Programme Information

BBC Radio 1 presenter Nick Grimshaw

Nick Grimshaw presents the second programme in a series which explores the music and popular culture moments which defined the first decade of the new millennium.

This documentary about the year 2001 charts the arrival of The Strokes to the UK and the big come-back of indie guitar bands. Nick also takes a look at the dominance of UK Garage in 2001 and its scene leaders – So Solid Crew – plus the landmark launch of the first iPod.

Outside of music, Nick interviews Idris Elba (British actor from The Wire) about the American TV dramas that made their mark in the year and the debut Harry Potter film.

Next week's programme focuses on 2002 and is presented by Fearne Cotton, who meets Ricky Gervais, the man behind The Office, one of the decade's most important British comedies. Fearne also looks behind the musical landmarks that defined the year 2002.

Producers/Alice Lloyd and Louise Kattenhorn

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball

Zoe Ball sits in for Ken Bruce and is joined by London-born, multi Grammy Award-winning producer and instrumentalist William Orbit, who produced Madonna's 1997 album, Ray Of Light, which sold 16m copies, worldwide. William picks his Tracks Of My Years.

There is also PopMaster, the Love Song and the Album Of The Week, which this week comes from Girls Aloud member, X Factor judge and fashion icon Cheryl Cole and her new, debut, solo album release, 3 Words.

Presenter/Zoe Ball, Producer/Gary Bones

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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BBC Radio 2 presenter Paul Jones

Paul Jones celebrates the 75th anniversary of the BBC's Maida Vale Studios with the best of his recent sessions from the studios, as well as a brand new session from English blues-rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Aynsley Lister, who performs tracks from previous albums as well as from his new release, Equilibrium.

Presenter/Paul Jones, Producer/Paul Long

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Clare Teal introduces performances from the BBC Big Band, recorded at Maida Vale from the Seventies right up to the present day. The programme is followed by the opportunity to listen to Harry Connick Jnr and his big band, in concert, at the historic venue back in October 2007.

Presenter/Clare Teal, Producer/Bob McDowall

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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American singer/songwriter and musician Curtis Stigers presents a six-part series celebrating the centenary of clarinet virtuoso and bandleader Benny Goodman, born on 30 May 1909.

For generations, Benny Goodman was known to the world as The King Of Swing (a title awarded to him in the Thirties) but he was much more than that. Goodman was one of the finest clarinet players in the world and practised his art at the highest levels in both jazz and classical music. He was a bandleader who strove for and achieved perfection through tireless rehearsals of the various jazz ensembles he created over the decades. He was also a driven and complex man. Despite the fact that he died over two decades ago, in 1986, stories of his unpredictable behaviour are legendary.

The second programme in this series charts Goodman's career from 1928, when Benny left for New York as a member of the Ben Pollack band. However, when the work dried up and Pollack and his band retreated to Chicago, Benny was soon back in New York and constantly in demand for a whole variety of recording sessions, from jazz to vaudeville. During this time, he worked with Red Nichols, great trombonist Jack Teagarden and played in several Broadway shows, including the Gershwin Brothers' Strike Up The Band.

His first regular band took up a residency at Billy Rose's Music Hall, before winning a spot on a new radio show called Let's Dance. The band now featured exciting soloists, such as trumpeter Bunny Berigan and drummer Gene Krupa and Benny also hired the arranger Fletcher Henderson.

When the radio series came to an end, Benny took the band on a cross-country tour to California. Despite the lack of success of the tour, Benny was determined to see it through and, when they opened at LA's Palomar Ballroom on 21 August 1935, a transformation occurred and the swing era was born.

Presenter/Curtis Stigers, Producer/Graham Pass

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Politician and broadcaster Ken Livingstone

As part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival, Ken Livingstone goes to the North East of England to meet an audience at The Sage, Gateshead. In the past, Ken Livingstone has said: "The divide within cities is vaster than the divide between them." Night Waves investigates whether this is really true and asks whether the north-south divide has faded.

In conversation with Night Waves presenter Anne McElvoy – who was born in County Durham and is now a columnist on the London Evening Standard – Ken Livingstone has a chance to assert what he believes to be the challenges facing the modern metropolis. He also discusses whether there are actually lessons that cities on the banks of the Tyne and Wear could learn from the big one by the Thames.

Presenter/Anne McElvoy, Producer/Tim Prosser

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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FREE THINKING 2009
The Essay – Free Thinkers Of The North East Ep 1/5

Monday 26 to Friday 30 October

11.00-11.15pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/freethinking

Five essays about free-thinking figures and places in North-East England whose ideas challenged their times include diplomat Gertrude Bell and Newcastle's Literary and Philosophical Society. In a first for The Essay, the presenters of each programme, including poet Sean O'Brien, have recorded their essays in front of an audience as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas, based this year at The Sage, Gateshead.

In Monday's programme, writer and filmmaker Graeme Rigby looks back at city of Newcastle boss T Dan Smith, whose architectural Brasilia of the North captured the headlines in the Sixties. Jailed for corruption in 1974, he has all but been written out of history, but Free Thinking examines the ideas and regional ambitions of this extraordinary politician to see if they still resonate today.

Presenter/Graeme Rigby, Producer/Allegra McIlroy

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Book Of The Week – Dear Mr Bigelow Ep 1/5

Monday 26 to Friday 30 October

9.45-10.00am BBC RADIO 4

Dear Mr Bigelow is a selection of weekly pen-pal letters written between 1949 and 1961 from an unmarried woman working at the Public Baths in Bournemouth, to a wealthy American widower, living on Long Island, New York.

Frances Woodsford and Commodore Paul Bigelow never met, and there was no romance between them. She was in her forties when he died, aged 97. Yet their epistolary friendship was her lifeline.

The "Saturday Specials" as Frances dubbed them, are packed missives, sparkling with comic genius, bringing to life the ups and downs of life in post-war England. She recounts her travails at the baths; the hilarious weekly Civil Defence classes as the Cold War advances; her attempts to shake off an unwanted suitor; life at home with mother, and Mac, her charming, ne'er-do-well brother; as well as national events from the Coronation to Suez.

Frances started to write to Mr Bigelow as a way of thanking his daughter for the very welcome clothes parcels she sent from America.

The readings are introduced by the author, who continues to live in Bournemouth, now well into her nineties. Extraordinarily, in 2006, Frances's letters to Mr Bigelow came to light and were returned to her.

The reader is Sophie Thompson and the abridger is Doreen Estall.

Reader/Sophie Thompson, Producer/Justine Willett

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Winifred Robinson tracks the work of those whose job it is to protect the nation from the swine flu pandemic.

Managers, doctors and nurses are beginning the huge vaccination programme – encountering numerous problems as they go.

Some of those at the Health Protection Agency (HPA), from scientists to consultants, have kept audio diaries to demonstrate the work underway – the international tracking of the virus and the emerging reports of treatment-resistant strains.

At a local level, Dr Philip Monk, from the HPA in Leicester, is sure that early efforts to contain the spread of swine flu bought some precious extra time. Every extra day was useful in tackling a disease with initially unknown effects. Each day's delay in spread meant an extra day to plan and equip and to develop the vaccine.

This programme takes listeners behind the scenes as the data coming in from around the world is used to decide who should get the first batches of vaccine.

The fear is that this second wave of swine flu cases will put greater pressure on the NHS, with staff going off sick with swine flu just as hospitals have to admit the worst cases. The vaccination offers the best chance to cut the numbers with the illness but supplies are limited and, while some people who are not in obvious danger are worried and clamouring for the jab, others who really should be immunised are reluctant to accept it.

Winifred finds out how difficult decisions and tricky delivery problems are handled.

Presenter/Winifred Robinson, Producer/Sue Mitchell

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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In PG Morgan's play, three people fly to Bangkok on an all-expenses-paid trip to take part in a hospital drugs testing experiment.

Nick is an actor whose last big job was in a recently axed soap, Lynne needs to repay debts caused by her secret addiction and Rob is a veteran drugs trail guinea pig and has a family to support.

The lobby of the International Medical Centre where they sit to fill in their consent forms is impressive and reassuring. However, once through the door, in the rather Spartan ward, doubts begin to surface.

Lying in a hospital bed, thousands of miles from home, being injected with a mystery drug suddenly seems like quite a bad idea – but it's too late now. Then the injections begin – and everything starts to unravel.

Steffan Rhodri plays Nick, Shelly Rees is Lynne, Brendan Charleson is Rob, Britta Gartner plays Alison and Narinder Samra is Dr Zubir.

Producer/Kate McAll

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Award-winning historian Professor Amanda Vickery

Award-winning historian Professor Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of private life in Britain over 400 years. This is the fifth week in a six-week series, and focuses on the 18th century.

Professor Vickery has explored letters, diaries, household-account books and transcripts of court records for witchcraft, burglary and arson trials. Through these, the programme hears the voices of men and women of very different backgrounds, talking about their daily lives.

Professor Vickery explores the invention of interior design and taste, and the role of interior decor in creating both social prestige and a successful marriage.

On Monday, Magnificence explores letters detailing the scandalous divorce of the Prime Minister and his wife. It's a tragic and scandalous tale – a story which casts a searchlight on the way home and furnishings are vital to status, especially at the top of society.

On Tuesday, Taste is about the marriage of wealth and virtue. This programme dramatises an intimate set of diaries by an 18th-century countess which give an insight into how ideas of taste were connected with the making of a marriage.

Science And Nature At Home, on Wednesday, features: a room constructed entirely of feathers; a hermitage in the garden of a Lincolnshire vicarage; and Alexander Pope's grotto. This programme explores a series of follies, and looks at how grand and eccentric homes reflected wider 18th-century ideas about science and nature.

Courtship And Setting Up Home, on Thursday, is the story of two marriages, and how the husbands prepared new houses for their brides. The programme examines how doing up a home together was part of the project of a happy marriage – and how denying the wife any creative role destroyed a happy partnership.

Neat And Not Too Showy, on Friday, is about the homes of people lower down the social scale, and their ideas about how they wanted them to look. One record features a shopkeeper's views of his local stately home and how unimpressed he was by all the paintings of nude women. The programme explores middle-class taste – through a series of funny and revealing letters to wallpaper company Trollope And Sons.

Presenter/Amanda Vickery, Producer/Elizabeth Burke

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Book At Bedtime – Heartland Ep 1/10

Monday 26 to Friday 30 October

10.45-11.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Book At Bedtime returns to the Black Country in 2002, for award-winning writer Anthony Cartwright's second novel, Heartland.

Cinderheath is in a state of flux, a mosque is about to be built on the site of the disused steel works, the Tipton Three are in Guantanomo, kids run wild on the estate and schoolboy Rob is stabbed in a gang attack.

Within this furnace, the mosque football team is playing the Cinderheath Sunday side to decide the local league title and the press declares that this is a match which could spark a race war.

Rob's uncle, Jim, a Labour Councillor, is fending off a challenge from the BNP in the forthcoming local elections.

Rob scarcely recognises the community of his childhood, where he and his friend, Adnan, were once inseparable.

Readers/Alex Jones, David Holt and Seeta Indrani, Producer/Jane Marshall

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Arlo White presents all the day's sport news and is joined by special guests for The Monday Night Club, discussing all the latest football issues.

At 9pm, Arlo is joined by Mark Clemmit and guests for 5 Live Football League with the latest news and reaction from the Championship and Football League.

Presenter/Arlo White, Producer/Ben North

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Football

Monday 26 October

7.55-10.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted Championship commentary comes from Reading versus Leicester City, live, from Madejski Stadium.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Marc Riley's live band is Electricity In Our Homes. Formed and based in London, the band takes inspiration from Talking Heads, Sonic Youth and Prince.

They wear identical minimal attire and their live shows are an exercise in conciseness, often teetering on the edge of chaos. They've been compared to acts as diverse as Captain Beefheart, DNA and Can, all among Marc's favourite bands. This promises to be a session not to be missed.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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BBC 6 Music continues to bring listeners Bob Dylan's legendary radio show.

Bob takes Cops And Robbers as his theme. His musical choices include songs from the Nat King Cole Trio, The Crickets, The Byrds, The Equals and Smiley Lewis.

Presenter/Bob Dylan, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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David Quantick examines Bristol's music scene and its impact, beginning in the Eighties, a decade that saw the likes of The Pop Group, Pigbag and Panic, and moving on to the evolution of the Wild Bunch collective, Massive Attack and the birth of trip hop.

The series concludes with a look at the intense period of time between 1994 and 1996 when Bristol was the centre of the musical world, and a credible, slowed-down, hip-hop beat was essential for any pop tune.

This programme was first broadcast in 2004.

Presenter/David Quantick, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Vinnie is annoyed by Jodie interfering with redecorating Saffron Rays, in today's visit to Silver Street. Kuljit phones to invite Jodie to the cinema but she insists that she is too busy. Later, Sway reckons he knows the real reason that Jodie said no.

Elsewhere, Roopa is annoyed about being back at home and Krishan isn't helping. She could do with a job. Bina knows a way they could both make some real money but will Roopa have the guts to do it?

Vinnie is played by Saikat Ahamed, Jodie by Vineeta Rishi, Kuljit by Sartaj Garewal, Sway by Mark Monero, Roopa by Rakhee Thakrar and Bina by Sana Raja.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

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Konnie Huq investigates how women in the UK's South-Asian community are at a high risk of developing mouth cancer as a result of using gutka, more commonly known as chewing tobacco.

Gutka is currently more popular than ever before in the UK. According to the National Cancer Intelligence Network, which has revealed the first national report into cancer rates within ethnic groups, Asian women are 80 per cent more at risk of developing mouth cancer than white women.

Hazel Nunn, a specialist health advisor with Cancer Research told Asian Network Reports that these results were: "Somewhat surprising, given that Asian men are more likely than Asian women to smoke." She went on to explain that smoking is the No. 1 risk factor for oral cancers in terms of the number of cases across the board but that this reports suggests that factors such as chewing tobacco and areca nut are more important than was first thought.

It's not just women who are at risk – the documentary also features insightful contributions from within the Asian community, including a teenager who claims that he first tried it at the age of five.

Konnie also hears from Rispal Chana, an NHS nurse working for Birmingham's Stop Smoking Services. She says that many clients have successfully quit cigarettes which are linked to mouth cancer. However, when it comes to chewing tobacco and areca nut, the battle has only just begun. Rispal tells how she has also heard reports of children as young as 11 and 12 regularly chewing paan with areca nut and says that it is common to see these mixtures sold alongside sweets in local stores.

Konnie finds out how gutka has now been exposed as a serious health risk and investigates whether these revelations will have any impact on the community.

BBC Asian Network Publicity