Programme Information

This Sunday, Hardeep Singh Kohli sits in for Aled Jones. He talks to Jewish comedian Ruby Wax who discusses her latest stage show which focuses on the issue of mental health, something which Ruby has been affected by at various times during her adult life.

Hardeep's faith guest is a writer, broadcaster and lay member of the Church of England's General Synod, Christina Rees.

Presenter/Hardeep Singh Kohli, Producer/Janet McLarty for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

To top

Sir Terry Wogan livens up the weekend

Sir Terry Wogan eases listeners into their Sunday lunch with music and musings and invites Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall into the studio to give an acoustic performance.

Multi award-nominated Tunstall's latest album is The Scarlet Tulip EP and her first live record, Live In London, was released in March.

Presenter/Sir Terry Wogan, Producer/Natasha Costa Correa for Wise Buddah

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

To top

Don Black sits in again this week for Elaine Paige. Black is an Oscar-winning lyricist, has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and has five Ivor Novello Awards.

Movie credits include the James Bond themes for Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever and The World Is Not Enough. Collaborating with composer John Barry, he wrote the title song from the 1966 film Born Free.

He's worked with some of the world's leading composers – including Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein and Quincy Jones – and had two US No. 1 hits: Michael Jackson's Ben and Lulu's To Sir, With Love.

His West End debut as a theatre lyricist was with John Barry for the musical Billy, starring Michael Crawford. He went on to receive two Broadway Tony Awards for his work on Sunset Boulevard, which marked his third collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Presenter/Don Black, Producer/Julie Newman for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

To top

In today's programme, the meaning of Jesus's triumphant ascension into heaven is explored and analysed by presenter Brian D'Arcy. Hymns and songs include Crown Him With Many Crowns, All Hail The Power Of Jesus' Name and Handel's beautiful I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.

Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Simon Vivian for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Michael Berkeley is joined by journalist and former newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald. Born in Trinidad, he moved to Britain and began his media career as a BBC radio producer. He began his long association with ITN in 1973, first as a general reporter, then as a sports correspondent, and subsequently focusing on international politics, securing interviews with Yasser Arafat, Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, among other notorious international figures.

From 1999 to 2009 he hosted ITN's flagship current affairs programme, Tonight With Trevor McDonald. He now focuses on presenting documentaries and features. He has won more awards than any other British reporter, and was knighted in 1999.

His musical choices include Elgar's Introduction And Allegro, the Prisoners' Chorus from Verdi's Nabucco, an aria from Handel's Messiah, an excerpt from Beethoven's Violin Concerto, played by Nigel Kennedy, and the Shaker hymn tune Simple Gifts from Copland's Appalachian Spring.

Presenter/Michael Berkeley, Producer/Sarah Cropper

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Lucie Skeaping introduces 18th-century Bohemian music by Brentner and Zelenka, recorded at this year's Lufthansa Festival, from Ensemble Inegal.

Czech musicians could be found in abundance throughout Europe in the 18th century and in this concert the Czech-based group Ensemble Inegal, directed by Adam Viktoria, pay tribute to their historical musical past with a selection of music by two of its finest 18th-century composers – Jan Dismas Zelenka and Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner.

Presenter/Lucy Skeaping, Producer/Chris Wines

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Stephen Johnson is the guest of the Sowerby Music Club in Yorkshire for an exploration of one of the pinnacles of the repertory, Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op 132.

This is one of the so called "late" quartets of Beethoven, written after he had recovered from a debilitating illness. Beethoven used the quartet medium to grapple with some of his deepest feelings and sensibilities and the work is striking for the profundity of its expression and its novel and imaginative use of form. At the heart of the work lies one of the composer's most heartfelt slow movements – an expression of an artist's thanks to God after recovering from illness.

Stephen is joined by members of the Wihan Quartet who perform illustrations and a complete performance of the work. He explores the piece through a series of queries and questions from the members of Sowerby Music Club.

Presenter/Stephen Johnson, Producer/Chris Wines

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

To celebrate Sir Terence Rattigan's centenary year, BBC Radio 3 has commissioned a new production for Drama On 3 of Rattigan's wartime play Flare Path which stars Rory Kinnear as the Bomber pilot Teddy, Ruth Wilson as his wife, Patricia, and Rupert Penry-Jones as her former lover, Peter.

Written and first produced in 1942 when Rattigan was serving as a tail gunner, it tells the story of the understated tensions and strained loyalties of life-and-death reality for RAF bombers and those close to them.

This new production is directed by Jeremy Herrin of the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Writer/Terence Rattigan, Producer/Catherine Bailey

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Helena Bonham Carter and Hugh Bonneville explore turning points, from life-changing and epoch-making to funny and insignificant. Love is the pivot of the programme's turning points. Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, artist Marc Chagall and Coleridge fall in it; Dorothea (in George Eliot's Middlemarch) and Carol Ann Duffy's Eurydice fall out of it; and Alan Bennett movingly describes his mother's final days.

Revolutions provide other turning points: the Industrial one provokes opposing reactions from Erasmus, Darwin and William Blake; Igor Stravinsky self-consciously remembers his musical turning point; and Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst recalls her part in an episode in the fight for Women's Suffrage.

The lives of Hilaire Belloc's Matilda and the Bible's Saul are changed for ever by versions of the truth; and Julia Child's instructions create a culinary miracle when eggs and oil emulsify into a mayonnaise.

Music is by Bach, Beethoven, Janacek, Rachmaninov, Vaughan Williams and Erma Franklin, among others.

Actors/Helena Bonham Carter and Hugh Bonneville, Producer/David Papp

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Jazz Line-Up presents a duo double bill with the best in British jazz. To begin, the duo of virtuoso guitarist John Etheridge and pianist John Horler deliver the finest in lyricism and free-thinking creativity. The celebrated pairing of Andy Sheppard and regular collaborator John Parricelli showcases the inventiveness and versatility of two outstanding jazz musicians.

Presenter/Julian Joseph, Producer/Keith Loxam

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Opera singer and star of Les Miserables, Alfie Boe joins Kirsty Young to choose his desert island discs.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Catherine Fisher – Incarceron Ep 1/3

Sunday 5 June

9.00-9.30am BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA

This vivid dramatisation by Arnold Evans of Catherine Fisher's young adult fantasy and science-fiction novel set in a dystopian future stars Joshua Jenkins.

A living prison, Incarceron, was created to protect society and repair prisoners' morals, but it has degenerated into an uncontrollable nightmare for its inmates.

Finn (Joshua Jenkins) is one of Incarceron's inmates. He's confused because he can't remember his past, bewildered by his vague memory of a sky full of stars. When a mysterious woman gives him a crystal key, he starts on a long and dangerous journey with his friends through the many areas of Incarceron, intent on escape.

The cast also features Sarah Ovens as Claudia; Gareth Milton as Keiro; Catrin Stewart as Attia; Stephen Marzella as Warden; Rhys Parry Jones as Incarceron; Matthew Gravelle as Jared; and William Thomas as Gildas.

Incarceron continues next Sunday at 9am.

Producer/Nigel Lewis for BBC Cymru/Wales

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

To top

Kirsty Young presents some gems from the Desert Island Discs library, with each interview updated and contextualised.

In the fifth episode of the series featuring the castaway choices of actors, listeners hear from Joss Ackland from 2001.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

To top

Sunday's Comedy Club host Andi Osho has Chris Addison's Civilisation and Paul Merton in the Masterson Inheritance among her comedy picks.

From Monday to Thursday, Arthur Smith's programme highlights include Alexander Armstrong as the salacious marketing executive in Weak At The Top and Absolute Power starring Stephen Fry.

On Friday, clutching his Sony Bronze Award for comedy, Tom Wrigglesworth is the guest presenter. He'll have the News Quiz Extra; plus Siobhan Redmond and Alexei Sayle star in a sitcom about the relationship between a lawyer and ex-soldier, Sorry About Last Night.

Presenters/Arthur Smith, Andi Osho and Tom Wrigglesworth, Producers/Elizabeth Jaynes and Kerry McCarthy for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Sunday 5 June

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Russell Fuller presents all the day's sports news, plus cricket updates from the second Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's and golf reports from the European Tour at Celtic Manor in Wales.

In 5 Live Sport – French Open Final at 2pm there's live commentary of the men's final at the French Open tennis at Roland Garros in Paris.

Presenter/Russell Fuller, Producer/Mike Carr

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

To top

Michael Vaughan takes listeners' calls on the day's big cricket stories.

Presenter/Michael Vaughan, Producer/Jo Tongue for Somethin' Else

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Test Match Special

Sunday 5 June

10.45am-6.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary on the third day of the second Test between England and Sri Lanka comes live from Lord's.

Producer/Adam Mountford

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

To top

5 Live Baseball

Sunday 5 June

6.30-11.00pm RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Josh Chetwynd and Nat Coombs present live commentary from Busch Stadium of one of Major League baseball's biggest rivalries as the Chicago Cubs visit the St Louis Cardinals.

Producer/Simon Crosse for USP

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

East Coast folk rock quartet The Low Anthem play tracks from their new album Smart Flesh, which was produced by the band and mixed by Bright Eyes producer Mike Mogis. It is the follow up to 2009's Oh My God, Charlie Darwin.

The Low Anthem's trademark is their novel arrangements, with all members being multi-instrumentalists. Ben Miller's vocals range from the Bon Iver-ish falsetto of the title track to a ragged blues holler, and he plays banjo, mouth organ and the occasional trumpet. Jocie Adams's clarinet lends a chamber folk ambience in several places, and Jeffrey Prystowsky plucks a double bass. On top of this, everybody chops and changes on guitars, drums and pump organ.

Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC Radio 6 Music Publicity

To top

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts talks about his life and the eight tracks he'd take to his desert island. He reveals how he draws the beds he stays in; the person behind his dapper look; his love of the stage; and also talks openly about the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll life on the road with the Stones.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Repeat Producer/Dina Jahina

BBC Radio 6 Music Publicity

To top

Post-rock polymaths Battles take over the 6 Mix to play a selection of experimental music which has shaped their unique sound.

Formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 2002, Battles released a series of acclaimed underground EPs before signing to Warp Records in 2006. Their debut album, Mirrors, was released in the following year and the band soon built up a reputation for playing fearsome and energetic live shows.

In this special 6 Mix, bassist Dave Konopka and drummer John Stainer take over the show to play the music which has influenced and inspired their sound, including tracks from Rush, The Pixies and Bow Wow Wow. They discuss their love of Krautrock and experimental artists like Ricardo Villalobos and how electronic music artists such as Liquid Liquid and 808 State have helped shaped their unique sonic textures. The band also tell the story behind their new album, Gloss Drop.

Presenter/Battles, Producer/Rowan Collinson for Somethin' Else

BBC Radio 6 Music Publicity

In this month's edition of World Book Club, Harriett Gilbert talks to author Val McDermid about her psychological thriller A Place Of Execution, which explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion.

The author also answers questions from listeners around the world on this work.

Presenter/Harriet Gilbert

BBC World Service Publicity