Programme Information

BBC Radio 2 presenter Mike Harding

Mike Harding's guest this week is singer, musician and broadcaster Julie Fowlis.

Julie was voted Folk Singer of the Year at the BBC Folk Awards in 2008 and, last year, she became the first Scottish Gaelic artist to feature on the BBC Radio 2 Playlist with her Gaelic translation of Beatles song Blackbird.

Julie was the first person to receive the honour of being made Scotland's Gaelic Ambassador, Tosgaire na Gàidhlig, bestowed on her by the Scottish Parliament in 2008. She has presented her own series, Fowlis And Folk, on BBC Radio Scotland for the past two years and also presents regularly on Scotland's new Gaelic digital TV channel, BBC ALBA.

Mike Harding chats to Julie and plays tracks from her third solo release, Uam, including a stunning duet version of traditional ballad Wind And Rain, in which Julie sings in Gaelic and fellow Scottish singer Eddi Reader sings in English.

Presenter/Mike Harding, Producer/Kellie While

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Maida Vale, BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Lamacq showcases an eclectic mix of session artists who have performed at the famous studio for BBC Radio 2.

His selection spans the genres, embracing rock, country, big band and organ music along the way.

Presenter/Steve Lamacq, Producer/Paul Long

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Christoph von Dohnányi conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall to celebrate his 80th birthday. Mendelssohn's Hebrides and Brahms's Symphony No. 3 frame Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist.

When Brahms finished his Second Piano Concerto, he sent the score to a friend, with a note saying: "I am sending you some little piano pieces." These "little pieces" turned out to be a huge, four-movement concerto, which met with instant success when first performed with the composer as soloist in 1881, as did his Third Symphony, which followed two years later. The symphony is bound together with Brahms's musical motto theme – the notes F-A-F, standing for frei aber froh, meaning "free but happy".

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Tony Sellors

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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The multi Grammy Award-winning composer and music producer William Orbit is a one-man phenomenon. He is most famous internationally for his innovative collaborations with Madonna and Blur, as well as his best-selling modern dance adaptation of Barber's Adagio for Strings. However, Orbit has a surprisingly wide range of interests.

Orbit joins this year's BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival of ideas with a new concept: William Orbit's Guide To Listening. Recorded in front of an audience at The Sage, Gateshead, Orbit reflects on his understanding of the world of sound, and explores how the listener might hear things in a new way.

Presenter/Matthew Sweet, Producer/Tim Prosser

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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This week's series of Free Thinking essays continues with a look at Victorian inventor and industrialist William Armstrong who, his new biographer, Henrietta Heald, argues, is a forgotten British hero.

Armstrong brought global fame to the Tyne, employing thousands in the manufacture of machinery, ships – and guns. He also created the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. He epitomised the dynamism of his age and attracted many epithets, from "visionary genius" to "merchant of death".

Presenter/Henrietta Heald, Producer/Fiona Mclean

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

M1 Magic

Wednesday 28 October

11.00-11.30am BBC RADIO 4

To mark the 50th anniversary of the M1, Juliet Gardiner tells the extraordinary tale of how "Motorway One" came to be built, slashing through countryside and by-passing public consultation in ways that would perhaps be unlikely today.

Some of the men who helped build it speak for the first time about the technical difficulties they faced and how it felt to be involved in making a phenomenon.

On its opening in 1959, with no street lighting, no crash barriers and few cars, the M1 was seen as the start of a brave new world – a stretch of tarmac that would combine speed and safety to transform the nation.

Juliet puts interviewees back in touch with the M1, quite literally. Robin Soper, a young engineer on the St Albans-Rugby stretch, is given the Science Museum's core sample of the M1 to handle. Peter Fells, an engineer on the 12-mile St Albans stretch, talks through photographs he took during construction.

Human geographer Dr Peter Merriman is taken to the gateway of the M1. Having spent 12 years writing Driving Spaces - A Cultural-Historical Geography Of England's M1 Motorway, Dr Merriman feels the tarmac under his feet and the wind from traffic in his hair. Keith Millard, one of the first intake of AA patrol cadets, gets to drive up the start of the motorway in a 21st-century version of the vehicle in which he sped out to rescue drivers in 1961.

And economist Sir Christopher Foster, who helped construct the retrospective justification for the M1 for the treasury in the Sixties, considers how amazing it is that the country's first full motorway came so late.

Presenter/Juliet Gardiner, Producer/Josie Barnard

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Wednesday 28 October

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch presents all the day's sports news and live League Cup, fourth-round commentary.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Claire Ackling

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Football

Wednesday 28 October

7.40-9.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary of Chelsea versus Bolton, live, from Stamford Bridge, in the fourth round of the League Cup.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Joining Marc Riley in the Manchester Hub is live band Ex Lovers. The Londoners negotiate the M6 and Manchester's one-way system to entertain and impress. Their new EP, You Forget So Easily, is currently released for download.

The EP was recorded with producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur, Peter Doherty), who approached the band after seeing them supporting Peter Doherty at Shepherd's Bush Empire for an NME awards show.

The band have recently toured with Emmy The Great, Golden Silvers, Pete And The Pirates and The Cheek (formerly Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds).

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Roopa tells Jodie she'll think about her job offer, as the drama continues. Later, Roopa nervously agrees to take a call from one of Bina's adult chat-line customers. Bina says she is a natural.

Kuljit offers to cook for Jodie and she can't think of a suitable excuse so reluctantly agrees. Kuljit later suggests that, if he plays his cards right, he won't be sleeping on Sway's sofa much longer. Sway offers him some friendly advice but will Kuljit take it?

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

BBC Asian Network Publicity