Programme Information

This week The Chris Moyles Show brings some festive cheer to listeners in a surprise location somewhere in the UK.

Tune in to the show to find out where they'll be visiting and what they'll be up to.

Presenter/Chris Moyles

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

To top

The penultimate episode of this 10-part series, exploring the music and pop cultural moments defining the first decade of the new millennium – all through the eyes of BBC Radio 1 – is presented by Tim Westwood.

In the hour-long documentary he takes listeners back to a year that saw Jay Z controversially headline Glastonbury and the election of the first African-American president. Tim also looks at why 2008 was all about band reunions, with the likes of Blur reforming; and Kings Of Leon recall their journey from indie hipsters to becoming the biggest band of the year.

The Ting Tings, one of the 2008's biggest breakthrough acts, give their views of the pros and cons of hype, something that helped propel them to dizzy heights with hits including No. 1 pop anthem That's Not My Name.

BBC Radio 1 Stories is part of a new line-up of documentaries, a brand-new review show and In New DJs We Trust that sits at the heart of the weeknight schedule at 9pm.

Presenter/Tim Westwood, Producers/Alice Lloyd and Louise Kattenhorn

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

David Essex chooses his Tracks Of My Years each morning this week, selecting his favourite music.

Throughout the week he talks to Ken Bruce about his choices, which include The Beatles' In My Life, Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, Ben E King's Stand By Me and The Beach Boys' God Only Knows.

Presenter/Ken Bruce, Producer/Gary Bones

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

To top

Australian singer Daniel Merriweather

Jools Holland is joined by Australian singer Daniel Merriweather for this week's show.

Daniel – who performed a Radio 2 Introduces session earlier this year for Dermot O'Leary's show – joins Jools and Jools's band to perform their version of the Howlin' Wolf song Spoonful.

Presenter/Jools Holland, Producer/Sarah Gaston

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

To top

The Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon concludes his examination of the life, music and legacy of seminal American folk singer Huddie (Lead Belly) Ledbetter, who had a major influence on popular music on both sides of the Atlantic during the 20th century.

This second programme looks at how Lead Belly's violent streak landed him in serious trouble on several occasions. In 1918 he killed a man and was jailed for murder for 30 years but, as legend would have it, he managed to sing himself out of prison, not once but twice. On the second occasion though, his freedom probably had far more to do with prison overcrowding than it did with his musical talents. But it was his time in prison in the Thirties that would help him land the big time.

Folklorists John and Alan Lomax had been touring jails recording prison songs for the Library of Congress when they discovered Lead Belly. On his release, they introduced him to the New York folk scene and the "King of the 12-string guitar" would record for a variety of record labels; become known for a broad range of folk, blues and protest songs; and even present his own radio show.

Lead Belly died in 1949 but his legacy lives on. Within months of his death, Pete Seeger and the Weavers had released Goodnight Irene and his influence would soon seep into swing, skiffle and later rock 'n' roll. Among those celebrating the life and times of Lead Belly in this series are: Bryan Ferry; Nile Rodgers; Eric Burdon; Woody and Arlo Guthrie; Pete Seeger; Lonnie Donegan; British Sea Power; Billy Childish; and Lead Belly's relatives Tiny Robinson and Alvin Singh.

The series also includes archive of Lead Belly singing to children, performing on his Forties radio show and rare interviews with his producer Henrietta Yurchenco and Alan Lomax, the man who discovered Lead Belly.

Presenter/Eric Burdon, Producer/Ashley Byrne

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Listeners are invited to celebrate live music-making with Louise Fryer and the BBC Performing Groups throughout this week. There are five BBC Orchestras and the BBC Singers – the UK's only full-time professional choir – and this week they can be heard in concert each day on BBC Radio 3, performing a wide variety of music ranging from Haydn symphonies and Mozart violin concertos to Hollywood film scores and Christmas carols.

Today's programme includes highlights from one of the most popular concerts of the year in Scotland – The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's Christmas Classics presented by local favourite Jamie MacDougal at the Aberdeen Music Hall. Seasonal favourites by Leroy Anderson and Malcolm Arnold feature alongside extracts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and John Williams's magical score for the film ET.

Presenter/Louise Fryer, Producer/Helen Garrison

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

The debut of young British conductor Robin Ticciati as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this programme pairs the expansive richness of Brahms's Symphony No. 2 with the dark depth of Mahler's folk-inspired song-cycle Des knaben wunderhorn, performed tonight by Czech soprano Magdalena Kožená.

Given that Henze's Symphony No. 1, which opens tonight's programme, was the work of a youthful 21-year-old man who had just lived through the horrors of Hitler's Germany, it's surprisingly pastoral and light-hearted.

Presenter/Petroc Trelawny, Producer/Juan Carlos Jaramillo

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Jean Paul Sartre was once the ubiquitous voice of Western literary opposition; DH Lawrence an essential interpreter of the soul of the 20th century; Bertrand Russell the popular philosophical genius of the age; and Bertolt Brecht the poet who mocked capitalism's hypocrisies.

Night Waves spends a week considering some of the "dead white males" who have seen their reputations wither in the last decades. In the face of the collapse of communism, lurid biographical revelation, the authority of feminism and time itself, these grand male voices have seen their intellectual influence diminish – or even collapse.

Most are still on compulsory reading lists, quoted by professional critics, maybe even the subject of TV adaptations – but they don't bestride the popular intellectual landscape as the colossi they once were. Each night, Night Waves asks a panel of high-profile guests to consider these dead white males and asks if they are worth reviving – or are they sacred monsters we have rightly slain.

Presenters/Philip Dodd, Matthew Sweet, Rana Mitter and Anne McElvoy, Producer/Matthew Dodd

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

To top

Jez Nelson presents a gig by the widely feted group Trio VD recorded at the Seven Arts Centre in their hometown of Leeds on the eve of their debut album launch. Formed by Chris Sharkey on guitar, Christophe de Bezenac on saxophone and Chris Bussey on drums, the group unleash a fiery mix of free jazz, heady rhythms, riffs and electronic noise with tracks from their highly anticipated album Fill It Up With Ghosts.

Trio VD met while studying jazz at Leeds College of Music. Since their first performances in early 2006 they've made a commotion wherever they go, including taking the BBC Introducing stage by storm at last year's London Jazz Festival. Jazzwise said the Vortex's audience was "shocked, awed and thrilled" to see such a "truly mesmerising band" and Mike Flynn from Time Out describes their impact on the British jazz scene as "earth-shattering, taking a sledgehammer to preconceived limitations of jazz..."

Presenter/Jez Nelson, Producer/Peggy Sutton

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Scumdog Millionaires Ep 1/5

Monday 14 December

10.45-11.00am BBC RADIO 4

In Mike Walker's financial thriller, a fraud investigator is exploring the possibility that a rogue banking institute might be about to send the financial world into a spiral ... if it exists.

When the Financial Service Authority's principal fraud investigator, Angela Chapman, decides she will use whatever means necessary to reveal this potential black hole, she targets Tim Ng, one of the sharpest minds in hedging and derivatives.

Chapman offers Tim a straight deal. Though she has something on him, she agrees that she'll dump the charges, if he agrees to work for her.

The FSA wants to use his particular skills and, though he doesn't quite pick this up, they're obviously interested in his father, a major Hong Kong banker. Tim is in no position to argue.

Walking round the city, Angela lays down the story: those financial figures in the public eye are purely scapegoats, taking the public blame, but behind what the tabloids refer to as these "Scumdog Millionaires", and behind the big banks and investment houses, there are rumours of another house, carrying even bigger risks which, if true, could be the final nail in the coffin of the UK economy.

Tim is to find out what he can about this investment house, if it even exists. But there are soon those, his father among them, who demonstrate that they are prepared to do whatever it takes to prevent him from lifting the lid on a deficit so unimaginably large, that no one in the global financial community would survive its discovery.

Written by Mike Walker, the cast includes David Tse as Tim and Lizzie McInerney as Angela Chapman.

Producer/Eoin O'Callaghan

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

To top

Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off Ep 1/4

Monday 14 December

11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

Marcus Brigstocke writer and performer in Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off

He's back; but this time, he's got a computer! Budleigh Salterton's most famous citizen has been grounded by both the Home Office and his father, so he's set up GWH Travvel – two ms, two gs, two vs – a bit of a mix up at the printers.

Run from his bedroom in Budleigh Salterton, with the help of his feckless mate Toby Buntstick and the hindrance of his sister Charlotte, it's a one-stop travel-advice-events-management-website service, where each week, his schemes range far and wide.

Whether it's roaming the country lecturing would-be overlanders on how to pack a rucksack or finding someone a zebra for a corporate promotion, GWH Travvel stays true to its motto – "we do it all, so you won't want to".

Marcus Brigstocke stars as Giles Wemmbley-Hogg in this comedy written by Brigstocke and Jeremy Salsby.

Producer/David Tyler

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

To top

Ian McDiarmid stars in Iain Heggie's satirical play about an impecunious lawyer, set in late 18th-century Glasgow.

It's Glasgow 1780. The city is booming but there is war in America and wealth is dependent on the import and export of American tobacco. This pressing question is not addressed by Enoch Dalmellington, resident of Virginia Street. He is more concerned about marrying off his pious humourless daughter, Euphemia; being able to afford his pew at the Tron Kirk; and what to do about Mistress Zapata's predictions about Glasgow in 2008 when "women will be attending university, no one will be allowed to smoke tobacco in public places, the poor will all have water closets and Virginia Street will become a hotbed of sodomy".

Dalmellington represents the ambiguities of Scottish society since the Union. He detests the corruption of Glasgow's merchants but can't resist being bought off by them – he dreams of Scottish independence but is too canny to mention it. And there's a wake-up call to a city whose history has always been more rich, varied and morally ambiguous than the dominant narrative of victimhood allows.

Heggie's satirical stage monologue premièred at Oran Mor in Glasgow, in 2007, and subsequently transferred to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.

Producer/Jeremy Mortimer

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

To top

Book At Bedtime – Ingoldsby Legends Ep 1/10

Monday 14 to Friday 18 December

10.45-11.00pm BBC RADIO 4

The Ingoldsby Legends are a series of comedy supernatural outpourings.

This collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry was supposedly written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually the pen-name of Richard Harris Barham.

The legends were first printed in 1837 as a regular series in Bentley's Miscellany and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank. They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published in 1840 and 1843. They remained popular through the Victorian era but have since fallen out of fame.

As a priest at the Chapel Royal, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, such as the "hand of glory", they are usually deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore and poetry.

The best known poem is the Jackdaw Of Rheims about a jackdaw who steals a cardinal's ring and is made a saint.

Producer/Clive Brill

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Monday 14 December

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

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

From 8.45pm there's second-half Championship commentary of West Brom versus QPR live from the Hawthorns.

At 9.30pm Arlo is joined by Mark Clemmit for 5 Live Football League with the latest news and reaction from the Championship and Football League.

Presenter/Arlo White

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Cerys Matthews welcomes Victoria Bergsman into the studio to talk about her solo project, Taken Trees.

Victoria is the former lead singer of The Concretes and the vocalist on Peter, Bjorn And John's Young Folks single.

For her latest album East Of Eden Victoria travelled to Pakistan to record with Sufi musicians. The album includes a track called My Boys, a cover of the Animal Collective song My Girls.

Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

To top

Rock out with Marc Riley's session guests Kurt Vile And The Violators. Jimmy from Doves recommended Kurt Vile's current album to Marc while they were on a whale-watching trip and Marc has never looked back. He booked them for a session practically on the spot and he's been playing Freak Train of the current album Childish Prodigy.

Kurt Vile is also guitarist with War On Drugs and is from Philadelphia. He signed to Matador Records in May 2009 as a solo artist.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

To top

Gideon Coe plays the summery sounds of French band Tahiti 80 in concert from 2001 at the Roskilde Festival and archive session tracks from the Beach Boys-esque High Llamas, Owl Service and mid-Eighties Bristol indie legends The Flatmates.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Rozena wastes no time getting back to business, in the week's first visit to Silver Street. She turns up at the football club where Jaggy and Darren aren't exactly pleased to see her. Rozena then proves she is no stranger to multi-tasking...

Elsewhere, Sway collects Nadia from the airport. She has good news; her parents seem more accepting of their relationship – they could even think about getting married. It's all too much for Sway and he finally tells the truth, leaving Nadia shocked and furious...

Rozena is played by Pooja Ghai, Jaggy by Jay Kiyani, Darren by Samuel Kindred, Sway by Nicholas Bailey and Nadia by Sohm Kapila.

BBC Asian Network Publicity