Wednesday 24 Sep 2014
Programme Information
Network Radio BBC Week 5:
30 January-5 February 2010
Transmission details in the Network Radio Programme Information
7-day version are not updated after publication. For updates, please see individual day pages.
Network Radio BBC Week 5:
Saturday 30 January 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Jonathan Ross and Andy Davies are joined by actor Anthony Head, the star of BBC One drama Merlin, and by comedian Ricky Gervais. There is also live music from British synthpop duo La Roux, who last week made headlines with their musical collaboration with electro artists Heaven 17 for BBC 6 Music.
Presenter/Jonathan Ross, Producer/Fiona Day
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Dermot O'Leary has live sessions from Mika and OK Go.
Brit award-winner Mika has enjoyed great success since topping the BBC's Sound Of 2007 poll. His debut single, Grace Kelly, sold three million copies worldwide and, on New Year's Eve 2009, he presented his own BBC Radio 2 show. February sees the release of his next single, Blame It On The Girls.
US rock band OK Go secured their place in popular culture when their creative use of treadmills in the Here It Goes Again video was parodied by The Simpsons. They've since played in the chambers of the United States Senate and helped raise money to rebuild the music community of New Orleans. They've just released their third studio album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky.
Presenter/Dermot O'Leary, Producer/Ben Walker
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Deacon Blue singer-songwriter Ricky Ross presents highlights of Celtic Connections 2010 from Glasgow – Scotland's premier winter music festival with more than 1,500 folk, roots, world, Americana and traditional music artists playing.
Ricky talks to the featured artists from this year's event and re-lives past musical highlights from Bobby McFerrin, Natalie Merchant, The Low Anthem, Del Castillo, Capercaillie and Beth Nielsen Chapman And Charlie Dore.
Presenter/Ricky Ross, Producer/Richard Murdoch
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Marcus Bonfanti plays live for Bob Harris after midnight and talks about his second album, What Good Am I To You, which features a range of influences from Tony Joe White to Led Zeppelin.
Marcus, 27, was born and raised in London. A self-taught guitarist, he has studied at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and has been involved in top-level session work.
Jimmy Page became a lasting inspiration through Bonfanti's time at Lipa. He opted not to complete his three years there but, with the resourcefulness of a jobbing musician, he was asked back to play in the band at the graduation party he hadn't qualified for. A 2008 debut album, Hard Times, followed.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Miranda Hinkley explores the extraordinary story of Mikis Theodorakis, one of Greece's most celebrated composers. Best known for his music to 1974 film Zorba The Greek, Theodorakis will be 85 this year.
Part of the resistance during the Second World War, imprisoned during the Greek Civil War, and exiled during the military dictatorship, his story mirrors that of modern Greece. These experiences are reflected in his music. Urgent, challenging and diverse, it includes countless popular songs now embedded in the national psyche, as well as bold and original chamber music, operas and symphonies.
Miranda meets the composer to look back at a 60-year career and, with the help of singers Maria Farantouri and Marios Frangoulis, and violinist Georgos Demertzis, considers his musical legacy.
Presenter and Producer/Miranda Hinkley
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Opera On 3 – Stiffelio
Live from the Metropolitan Opera New York, Plácido Domingo conducts Verdi's strikingly modern take on a marriage in crisis, Stiffelio, with José Cura in the title role.
Stiffelio had a troubled history. The predominantly Catholic Italy of the mid-19th century was not ready for a story of adultery in the home of a protestant minister and the opera was severely censored at the time of its première in 1850. Forced to extensively revise his opera, Verdi then lost interest in it and did his best to destroy all copies of the original manuscript. It wasn't until 1960 that a complete score of Stiffelio was discovered and, in 1993, it entered the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera with tenor Domingo in the title role.
Domingo now takes up the conductor's baton whilst Argentinian tenor José Cura sings the role of Stiffelio, the troubled clergyman who is torn between his ideals and the urge for revenge. American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky performs the role of his wife, Lina.
Presented by Margaret Juntwait with guest commentator Ira Siff, the programme includes backstage interviews with members of the cast and the Met Quiz during the intervals.
Presenter/Margaret Juntwait, Producer/Anthony Sellors
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
One of the most enigmatic stage directions in all drama appears in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard: "A distant sound is heard. It appears to come from the sky and is the sound of a breaking string. It dies away sadly."
This week's Between The Ears focuses on the many attempts to produce this sound, using items ranging from musical saws to gun-shots.
Guests include Paul Arditti, who mixed industrial, musical and bird sounds for the production by Sam Mendes, and musician Leafcutter John, who accepts BBC Radio 3's own Chekhov Challenge, recording his experiments to find a resonant breaking-string sound for the 21st century.
Reader/Emerald O'Hanrahan, Producer/John Goudie
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Every Prime Minister feels the need to travel. Usually during the Parliamentary recess, they travel to foreign countries – to meet other great leaders, to cheer up the troops, to show they're abreast of global affairs and to impress the voters back home. With them goes a motley crew of minders, civil servants, diplomats and journalists.
Julia Langdon, one-time political editor of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Telegraph, has travelled with four Prime Ministers and has been round the world many times with Margaret Thatcher. Julia tells the programme how she has watched elderly despots dance attendance upon Mrs T, and has watched Mrs T dance herself. She has trailed the former PM around building sites in the Middle East, a sewer works in Cairo, a mine in Namibia and a mass transit system in Singapore. She has watched as Thatcher took tea in a trench with two African Presidents in a war zone, and she was on the ministerial plane when Frelimo guerrillas in Mozambique tried to bring it down with a ground-to-air missile. Once, Julia was mistaken for the Prime Minister herself by the military top brass in Moscow.
It's a gruelling rather than glamorous experience, constantly crossing time zones, constantly being jet lagged and rarely getting the chance to get a good night's sleep or even do your washing. But it's exciting, it serves democracy and, for a journalist, it's a great source of stories.
In this programme, Julia talks to some of the others who've gone travelling with the Prime Minister, including Sir Bernard Ingham, Sir Christopher Meyer, Trevor Kavanagh and Chris Moncrieff, about what went right, what went wrong and what was fun.
Presenter/Julia Langdon, Producer/Chris Bond
BBC News Publicity
Flexible Friend Or Foe explores how a sliver of plastic took over the world.
The credit card was launched by Barclays in the UK in 1966. The Barclaycard was marketed at first as a "shopping card", not as a credit card, in order to thwart the British public's resistance to incurring debt.
Barclaycard's first on-screen advertisement, called Travelling Light, was targeted at women and featured the famous Barclaycard Bikini Girl who, oblivious to the shocked looks of passers-by, is seen making her way down a busy shopping street buying clothes and records, wearing nothing but a lilac-coloured bikini and carrying her Barclaycard in the bikini bottom. The advert finished with the line: "Barclaycard: all a girl needs when she goes shopping."
That first card is now accompanied by some 1,700 other credit cards in Britain alone. Britain has the unenviable record as the world's most intensive credit-card country with 67 million cards for 59 million people.
Presenter/Max Flint, Producer/Terry Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch presents an afternoon of live sport, with updates from the East Midlands derby between Derby County and Nottingham Forest in the Championship from 1pm. There are also regular tennis updates from the men's semi-final and women's final at the Australian Open in Melbourne and racing from Cheltenham.
There's coverage of the afternoon's 3pm football matches including Birmingham City versus Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool versus Bolton Wanderers in the Premier League, plus Hamilton versus Celtic and Rangers versus Falkirk in the Scottish Premier League. There are also updates from rugby union's Anglo-Welsh Cup third-round ties, rugby league Super League action and International athletics from Glasgow.
At 5.30pm, there's Premier League commentary of Burnley versus Chelsea, live from Turf Moor.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Mark Williams
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Live and uninterrupted commentary on the women's singles final at the Australian Open comes from Melbourne.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
Uninterrupted live commentary on two of the day's Championship matches includes Leicester City versus Newcastle United from the Walkers Stadium at 5.20pm.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Saturday 30 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Richard Bacon brings two hours of anecdotal, observational conversation to BBC 6 Music listeners.
Alongside best friend and right-hand-man Marc Haynes, Richard initiates his trademark audience-participation and listener-led topical chat. Mundane texts, records of achievement and "Twittercisms" are punctuated with music and sprinkled with a few picks from Richard's own collection.
Presenter/Richard Bacon, Producer/Dan Cocker
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Electro expert and Wall Of Sound record label boss Mark Jones presents a special show celebrating BBC 6 Music's unique collaboration with Gary Numan and Little Boots, currently available to BBC digital viewers under the Red button.
The show features an in-depth interview between Gary and Mark, first broadcast in November 2009, discussing Numan's work as a synth pioneer and the re-issue of his landmark 1979 album, The Pleasure Principle, featuring massive hit single Cars. Gary also picks music which influenced and inspired him, ranging from David Bowie to T Rex and Nine Inch Nails.
Alongside Gary's interview, Mark delves into the BBC archive to play Little Boots's 6 Mix from August 2008. Little Boots – Blackpool's Victoria Hesketh – went on to be voted No. 1 in the BBC's Sound Of 2009 and has had hit singles with New In Town and Remedy. This was the first-ever mix she did for BBC Radio and features tunes from The Black Ghosts and Hercules And Love Affair.
Presenter/Mark Jones, Producer/Rowan Collinson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5: Sunday 31 January 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Legendary guitarist Brian May, from rock band Queen, joins Elaine Paige in the studio this week. Brian shares his favourite Essential Musicals, which include We Will Rock You, which is based on the music of Queen.
There are also break-a-leg messages and the Big One from Malcolm Prince which, this week, is taken from Sunset Boulevard.
Presenter/Elaine Paige, Producer/Malcolm Prince
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
The Christian Church celebrates Education Sunday today which is a national day of prayer and thanksgiving for all involved in the world of education.
Brian D'Arcy explores this year's theme, Called To Serve, with hymns and prayers.
Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Siobhan Redmond and Paul Higgins lead a cast of top Scottish actors in this new production of Chekhov's classic drama, The Seagull.
In part a tragic play about eternally unhappy people, Chekhov has always surprised his audiences by viewing The Seagull as a comedy, poking fun at human folly. All the characters are dissatisfied with their lives. Some desire love, some yearn for success, some crave artistic genius, but no one ever seems to attain happiness.
When famous actress Irina Arkadina arrives to spend the summer on her brother Sorin's country estate, tempers inevitably fray.
Irina Arkadina is played by Siobhan Redmond.
The Seagull is adapted for radio by Stuart Paterson from the first-ever English translation by George Calderon.
Presenter/Dominic Hill, Producer/Turan Ali
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Tom De Waal examines the history of Pontic Greek culture. The Black Sea region of Turkey was once the ancient kingdom of the Pontus and its Christian orthodox inhabitants subsequently survived and thrived throughout Byzantine and Ottoman times. However, for centuries this culture, centred on the great trading port of Trebizond, on the caravan route to Persia, was living on borrowed time.
The 1923 exchange of populations between modern Greece and Turkey, resulting from the Lausanne Treaty, was the endgame that gave rise to the Pontic nationality splitting among multiple citizenships. The shepherds in the high mountains behind the city of Trebizond, who for more than a thousand years had driven their flocks up onto the high plateau in summer and back to the narrow coastal plain in winter, sometimes adopting a Christian persona, sometimes a Muslim one, disappeared, and the economy has never really recovered.
Worse than this for some, the architectural jewel that was Trabzon (as it is now called) has become an almost Soviet-like conglomeration of tower blocks. The final insult came five years ago with the corrupt and much-opposed construction of a coastal motorway which has chopped this once great maritime city off from the Black Sea.
Tom de Waal traces some of what has been lost to the Soumela Monastery, at which on 15 August every year people of Pontic descent from across the globe come to remember the feast of the Virgin. Here there is a collision of Russian, Turkish and Greek interests, which provides a lesson in modern regional politics.
But connecting all of these disparate people is music – the Greek lyre and the Turkish kemence, a small violin played like a cello. They play the same, they dance the same. Culturally connected and politically divided this is a story of people who are really cousins, or even brothers, but cannot quite bring themselves to admit it.
Presenter/Tom De Waal, Producer/Neil Trevithick
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Michael Maloney and Lesley Sharp read poems and texts surveying all aspects of the human face, from writers including Christina Rossetti, Ovid, George Barlow and extracts from Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray, and with music by Gershwin, Purcell and George Michael.
The face of the mother is the first thing on which the human baby focuses at birth. From then on, faces take on a huge significance throughout life. Humans communicate all their emotions through their faces, eyes and with words spoken through lips.
This week's Words And Music surveys all aspects of the face, including beauty, youth, ugliness, love and fear.
Readers/Michael Maloney and Lesley Sharp, Producer/Helen Garrison
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Living World Ep 1/5
Described as "jet-propelled mouths", pike have a well-deserved reputation as the river's most fearsome predator. In the first of a new series of Living World, Lionel Kelleway goes fishing for pike on the banks of the River Frome in Dorset.
He is joined by keen fisherman and retired freshwater biologist Mike Ladle, who will never forget the first time he landed a pike as a child.
He was trying to catch eels and hauled up a pike on his line instead. When he tried to release the hook from inside the pike's mouth, he soon found out why fishermen treat pike with such respect – their mouths are lined with rows of backwardly pointing teeth. They even have teeth on their tongue, a tongue that is green. So once a pike has trapped its prey in its mouth – there's no escape from those rows of thorn-like teeth.
Pike catch their prey by hiding undercover at the edge of the bank and then curling their tail round, which acts like a spring, to thrust them forwards at their prey with terrific speed. Pike are cannibalistic fish and will feed on their relatives and their own young.
Years of catching, tagging, releasing and studying pike have given Mike a fascinating knowledge of how these formidable creatures behave. But there still remain a few mysteries about the pike, as he reveals in the programme.
Presenter/Lionel Kelleway, Producer/Sarah Blunt
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
This week's castaway is Mary Beard, Professor of classics at Cambridge University.
Born in Shropshire in 1955, the daughter of an architect and a headmistress, Mary would attend archaeological excavations in summer holidays. Initially, she joined the digs to earn money but began to find the study of antiquity interesting.
Attending a single-sex college, she discovered that some men at Cambridge University were dismissive towards women's academic potential, and this strengthened her resolve to succeed.
Mary lectured in classics at King's College, London, and returned to Cambridge in 1984 as fellow of Newnham College, the only female lecturer in the classics faculty.
Mary tells Kirsty Young about her life, her favourite music and describes how she would cope on BBC Radio 4's mythical island.
Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
In the second part of John le Carré's The Honourable Schoolboy, agent George Smiley is in Hong Kong.
The Honourable Schoolboy is the sixth in BBC Radio 4's series of dramatisations of John le Carré's work, featuring his character, George Smiley. A stellar cast includes Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Steed, Daisy Haggard and, of course, Simon Russell Beale as Smiley.
Aided by the few people he can really trust, Smiley unearths a "gold seam" – a record of large amounts of money passing from Moscow to an anonymous bank account in British-controlled Hong Kong.
The operation in Hong Kong becomes increasingly dangerous when the government and American Intelligence begin to take notice.
Hugh Bonneville plays Jerry Westerby, Maggie Steed is Connie Sachs and Daisy Haggard is Liese Worth.
Producer/Marc Beeby
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Poetry Please Ep 1/8
Roger McGough returns with a new year of poetry requested by listeners.
The series begins with a burst of creative energy from Stevie Smith's galloping cat and Les Murray's poem defining the quintessentially Australian quality of "sprawl". Tony Harrison reflects on the fires of creation and destruction, and there's a recollection of high summer from Sylvia Plath. The readers include Tanya Moodie, John Telfer and David Henry.
Other programmes in the series include: Ted Hughes's skin-shivering poem, Horses; a poem by polymath designer William Morris about the beginning of his passion for Iceland; and reflections on a lucky life and death from Raymond Carver. There is also a tender poem about fatherhood and language from 2008 Forward Prize-winning poet Mick Imlah.
The tone for the Valentine's Day programme is set by Jenny Joseph, the author of Warning. Joseph's new collection is called Nothing Like Love, and explores passionate love and rejection. The programme includes readings by Joseph.
Presenter/Roger McGough, Producer/Mary Ward-Lowery
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Colin Murray presents the latest sports news and an afternoon of live action. At 1.30pm, there is commentary of Manchester City versus Portsmouth in the Premier League, live, from Fratton Park, plus tennis updates from the men's final at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
At 4pm, there is more live Premier League commentary as Arsenal play Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium.
Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Ed King
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Listeners can enjoy live, uninterrupted commentary on the men's singles final at the Australian Open, live, from Melbourne.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Sunday 31 January 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
The Music Week speaks to superband-of-the-moment Them Crooked Vultures.
Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, and Queen Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme grant Matt Everitt and Julie Cullen an audience backstage at their recent Hammersmith Apollo gig. They talk through their shared musical past and look to the future and the possibility of a second album.
Presenters/Julie Cullen and Matt Everitt, Producer/Tom Green
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Fun Lovin' Criminal Huey Morgan meets a hero to those who've succumbed to the complex charms of cult US crime drama series The Wire – Idris Elba, who played drug baron Stringer Bell.
Idris is also known as Driis to the hip-hop world, performing, producing and djing since the early Nineties. His production credits can be found on the American Gangster soundtrack with Jay-Z and Angie Stone. This February, Driis releases a new EP, featuring a more mellow "hip-hop soul" vibe, called High Class Problems Vol 1, featuring single Private Garden. Huey talks to Driis about his new material, some of the hip-hop luminaries he's worked with, the legacy of Stringer Bell and how he's overcoming the actor/musician "curse".
Presenter/Huey Morgan, Producer/Becky Maxted
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5: Monday 1 February 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Ken Bruce is joined by Dolores O'Riordan from The Cranberries, who chooses her Tracks Of My Years. Her choices include music by Depeche Mode, Falco and Whitesnake.
There's also the Popmaster music quiz, the Record Of The Week and Album Of The Week.
Presenter/Ken Bruce, Producer/Phil Jones
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Lenny Kravitz concludes the story of Curtis Mayfield. The final episode, New World Order, covers the tragic circumstances preceding his death and celebrates his enduring legacy.
On 13 August 1990, Curtis was sound-checking for an outdoor concert onstage at Wingate Field in Brooklyn when the lighting rig came down on top of him, crushing his spine in three places, resulting in him being paralysed from the neck down. His injuries did not deter him though and he managed to produce a new studio album, New World Order, in 1994. During the recording, Curtis had to lie on his back in order to give some gravitational power to his singing.
His accident led to a re-appraisal of his work and several tribute albums were produced. He also received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. However, the long-term effects of the accident proved costly and he died on 26 December 1999, aged only 57.
Curtis's contribution to soul music remains immense. He recorded some of the finest soul vocal group music of the Sixties and, as a solo artist, he helped pioneer funk and introduced hard-hitting urban commentary into his music, leading the way for Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Stevie Wonder's Innervisions.
Presenter/Lenny Kravitz, Producer/Sue Clark
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
William Walton is perhaps best defined by a series of paradoxes: the pillar of the British musical establishment who lived in voluntary exile; the king of the grand, filmic gesture who harboured deep insecurity; the socialite and ladies' man who often preferred to be alone.
Walton hid himself behind an acerbic wit – a statement which has also been made about his writing. Snatched by the Sitwells from what they saw as an ignominious future as a schoolteacher in Oldham, Walton became known in London as the most precocious British composer of the Twenties.
In today's programme, Donald Macleod delves into the curious world with which Walton became involved. Later in the week, he looks at: how Walton's career took a new turn in the wartime era; critical failure alongside a blissful self-imposed exile on the island of Ischia; and, in his later years, his place as a pillar of the musical establishment.
Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Dominic Jewel
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Neil MacGregor continues his history of humanity told through objects from the British Museum's vast collection.
This week he looks at what happened when people started to live together in greater numbers between 4000 and 2000 BC – developing the world's first cities, creating vast trade networks, the first handwriting and new forms of leadership and warfare.
Neil revisits the early days of a great civilisation on the Nile to examine the life of one of the earliest Egyptian kings through the tiny sandal label, carved from hippo ivory, that accompanied him to the afterlife.
The label not only depicts the king in battle against unknown foes but also boasts the first writing in this history of the world – hieroglyphs that describe the king and his military conquests.
Neil and contributors consider whether this is just the first indication that there would never be civilisation without war.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Woman's Hour Drama –
How Does That Make You Feel?
(Ordinary's Not Enough) Ep 1/5
Roger Allam stars in Shelagh Stephenson's Woman's Hour Drama, about Martha who has been a therapist for 10 years. She has always been a caring and engaged professional but, deep down, she's losing patience.
She cannot understand why her clients want to be something they are not and why they are surprised that it's driving them mad.
For Martha, client confidentiality is sacrosanct – or almost. Luckily for listeners, she has few qualms when it comes to recording her personal opinions about those who grace her office – and those opinions are rarely complimentary.
There's Caroline, who wants her daughter, Louise, to be somebody out of the ordinary and she'll stop at nothing to make sure it happens – regardless of what Louise may think about it.
There's also Richard Fallon MP, who is convinced promotion to the government's front bench is being denied him because of his obese son, and Philip and Rosemary, who are dying of "creeping invisibility" since Phil's enforced move from his job as a local TV anchor man to being presenter of a radio programme.
Howard, a chef whose son ridicules the idea of cooking for a living and who would rather win The X-Factor, even though he's now 31 and still living at home, is another client.
Seen from inside Martha's head, people veer towards hysteria, because ordinary is no longer enough. It seems that everyone has to have a dream now, and they not only want to live it, but also be seen to be living it. If you're publicly invisible, you simply don't exist. And it's driving them all mad; including Martha.
How Does That Make You Feel? features Cathy Belton as the therapist; Roger Allam as Richard Fallon; Rebecca Saire as Caroline; Tim McInnerny as Philip and Howard; and Shelagh Stephenson as Rose.
Producer/Eoin O'Callghan
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Listening To China tells the little-known story of a small band of young men selected to learn Chinese at the start of their National Service and then sent to Hong Kong to eavesdrop on Chinese communications. The programme hears about their extraordinary experience and how it changed their lives.
In the mid-Fifties, with the Cold War raging and Chairman Mao's communists in power in China, the RAF began a top-secret programme to select and train a small group of National Servicemen to carry out intelligence work in Hong Kong.
For six years from 1955, about 60 men a year spent 12 months learning Chinese in England before being flown across the world to monitor radio broadcasts from the highest peak on Hong Kong Island for six months before being demobbed.
Fifty years on, some of those involved speak publicly for the first time to BBC World Affairs correspondent Emily Buchanan about their time on a course which few had known about or chosen to do. They recall the intensive language lessons, life in Hong Kong, the work itself and what they have since learned about their role in the Cold War.
Some went on to work in intelligence, others formed the basis for a generation of professors of Chinese at British universities and some never used their Chinese again: But all recall how the, often chance, decision to select them for the language course changed their lives.
Presenter/Emily Buchanan, Producer/Alex Hunt
BBC News Publicity
The Ditch is a chilling tale about the disturbing aural landscape of Slaughton Ditch, written and narrated by Paul Evans.
Tom Saunders, a wildlife sound recordist, goes missing, leaving only a collection of recordings and a notebook. A year after his death, these effects are sent by Saunders's solicitor to his colleague, who tries to piece together what has happened to his friend. The quest leads him back to the disturbing aural landscape of Slaughton Ditch, where an obsession with hidden sounds has terrifying and fatal consequences.
As a respected, if maverick, sound recordist, Saunders built his reputation on capturing high-quality wildlife and landscape sounds for radio, television and film. Slaughton Ditch was the site of his best work and he was planning a natural history radio documentary about the place when he went missing.
It was assumed Saunders had an accident and his body had been swept out to sea but, when his colleague, the narrator, receives a package from Saunders's solicitor containing a key, a collection of sound recordings and a notebook, he begins to suspect the truth wasn't that simple.
The key is for Saunders's caravan at Slaughton Ditch and the narrator returns and begins ploughing through Saunders's crazy ramblings about EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomenon – and the weird recordings he claimed were voices of malevolent intent from the past preying on the living, to try to find out what really happened. What he discovers is evidence of Saunders's obsession with some wild power which lies within the sounds of this beautiful-yet-sinister landscape. What the narrator experiences through his quest for the truth is both haunting and terrifying.
The wildlife sound recordist for this drama is Chris Watson and the sound engineer is Mike Burgess. The cast includes Jimmy Yuill as Tom Saunders and Paul Evans as the narrator.
Producer/Sarah Blunt
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Robo Wars Ep 1/2
This new two-part series for BBC Radio 4, presented by Stephen Sackur, considers a crucial, but often hidden, revolution in the way in which wars are fought. Ever-more autonomous robotic machines are becoming steadily more popular with the military and other agencies, often controlled far away from the battlefield. The pilotless drone aircraft, for example, has become key to current conflicts such as Afghanistan. Whether in the air or on the ground, such machines are seen as offering huge military advantages – with less exposure of soldiers to danger as well as being quicker, cheaper and more effective forms of defence and attack.
But the implications of this revolution are controversial. Are countries more likely to fight wars if their personnel are not put in danger? What happens if machines malfunction? How can autonomous machines be held accountable for their actions according to the laws of war?
Stephen questions military figures, including the most senior RAF figure responsible for strategy on pilotless aircraft, those who operate drones for the RAF, manufacturers of military robots and experts in the field. He explores what is already happening as military robotics expand – and what might happen in the future.
The first programme focuses on the huge impact of drones, used not only by the British and US in Afghanistan but also – highly controversially – by the CIA in attacks on targets in Pakistan. One former CIA employee reveals how the use of drones in so-called targeted assassinations has divided the organisation.
Presenter/Stephen Sackur, Producer/Chris Bowlby
BBC News Publicity
Costing The Earth Ep 1/9
In 1649, a radical off-shoot from Cromwell's army declared England's land to be a common treasury and began to plant fruit and vegetables on common land in south and central England. It was a response to a shortage of food and what the diggers saw as the misuse of productive land by the large landowners.
In the first of a new series of Costing The Earth, Alice Roberts meets the new diggers – groups and individuals across the country determined to tackle the looming food crisis by making the wasteland grow.
In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, locals began by secretly planting up the gardens of their derelict heath centre. The station car park and the tow path of the Rochdale canal soon followed. Today, the whole town seems to throb with fertility; new allotments fill the retirement home gardens and feed the residents, an aquaponics growing system is being built behind the secondary school and pak choi self-seeds through the cracks in the town centre pavements.
In Gateshead, a National Trust-owned stately home has cleared its enormous Georgian walled garden and invited local people in to create their own allotments. Meanwhile, a farming estate in Oxfordshire has decided that a reliance on arable farming leaves it vulnerable to world markets. New farmers and growers are being invited in to rent small plots of land to try their hand at making the tricky transition from amateur grower to real farmer.
Alice Roberts asks if this grass-roots revolution will produce enough food to feed Britain.
Presenter/Alice Roberts, Producers/Maggie Ayre and Steve Peacock
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Arlo White presents all the day's sports news and is joined by special guests for the Monday Night Club, discussing the latest big issues in football.
From 8pm there's live Premier League commentary of Sunderland versus Stoke City from the Stadium of Light.
Presenter/Arlo White, Producer/Francesca Bent
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Nemone makes a welcome return to lunchtimes on BBC 6 Music and chats to British electronic pioneers Hot Chip about their new extreme fish-eye view video for new single One Life Stand, directed by Roel Wouters.
Every week, the lunchtime show features a playlist of hand-picked music from bands and artists. The specially selected tracks will be played out across the week and available in full via the 6 Music website. This week's Featured Playlist is selected by Baltimore pop duo Beach House, whose new album, Teen Dream, is already being touted as one of the albums of 2010. Listeners can discover the band's influences across the week including tracks by Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Fever Ray and White Trash Boys.
Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe presents The Wannadies in concert at the Leeds Festival. Archive sessions come from maverick "art" terrorist Billy Childish; a cherished BBC 6 Music outing for Manchester-based spooky chanteuse Liz Green; and the legendary and sometimes frightening US experimental outfit Trumans Water, who can be heard in a John Peel Session from 1994. From 1980, there's a session from Oumou Sangare.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Bob Harris recalls the life and extraordinary career of session pianist Nicky Hopkins.
Hopkins played on more than 300 albums, 13 of them by the Rolling Stones. Other beneficiaries include The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, David Bowie, The Kinks, Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker.
Diamonds And Tiaras, first broadcast on BBC Radio 2, features contributions from Joe Cocker, Bill Wyman, Ian McLagan and Hopkins's widow, Moira. It concludes tomorrow.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Brian is in a good mood and it's all down to Isabel, in the first visit of the week to Silver Street. Later, he discovers Sandra is back, but will this change how he feels?
Arun warns Sean that the cockroach situation at the cafe has attracted the interest of the Environmental Health department, but Sean reckons he has a bigger "pest" to worry about.
Meanwhile, Deepika gets a visit from Darren who wonders if she has been avoiding him because of his past. Later, Deepika discovers exactly what that past is...
Brian is played by Gerard McDermott, Arun by Naithan Ariane, Sean by Lloyd Thomas, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull and Darren by Samuel Kindred.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Monday 1 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Opposing Obama Ep 1/2
After eight years of division, America came together last year to celebrate the historic election of its first black president. Or at least that was how the story was presented. In fact, on Election Day, despite the calamity of the Iraq war and the huge financial crisis, the vote for Republicans actually increased in significant swathes of the country. Since then, polls suggest that Barack Obama is now the most divisive president since such records began. One year into his presidency, the gap between how Democrats and Republicans rate Obama is greater than it was for Bush in 2001 and twice as high as it was for Nixon in 1969, during the height of the Vietnam War.
In this two-part documentary, author and journalist Gary Younge tells the story of the other side of the Obama phenomenon; the story of those who say that the Obama presidency is nothing but bad news. Younge asks who these people are who feel they have been marginalised by the Obama revolution. He also asks what they don't like about him and what Obama could do, if anything, to win them over.
Younge spends 10 days travelling through rural Arkansas and Kentucky, talking to anti-tax protesters, fundamentalist Christians and libertarians, country club members and local dignitaries to find out how they view the last year under Obama and what their hopes and fears are for the coming year.
Presenter/Gary Younge
BBC World Service Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5: Tuesday 2 February 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
From his home in Perthshire, Desmond Carrington rummages through his collection of 250,000 titles and this week takes music from British films as his theme.
Presenter/Desmond Carrington, Producer/Dave Aylott
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
This evening, Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie have live music from Fyfe Dangerfield of the indie rock band Guillemots, who has just released his debut solo album, Fly Yellow Moon.
Presenters/Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, Producer/Viv Atkinson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
In a few weeks' time, British film producer David Puttnam, with broadcaster and author Brian Sibley will be bringing the story of the first 100 years of cinema up to date. But for now, listeners can sit back, dim the lights and open the popcorn, as BBC Radio 2
re-broadcasts their original 1999 programme charting the history of the silver screen.
This programme considers Hollywood's great film-factories: Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal and MGM. Contributors include Angela Lansbury, Dirk Bogarde, Fred Zinneman and Leslie Bricusse.
Presenters/David Puttnam and Brian Sibley, Producer/Malcolm Prince
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Tonight's Late Junction selection includes a French Haitian love song from André Toussaint; the music of rural Angola played on the coroa mouth bow; a track from glitch maestro Oval; banjoist Bela Fleck sparring with Madagascan guitar hero D'Gary; and the striking microtonal choral singing of Tahiti. Plus Anonymous 4 and the Chilingirian Quartet performing Sir John Tavener's Come And Do Your Will In Me.
Presenter/Verity Sharp, Producer/Felix Carey
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
This week, A History Of The World In 100 Objects looks at the growing sophistication of humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000 BC.
Today, Neil MacGregor describes the discovery of The Standard of Ur, a set of mosaics from the ancient Mesopotamian City of Ur, now in Southern Iraq.
One of the most spectacular discoveries of ancient royal goods, the magnificent gold and silver jewellery was found nearly 100 years ago at a royal burial site in the City of Ur at the heart of one of the first great civilisations in the world. It leads Neil to contemplate the nature of kingship and power in Mesopotamia.
One of the objects buried alongside the dead was The Standard of Ur, a set of mosaic scenes mounted on a single box that show powerful images of battle and regal life and that remain remarkably well preserved given its 4,500-year history.
Contributors include sociologist Anthony Giddens on the growing sophistication of societies at this time, and archaeologist Dr Lamia Al-Gailani Werr who considers what Ancient Mesopotamia means to the people of modern-day Iraq.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Paul Gambaccini, the New York-born music broadcaster who has worked in BBC radio since the early Seventies, presents a selection of some of the pieces of writing which have inspired, moved and entertained him.
The readings are brought to life by Kathryn Akin, John Guerrasio and Philip Rosch.
Presenter/Paul Gambaccini, Producer/Christine Hall
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
The Right Ingredients is a delicate and beautiful tale by Pat Davis about a mother trying to come to terms with bereavement.
Jake, a carpenter, met Lisa, an artist, when he drifted from London to Cornwall, trailing a drug habit, debts and dreams. Lisa turned his life around and they were happy until their six-year-old daughter Lily died in an accident. Jake was driving and although he was not at fault, he blames himself.
Lisa is deep in grief. She has asked Jake to move out, has stopped seeing people, even her best friend Ella, she won't answer the phone and is hardly eating. One day when she goes into town she realises she has forgotten her shopping list. She panics but then another shopper hands her a list that is sitting in the bottom of the trolley thinking it is her lost list. Lisa decides to use that instead. This abdication of responsibility and abandoning herself to chance, somehow anchors her and she decides to keep using other people's lists.
Lisa and her mother often made a cake together. It was a shared ritual and it was a tradition that her mother had continued with Lily. So when Lisa finds a key ingredient on one of her found lists, she decides to make the cake again.
Week by week and little by little Lisa begins to accumulate the ingredients for the recipe. As she does so, she begins, tentatively, to re-connect with the world around her.
The cast stars Jasmine Hyde as Lisa, Joseph Cohen-Cole as Jake, Helen Longworth as Ella and Kate Layden as Mum.
Producer/Tracey Neale
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
A Georgian Trilogy Ep 1/3
In the autumn of 2008, shortly after the conflict between Russia and Georgia, writer James Hopkin travelled to Georgia with a journalist's commission and to give a reading in Tbilisi. Sweet Talk commissioned James to write three stories inspired by his experiences. The resultant trilogy takes the life and work of the great Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani as its linking thread and gives listeners' three colourful tales from one of Britain's finest young writers.
Today's story, A Peacock In Sulphur is read by Allan Corduner. From Mirzani to Tbilisi to Paris, it tells of the life and times of artist Niko Pirosmani.
Tomorrow, The Wurst Express From Kakheti is read by Tom Goodman-Hill. Soso is a Georgian poet living in Berlin on a three-month visa. He is delivering food to impoverished artists in the Moabit district when he hears shattering news from his homeland.
The final story on Thursday, The Soul Is Missing Fairy Tales! is read by Ben Miles. A tour bus of journalists, writers and artists breaks down on the infamous military highway from Vladikavkaz to Tbilisi. It is only nine days since the Russian army withdrew from parts of Georgia, but there are rumours of a return.
Readers/Allan Corduner, Tom Goodman-Hill and Ben Miles, Producer/Rosalynd Ward
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
In the final programme of this current series of Great Lives, Richard Dawkins joins Matthew Parris to discuss the life of Bill Hamilton, one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century.
Presenter/Matthew Parris, Producer/Beatrice Fenton
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch presents all the day's sports news and live commentary of one of the evening's FA Cup fourth-round replays, plus updates from the Scottish League Cup semi-final, Hearts versus St Mirren.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Claire Burns
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Supergrass's Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey come into the studio in their new incarnation as covers band Hot Rats. They join Lauren Laverne for a live session and a chat about what they've been up to.
Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Nemone interviews North Carolina-based trio the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a young string band in the centuries-old Piedmont banjo and fiddle musical tradition.
Described by Rolling Stone as "revisiting, with a joyful vengeance, black string-band and jug-band music of the Twenties and Thirties – the dirt-floor dance electricity of the Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon's Jug Stompers", the band are currently in the UK promoting their new album Genuine Negro Gig.
Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe presents Warren Zevon in concert plus a Faith No More live set from 1995.
Archive sessions from Birmingham's perfect pop group Felt, new US "psyche folk" band Antlers in session from 2009, Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon playing for Marc Riley in 2009 and, from 1968, there's a rare Top Gear session from Ten Years After.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Tuesday 2 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Simran tells Darren that business at the salon is gloomy, as the drama continues. She then asks lots of questions about where to find Cyrus. Darren warns her to move on and leave things alone, but will Simran listen?
Elsewhere, Deepika turns up at the Crown in need of a drink. Nadia is throwing her weight around at the house plus Deepika is still shocked about Darren's past. Sean lends Deepika an ear and then gives her some friendly advice...
Simran is played by Balvinder Sopal, Darren by Samuel Kindred, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull, Sean by Lloyd Thomas and Brian by Gerard McDermott.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5:
Wednesday 3 February 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Mike Harding presents highlights of the 2010 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards show from The Brewery in London EC1. The Folk Awards, now in their 11th year, celebrate the very best in folk, roots and acoustic music from the past 12 months and acknowledge significant contributions to music through the presentation of lifetime achievement awards.
This year Nanci Griffith and Dick Gaughan, two artists who have influenced generations of musicians and music fans alike, will be presented with lifetime achievement awards and both will perform in the show.
Grammy-winning Texan Nanci Griffith has built a worldwide reputation for her sensitive songwriting and has made 18 albums: Dick Gaughan's career includes spells with acclaimed groups Boys Of The Lough and Five Hand Reel and his songs have been interpreted by artists spanning the folk genre, including Billy Bragg, Christy Moore, Mary Black, Roy Bailey and Capercaillie.
BBC Scotland's ground-breaking TV series The Transatlantic Sessions, which has brought together the finest folk and traditional musicians from Scotland, Ireland and North America, is to be given the Good Tradition Award for its continuing contribution to folk music.
The Awards show will also feature performances by the 2009 Best Group Lau and by six-times-nominated singer-songwriter and guitarist Martin Simpson. Irish singer Cara Dillon will perform a song from her latest album, while Best Live Act nominees The Bad Shepherds and Best Duo nominees Show Of Hands will also provide live music.
Guest presenters include musician Richard Hawley, poet Ian McMillan and BBC 6 Music's Tom Robinson.
Full information on the nominations can be found at bbc.co.uk/radio. Extensive online features and a photo gallery will also be available.
Presenter/Mike Harding, Producer/Kellie While
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Daniel Barenboim conducts all five of Beethoven's Piano Concertos and some of Schoenberg's seminal orchestral works in four concerts with the Berlin Staatskapelle, being broadcast in Performance On 3 between 3 and 9 February, recorded at London's South Bank Centre.
Both Beethoven and Schoenberg are composers who summarised the musical traditions that went before them, while pointing to radical new developments, and Barenboim sees parallels between them in forging new paths that were to have, in his words, "lasting, irrevocable consequences for the future of composition".
In the first concert of the series, Barenboim pairs works written a century apart, when both composers were in their mid twenties. Beethoven's vivacious C major Piano Concerto was one of the works with which the young enfant terrible wowed the aristocracy of Vienna in the 1790s, while Schoenberg's audacious Pelleas And Melisande is a piece scored for huge orchestra, which teeters on the edge of tonality.
Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Juan Carlos Jaramillo
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
This week, A History Of The World In 100 Objects looks at the growing sophistication of humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000 BC.
In today's programme, Neil MacGregor arrives at the great Indus Valley civilisation in present-day Pakistan and examines 4,500-year-old stone stamps from a city building boom of the period.
The ancient city of Harappa lies around 150 miles north of Lahore in Pakistan. It was once one of the great centres of a civilisation that has largely disappeared; one with vast trade connections and boasting several of the world's first cities. At a time when another great civilisation was being forged along the banks of the river Nile in Egypt, Neil investigates this much less well-known civilisation on the banks of the Indus Valley.
Neil introduces listeners' to a series of little stone stamps that are covered in carved images of animals and probably used in trade. The civilisation built more than 100 cities, some with sophisticated sanitation systems, large-scale architecture and even designed around a modern grid layout. The great modern architect Sir Richard Rogers considers the urban planning of the Indus Valley, while the historian Nayanjot Lahiri looks at how this lost civilisation is remembered, by both modern India and Pakistan.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Weekend Warriors No-Longer Ep 1/2
Martin Bell investigates how the part-time Territorial Army is surviving full-time warfare.
Once upon a time the men and women of the Territorial Army were reportedly dismissed as "weekend warriors", or an eccentric drink club whose members liked to play with guns and go on the occasional camping weekend. Today, military chiefs admit that they couldn't fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without them.
Since 2003, thousands of the TA establishment have served, with some doing two and even three tours of duty – and 18 (at the time of publication) have been killed in action.
Martin Bell has spent a year following members of the TA from getting their call-up papers, through their pre-deployment training, doing their tour and then back to their civilian jobs to find out how the "part-time" army is surviving full-time warfare. Martin explores what the future holds for the country's reserve forces.
Presenter/Martin Bell, Producer/Phil Pegum
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Moral Maze Ep 1/9
Michael Buerk returns with a new series of The Moral Maze, with Melanie Phillips, Matthew Taylor, Michael Portillo and Claire Fox on the panel to grill the witness, live, on the moral and ethical dimensions to a story in this week's news.
Presenter/Michael Buerk, Producer/Phil Pegum
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch presents all the day's sports news and live commentary of one of the evening's FA Cup fourth-round replays, plus updates from Rangers versus St Johnstone in the Scottish League Cup semi-final.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Claire Ackling
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Nemone welcomes Marcus Brigstocke to the studio. One of Britain's finest comedians and broadcasters, Marcus Brigstocke, is bringing his critically acclaimed show God Collar to London's legendary Vaudeville Theatre in February 2010.
The award-winning comedian is a firm favourite with comedy fans and God Collar promises to be as sharply observant and quick-witted as his much-loved catalogue of work.
Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe presents The Kinks in concert from 1973 plus a Wedding Present set from 1988.
There are also archive sessions from jangly C86 obscurists The Fizzbombs, a new session from Sean O Hagan's much respected High Llamas during 2009, recent folk-indie band Table for Marc Riley in 2009 and Brett Marvin And The Thunderbolts from 1970.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Listeners have another chance to hear the extraordinary story of the song Louie Louie. More than 50 years after its release, Steve Van Zandt tells how the song survived the wrath of the FBI to become one of the most performed, recorded and influential tracks of all time.
Recorded by Richard Berry as a B-side in April 1957, there are more than 1,000 versions of Louie Louie. However, the impact of this song has been felt far beyond the music business. It scared the American establishment enough to trigger an FBI investigation by J Edgar Hoover's notorious G-Men, and it remains the subject of much heated debate to this day.
This programme was first broadcast on BBC Radio 2 and concludes tomorrow.
Presenter/Steve Van Zandt, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Darren needs a heart-to-heart and turns to his mum, as the drama continues. Sandra tells Darren she is proud of him regardless of what he has done in the past.
Meanwhile, Sean is pleased to see a more accommodating side to Deepika, but Arun isn't in a good mood; what is he so angry about?
Elsewhere, Simran tries to sell one of Jaggy's prized possessions to raise some much needed cash and gets a step closer to finding Cyrus...
Darren is played by Samuel Kindred, Sandra by Anita Dobson, Sean by Lloyd Thomas, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull, Arun by Naithan Ariane, Simran by Balvinder Sopal and Brian by Gerard McDermott.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Wednesday 3 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Mark Whitaker examines the efforts being made around the world to use school history textbooks to help heal the wounds of conflict through the next generation.
The final programme of this two-part series examines the disputed role of textbooks in the process of European integration. Mark begins in Bosnia, where he looks at the work of the Council of Europe and the Organization For Security And Co-operation In Europe to create multi-perspective textbooks and explores how vitally important a country's method of teaching history can be when they are being considered for EU membership.
He discovers that, 15 years after the civil war ended, each of Bosnia's different ethnic groups still hangs on to a separate history curriculum that conveys mistrust of people from other ethnic backgrounds; he even finds schools where two separate histories are taught.
Mark then moves to the heart of the European Community and meets with leading historians to analyse the continent's first trans-national history textbooks, which were written by teams of French and German historians. They cover the period from 1815 to the present, and contain the same text in two languages.
He asks whether this is a model for the future of history teaching in Europe. Should the nation-state remain the focus in different member countries, or should some sort of common European curriculum be developed?
In the final part of the programme, Marks hears from people who think "nationalist" history should be consigned to the past; from those who are thinking about what a core European history curriculum might be; and from those, especially in Britain, who argue that an emphasis on national history is important for the integration of minority communities.
Presenter and Producer/Mark Whitaker
BBC World Service Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5:
Thursday 4 February 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Bob Harris is joined by Canadian duo Madison Violet, who perform a live session. Recently named vocal group of the year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, Madison Violet are Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac. Their music draws comparisons with Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss.
The pair formed 10 years ago and have recorded three albums, the first two in London. In 2009 they released their most recent album, No Fool For Trying, recorded in their native Canada. They are well known for their relentless touring, spending nine months a year on the road, supporting artists such as Ron Sexsmith, Indigo Girls and The Temptations in Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Italy and of course, Canada.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Andrew embarks on some training in preparation for his missionary work in Africa, with little idea of the horrors in store for him, as the third series of the BBC Radio 2 sitcom continues.
On The Blog stars Caroline Quentin (Men Behaving Badly), Simon Greenall (I'm Alan Partridge) and Andy Taylor (My Family), with scripts by Kris Dyer, Dave Marks and Andy Taylor.
Producer/Adam Bromley
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Suzi Quatro plays music from 1984 in this week's show with tracks by Huey Lewis And The News, Tina Turner, Madonna, Prince and Van Halen.
Presenter/Suzi Quatro, Producer/Mark Simpson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Philip Dodd talks to novelist Martin Amis about his latest novel The Pregnant Widow; his political opinions; and a back catalogue that includes some of the most talked-about English novels of recent decades.
In the galaxy of British literary fiction Martin Amis is still a name to conjure with – his era-defining Eighties novels, such as London Fields and Money, front a collected works that includes 12 novels, two autobiographies, serious journalism, essays and two volumes of short stories on subjects ranging from video games to paedophilia. After 9/11 Amis became notorious for his controversial opinions on Islamism and the supposed "backwardness" of Arab societies.
He has returned to fiction with a new work, The Pregnant Widow. Set in a country house in Italy, the novel tackles the sexual fallout of the feminist revolution – one that Amis supports but sees as a work in progress. No stranger to giving offence, Amis, by his own admission, has said it will get him in trouble with feminists, but others talk of a return to the comic form that made him famous.
In an extended conversation, Philip asks Martin about the full gamut of his opinions.
Presenter/Philip Dodd, Producer/James Cook
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
The penultimate edition of A History Of The World In 100 Objects this week looks at the growing sophistication of humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000 BC.
In today's programme, Neil MacGregor introduces Britain for the first time, telling the story of a beautiful piece of jade, shaped into an axe head. About 6,000 years old, it was was discovered near Canterbury in Kent, but was made in the high Alps. Neil explains how this object may have been used and traded and how its source was cunningly traced to the heart of Europe.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
On the occasion of an important exhibition of Henry Moore's early sculpture at Tate Britain this month, Moore's daughter Mary describes the life and work of Britain's foremost 20th-century sculptor.
Mary takes listeners on a tour of the Moore home at Hoglands in Hertfordshire, a small house crammed with extraordinary carvings and paintings from all over the world.
Being the only child of Henry Moore, arguably the country's most celebrated sculptor, life for Mary was never going to be totally straightforward. Hoglands was besieged by people wanting to talk to her father or take photographs of the family having tea in the garden. Sometimes art students would wander in from the village of Much Hadham and tap on the windows wanting to meet the great man. He would always oblige, unless he was watching tennis.
Moore, his wife Irina and Mary were a close-knit family, working together to make art part and parcel of life in Britain.
Moore established The Henry Moore Foundation in 1977, which stands as the most important grant body for sculpture in Britain. Until recently Mary kept a distance from the workings, partly as a result of a rancorous and protracted legal battle with the foundation in the mid-Nineties. The dispute has since been amicably settled but, until now, she has always declined to comment on what happened.
Contributors to the programme include Antony Gormley; Richard Wentworth; Penelope Curtis, the newly appointed Director of Tate Britain; and Andrew Causey.
Presenter/Mary Moore, Producer/Kate Bland
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
The smash of a bottle, a window shattering, shouting, bricks thrown, voices hurling abuse; it's Belfast on a June night in marching season, but this is no typical Belfast riot.
Inspired by real events which took place in the city, this new play from Eoin McNamee tells the story of a community fractured by a shocking racist attack.
The cast stars Adrian Dunbar as Cyril; Brid Brennan as Valerie; Frances Tomelty as Helen; Gerard Jordan as Davy; and Cristina Catalina as Natasha.
Producer/Heather Larmour
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Mark Thomas – The Manifesto Ep 1/4
Comedian-activist Mark Thomas returns with four more editions of The Manifesto – the show where the audience suggest policies that will make the world a better place, and Mark finds out if they'd help or not.
Following on from the two successful shows last summer, where policies included "MPs should be bound by law to tell the truth" and "Children's playgrounds should be less safe" – Mark Thomas returns to investigate suggestions such as "4x4s should be transparent"; "manifesto policies should be legally binding"; and "there should be a maximum wage".
Featuring interviews with experts, original research and audience discussion, Mark Thomas – The Manifesto attempts to re-engage the audience with the idea of democracy.
Presenter/Mark Thomas, Producer/Ed Morrish
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Are we alone in the solar system? Astronomer Paul Murdin explores the idea proposed by Arthur C Clarke in his novel 2010 – A Second Space Odyssey that Jupiter's moon Europa might offer suitable conditions for living organisms. Four hundred years after Galileo first discovered Europa, scientists believe that data from the Galileo probe might just prove Clarke right.
Jupiter, the king of the planets, presides over a little group of worlds that has long dazzled astronomers. Galileo first discovered Jupiter's moons in January 1610. His findings were to revolutionise astronomy, backing up Copernican cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the centre of the universe.
Since the Galileo findings, whether a mission should go to Europa became the subject of impassioned debate in the space world. Many scientists believe that the very real possibility of finding biological life there means that a mission is a top scientific priority.
Just last year, Nasa and the European Space Agency announced a ground-breaking joint mission – the Europa Jupiter System Mission. This unmanned mission is slated to launch around 2020 in order to make a detailed exploration of Jupiter's moons with particular focus on Europa and its potential for life.
Paul talks to fellow astronomers, astro-biologists and to scientists at Nasa and the European Space Agency about the possibility of finding extra-terrestrial life on Europa and about the significance of the planned Europa Jupiter System Mission.
Presenter/Paul Murdin, Producer/Emma Harding
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Eleanor Oldroyd is joined by some top sports correspondents for The Headline Hour, discussing some of the week's major sporting stories.
From 8pm, Eleanor is joined by a panel of expert guests, including former Wales and Lions captain Gareth Thomas, to preview rugby union's 2010 Six Nations Championship which kicks off at the weekend.
From 10pm, two of 5 Live's pundits go head-to-head in a topical sports debate in And Another Thing...
Presenter/Eleanor Oldroyd, Producer/Patrick Whiteside
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Gideon Coe presents an archive concert from Weezer in 1996. Archive sessions from "new folk" songstress Mary Hampton; a new session from Birmingham indie band Seeland, a recent combination featuring former members of Broadcast; 4AD artist and emergent song writing talent M Ward performing for BBC 6 Music in 2009; and reggae from Gregory Isaacs And The Roots Radics from 1982.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Thursday 4 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Simran is behaving suspiciously in today's visit to Silver Street. She makes a covert phone call and then tells Jaggy she will be home late.
Darren wants to try again with Deepika and invites her for a drink. He talks about his past and insists he has changed, but will Deepika give him another chance?
Meanwhile Brian tells Sandra about Isabel, adding that it's great that they have both moved on. But then Sandra drops a bombshell...
Simran is played by Balvinder Sopal, Darren by Samuel Kindred, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull, Brian by Gerard McDermott and Sandra by Anita Dobson
BBC Asian Network Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 5: Friday 5 February 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Nashville is Michael Freedland's destination this week, as he continues his journey to mark the 75th anniversary of the birth Elvis Presley.
In Nashville, Michael visits the famous RCA Studio B, where Elvis recorded so many of his famous hits such as Are You Lonesome Tonight? and It's Now Or Never. At the studio, Michael talks to Ray Walker of The Jordanaires, who sang backing vocals on many of Elvis's recordings; singer TG Sheppard and Elvis's former girlfriend Ann Ellington Wagner.
Other contributors to the programme include Million Dollar Quartet producer Cowboy Jack Clement; Ryman Auditorium marketing manager Brian Wagner; Grand Ol' Opry singer Carol Lee Cooper; bodyguard Sonny West; and country singer and impersonator Ronnie McDowell. Michael also takes a visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ernest Tubbs Record Store, where Elvis used to appear on the radio show The Midnight Jamboree.
Presenter/Michael Freedland, Producer/Neil Rosser
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Friday Night Is Music Night this week pays tribute to the arranger Angela Morley, who died last year.
Angela was born Wally Stott in Leeds in March 1924. Following a sex change operation in 1960, Wally took the name Angela Morley and became one of the great orchestral arrangers, working mostly in the United States.
During his career at the BBC, Wally was the musical director for the Goon Show and wrote the signature tune and accompanying music to Hancock's Half Hour. As a musical director in the Fifties, he worked with the cream of British pop, including the likes of Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield and Ronnie Carroll. He also composed a number of tuneful light music pieces including Rotten Row and Canadian In Mayfair.
As Angela Morley, she won two Emmy Awards for her work with Julie Andrews and was nominated twice for an Oscar for her work on The Slipper And The Rose with the Sherman Brothers; and The Little Prince with Lerner and Loewe. She also provided the scores for classic Seventies television shows such as Dallas, Dynasty and Cagney And Lacey.
From the Seventies onwards, Angela was closely associated with the composer John Williams and aided him in the production of many of his classic film scores – including Star Wars, Superman and ET, which began a long association with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Keith Lockhart is the current principal conductor of the Boston Pops and in tonight's show he and the BBC Concert Orchestra perform some of Angela's finest work from the Boston Pops Library, as well as some Friday Night favourites, including music from The Slipper And The Rose and Watership Down.
Presenter/Paul Gambaccini, Producer/Bridget Apps
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Frank Renton discusses music by top trombonist Brett Baker and flugel player John Lee in tonight's edition of Listen To The Band. He also listens to The Black Dyke Band's new album, Within Blue Empires, and celebrates The Greater Gwent Youth Brass Band's 50th anniversary.
Presenter/Frank Renton, Producer/Terry Carter
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Performance On 3
Vassily Sinaisky, the Chief Guest Conductor with the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, returns to the Bridgewater Hall with a reappraisal of Moeran's Symphony In G Minor, which he first conducted last summer with the orchestra at the BBC Proms.
Moeran's piece is balanced by Elgar's In the South (Alassio) and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, performed by the young Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang, who makes her debut with the orchestra.
Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Juan Carlos Jaramillo
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Concluding this week's programmes looking at the growing sophistication of humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000BC, Neil MacGregor finds the earliest example of writing – a 5,000-year-old tablet about beer.
A History Of The World In 100 Objects celebrates the arrival of writing as Neil describes a small clay tablet made in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago. It is covered with sums and writing about local beer rationing.
Philosopher John Searle describes what the invention of writing does for the human mind and Britain's top civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, considers the tablet as a possible example of the earliest bureaucracy.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
With the start of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the world may discover that there are still many uncomfortable realities in Canadian society both past and present. In this programme, Lovejit Dhaliwal looks at what it means to be a person of First Nation status in Canada today.
Land rights battles for First Nation people are reportedly dogged with bureaucratic filibustering. First Nation identity cards are considered by many to be an acknowledgement of second-class status.
In June 2008, Canada's Prime Minister delivered an unqualified apology to Canada's First Nation people.
These are some of the signs of how the people of the First Nation are becoming more widely recognised and acknowledged. However, it is also an indication of how vocal this community is becoming as it becomes more media savvy and works in partnership with green groups to stop developments.
Presenter/Lovejit Dhaliwal, Producer/David Prest
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Afternoon Play – Bad Faith Ep 1/4
This new action-packed series follows Peter Jukes's successful single play Bad Faith, broadcast last year.
Lenny Henry stars as Jake Thorne, Methodist minister and police chaplain, whose job is to offer counselling and solace to victims, young offenders and officers in trouble. But Jake is the epitome of the bad priest and is battling with his own demons at the same time as trying to resolve the problems of his parishioners.
Bad Faith, developed by Peter Jukes with Lenny Henry, Steven Canny and Simon Elmes, is a humorous exploration of contemporary morality. These stand-alone, dark and compelling stories have a twist in the tail as each morally dubious scenario turns to the good, despite the bad offices of the chaplain.
The first episode of the series is a repeat of last year's play.
Next week in Vengeance Is Mine, Jake gets involved in the restorative justice programme, which tries to reconcile a bereaved mother and the woman responsible for killing her daughter. And Jake falls in love with his counsellor – a female rabbi.
The cast also stars Danny Sapani as Michael, Jenny Jules as Ruth Thorne, Oscar James as Isaac Thorne, Helen Longworth as Helen, Rosie Cavaliero as Denise, Kerri McLean as Chantelle, Ben Crowe as Declan, Daniel Anderson as TJ and Edward Clayton as Barry.
Producers/Steven Canny and Mary Peate
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Colin Murray is joined by Pat Nevin and Perry Groves for Kicking Off With Colin Murray previewing the weekend's action, including the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton, Manchester United versus Portsmouth, Tottenham versus Aston Villa and Chelsea against Arsenal.
From 9.30pm, Colin Murray is joined by Tim Lovejoy for Murray And Lovejoy's Sports Express, in which the pair take a quick-fire look at the current burning issues in sport.
Murray And Lovejoy's Sports Express is also available as a podcast to download at bbc.co.uk/5live.
Presenters/Colin Murray Producer/Louise Sutton
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
The Friday Remix makes a welcome return to the lunchtime show, showcasing the best new remixes around. Joining Nemone on the decks will be DJs Jody Wisternoff and Nick Warren, otherwise known as Bristol progressive house and breaks DJs Way Out West. Originally named Echo, the name Way Out West was coined after one of their remixes.
Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Synth legend Gary Numan, who took electronic music overground in the UK with his No. 1 single Are "Friends" Electric?, and emergent electronic pop sensation Little Boots join forces at the BBC's Maida Vale studios for a special session of collaborations.
In creating a unique collaboration between the artist who led the popularisation of electronic music and one of today's leading electro-pop torchbearers, BBC 6 Music illustrates the lineage of the genre from the Seventies through to the present day.
They each play their own material and then collaborate over each others songs, including Are "Friends" Electric? and Stuck On Repeat. They also work together to deliver a unique take on The Velvet Underground classic Venus In Furs. This programme is a different version to the one originally broadcast on 11 December 2009.
Presenter/Shaun Keaveny, Producer/John Pearson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Australian retro rockers Wolfmother join Bruce Dickinson on the Rock Show this week.
Formed 10 years ago, their self-titled debut album earned them substantial industry praise and a Grammy Award. Since then it all seems to have fallen apart for them with two of the three original members leaving the group.
Recently, three new members have joined lead singer Andrew Stockdale. Bruce asks them all about the dramatic new line-up, their latest album Cosmic Egg and how they enjoyed touring the UK in January.
Presenter/Bruce Dickinson, Producer/Ian Callaghan
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Simran visits Cyrus and eventually reveals that she is Jaggy's wife, in the final visit of the week to Silver Street. She wants to claim their villa back, which wasn't Jaggy's to gamble in the first place. Will Cyrus take her request seriously?
Elsewhere Darren and Deepika are taking things slowly. Meanwhile, Sandra tells Brian that she didn't leave Kenny for him. Brian cancels his date with Isabel but does this mean he is hoping that he and Sandra can pick up where they left off?
Simran is played by Balvinder Sopal, Cyrus by Nigel Hastings, Darren by Samuel Kindred, Deepika by Babita Pohoomull, Sandra by Anita Dobson and Brian by Gerard McDermott.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Friday 5 February 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
He was a Muslim, a eunuch and possibly a giant. Most importantly, he ranks among the world's greatest seafarers, although his epic voyages of the early 15th century are only patchily remembered round the world. In this one-off documentary, Nick Baker asks "why don't more of us know more about Zheng He?"
Nearly a century before the European explorers with their tiny ships and small crews started their journeys, Zheng He was commanding fleets of huge ships – some more than 400ft long – with tens of thousands of men and high class cargo. He was travelling epic distances, discovering new routes and establishing Chinese dominance. He certainly travelled from the east coast of China as far as the coast of Africa – and some say he went far beyond. China's influence across a great swathe of the globe was immense, but it stopped abruptly.
Zheng He's legacy is not well known around the globe. Those who live in China or South East Asia may well know the name, although China has been through periods of overlooking (or even deliberately forgetting) one of the world's most important naval figures. It is only since the Eighties that Zheng He's story has been revived in the People's Republic.
To find out more about Zheng He, Nick Baker travels to China, where he clambers aboard a great (reconstructed) ship, talks to historians and meets a man in his fifties who claims an extraordinarily close link with China's forgotten Admiral.
Presenter and Producer/Nick Baker
BBC World Service Publicity
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