Programme Information

Dermot O'Leary has live music from the winner of BBC's Sound Of 2010

Dermot O'Leary has live music from the winner of BBC's Sound Of 2010, Ellie Goulding, in this week's show.

The BBC's Sound Of list showcases the best rising music stars for the coming year and is compiled using tips from leading UK tastemakers, including top music critics, magazine editors, broadcasters and influential bloggers.

Ellie won her first talent contest in her home town of Kington, Herefordshire, and began as a traditional acoustic singer-songwriter. But while studying drama at university in Canterbury, she hooked up with producers Starsmith and Frankmusik – who appeared on Dermot's show last year – and the results soon gained a following online. Her "folktronica" sound mixes a traditional acoustic approach with a more cutting-edge electronic style.

Presenter/Dermot O'Leary, Producer/Ben Walker

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Comedian Alex Lowe

The Alex Lowe Double Act unites Alex (The Peter Serafinowicz Show, Phoenix Nights, Clare In The Community) with Alistair McGowan, star of The Big Impression, for 30 minutes of sketches, monologues, characters and comedy banter.

The pair will do funny impressions – if Alex can twist Alistair's arm that is. And there are sketches with Barry From Watford, the elderly lifestyle guru from Steve Wright In The Afternoon; and Steven McMurdoch, Scotland's No. 1 home computer expert.

This comedy pilot is written principally by Alex and Alistair along with Ashley Blaker, Paul Putner, Jon-Luke Roberts, Jon Hunter and Holly Walsh, Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley.

Presenter/Alex Lowe, Producer/Ashley Blaker

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Harper Simon performs live versions of tracks from his new, self-titled album in Bob Harris's show tonight.

The album was recorded in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles with the help of an impressive and decidedly eclectic and multi-generational group of musical collaborators, including famed producer Bob Johnston, an all-star group of veteran first-call Nashville session players, a group of contemporary young singer-songwriters and friends, and even Harper's own father, the legendary Paul Simon.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

This production of Il Turco in Italia – Rossini's perceptive comedy of Neapolitan life and love – was recorded live at the Royal Opera House in April, starring Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Aleksandra Kurzak and Sir Thomas Allen.

A Turkish Prince, Selim, arrives in Naples by boat, looking for an amorous adventure. At the same time, the respectable Don Geronio is struggling to keep his younger wife, Fiorilla, happy. She is more interested in flirting with the young men around her, and she is immediately drawn to the exotic young Turk.

Meanwhile, the poet Prosdocimo is trying to find a subject for a new play, and he decides to stir things up in the name of theatre, especially when he discovers Zaida, a young gypsy girl who was jilted by a prince in Turkey, and Don Narciso, the previous lover of Fiorilla, now usurped by Selim.

Rossini's lively vocal ensembles sparkle with desire, frustration, jealousy and love. In this production, updated to the Sixties, this is all played out at the beach in Naples complete with pasta, wine, Italian cars, a Vespa and a masked ball.

Presented by Ivan Hewett, there are additional insights from writer and broadcaster Daniel Snowman and interviews with members of the cast, the conductor and directors during the interval.

Presenter/Ivan Hewett, Producer/ Janet Tuppen

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

This Saturday Play tells the true story of The Jubilee Singers who brought the songs of the plantations to Europe in the years immediately after slavery, and stars Jonathan Pryce, Bonnie Greer, Felix Dexter and Clive Rowe.

The singers played to Queen Victoria and Gladstone, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot was heard in England for the first time when they sang it to packed concert halls throughout the country.

The play stars a London black gospel choir, with musical directors Felix Cross and Allyson Devenish. The cast includes Adjoa Andoh, Felix Dexter, Bonnie Greer, Nadine Marshall, Alibe Parsons, Clive Rowe and Ray Shell.

They are joined by Jonathan Pryce who plays a Welsh journalist captivated by a completely new kind of song. He hears each singer's own story and begins to be entranced by one of them in particular, though their love appears to have no future, developing as it does under the shadow of war in Europe and the inevitable barriers which 19th-century culture placed between men and women of different races.

It was written by the late Adrian Mitchell, who died suddenly last year. Adrian, who was a revered poet, playwright and human rights campaigner, was inspired to write this musical play by the true story of a Welsh journalist who toured with the black American Jubilee singers in their first European tour in the late 19th century.

Mitchell's play was conceived for the theatre but it has not yet had a stage production; this is its première, adapted for radio under the guidance of Adrian's widow Celia Mitchell.

Producer/Marilyn Imrie

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Presenter Sarah Lenton explores the Royal Opera House archive to find out what the world of opera and ballet looks like from an orchestra pit.

Tucked out of sight in the pit of Covent Garden, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House accompanies every world-class performance presented on that stage.

Using a mixture of archive and backstage material, Sarah Lenton explores the orchestra's fortunes from Handel, who started the band, up to the latest rehearsal of the new Aida and allows the players to give listeners their "pit's eye view" of the Royal Opera House.

Their unique position provides some revealing insights into audiences, conductors and what happens if the stage action spills into their playing space.

Supplementing the player's view of life is archive from their conductors, from the despotic Thomas Beecham to the mercurial Georg Solti. Bernard Haitink makes an appearance, apparently as baffled as anyone else as to how a band manages to read a conductor's hands, and the programme hears from the current Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano.

Presenter/Sarah Lenton, Producer/Philippa Ritchie

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Saturday 15 May

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch presents an afternoon of live sport. From 12.15pm there's live coverage of the second League One semi-final first-leg play-off tie, plus all the latest from the qualifying session of the Monaco Grand Prix and racing from Newbury.

At 3pm there's live commentary of the FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Portsmouth from Wembley Stadium. There are also regular updates from the Scottish Cup Final, Ross County versus Dundee United.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Mark Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

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BBC Radio 5 Live's 606 presenter Spoony travels the country to meet some of the Premier League's top young players, including some World Cup hopefuls.

Spoony will be talking to the Young Lions about the pressures of being a footballer in 2010, both on and off the pitch, and their ambitions for the future.

Contributors include Manchester City and Birmingham City goalkeeper and England hopeful Joe Hart, West Ham United striker Carlton Cole and Manchester City star Micah Richards, the youngest ever defender to be called up to the senior England team.

Presenter/Spoony, Producer/Jo Tongue

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

5 Live Formula 1

Saturday 15 May

9.55-11.05am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
12.55-2.05pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary on the third practice session (9.55am) and the qualifying session (12.55pm) for the Monaco Grand Prix, comes live from Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo.

Producer/Jason Swales

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Football

Saturday 15 May

2.45-5.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted live commentary of the Scottish Cup Final features Ross County versus Dundee United, live from Hampden Park.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Boxing

Saturday 15 May

9.00-11.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy live commentary from Upton Park, East London, as local boy Kevin Mitchell challenges Australian Michael Katsidis for the Interim WBO Lightweight title.

Ahead of the main fight, and on the same bill, there's live commentary of Olympic Champion James DeGale's first title fight, the WBA international super-middleweight clash with Dudley's Sam Horton. Olympians Frankie Gavin and Billy-Joe Saunders are also on the bill.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Dave Pearce meets Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz from seminal electronic band Faithless to talk about their life in dance music.

Best known for their hits Insomnia and God Is A DJ, the band release their eagerly awaited album The Dance later this month; the first on their own label, Nate's Tunes.

Having sold 12 million records since they formed in 1995, Faithless have also established themselves as a massive draw on the UK live circuit, and this summer mark their return by playing Glastonbury, T In The Park, Global Gathering and the V Festival.

In this special edition of Dance Anthems, Dave – who was the first person ever to play Faithless's music on UK radio – talks to the band about their career and invites them to choose the tracks which have influenced them the most over the last 30 years of dance music. In the last half hour of the show, there's another chance to hear an extract of their Faithless Sound System Essential Mix, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 earlier this year.

Presenter/Dave Pearce, Producer/Rowan Collinson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Worldplay Season – The Big Melt Ep 1/6

Saturday 15 May

8.00-9.00pm BBC WORLD SERVICE

Broadcasters from around the world have each produced a play based on the theme Money as part of the new series of Worldplay. The series comprises six plays, which will air on BBC World Service from May to September 2010.

The Big Melt is a comic play from Radio New Zealand about contemporary society. It looks at how big narratives, such as global warming and financial meltdowns could be dealt with on a day-to-day level.

Writer Stuart Hoar says of the play: "I think it ends optimistically, in that having eaten some freegan food (admittedly only once), I do know that – even if things get very bad – as long as there are supermarket waste bins there is no need to despair: yet."

Directed by Duncan Smith with music by Daniel Beban and Isaac Smith, the cast includes Jeffrey Thomas, Ginnette McDonald, Simon Ferry, Gavin Rutherford, Ete Etuati and Kate Prior.

BBC World Service Publicity