Programme Information

Sunday 7 December 2008

BBC RADIO 2 Sunday 7 December 2008

Aled Jones says Good Morning Sunday to composer and saxophonist Christian Forshaw who chats about the release of his new album, which follows on from the success of Sanctuary And Renouncement.

Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Hilary Robinson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Actor, singer, reality TV judge and quizmaster John Barrowman is Elaine Paige's guest this week.

Elaine gave John his big West End break in the 1989 production of Anything Goes – and he hasn't looked back since. This programme features tracks from John's new album, Music, Music, Music, and selections from his Essential Musicals.

Presenter/Elaine Paige, Producer/Malcolm Prince

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Johnnie Walker is joined by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, who performs two songs in the studio.

Previously known as John Cougar and then John Cougar Mellencamp, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2008 by Billy Joel.

Presenter/Johnnie Walker, Producer/Natasha Costa-Correa

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Brian D'Arcy is joined by 500 young voices from Bradford for the second in his series of Advent programmes.

Celebrating "God's Kingdom", hymns include O Come, O Come Emmanuel and The Angel Gabriel. The musical director is Christopher McIlroy and the organist is Christopher Johns.

Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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BBC RADIO 3 Sunday 7 December 2008

Scottish writer Janice Galloway shares her Private Passions with Michael Berkeley this week. Janice has won many awards for her imaginative novels, starting with The Trick Is To Keep Breathing (1989), through to Foreign Parts (1994), Clara (2002), based on the relationship between the 19th-century pianist Clara Schumann and her composer husband Robert, and, most recently, the memoir This Is Not About Me (2008). Janice has also collaborated with composer Sally Beamish on an opera, Monster, based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She was born in Saltcoats in Ayrshire and read Music and English at university before spending a decade as a teacher.

Janice loves the music of Benjamin Britten, who accounts for three of her choices today – extracts from A Ceremony Of Carols, which she loves for its celebration of innocence; The Bird-Scarer's Song, an artful take on folk singing; and the Dirge from the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, which she finds fascinating and terrifying. Her other choices include complementary pieces by Robert and Clara Schumann, and a Handel aria from Rinaldo which is featured on the soundtrack of the film Farinelli, and which attempts to synthesise two voices, female soprano and male counter-tenor, to re-create the sound of a castrato singer. There are also songs by Purcell – again for counter-tenor voice, which she loves – and Elvis Presley (an early formative experience), a Chopin study played by Pollini, and part of the finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni, in which the Don is sent to hell – and, says Janice, it serves him right!

Presenter/Michael Berkeley, Producer/Chris Marshall

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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BBC Radio 3 pays tribute to
Olivier Messiaen in the week of
his centenary

In 1941, the French composer Olivier Messiaen was captured by the German army and held as a prisoner of war at Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz. It was there, to an audience of about 400 fellow prisoners, that Messiaen, along with clarinettist Henry Akoka, violinist Jean le Boulaire and cellist Etienne Pasquier, gave the world première performance of his eight-movement Quartet For The End Of Time. "Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension," the composer recalled after the event.

As part of BBC Radio 3's extensive tribute to Messiaen in the week of his centenary, Stephen Johnson is joined by members of the Fibonacci Sequence – pianist Kathron Sturrock, violinist Jack Liebeck, clarinettist Julian Farrell and cellist Benjamin Hughes – for a detailed exploration of Messiaen's Quartet For The End Of Time. This is followed by a complete performance, recorded at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

Detailed listening notes are published at bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic.

Presenter/Stephen Johnson, Producer/Les Pratt

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Joseph Mydell plays Osborn in
the biting satire Great Escape

The latest play by one of Zimbabwe's finest living writers, Andrew Whaley, receives its British premiere on BBC Radio 3 this evening. Great Escape is a biting satire, set during the controversial Operation Murambatsvina of 2005, when thousands of black Zimbabweans were forcibly moved from their homes. "Murambatsvina" translates variously as "restore order" or "destroy waste", and the operation was condemned by a subsequent UN report as a cynical attempt to break up pockets of opposition support. Many people were forced to destroy their own homes, which were declared "temporary" and illegal. Despite this grim background, Whaley has created a warm, funny and humane satire about two men trying to tunnel their way out of the country and find freedom in South Africa. But the more they tunnel, the further into Zimbabwe itself they go.

One of the men, auspiciously named Memory, has built a fantastical machine – "Son of the Soil" – fuelled by old policies and dreams of a better nation. But Son of the Soil takes them on a wholly unexpected journey, leaving them wondering whether there will ever be a way to change things for the better. Joseph Mydell, who starred as Robert Mugabe in the RSC's Breakfast With Mugabe, by Fraser Grace, features as Osborn, with Christopher Obi (another member of the Mugabe cast) as Memory.

Producer and Director/Peter Wild

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Actor Robert Glenister reads
Milton's poems

This week's edition of Sunday Feature is the first programme in BBC Radio 3's special season commemorating the 400th anniversary of the birth of the great author and poet John Milton.

The programme is presented by David Norbrook, Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, who is fascinated by the complex relationship between literature and citizenship.

David explores the evolving views of Milton over the centuries and his importance to us today. He places Milton's work in the context of the social and political turmoil of his times, and also of our own. Professor Norbrook searches for a sense of the man in his place, on the streets – and on the Tube (where his poems are displayed) – of the City of London, in the church where he is buried, and by looking at the Milton artefacts in the Bodleian Library. He talks to contemporary writers for whom Milton is an inspiring example, and also responds personally to the way the poetry and prose of John Milton move him almost 400 years after they were written.

All week, actor Robert Glenister reads Milton's poems, which feature in Breakfast (7-10am) and during In Tune at 6pm. Robert has appeared in BBC TV's Spooks and Hustle, and has performed with the RSC and at the National Theatre.

Presenter/Professor David Norbrook, Producer/Julian May

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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BBC RADIO 4 Sunday 7 December 2008

Last year, listeners raised more than £700,000 for the BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal for St Martin-in-the-Fields' work with homeless people and those in urgent need across the UK.

In this programme, Libby Purves finds out how the money was spent and hears the stories of those who benefited, including one mother working on a low wage who had been offered an unfurnished council flat. Two hundred and fifty pounds bought bunk beds and bedding when, previously, her three children had been sleeping on the floor with their coats for covers.

Presenter/Libby Purves, Producer/Sally Flatman

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Amitav Ghosh, who was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, joins this edition of Book Club to discuss the book that made his name in the UK, The Glass Palace.

Ghosh takes listeners from the British conquest of Burma in the late 19th century, the ransacking of the royal family's Glass Palace and the exile of King Thebaw's court, to rural India and through to the suffocating depredations of the ruling junta in the country now called Myanmar.

As well as Burma, the novel has a richly coloured backdrop in the India of the Raj, and its characters reflect the troubled politics of their world as their personal stories are revealed.

James Naughtie chairs the discussion as a group of readers ask the questions.

Presenter/James Naughtie, Producer/Dymphna Flynn

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Sunday 7 December 2008

5 Live Sport Sunday 7 December 12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Eleanor Oldroyd presents an afternoon of live football. From 1.15pm there's live commentary on the East Anglia derby in the Coca-Cola Championship as Norwich take on Ipswich at Carrow Road, and there are also updates of Hibernian v Celtic (kick-off 2pm) in the Clydesdale Scottish Premier League.

From 3pm there's live commentary on West Brom v Portsmouth in the Barclays Premier League and second half coverage of Everton v Aston Villa (kick-off 4pm) live from Goodison Park.

Presenter/Eleanor Oldroyd, Producer/TBC

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

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BBC 6 MUSIC Sunday 7 December 2008

Comedian Mark Oliver joins Jon Richardson for a phone chat this week and lovable rogue Matt Forde updates Jon on his week.

Presenter/Jon Richardson, Producer/Adam Hudson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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New Yorker Huey Morgan, lead singer of the Fun Lovin' Criminals, chats to rapper Everlast this afternoon. Best known for his mix of hip-hop and acoustic-based rock music, Everlast's career has encompassed time as the founder of House of Pain, who saw world-wide success with their single Jump Around in the early Nineties. He has gone on to a solo career which has included a Grammy Award-winning collaboration with Santana. His latest album was released earlier this year.

Presenter/Huey Morgan, Producer/Simon Barnard

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Stephen Merchant welcomes Billy Bragg into the studio this week. It's been a busy year for Billy, with a new album and a world tour that has included shows with young British performers Kate Nash and Laura Marling. Returning to the UK, Billy joins Stephen on the eve of his final show of the year for a chat and to play some live tunes.

Presenter/Stephen Merchant, Producer/James Stirling

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Stuart Maconie features an archive Peel session from the late Ivor Cutler on his Freak Zone this evening.

Presenter/Stuart Maconie, Producer/Henry Lopez-Real

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Bob Dylan takes Hair as his theme this week. Tracks include Red Headed Woman by Sonny Burgess, Bald Head by Professor Longhair, Don't Mess With My Ducktail by Joe Clay and How You Gonna Get Respect (When You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet) by Hank Ballard.

Presenter/Bob Dylan, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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BBC WORLD SERVICE Sunday 7 December 2008

Heart And Soul – Celibacy Ep 1/2 Sunday 7 December 10.30-11.00am BBC WORLD SERVICE

Heart And Soul investigates celibacy, the religious vow to remain unmarried and abstain from sex, a state strongly advocated by the Apostle Paul, in this two-parter presented by Dennis Sewell.

The priestly vow to remain continent and chaste is not set down as a rule in the Bible, and the earliest Christian leaders were largely married men. Heart And Soul explores how the Church came to outlaw sexual relations for its priests and talks candidly to priests who have sacrificed married life.

Presenter/Dennis Sewell, Producer/Katy Hickman

BBC World Service Publicity

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