Programme Information

Dermot O'Leary features live music from Colin Macintyre and Ben's Brother in this week's show.

Presenter/Dermot O'Leary, Producer/Ben Walker

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Paul Sexton presents the story of Billy Joel as he celebrates his 60th birthday. This two-part series, featuring a new interview with Billy and producer Phil Ramone, looks at how doo-wop, classical music and The Beatles influenced and shaped Billy Joel as a singer, piano player and song writer.

Billy's fusion of two distinct musical eras made him a recording and touring superstar in the late Seventies and through the Eighties. He racked up an impressive string of multi-platinum albums and hit singles, making him one of the highest-ranking artists in terms of US record sales. He has sold in excess of 150million albums world wide and holds the record for the longest sequence of sold-out shows by a single artist at Madison Square Garden – 12 in all.

As well as multiple Grammy awards, he also received a Grammy Legend Award and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in the Nineties. His musical, Movin' Out, was nominated for 10 Tony awards in 2002, including Billy's first Tony win for best orchestration.

In an exclusive interview, recorded recently in Los Angeles, Billy reflects on growing up without a father (his father Howard left when Billy was a boy) and the huge influence of The Beatles and the "British invasion" in the Sixties. He talks about the failure of his first record deal, his suicide attempt as a young man and his relationship with his first wife and manager, Elizabeth Webber (a relationship that later spawned classic songs such as She's Always A Woman and Just The Way You Are).

Legendary producer Phil Ramone also talks about the secrets of his studio work with Billy in the Seventies and Eighties, which led to the phenomenal success of classic albums such as The Stranger and 52nd Street.

The second programme, taking the story to the present day, is broadcast on Billy's birthday, Saturday 9 May.

Presenter/Paul Sexton, Producer/Declan McGovern

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Ben Taylor, the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, joins Bob Harris on his show this week. He plays live and talks to Bob about his latest album, his favourite songs and growing up as part of American musical royalty.

Bob also brings listeners an eclectic mix of exciting new tracks featuring the best of Americana, Alt Country, Indie, World, Nu-Folk and Blues.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Tom Service talks to singer Felicity Palmer and visits the Brighton Festival '09 which, this year, has the artist Anish Kapoor as its guest artistic director.

Tom interviews the versatile English mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer about her busy international career as she returns to London to sing Mrs Sedley in a new production of Britten's Peter Grimes at the English National Opera. He also chats with Anish Kapoor, who's devised a challenging music programme for this year's Brighton Festival.

Presenter/Tom Service, Producer/Juan Carlos Jaramillo

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Lucie Skeaping introduces highlights of a concert given last year by Ensemble Tourbillon and soprano Noémi Kiss, directed by the viol player Petr Wagner. The concert was recorded last year in the Rozmberk Palace in Prague Castle and music includes arias and sonatas by Fux, Porsile and CPE Bach.

Presenter/Lucie Skeaping, Producer/Rebecca Bean

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Listeners have a chance to hear highlights from a concert given last week in London by one of Mali's biggest stars, Oumou Sangare, who mixes contemporary sounds with the traditional songs of Mali's southern hunters. Lucy Duran goes back stage and meets the so-called song-bird of Wasulu.

Born in Bamako, Mali, in 1969, Oumou Sangare was raised by her mother after her father abandoned the family when Oumou was just two. Oumou was just 18 when the director of Mali's Instrumental Ensemble spotted her singing in the street. After that, she joined Bamba Dembélé's "Djoliba Percussion" band (which also included a young Toumani Diabaté), and went with them on a European tour.

When Oumou returned to Mali, she formed her own band and, in 1989, aged just 21, she recorded her first album, Moussoulou (Women), taking West Africa by storm. Her songs talked openly about subjects that no one had dared express in public and caused endless debate among the Malian population.

Since then, Oumou has enjoyed a long and illustrious career and become an international star. Her latest album, Seya (Joy), has just been released.

Presenter/Lucy Duran, Producer/James Parkin

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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David Sawer and Armando Ianucci's new satirical operetta, Skin Deep

Tonight's Opera On 3 features the world première of David Sawer and Armando Ianucci's new satirical operetta, Skin Deep, from Opera North at the Grand Theatre in Leeds. Set in the clinic of cosmetic surgery genius Doktor Needlemeier, whose slogan is "Putting Right What Nature Got Wrong", Ianucci's plot is filled with humorous yet dark tales about people chasing the elixir of youth, in this new stage work satirising society's obsession with staying young and beautiful.

Conducted by Richard Farnes, Skin Deep stars Geoffrey Dolton as the nefarious plastic surgeon Dr Needlemeier, Janis Kelly as his ageing but increasingly beautiful wife and Heather Shipp as his young but facially flawed receptionist and mistress.

Presenter/Tom Service, Producer/Les Pratt

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Russell Tovey stars in JM Barrie's classic satire about the changing fortunes of Crichton, the perfect butler.

In an aristocratic Mayfair household, Crichton is devoted to his master, Lord Loam, even though he can't abide Loam's view that all men are equal. He detests his master's monthly tea parties where the family and their friends socialise with the servants. Nature, he argues, dictates that society needs masters and servants and people should stick to their status – for a butler to socialise with either a Lord or a stable-boy is abhorrent to him. Lady Mary, Loam's newly engaged daughter, shares Crichton's approval of social ranking and Crichton loves her disdain.

When the family is shipwrecked on a deserted island during their yachting trip, it's Crichton's resourcefulness which saves the day. Over the next two years on the island, their small society finds happiness and a brand new social order. And far away from the constraints of England, love affairs start to complicate relationships in their little tribe, with all the women desperate to win the heart of their beloved "Gov".

Russell Tovey plays the enigmatic Crichton; David Bannerman plays JM Barrie; Beth Chalmers plays Lady Mary; David Timson plays Lord Loam; Martha Howe-Douglas plays Lady Agatha; and Gunnar Cauthery plays Ernest Woolley.

Producer/Fiona Kelcher

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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From Fact To Fiction Ep 1/8

Saturday 2 May

7.00-7.15pm BBC RADIO 4

The award-winning From Fact To Fiction series, in which writers create a fictional response to the week's news, returns for a new series.

Entirely led by the news topic, listeners can expect drama in a number of different guises, as well as poetry and prose.

Writers that have participated in previous series have included: David Edgar, Mark Lawson, PG Morgan, Laura Solon, Will Self, Alistair Beaton, Guy Browning, Adrian Mitchell, Stewart Lee, John Sergeant, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Kate Mosse and Lin Coghlan.

The series also attracts actors such as Philip Glenister, Dexter Fletcher, David Soul, Henry Goodman, Bertie Carvel, Robert Bathurst, Stephen Mangan and Sally Hawkins, who are just some of the names that have featured so far.

Writers for the new series are to be confirmed.

Producers/David Hunter, Sally Avens and Toby Swift

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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American folk-singer Pete Seeger

American folk-singer Pete Seeger who turns 90 in May this year, comes under the Archive Hour spotlight this evening.

Seeger doesn't grant many interviews these days but, in late 2008, he spoke at length to BBC World Service arts correspondent Vincent Dowd. Seeger is as opinionated, lucid and lively as ever – as much about environmental and urban issues, as disarmament and civil rights. There is nothing predictable – Seeger has refreshingly positive views about city life as the model of the future.

This year, Seeger unexpectedly came into the limelight again when he performed the Woody Guthrie song This Land Is Your Land, with Bruce Springsteen, outside the Lincoln Memorial for Barack Obama's inauguration. Dowd returned to America to talk with Seeger again, this time about his hopes for the future as a new era of American history unfolds. He was also treated to a stunning, unplugged version of This Land Is Your Land.

With the help of the BBC's extensive archives, Seeger At 90 provides analysis as well as pleasure in celebrating the life and work of an artist who brought the world such songs as Where Have All The Flowers Gone? and If I Had A Hammer. The programme also features an interview with a popular music journalist who contextualises and explores the contribution Seeger has made both musically and politically over his long life.

Presenter/Vincent Dowd, Producer/Beaty Rubens

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Saturday 2 May

12.00noon-7.20pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch introduces an afternoon of live Premier League coverage, including Chelsea versus Fulham, Stoke versus West Ham and Manchester City versus Blackburn, plus it's the last day of the season in League One and Two.

Listeners can also hear reports from the European Rugby Cup and the European Challenge Cup semi-finals in rugby union, World Championship Snooker in Sheffield and from the Tennis Masters in Rome.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Mark Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Lauren Laverne welcomes guests PJ Harvey and John Parish and new kids on the Indie block, Brooklyn-based group Telepathe.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Adam Hudson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Chris Hawkins presents hard rockers Magnum, recorded live at London's Hammersmith Odeon in 1987. Magnum took to the stage for this performance almost 10 years after the release of their first album, Kingdom Of Madness, to perform some of their best-known tracks including Back To Earth, Just Like An Arrow and How Far Jerusalem, as well as tracks from their 1986 album, Vigilante.

Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Chris Carr

BBC 6 Music Publicity

The BBC India Election Train, which commenced its journey on 25 April, continues to travel through the country, investigating what Indians want from their General Election and the key themes surrounding it. On board the train are reporters from BBC World Service English, BBC Hindi, BBC Urdu, BBC Tamil, BBC Bengali, BBC Somali, BBC Swahili, BBC World News Television, Arabic TV, Persian TV and bbc.com/news.

Highly knowledgeable about the country, a number permanently based there, the journalists broadcast stories to the world on a daily basis, across radio, TV and online.

The BBC has worked with Indian Railways to design a timetable for the project and the train travels along the following route: Delhi-Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Hyderabad-Bhubaneswar-Kolkata (Calcutta)-Patna-Allahabad-Delhi. With the team visiting major population centres, as well as contrasting provincial towns and rural areas, the BBC's global audience get to hear the views of a wide range of Indian voters.

Online users can track the journey of the train through a special interactive map and a daily blog, available at bbc.co.uk/india.

BBC reporters investigate a variety of topics throughout their journey – a key one being India's response to the current economic crisis. India's economy is still growing and some believe it could assist the recovery of other markets around the world.

Security is also addressed – following the Mumbai bombings it has become an important issue for many Indians. Other themes to be covered are the workings of the world's largest democracy, India's rich/poor divide, the role of religion and prominence of the entertainment industry – with recent successes including Slumdog Millionaire.

BBC World Service Publicity

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World Book Club invites the globe's great authors to discuss their best-known novel. In today's programme, Harriett Gilbert talks to internationally acclaimed Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi about her classic novel, Woman At Point Zero.

Written over 30 years ago, but still resonating clearly today, Woman At Point Zero is a dark and powerful account of the life of a young woman awaiting execution in a Cairo prison for murdering her pimp. Her crime, born of anger and frustration at her lifelong mistreatment at the hands of men, is one she confesses to with no shame. The urgency and passion of the writing in this book is more than matched by the author's response to the questions posed by World Book Club listeners around the world.

BBC World Service Publicity