Programme Information

This week's programme features the second of a two-part special in which Jamie Cullum visits Hollywood actor, director and producer Clint Eastwood at his production studio in LA – the place where he records the scores for his films.

Clint continues to take Jamie on a musical journey of his life, revealing his true love of jazz, speaking about his favourite artists, about scoring his films and his involvement with the Monterey Jazz Festival.

In a warm, personal interview, Clint is seen from a different angle, reunited with Jamie – who he worked with on the soundtrack for the film Gran Torino – and talking passionately about the music he loves.

Jamie says: "Interviewing Clint Eastwood for my BBC Radio 2 show was a true honour. He was overflowing with stories, good humour and enthusiasm for the chance to discuss his favourite topic – music. He has spent a lifetime immersed in jazz and not only picked some great music to listen to but had superb stories to weave around them."

Presenter/Jamie Cullum, Producer/Karen Pearson for Folded Wing

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Cabaret veteran Paul O'Grady continues his celebration of the most decadent, satirical and tawdry show in town, pushing back the curtain on its post-war history.

In America, the Beat generation discovered alternative comedy in the coffee bars and cabarets of San Francisco and New York. Comedy icons from Mort Sahl to Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, and even Woody Allen, caught a break on the nightclub and cabaret circuit, as did international superstars such as Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand.

In swinging London, cabaret was the perfect venue as the satire boom took hold with Peter Cook's Establishment Club holding court to Hollywood stars, rock stars and even royalty. Just a few streets away, Motown's rising stars were bringing the house down at the Talk Of The Town; and Danny La Rue was turning drag into mainstream fare at Danny's.

And it wasn't just London that bore witness to the cabaret explosion. Bernard Manning's Embassy Club in Manchester was just one of the Northern working men's clubs serving up a healthy diet of pie, chips and a floor show and attracting stars from Lulu to Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones.

Cabaret suffered during the recession in the Seventies but it came back fighting with the Comedy Store and the birth of alternative comedy at the end of the decade. Paul explores the comedy, cruise ships and gay scene that has played host to cabaret since then; twirls a tassel at the Burlesque revival; and encounters the contemporary performers following in his footsteps and enjoying the current cabaret resurgence.

Jim Bowen, Barry Cryer, Lionel Blair, Jane McDonald, Alexei Sayle, Julian Clary, Paloma Faith and Immodesty Blaize all pay tribute and explain why, despite the motorway service stations, rowdy audiences and toilet cubicle dressing rooms, it was all worth it.

As Paul says: "It's not an easy life. From the minute you set foot out the door, it's hassle. Getting there, getting ready, getting on, getting home. I loved it."

Presenter/Paul O'Grady, Producer/Rebecca Maxted for Wise Buddah

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Petroc Trelawny presents a recital by American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato with pianist David Zobel, recorded at the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival. The music ranges across three centuries of love songs, including songs and arias by Pergolesi, Caccini, Leoncavallo, Beethoven and Rossini.

Joyce DiDonato is among the world's most enchanting performers and the winner of many honours including the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills Award.

The programme is followed by a second chance to hear music from the Proms 2010: trio sonatas by the Bach family played by Musica ad Rhenum, directed by Jed Wentz.

Presenter/Petroc Trelawny, Producer/Philip Tagney

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Neil MacGregor explores the great empires which existed around 1500 – the threshold of the modern era.

Today he is in Ming Dynasty China, with a surviving example of some of the world's first paper bank notes – what the Chinese called "flying cash".

Neil explains how paper money came about and considers the forces that underpinned its successes and failures. He explores why, as the rest of the world was happily trading in coins that had an actual value in silver or gold, the Chinese risked the use of paper. This particular surviving note, made on mulberry bark, is much bigger than the notes of today and is dated 1375.

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and historian Timothy Brook look back over the history of paper money and what it takes to make it work.

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Anthony Denselow and Paul Kobrak

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Brett Westwood reports on the latest stories from the world of wildlife conservation.

From the air, a particular view of the desert of Ethiopia is punctuated by a conspicuous patch of woodland. Looking like a green island in the middle of a large golden sea of arid land, the image is incongruous.

Closer examination of the wood reveals a church in the middle and it turns out the religious people of this part of Ethiopia have made this woodland sacred. No fences, no governmental protection, no involvement of an external organisation – this wood is valued by the locals as a place to commune, think and pray. The desert around has been farmed unsustainably and the climate has stripped away the top spoil.

Saving Species brings a special report from an ecologist who has visited this sacred wood to record its biodiversity and discovers whether the most ancient approach of making species and habitats sacred could be a very modern conservation tool.

Presenter/Brett Westwood, Producer/Kirsty Henderson

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The mortality of fictional superstars literally lies in the hands of their creators. Fiona Lindsay cross-examines four famous authors to reveal their motives for murder.

At the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival 2010, Fiona conducts a forensic cross-examination of popular writers put on trial to reveal their motives for killing off their leading characters. It's an age-old friction in fiction between creator and creation. And the assassination of an author's key character is often a result of a clash of egos.

Agatha Christie kept the death of her famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, secret for 30 years, only to confess shortly before her own demise. She had no regrets and, as her biographer Laura Thompson reveals, was in no hurry to get Miss Marple on the case.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detested Sherlock Holmes's public domination over his own life and murdered him merrily. Yet the firestorm of protest was so intense resurrection was inevitable. Holmes expert David Stuart Davies and actor Roger Llewellyn incorporate the core of this controversy in their latest play.

Colin Dexter claims he didn't kill Morse: "He died of natural causes." A nation mourned but the author is unrepentant, choosing kindly death over morose retirement.

Ian Rankin took the opposite view for the demise of Rebus, leaving the coffin lid open for a timely return. But since fictional characters are immortal, Fiona asks why kill them off at all?

Characters who become bigger than their authors, beware – they may have all the best lines, but their creator has the last word.

Presenter/Fiona Lindsay, Producer/Chris Eldon Lee for Culture Wise Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Mr Quin Ep 1/3

Tuesday 14 to Thursday 16 September

3.30-3.45pm BBC RADIO 4

Following the success of the first series of The Mysterious Mr Quin, Martin Jarvis reads more stories featuring Agatha Christie's personal favourite character.

Mr Quin assists his friend, Mr Satterthwaite, to investigate three mysteries. But one mystery remains – namely who is Mr Harley Quin?

Mr Satterthwaite, on holiday in Corsica, travels by car with his friend, the Duchess, and an Indian judge, to the top of the island known as The World's End. They are led, via perilous ravine-lined roads, by Naomi, a young, strangely distracted artist.

In a village at the summit they suddenly encounter Mr Quin and, while sheltering from a sudden snowstorm, another visiting group comprised of a well-known actress, her husband and a theatre producer. The actress tells the story of her stolen opal and the young writer imprisoned for the offence. Naomi seems unexpectedly disturbed by the tale...

Reader/Martin Jarvis, Producer/Rosalind Ayres for Jarvis & Ayres Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Tracing Your Roots Ep 1/5

Tuesday 14 September

4.00-4.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Sally Magnusson and genealogist Nick Barratt return to solve more family mysteries in Tracing Your Roots.

In the first of the new series, Sally goes on the trail of ancestors who vanished without trace. She unravels family scandals in search of people who left their families to start a new life somewhere else.

Presenters/Sally Magnusson and Nick Barratt, Producers/Amanda Hargreaves and Moira Hickey

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Tuesday 14 September

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch has all the day's sports news and live coverage from the opening round of matches in the group stage of the Champions League.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Claire Ackling

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

5 Live Football

Tuesday 14 September

7.40-9.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra brings uninterrupted commentary from one of the night's top matches in the Championship.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Andrew Collins sits in for Lauren Laverne and is joined by original New York indie band Interpol for a live session. The New York band release their self-titled fourth album this month which features bass player Carlos Dengler for the last time; he left the band soon after recording was completed to pursue personal projects.

The band are famous for singles such as Slow Hands, which had a recent resurgence having been featured in an advert.

Presenter/Andrew Collins, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Author Alice Echols, a former disco DJ, seeks to redress the balance for disco, placing it within its cultural context in the changing face of Seventies America in her new book, Hot Stuff – Disco And The Remaking Of American Culture.

She reveals the way in which disco transformed popular music, influencing rap, techno and trance. She also probes the complex relationship between disco and some major movements of the era of gay liberation, feminism and African American rights.

Nemone discusses the book with Alice and book reviewer Alli Catterell.

Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Legendary Scottish band The Vaselines make their second appearance in the Marc Riley studio to play tracks from their second album, Sex With An X, which is released just 21 years after the first studio album!

The Vaselines originally formed in Glasgow in 1987 and recorded two singles and one album before splitting up in 1989 – the same week the album was released. Posthumous fame beckoned, however, when Nirvana covered three of their tunes. In the meantime, founding members Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee remained active, both solo and in bands such as Captain America (aka Eugenius) The Painkillers and Suckle, before touring together in 2006.

It was an unannounced appearance at a fundraiser for Malawi Orphan Support in 2008 which brought about their latest reunion. They've since toured America, Brazil, Japan and now finally the UK.

Sex With An X was recorded in Mossley, outside Manchester, in just 13 days, with Jamie Watson in the producer's seat. Jamie also produced their first album, Dum Dum, all those years ago. The Vaselines are currently Eugene and Frances with guest musicians Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle And Sebastian on guitar and bass, and Michael McGaughrin from the band 1990s on drums.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe breaks out concerts from rediscovered Seventies folk singer Vashti Bunyan and Evan Dando's Lemonheads, as well as sessions from The Flaming Lips, Seventies folky Tucker Zimmerman and a rare 1994 recording from US "slacker pop" band Sammy.

There's also a 1978 John Peel session from The Damned.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon

BBC 6 Music Publicity