Programme Information

Revered 20th-century vocalist Billie Holiday

Hollywood actor Billy Crystal, of When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers fame, celebrates the enduring influence of Billie Holiday in this new documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the singer's untimely passing.

Billy grew up around Billie Holiday – his family owned and operated the legendary Commodore Records label that recorded many of her greatest songs.

"My uncle Milt ran Commodore Records, a small independent jazz label," says Billy. "He had a shop of the same name on 52nd Street in New York, in the middle of all the jazz clubs; Swing Street they called it.

"Billie Holiday was a regular on Swing Street and Milt and Billie became friends. When no one else would release the record Strange Fruit, Milt stepped in. The song was about the lynchings in the South, an America people didn't want to hear about. Milt knew it wasn't economical but he thought it was really important. For my part, I am so proud that my family was involved in the record that Time magazine would one day vote 'the most important release of the 20th century'."

As one of the most revered vocalists of the century, Holiday's legend needs little explaining. She left a transcendent legacy of recorded work, including timeless classics such as Summertime, Lady Sings The Blues, That Ole Devil Called Love and the controversial Strange Fruit but, more than that, through her struggles in a white and male-dominated industry at the time, she laid the foundations for the liberated musical world of today.

Presenter/Billy Crystal, Producer/Danny O'Connor

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine Ep 1/6

Tuesday 14 July

11.30pm-12.00midnight BBC RADIO 2 (Schedule change 7 July)

Marc Riley dips into the BBC's archives and unearths some more seminal and tantalizing interviews in a new series of Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine.

This first episode travels back to 1964, the year that Nelson Mandela was jailed for life, when The Sun newspaper was born and when the British and French Governments announced their commitment to build a tunnel under the English Channel.

Marc transports listeners back into a different era – the start of the pop revolution when Beatlemania was about to take over the world. It's March 1964 and Bill Grundy interviews the "fifth Beatle", manager Brian Epstein, for his regional radio programme Frankly Speaking. The programme revisits the BBC's archives and hears Epstein speak candidly about how and when he discovered the Beatles and what it was like seeing them perform for the first time. He reveals his role in their image change, just exactly what it is a manager does and his theories on why they would go on to be a success in America. Brian also tells of how he reacted when Paul turned up late for their first meeting.

Please note, this series was previously billed to start in Week 27 on Tuesday 7 July.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/John Leonard

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Lunchtime Concert features another live performance by BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists, recorded at this year's City Of London Festival.

Today's concert, given by Tai Murray (violin) and Giles Vonsattal (piano), comes from the church of St Lawrence Jewry. They perform Mozart's Sonata for Violin and Piano in B flat KV378, Ysaye's Sonata for Solo Violin in D minor Op 27 No. 3 "Ballade" and Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op 80.

Presenter/Jonathan Swain, Producer/Elizabeth Funning

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Christian Lindberg, Sweden's flamboyant virtuoso trombonist, conductor and composer, brings the Nordic Chamber Orchestra to the Guildhall in London as part of the City Of London Festival.

Lindberg is a champion of new music, and this Swedish ensemble focuses this evening on music from Scandinavia from the 18th century to the present day. The concert features music by Johan Helmich Roman, the "father of Swedish music" and an important figure in 18th-century Sweden, as well as music for strings by Grieg, Sibelius and Nielsen.

They finish the performance with the London première of Lindberg's own Kundraan for trombone and strings – a piece of musical theatre where the anti-hero Kundraan meets Lucifer.

Tonight's performance is followed by pieces taken from past seasons of the BBC Proms.

Presenter/Petroc Trelawny, Producer/Janet Tuppen

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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With public-sector cuts almost a certainty and renewed thrift in MPs and high-flying public servants already in evidence, Philip Dodd and guests consider whether a new period of austerity is about to begin, in tonight's edition of Night Waves. They reflect upon how our politics, culture and society will look in a more austere Britain.

David Cameron explicitly committed himself to a new politics of austerity at the Conservative Spring Conference earlier this year. But, after decades of celebration of go-getting consumerism, do we even understand austerity any more? It's a word more easily associated with post-war Attlee governments, miserable freezing weather and ration books. And it's more profound than just skipping the odd holiday, eating out less and other frequently cited changes in behaviour since the recession began. Austerity is a culture of plainness, economy, severity and starkness. It implies asceticism, rigidity, abstinence, self-discipline – even Puritanism.

Night Waves questions whether this is the world towards which we are headed and whether such austerity can ever be a thing of beauty.

Philip is joined by a round-table of political thinkers, cultural commentators and historians to discuss the possibilities of a new austerity.

Presenter/Philip Dodd

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Late Junction presents music from Tibet and Mexico alongside a track from Fife singer James Yorkston's new album of British folk songs; Diabolus In Musica performing the early Renaissance music of Guillaume Dufay; the traditional music of Brittany played on bombarde and organ; and Solisti New York performing Vermont Counterpoint by Steve Reich.

Presenter/Verity Sharp, Producer/Elizabeth Arno

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To mark the 30th anniversary of Kit Williams's ground-breaking puzzle book Masquerade, John O'Farrell reflects on the mayhem that followed when tens of thousands of people from across the world were caught up in the search for a jewel-encrusted golden hare buried somewhere in the British countryside.

Challenged by his publisher to do something that no one had ever done before, artist Williams set out to create a book of paintings that readers would study carefully rather than flip through.

The book's objective, the hunt for a valuable treasure, became his means to this end. So, Williams crafted a hare from 18-carat gold, sealed it inside a ceramic casket and, in August 1979, buried the casket at a secret location. No one could have imagined how successful the ploy would be.

Masquerade sold in its millions and was translated into eight languages. Williams was catapulted into the media spotlight and inundated with letters from people with crackpot theories. As lawns were dug up, the hunt for the hare, for many, became something of an obsession.

After two-and-a-half years, the hare was found by someone who uncovered it through a mixture of luck and cunning. Two Lancashire teachers, who had properly solved the puzzle, lost out by just a few days.

Thirty years on, armchair treasure-hunting, as it has become known, is a popular hobby – there are four hunts under way here in Britain, and similar ones in France, Japan and Australia.

Fuelled by a rash of copycat books which came out after Masquerade, and more recently the growth of alternative reality games on the internet, it can also be lucrative. A recent winner of an online hunt dug up a prize worth £100,000.

Producer/Emily Williams

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The Adventures Of Mr Thake Ep 1/3

Tuesday 14 July

3.30-3.45pm BBC RADIO 4

In 1924, writer JB Morton adopted the name Beachcomber and began a humorous column in the Daily Express which was to run for more than 50 years.

Reading about the odd lives of Beachcomber's characters – whether they were nonsensical, puritanical, pompous or simply insane – became part of the ritual of breakfast throughout the land.

A typical example of Beachcomber's gift for creating what GK Chesterton described as "a huge thunderous wind of elemental and essential laughter," is Mr Thake.

Out of print since the Thirties, The Adventures Of Mr Thake is a collection of letters to Beachcomber read for this BBC Radio 4 series by actor Leslie Phillips. The character, Oswald Bletisloe Hattersley Thake, was depicted as an upper-class twit. Described affectionately as "a caricature of his nation", Thake never quite understands what is happening to him, or why.

Reader/Leslie Phillips, Producer/Neil Cargill

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Laurence & Gus – Hearts And Minds Ep 1/6

Tuesday 14 July

6.30-7.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Award-winning comedy duo Laurence Howarth and Gus Brown return to BBC Radio 4 with another series of their comedy sketch show Laurence & Gus – Hearts and Minds.

The last series tackled such eternal questions as why people hurt the ones they love, how someone can spot the real grail and whether there is an easy solution to the problems in the Middle East.

This series promises more of the same – thoughtful jokes, silly jokes and the occasional song. Laurence and Gus will be joined once again by Kate Fleetwood, Isy Suttie and Duncan Wisbey.

Presenters/Laurence Howarth and Gus Brown, Producer/Colin Anderson

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Tuesday 14 July

7.00-10.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Darren Fletcher rounds up the day's sports news and looks ahead to this week's Open Golf with John Murray, live from Turnberry, Scotland.

At 8pm in Just One Carletto, Brian Alexander takes a trip to the home town of new Chelsea manager Carlo Ancellotti – nicknamed Carletto in his homeland – to find out more about the man who is hoping to bring more success to Stamford Bridge.

From 9pm, BBC Radio 5 Live's regular series examining the health of some of the nation's favourite sports continues with The State Of Racing. Contributors include journalist Matthew Syed.

Presenter/Darren Fletcher, Producer/Mark Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

George Lamb welcomes Kasabian to the BBC 6 Music Hub today to play a live session and discuss their continued success with their latest album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and how it felt to be the warm-up act for Bruce Springsteen at this year's Glastonbury Festival.

Presenter/George Lamb, Producer/Alicia Brown

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Shazia and her sons have dinner with Hassan, who unwittingly rubs Rehan and Danyal up the wrong way, as the drama continues. The boys conclude that he is a bit of a know-it-all but will they say anything to their mother?

Later, a crowd gathers outside the restaurant as Kuljit angrily confronts a mystery photographer that Kuljit is convinced was taking sneaky photos of the women in Silverhill. The photographer defends himself, but what is he really up to?

Shazia is played by Shobu Kapoor, Hassan by Youssef Kerkour, Rehan by Rez Kempton, Danyal by Jag Sanghera and Kuljit by Sartaj Garewal.

BBC Asian Network Publicity