Dickinson on tonight's Rock Show.
As a relatively new band on the scene, Blanco Diablo have impressed with their distinctive sound and intense soulful bluesy style. Following on from their début album, Paper Poison Revolution, they have just released their new record, Killing Kings, and have performed all around the UK.
They talk about working with Grammy-nominated producer Chris Tsangarides, who has worked with Anvil and Bruce Dickinson.
Presenter/Bruce Dickinson, Producer/Ian Callaghan
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Friday 7 August 2009
Six documentary makers from around the world have produced documentaries which provide a very different local perspective on the theme of islands.
In today's concluding programme, Traffic Islands explores the stories and experiences of people in the United States whose lives interact with urban islands – roadsides, street corners and the traffic islands that intersect streetscapes.
Among the stories featured in Traffic Islands is the scientist trying to work out how many species of ant live on the traffic islands on Broadway, one of New York City's most famous streets, and the solitary homeless man who makes a living on the street corner, trying to catch the attention of the human traffic in Washington DC.
The documentary also meets the Maryland family who use the roadside as a place to create a memorial to a lost son, killed in a car crash.
Producer and Presenter/Gemma Hooley
BBC World Service Publicity
Programme information
Network Radio
Network Radio – Days
Key
- New series
- Live event/outside broadcast
- Interactive programme
- Picture available
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