Programme Information

Saturday 31 May 2008

BBC RADIO 2 Saturday 31 May 2008

Out To Lunch Ep 1/6 Saturday 31 May 1.00-1.30pm BBC RADIO 2

Comedian Russell Kane returns to host a fifth series of Out To Lunch.

Russell serves up a 30-minute mix of character, sketch and stand-up comedy, with the help of seasoned Lunchers Dan Antopolski, Micky Flanagan and Colin & Fergus, as well as this week's special guest, Stephen K Amos.

The show's resident German comedy ambassador, Henning Wehn, is back solving listeners' problems in his Saturday Surgery, while new feature My Life In A Trailer sees a member of the studio audience receive the Hollywood treatment as an incident in their life gets turned into a film pitch.

Presenter/Russell Kane, Producer/Mark Augustyn

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

top^

On The Blog Ep 1/6 Saturday 31 May 1.30-2.00pm BBC RADIO 2

Caroline Quentin and Andy Taylor return for a second series of BBC Radio 2's web 2.0 sitcom On The Blog, which takes a satirical sideswipe at the follies of the internet.

Andy Taylor plays anorak war game enthusiast Andrew Glasgow, who still lives at home with his terrifying Czech mother (Caroline Quentin), blogging obsessively about his online quest for love, life and historically accurate re-enactments of famous battles through the ages.

In the first episode, a chance online encounter leads Andrew to the bright lights of London in search of true love and cagoules.

Writers/Dave Marks, Kris Dyer and Andy Taylor,
Producer/Dirk Maggs

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

top^

As BBC Radio 2 celebrates Liverpool's year as European City Of Culture with two weeks of themed programming, Dermot O'Leary is joined by celebrated Merseyside band The Zutons.

Emerging at the same time as Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs back in 2004 – and in the wake of fellow Liverpudlians The Coral – The Zutons' hook-laden pop music made an instant connection with the British public. Their first album, Who Killed The Zutons? spawned the hit singles Pressure Point and Confusion, and secured the band a Mercury Music Prize nomination. Their third album, You Can Do Anything, is released this month.

Dermot also has live tracks from Texas front woman Sharleen Spiteri, who releases her debut solo album, Melody, next month. Not only did Sharleen write the whole album but she also produced it: "It's my dream Nancy and Lee Hazlewood record, but with Johnny Cash, Motown, Elvis, The Righteous Brothers, all these things thrown in. That's what it boils down to... my own ultimate personal fantasy record."

Presenter/Dermot O'Leary, Producer/Ben Walker

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

top^

As BBC Radio 2 marks Liverpool's status as European City Of Culture, Steve Lamacq celebrates one of the city's musical landmarks – a club called Eric's.

Eric's opened in Liverpool city centre on 1 October 1976 on the same street as the legendary Cavern Club. Even though the club closed just four years later, and its reputation has been overshadowed by The Cavern, Eric's impact on the Merseyside music scene was significant.

Just as The Cavern played party host to the rock 'n' roll explosion of the Sixties, Eric's championed the music of the late Seventies, embracing jazz, reggae, folk music, performance poetry and punk along the way. The list of performing alumni includes Blondie, The Clash, The Jam and Ultravox, as well as then little-known groups such as The Police and the Sex Pistols, who played Eric's on their way to stardom.

The club was run by Roger Eagle, Ken Testi and Pete Fulwell, who had strong local music ties and whose open-door policy encouraged bands to form and perform. OMD initially formed for a one-off show at Eric's, while Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes played their first gigs there.

A host of contributors, including Echo & The Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch, remember the birth of a whole new Liverpool music scene that would travel far beyond the city centre.

Presenter/Steve Lamacq, Producer/Danny O'Connor

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 3 Saturday 31 May 2008

Lucy Duran introduces a profile of Bassekou Kouyate, double winner in this year's BBC Radio 3 Awards For World Music, recorded in his home town of Ségou in central Mali.

Winner of the African category and Album Of The Year for his debut album Segu Blue, Bassekou is a virtuoso player of the ngoni, a four-stringed African lute, often said to be the predecessor of the banjo. Bassekou's ngoni quartet, Ngoni Ba, accompanied by percussion and the vocals of his wife, Amy Sacko, creates a brand of deep Malian blues which has gathered widespread acclaim and a host of high-profile endorsements from, among others, Taj Mahal, Damon Albarn and Fatboy Slim. Segu Blue celebrates the music of Ségou, Bassekou's home region on the river Niger in Mali.

World Routes hears Ngoni Ba performing on the floating stage at the Festival On The Niger in Segou, where Bassekou is something of a local hero. There is also a performance recorded at his family village close to the banks of the Niger, featuring a song with his mother Yakare Damba, a veteran singer who was a much-resepcted griot (West African poet/wandering musician) in her own right.

Presenter/Lucy Duran, Producer/Roger Short

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

Sir Harrison Birtwistle's latest opera, The Minotaur, commissioned by the Royal Opera and recorded at Covent Garden, was much praised at its world prèmiere in April and now opera lovers have the chance to hear it on BBC Radio 3.

It's the latest in a long line of operas by Birtwistle that have at their heart a larger-than-life, mythical creature. The first came 40 years ago with Mr Punch in Punch And Judy (which will be broadcast in Opera On 3 on 21 June). Almost 10 years later came the eponymous hero of Gawain, along with Orpehus and the Green Knight, and then – perhaps the oddest of all these strange creatures – King Kong in The Second Mrs Kong.

Birtwistle returns to Greek myth for The Minotaur, and the opera follows the famous story pretty faithfully. Hidden away deep in the labyrinth in Crete lies the man with the bull's head – the Minotaur – who feeds on young men and women sent as tribute from Athens. One day the hero, Theseus, arrives among these innocents. With the help of Ariadne and her thread, he ventures into the labyrinth and kills the beast.

So what is the Minotaur? Is it man or beast? The ambiguity is precisely what interested Birtwistle and his librettist David Harsent, and the result of their collaboration is a masterpiece of musical theatre. John Tomlinson, a devotee of Birtwistle's music, takes the title role, with Christine Rice as Ariadne and Johan Reuter as Theseus. The Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera are conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Presenter/Ivan Hewett, Producer/Anthony Sellors

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

Between The Ears – The Wash is an extended radio poem by poet laureate Andrew Motion about the bleak, beautiful and atmospheric Lincolnshire and Norfolk Wash. This great, shallow and treacherous place is half landscape, half seascape and all dreamscape. It is very hard to get on to it, there is no way across it and it takes hours to get around it. It is a muddy space waiting to be filled with water and the imagination. Things lost there are rarely found.

The poem explores the Wash and its hinterland, taking a trip out to the banks – Breast Sand, Bulldog Sand, Roger Sand and Old South Sand – fens, dykes and ditches, brought to life by Motion's prose and an evocative soundscape including the sonic boom of fighter planes, bird song, the keening of bells and buoys and the sluice and suck of the tide in channels and across sandbanks.

Presenter and Writer/Andrew Motion, Producer/Tim Dee

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

Bringing listeners bang up to date with the best new music from leading young composers around Central Europe, Hear And Now offers the chance to hear the first performances in the UK of contemporary work by German trio Enno Poppe, Charlotte Seither and Iris ter Schiphorst, recorded specially for the programme and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers and pianist Mark Knoop.

Enno Poppe is a composer with a strong rhythmic drive and an ear for the strangest instrumental combinations. His music drifts in and out of Western tuning, adding to the generally surrealistic atmosphere. Charlotte Seither is largely concerned with creating new sound-colours in her Music For Orchestra, including a range of unusual percussion instruments; and Iris ter Schiphorst reflects the influence of film and TV images in her composing, building a sequence of "snapshots" in sound which fade in and out, overlap and appear in different perspectives.

Presenter Alwynne Pritchard also interviews Poppe and Seither about their music and aesthetic concerns.

Presenter/Alwynne Pritchard, Producer/Philip Tagney

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 4 Saturday 31 May 2008

1968 – MYTH OR REALITY? Sex, Telly And Britain Ep 1/3 Saturday 31 May 10.30-11.00am BBC RADIO 4 www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/1968

Journalist Miranda Sawyer was one year old in 1968. In this new series, she casts a fresh, irreverent eye over the British cultural landscape of 40 years ago.

In this first programme, Miranda explores clichés about sex in the late Sixties by going back to some of the key films, plays and TV dramas of the time. This is the year in which theatre censorship was finally abolished, and Miranda talks to actor and singer Paul Nicholas about starring in the London production of Hair, complete with full-on nudity and a hymn to the joys of oral sex.

Miranda also examines the truth about the era of supposed sexual liberation. She talks to Beatles biographer Hunter Davies about why he decided to write about teenagers in Stevenage, and groundbreaking feminist writer Germaine Greer discusses how British culture was really tuning into – and driving – changes in British society.

Miranda discovers how some writers depicted sexual relationships, portraying them as manipulative, even violent, power games – from David Mercer's TV drama Let's Murder Vivaldi (an adaptation of which can be heard in the Saturday Play at 2.30pm today), to the Mick Jagger movie Performance and Christopher Hampton's play Total Eclipse, which explored the destructive affair of the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.

This series is part of BBC Radio 4's 1968 – Myth Or Reality? season, marking the 40th anniversary of a remarkable year which saw extraordinary upheavals worldwide.

Presenter/Miranda Sawyer, Producer/Phil Tinline

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

Haydn Gwynne and Patrick Malahide star in this adaptation of David Mercer's groundbreaking 1968 TV drama.

Monica and Gerald aren't happy together. Gerald keeps bringing home sensitive young women for strawberries and Bartók; the latest one is Julie and she's not happy with her boyfriend, Ben, either. Ben keeps throwing her possessions around and threatening her with violence.

When Julie walks out on Ben and Monica suggests divorce to Gerald, Julie and Gerald decide they should go away together. They think that spending a night on the Suffolk coast might resolve everything – in one way or another.

Haydn Gwynne plays Monica, Patrick Malahide plays Gerald, Clare Lawrence plays Julie and Toby Stephens plays Ben.

Let's Murder Vivaldi was first produced in 1968 as a BBC TV Wednesday Play – the predecessor of Play For Today. Playwright David Mercer (1928-1980) was considered a major innovator in screen drama, his TV plays exploiting the intimacy of the medium while utilising bold, often unsettling, dialogue. This broadcast is part of BBC Radio 4's 1968 – Myth Or Reality? season, marking the 40th anniversary of a remarkable year which saw extraordinary upheavals worldwide.

Producer/Peter Kavanagh

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

Sir John Tusa continues to trace, day by day, the major political, cultural and social events of 1968 as they happened, drawing on the BBC and other vivid news archive and the music of the time.

This week's programmes reflect the week in which Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe gets married; 34 men, one woman and a dog get ready to set sail from Plymouth; one of the last public executioners shows his sensitive side; Biafran peace talks collapse; and bingo threatens pony rides at Epsom.

There are anti-Vietnam War protests in Delhi; British diplomats plead with Yugoslavia for the freedom of coach driver Philip Dobson; singer Andy Williams performs in the UK for the first time; pop artist Andy Warhol is shot; and film stars Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland split up.

Meanwhile, Scientologists are turned away from the UK; teachers start supporting the Hornsey students' protest; French President Charles De Gaulle is forced to borrow $310 million from the IMF; and Scottish yachtsman Chay Blyth embarks on a round-the-world sail.

US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is shot, the Pope gives a speech of support, and police hold gunman Sirhan Sirhan. When Kennedy dies, the Rolling Stones rewrite a line in Sympathy For The Devil to reflect the assassination.

This series is part of BBC Radio 4's 1968 – Myth Or Reality? season, marking the 40th anniversary of a remarkable year which saw extraordinary upheavals worldwide.

Please note: A weekly omnibus edition of Day-By-Day is broadcast on Sunday evenings.

Presenter/John Tusa, Producers/Barney Rowntree, Sam Bryant and Lucy Dichmont

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

The Bottom Line Ep 1/9 Saturday 31 May 5.30-5.55pm BBC RADIO 4

The big names in the business world join Evan Davis for a new series of The Bottom Line, the programme that makes sense of sales, shops and share prices to get at the stories behind the business headlines.

The Bottom Line is an entertaining and conversational programme aimed at a busy but non-specialist audience. In the programme chief executives and entrepreneurs talk to each other about the issues of the day and the challenges they face – bringing insight into business from the people at the top.

Guests in the forthcoming series include the chief executives of British Land, VirginMedia, and Tate And Lyle.

Previous programmes have featured the head of the UK's biggest bus and rail operator talking about handling complaints; the boss of John Lewis sharing his approach to encouraging staff loyalty; and the chief of the UK's leading engineering consultancy speculating about commercial property prices.

Presenter/Evan Davis, Producer/Neil Koenig

BBC News Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Saturday 31 May 2008

As the football season ends, Colin Murray presents a look back at the best of Fighting Talk, revealing such gems as who won the most points for their punditry and who lost points with a mistimed gag. It's an entertaining reminder of Fighting Talk's best moments and guests, plus their take on the past season of sport.

Normally this spells the end of the season for the programme, but this year Colin will be back next week to host four special Euro 2008 Fighting Talks throughout the tournament.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Simon Crosse

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

top^

Arlo White presents live commentary of the Guinness Premiership final at Twickenham, with Ian Robertson and Alastair Hignell on commentary duty. Kick-off is at 3pm.

The programme also features all the latest from the French Open tennis, golf and cricket.

Presenter/Arlo White, Producer/Ed King

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

top^

There is a chance for football fans to eat humble pie or declare "I told you so!" in this review of the season told through past calls to 606, the national football phone-in.

Hot topics include whether Jose Mourinho's departure was the disaster Chelsea fans once predicted, and whether Kevin Keegan met Toon Army expectations. With the benefit of hindsight, listeners can add their voices to the debate by calling (free from BT landlines) 0500 909 693; texting 85058 (network rates); or emailing 606@bbc.co.uk.

Producer/Patrick Campbell

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

top^

BBC WORLD SERVICE Saturday 31 May 2008

Julie Parsons's play The Sweet Smell Of Cigarette Smoke is an atmospheric and chilling examination of obsession.

Perfume saleswoman Miriam Daly has an acute sense of smell. "I'd know if you were ever involved with another woman. I'd smell her off your skin," she warns her husband, Jack.

When Jack falls in love with Grace Lynch, he throws caution to the winds. Because Grace doesn't wear make-up or perfume and is, like him, a confirmed smoker, he's sure that Miriam will never uncover his affair. But Miriam's sensitivity to smell alerts her to his infidelity. Her wrath turns the smouldering embers of her jealousy into a full-scale conflagration of rage – with terrifying results.

Playwright Julie Parsons is the author of six best-selling thrillers which have been translated into many languages.

Director and Producer/Kevin Reynolds for RTE, Ireland

BBC World Service Publicity

top^