Programme Information

Trevor Nelson's Album Of The Week is The Diary Of Alicia Keys, from the chart-topping New York diva.

Musically, the album emphasises Keys's seductive voice and lush soulfulness. Tonally, it makes ideal late-night romantic music, even when the tempos are kicked up a notch, as on Heartburn. Yet beneath the surface there is some crafty, complex musicality, particularly in how Keys blurs the lines between classic soul, modern rhythms, jazz, pop melodies and her singer-songwriter sensibility.

Presenter/Trevor Nelson, Producer/Dan Cocker

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 63 – BBC Symphony Orchestra

Wednesday 2 September

7.30-9.45pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/proms
• Press pack

With 98 players of the BBC Symphony Orchestra dispersed among the audience in the arena, Xenakis's Nomos gamma should make a stunning Proms piece tonight, not least as the final drum rolls from its eight percussionists ricochet around the Royal Albert Hall.

The transience of life and the finality of death are confronted in two further works in this concert: Aïs, Xenakis's searing setting of ancient Greek texts by Homer and Sappho, with a wildly wide-ranging vocal line of powerful elemental utterances and a solo percussionist pitted against the orchestra; and Rachmaninov's evocative Stygian tone poem, The Isle Of The Dead, composed a century ago. The programme also includes Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony.

Presenter/Christopher Cook, Producer/Ann McKay

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, Peter Snow presents a Random Edition special focusing on Britain's first day of war in 1939.

As always in Random Edition, the stories come from the pages of a single newspaper – in this case, the Manchester Guardian for 4 September 1939. Its pages look back on the previous day's momentous declaration of war by Neville Chamberlain's government and on all manner of signs that life in Britain is about to change dramatically.

The programme features memories from town and country of where people were and what they were doing when Chamberlain made his famous broadcast from No. 10, announcing that a state of war now existed between Britain and Germany.

Terry Charman, senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, tells the story of the first tragedy after the declaration of war: the sinking of the British passenger liner SS Athenia, reported in brief in the Guardian's Stop Press column.

Jilly Cooper, author of Animals In War, brings alive the newspaper's report that: "The National ARP Animals Committee of the Home Office has issued an appeal to owners of dogs and cats not to arrange needlessly for their immediate destruction."

The Guardian also reports that 3,000 London taxi drivers have joined the Auxiliary Fire Service. Peter meets cab driver and historian Bill Munro to hear how his wartime predecessors were invaluable as firefighters on account of the "knowledge" they had of London streets.

A brief sentence in the newspaper opens up the wartime story of Gracie Fields, and the programme heads to the home of the Manchester Guardian to visit scenes connected to its reports and to uncover the plight of Austrian immigrant Jews in Manchester at the outbreak of war.

Presenter/Peter Snow, Producer/Andrew Green

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Chain Reaction Ep 1/6

Wednesday 2 September

6.30-7.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Chain Reaction returns for a new series in which big names from the world of comedy and beyond pick a guest to interview. Each week, the interviewee from the previous show becomes the interviewer, and picks a new guest to talk to.

The new series of the tag-team interview show kicks off with Robert Llewellyn interviewing Dave Gorman.

An actor, comedian, writer and presenter, Robert Llewellyn is best known for his role as Kryton in Red Dwarf and as presenter of the TV series Scrapheap Challenge.

Comedian, author and film-maker Dave Gorman has written and performed numerous shows, including Are You Dave Gorman?, as well as presenting BBC Radio and TV's Genius.

Other guests featured in this series include Frank Skinner, Eddie Izzard and Alastair Campbell.

Presenter/Robert Llewellyn, Producer/Samuel Bryant

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Mark Pougatch presents all the day's sporting action. From 8pm, he is joined by football journalists Brian Woolnough, Shaun Custis and Henry Winter for The Predictions Panel, forecasting the football winners and losers for this season.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Patrick Whiteside

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Gideon Coe plays music by Neil Young and Crazy Horse from their 1996 appearance at the Phoenix Festival. There are also sessions from Nottingham blues rockers Ten Years After (1968), Scots indie band Ballboy, Green Gartside's Scritti Politti and East Londoners Micachu & The Shapes.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Citizen Journalism Ep 1/2

Wednesday 2 September

8.00-8.30pm BBC WORLD SERVICE

Citizen journalism is a burgeoning, world-wide trend. In this new series, Michael Buerk goes to the heart of this phenomenon, analysing its potential for good and for bad, and focusing on the issues of truth and trust.

"Authenticity" is what citizen journalists believe that they are about, often seeing themselves as Davids battling various Goliaths. But critics point to problems of fakery, manipulation, partisanship and lack of accountability.

Nonetheless, in countries where freedom of expression is repressed, bloggers – a group most often at the forefront of citizen journalism – are challenging authoritarian regimes in ways traditional journalists cannot. In this first programme, Michael hears from bloggers and their critics in Sri Lanka, Iran, Burma and the United States, and asks whether citizen journalism is an essentially democratic process – or an anarchic one.

Presenter/Michael Buerk, Producer/David Coomes

BBC World Service Publicity

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Discovery – Numbers That Made The World Ep 1/3

Wednesday 2 September

8.30-9.00pm BBC WORLD SERVICE

People and societies across the world have long created their own systems using numbers, attaching belief to them in profound and devout ways. In this new three-part Discovery, number theorist and author Cecil Balmond, one of the world's leading building designers, explores this phenomenon.

Cecil examines cultures across the world, from China to Greece and North Africa, to examine belief systems divined from, and attached to, numbers. Beginning with early symbolism and Pythagoras, the series asks how numbers have enabled the world's grandest designs in music, architecture and space.

Presenter/Cecil Balmond, Producer/Ruth Hedges

BBC World Service Publicity