Programme Information

Pick Of The Pops

Saturday 29 January

1.00-3.00pm BBC RADIO 2

Tony Blackburn celebrates his birthday with his first live broadcast of Pick Of The Pops

Tony Blackburn counts down the charts from this week in 1966 and 1977, with hits from Roger Miller, The Spencer Davis Group, Leo Sayer and Rose Royce.

Celebrating his own birthday, Tony has one or two surprises in store for this, his first live broadcast of Pick Of The Pops since he took the helm last year.

Presenter/Tony Blackburn, Producer/Phil Swern for Unique Productions

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Acclaimed comedian Jimmy Carr

Jimmy Carr hosts another comedy master class, discussing his passion for all aspects of comedy and playing some of his favourite comedy clips. Tonight's third episode takes a further look at the theory behind jokes.

The featured audio clips include: Tommy Cooper on his holiday experiences; Peter Cook and Dudley Moore ruminating on art; Ardal O'Hanlon on back problems; and Morecambe and Wise trying to have a bath. All these clips and more are supplemented by Jimmy's witty and anarchic take on the world of comedy.

Presenter/Jimmy Carr, Producer/Paul Russell for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Gary Fletcher was born in London in the early Fifties and is probably best known as the bass player in The Blues Band, although he is also a well-respected songwriter.

For the past 25 years, as well as playing with the band, he has been writing, recording and touring with his own band. Tonight, he talks to Bob Harris about The Blues Band and his solo work. He also plays live in session.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Manual de Falla led the way in a flourishing of Spanish music at the beginning of the 20th century.

Dermot Clinch explores the meaning of "Spanishness" for native composers, including Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo and Roberto Gerhard (later exiled in England).

He looks at their music against the backdrop of the political and cultural upheavals of the Thirties and Forties: the creation of the Republic followed by the Nationalist uprising; the ensuing Civil War; and the subsequent regime of General Franco.

Contributions also come from musicologists Carol Hess, Graham Wade and Samuel Llano and historian Paul Preston, along with an insider's viewpoint from Cecilia Rodrigo, daughter of the composer and keeper of his memory and archive.

Presenter/Dermot Clinch, Producer/Janet Tuppen

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Catherine Bott samples Lully's opera, Bellérophon, with Christophe Rousset and his group, Les Talens Lyriques.

They recently gave the first performance in modern times of this hugely successful "tragedie en lyrique" in the Opera Royal at Versailles, following Rousset's discovery of missing pages of the score in a bookshop in Paris. Rousset talks about his find and about the qualities that make Lully's opera stand out as a masterpiece.

The programme includes comments from Rousset and from tenor Cyril Autivy, who plays the title role, as well as highlights from the Versailles performance.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Chris Wines

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Opera On 3 – Live From The Met

Saturday 29 January

6.00-9.00pm BBC RADIO 3

Tosca, Puccini's tale of love, lust, corruption and revenge, comes live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In this revival of Luc Bondy's dramatic production, Sondra Radvanovsky sings the title role for the first time at the Met, starring as the prima donna with the firebrand artist lover. She thinks she knows how to outwit the notorious Baron Scarpia but his desire for Tosca leads to tragedy.

Floria Tosca is sung by soprano Sondra Radvanovsky; Mario Cavaradossi by tenor Marcelo Álvarez; Baron Scarpia by baritone Falk Struckmann; Cesare Angelotti by bass Peter Volpe; Sacristan by bass Paul Plishka; Spoletta by tenor Dennis Petersen; Sciarrone by bass James Courtney; and Jailer by bass Harold Wilson.

Marco Armiliato conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera.

Presenter/Margaret Juntwait, Producer/Tony Sellors

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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This Isn't Romance is a tender, violent Korean love story about cultural identity, sex and twisted revenge by award-winning writer In-Sook Chappell. The author, who was born in Korea and adopted into an English family, introduces her work below.

"This story addresses what faces immigrants and asylum seekers when they return to the country of their birth," says In-Sook Chappell. "The inspiration for the play came on a visit back to Seoul. Unable to speak Korean, I was a foreigner in the country I was born in. I had lost my language, my country and my family.

"The sound of Korean upset me, stirred feelings I had as a baby that I'd forgotten. I met a lot of adoptees searching for their biological families, only communicating with them through an interpreter. I decided not to track down my family. Instead, I spoke to some who had, then I imagined and wrote this play.

"On a visit to an orphanage, I met a little boy, aged four, who had been left on the street by his parents. If I had been in a better financial situation, I would have adopted him. He was the starting point for [the character of] Han.

"Growing up in England, I always thought: 'What if I had stayed in Korea, grown up in an orphanage? Would I have ended up a teenage prostitute or a factory worker?' I had a strong sense of guilt for living a privileged life in England. In cross-cultural adoption, we rarely talk about what happens when the children grow up, what they lose as well as gain. The sounds of this play evoke emotions and memories, a sense of dislocation, of being thrown into another world – the alienation of hearing another language clearly spoken with passion and love, but incomprehensible and impossible to respond to."

This Isn't Romance is directed by Lisa Goldman, the cast includes Jennifer Lim as Miso Blake; Mo Zainal as Han; Matthew Marsh as Jack; Sonnie Brown as Naomi/Miss Han; Elizabeth Tan as Bunny/Waitress; and Jay Lim as Ajossi.

Producer/Marilyn Imrie

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Robert Worby introduce a third programme of highlights from last November's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Tonight's programme includes music from Peter Adriaansz, Timothy McCormack, Peter Ablinger and Graham Fitkin. Robert Worby reports on pianist Philip Thomas's 12-hour performance of John Cage's Electronic Music For Piano in Huddersfield's Art Gallery.

Presenters/Robert Worby and Sara Mohr-Pietsch, Producer/Sam Phillips

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Hugh Ross plays Pope Pius XII in this Saturday Play about the initial response by the Catholic church to Nazi atrocities.

It is 1942 in the Italian city of Rome and Pope Pius XII is being urged to speak out against Nazi atrocities.

As war rages across the globe, Pope Pius XII prepares to deliver his annual Christmas message.

For months beforehand, evidence has been growing of a vast, organised genocide of Jews and other races in German-occupied lands. Now the Vatican is coming under increasing pressure to speak out against Nazi atrocities. In private audiences, the British and American ambassadors to the Holy See urge Pius to show moral leadership by explicitly attacking Hitler in his Christmas message.

It is perhaps the most important public address he will ever give and the Pontiff is facing the starkest dilemma of his reign.

Yet Pius is reluctant to specifically condemn the Holocaust. He is concerned that speaking out risks making things worse. As Pius writes and discards draft after draft of the message, it becomes clear that there are other factors to explain his ambivalence.

Europe's future seems to hang in the balance between Nazism and Bolshevism, and it is the latter ideology that he most fears.

Producer/Eoin O'Callaghan for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Saturday 29 January

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch presents live FA Cup fourth-round coverage, plus reports from rugby union's LV Cup third round.

In Sports Report, at 5pm, there are reports, results and reaction from today's big sporting stories and the FA Cup fourth round.

From 5.30pm, there is live FA Cup commentary.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Mike Carr

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Tennis

Saturday 29 January

8.30-11.30am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary on the women's singles final at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Football

Saturday 29 January

2.55-5.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary comes from one of the afternoon's top matches in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Cricket

Saturday 29 January

3.00-11.30am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary on the fifth One Day International between Australia and England comes live from Brisbane.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

The Forum Ep 1/2

Saturday 29 January

9.05-10.00am BBC WORLD SERVICE

The BBC World Service's landmark discussion programme, The Forum, is recording two special programmes in front of a live audience at the DSC Jaipur Literary Festival in India.

In the first in this series, BBC presenter Bridget Kendall brings together three innovative thinkers, spanning cultural boundaries to discuss 21st-century morality. Sanskrit scholar and former CEO Gurcharan Das joins writer and surgeon Kavery Nambisan and Nepalese novelist Manjushree Thapa.

Presenter/Bridget Kendall

BBC World Service Publicity