Programme Information

Patrick Kielty reveals the artists and bands that have provided the soundtrack to the century so far in this three-hour countdown for Easter Monday.

The People's Artist Chart is the third in a popular series of exclusive chart programmes for BBC Radio 2, revealing the most-heard music and artists as compiled by licensing body PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd). "Most-heard" refers not just to radio airplay, but references everywhere that recorded music is played in public, from shops and restaurants to clubs and airport lounges.

This afternoon Kielty focuses on artists, with all their collective play across the UK over the past decade. He counts up the top 50 acts of the past 10 years, announcing a chart that provides a cross-section of the nation's tastes, with artists dating from the Fifties to the present day. Just before 4pm, the programme reveals which performer has secured the prestigious No. 1 position.

Along the way, the programme hears not just from some of the artists who are in the "Grand 50," as one of them describes it, but from a host of other stars talking about their favourites in the chart and choosing a track to play. There's a rare radio appearance by one of Britain's top songwriters, Cathy Dennis, who talks about co-creating Kylie Minogue's greatest hit and playing basketball with Britney Spears; Sharleen Spiteri reveals her undying love for the Bee Gees; and two Motown legends are also on hand, Otis Williams of The Temptations and Duke Fakir of the Four Tops.

Katie Melua introduces an early classic by one of the biggest names in pop history; Judie Tzuke remembers Elton John the record label executive; and Carly Simon raves about one of the biggest-selling groups and albums of the Seventies.

Last Easter, in the original People's Chart show, Rob Brydon announced that Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade Of Pale was the most-played-in-public recording of PPL's 75-year history. At Christmas, in The People's Classical Chart, Bill Bailey unveiled Carl Orff's O Fortuna as the classical recording that had been most-played in the same time-frame.

Presenter/Patrick Kielty, Producer/Paul Sexton

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Richard Madeley sits in all week on the Drivetime show.

Along with travel, sport and money reports, Richard launches his daily search for those random acts of kindness that really can make your day. He invites any listeners who have met a good Samaritan who helped them along their way, or just been boosted by a smile, to share their magic moment with Drivetime listeners.

Presenter/Richard Madeley

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Legendary singer-songwriter Carly Simon

Carly Simon plays her first-ever concert in the UK, exclusively for BBC Radio 2.

One of the greatest songwriters and singers of the past four decades, Simon performed for Radio 2 in March at BBC's Maida Vale Studios.

Presented by Paul Gambaccini, the show features acoustic arrangements of her greatest hits including Coming Around Again, Never Been Gone and Let The River Run.

Carly chats to Paul about the stories behind the songs and the continued speculation about the subject of her hit You're So Vain, which she also performs. She talks about why she's released her new album, Never Been Gone, which was recorded at her home in the US on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

Carly's son Ben Taylor, the youngest child from her marriage to James Taylor, also performs a couple of songs. Carly also shares her Tracks Of My Years with Zoe Ball, each day this week as Zoe sits in for Ken Bruce.

Presenter/Paul Gambaccini, Producer/Helen Reed

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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In the next instalment of the occasional series The Record Producers, Richard Allinson and Steve Levine look at the work of former Suede guitarist, Bernard Butler.

Bernard talks about his early days with Suede, along with his production credits for Duffy, Kate Nash, Fyfe Dangerfield and others, and the programme includes rare access to demo recordings from both Suede and Duffy. David McAlmont talks about his collaborations with Butler and the lead singer with Texas, Sharleen Spiteri, comments on Bernard's work on her 2008 debut solo album Melody.

Steve Levine analyses the original multi-track recording of one of McAlmont And Butler's biggest hits. He also talks with Fyfe Dangerfield about the construction of his recent BBC Radio 2 airplay hit She Needs Me, which features production work and guest guitar by Butler.

Presenters/Richard Allinson and Steve Levine, Producer/Neil Myners

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Richard Strauss lived one of the longest lives of any composer. He was born in 1864 when the American Civil War was raging. By the time he died in 1949, two global conflicts had been fought and the world had changed entirely.

Throughout this week, Donald Macleod explores the music and stories from five distinct years of Strauss's life. He travels in time from the 19-year-old Strauss's first forays as a professional composer, to the final works of an old man, exploring his personal and professional relationships along the way.

In the first programme, Donald looks at the year 1883 in which there was a changing of the guard in German music – Richard Wagner died and Richard Strauss had his first professional success.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Kerry Clark

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Louise Fryer presents the beginning of a week of performances for Afternoon On 3 from the 2009 Lucerne Festival.

In 2003, the veteran Italian conductor Claudio Abbado took over the Lucerne Festival and founded the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Each year since then, reports of extraordinary music-making have been emerging from the Swiss city. Abbado hand-picked his players from the great orchestras and ensembles of Europe and together, over the last decade, they have been performing a cycle of Mahler Symphonies.

This afternoon's programme features the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in two Mahler performances – the Rückert Lieder and Fourth Symphony – and they are joined in both by the Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená.

The programme also features the Lucerne Festival's other Abbado creation – the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra. British composer George Benjamin conducts them in his own music and in Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll (first performed in Wagner's villa on the banks of Lake Lucerne) and Schumann's Second Symphony.

Presenter/Louise Fryer, Producer/David Papp

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Conductor Gianandrea Noseda

The first of a major series of concerts for the next 10 weeks on Monday evenings, features a full cycle of Mahler's Symphonies performed by Manchester's orchestras at the Bridgewater Hall, to celebrate 150 years since Mahler's birth.

Tonight the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda performs Mahler Symphony No. 1.

At his meeting with Sibelius in 1907, Mahler declared "the symphony must be like the world: It must embrace everything." Growing up in the Moravian countryside instilled in him a lifelong love of nature, while other influences included dance bands and military music from the local barracks.

Julian Johnson joins Petroc Trelawny for a discussion around the recurring themes of joy, fear, love and death.

The concert opens with the première of Kurt Schwertsik's Nachtmusiken.

Presenter/Petroc Trelawny, Producer/Philip Tagney

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Book Of The Week – Parisians Ep 1/5

Easter Monday 5 to Friday 9 April

9.45-10.00am BBC RADIO 4

A city's famous dwellers and visitors are brought to life in the new book by Graham Robb, about the man who fixed the gaping holes of Rue d'Enfer in the 18th century, narrated by Stephen Boxer.

Author Robb says of his book, Parisians: "The idea was to create a kind of mini-human comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."

Parisians begins with the French Revolution and ends in more current times. The inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets in five episodes for Book Of The Week.

In this first episode, the city is saved from sinking in 1776 by a mysterious individual called Charles Axel Guillaumot.

The series is abridged by Katrin Williams.

Reader/Stephen Boxer, Producer/Duncan Minshull

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Woman's Hour Drama – A Small Town Murder Ep 1/5

Easter Monday 5 to Friday 9 April

10.45-11.00am BBC RADIO 4

Meera Syal and Niamh Cusack star in this new Woman's Hour Drama by Katie Hims.

While DC Jackie Hartwell helps a wife though the pain of her husband's apparent violent suicide, she slowly begins to suspect foul play.

It leaves Family Liaison Officer Jackie, played by Meera Syal, once again facing the painful dilemma of having to gather evidence against a family which needs her and has given her its trust.

Jackie begins to question if maverick political activist Richard Barnes really threw himself in front of a train or if he was pushed. Suspicions start going though Jackie's mind and she wonders if the long-suffering wife was interested in an insurance payday or if his son had his own reason to commit murder...

Jackie picks away at the truth with her usual good-natured warmth and determination and all is revealed in a heart-breaking final twist which forces a distressed Jackie to disclose a surprising and agonising secret of her own.

Niamh Cusack plays Gillian, Mathew Marsh is Peter and Ollie Barbieri plays Michael.

Producer/Clive Brill

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Food writer Stefan Gates investigates what was on the menu at The Last Supper, looking at a new theory that Leonardo Da Vinci thought it was grilled eels and sliced oranges.

The controversial restoration of Leonardo's masterpiece in 1997 has raised the possibility of identifying the food on the table in the painting. Stefan journeys to Milan to find the reasons Leonardo chose to paint what he did. Along the way he uncovers a long tradition of depictions of The Last Supper, giving an insight into the way Christian attitudes to food have changed.

Though Leonardo's version is the most famous, other paintings of The Last Supper have offered unusual answers to the question "what would Jesus eat?", including crayfish, roast pork and even guinea pig, all decidedly un-kosher for what is commonly understood to have been a Passover meal. Other paintings of the subject, like that of Paolo Veronese, attracted the attention of The Inquisition for the inclusion of "dwarves and drunkards'".

Stefan talks to historians of art and food and visits The Last Supper in Milan to find out more about what paintings can tell us about our relationship with food and dining.

Presenter/Stefan Gates, Producer/Russell Finch

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Thinking Of Leaving Your Husband? Ep 1/4

Easter Monday 5 April

11.30-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

Thinking Of Leaving Your Husband? is a four-part comedy drama by Charlotte Cory that explores a middle-aged divorcee's attempts to find herself a new romantic interest by joining an internet dating site.

Lia Williams, plays the heroine Sarah, with Henry Goodman as, not only Sarah's ex-husband Malcolm, but every one of her would-be lovers.

In the first episode, Sarah is deeply dissatisfied with her lot. Her marriage to the kindly but deeply boring Malcolm has long since failed to bring any spark to her life, and a brief relationship with a man called David, while ultimately unfulfilling, at least proves to her that she is not so unattractive that she cannot find happiness elsewhere.

So she leaves Malcolm and a chance encounter with an old school friend, Tania, leads her to move in with her friend and join the internet dating site Find-the-perfect-partner-4-u-dot-com. But her first experience of internet dating proves to be hugely embarrassing.

Producer/Gordon House

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Afternoon Play –
The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Ep 1/2

Easter Monday 5 April

2.15-3.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Clive Merrison stars as the great detective, with Andrew Sachs as Dr John Watson and James Laurenson as Mycroft Holmes, in The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes.

In The Marlbourne Point Mystery, a disused lighthouse on a remote stretch of the Kent coast is the scene of a bizarre double death.

In his accounts of the career of his friend Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson often makes passing reference to a mystery which his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, never wrote about in full.

In The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Bert Coules, the chief writer behind BBC Radio 4's celebrated dramatisations of the complete Sherlock Holmes canon of 56 short stories and four novels, once again takes up the pen where Sir Arthur left off.

Other members of the cast are: Piers Wehner as Constable Powell; Nigel Hastings as Sir Charles Steele; Pik-Sen Lim as Mrs Chang; Joseph Cohen-Cole as Harold Jefferstone; Bruce Alexander as Mr Jefferstone; Richard Dillane as Mr Lade; and Tessa Nicholson as Elizabeth.

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Anatomy Of ... Redundancy Ep 1/3

Easter Monday 5 April

8.00-8.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Anatomy of ... Redundancy is the first in a new three-part series which forensically examines everyday, but life-changing dramas.

The first programme hears from people involved in the closing down of a 106-year-old family business. The sales have stalled, the phones have stopped ringing and desperate suppliers are at the door chasing payment.

Managing Director Dani Saveker recalls the lonely experience of being the boss when the only remaining option is to call in the administrators and relinquish control of the family business. The official administrator traces the tough process of preparing the business for sale and choosing the employees who are to be made redundant. And long-term employees recount their shock at the announcement that they would very soon be clocking off for the last time.

The programme traces their unsuccessful search for new work, the financial strain of losing an income and the emotional fallout which follows when a business goes under.

Anatomy Of ... is from the makers of the Sony award-winning programme, Anatomy Of A Car Crash, which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Producer/Laurence Grissell

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Easter Monday 5 April

12.00noon-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Chapman has all the day's sports news and live football action on Easter Monday.

Mark is also joined by Steve Claridge and John Motson to discuss the latest big topics in football. From 1.45pm there's live second-half commentary of Yeovil Town versus Leeds in League One.

There's also coverage of all the day's 3pm kick-off's in the Championship and Leagues One and Two, including Derby versus Ipswich and Watford versus West Bromwich Albion in the Championship, and Norwich versus Stockport in League One.

At 5pm there's live Championship commentary of Nottingham Forest versus Cardiff City at the City Ground.

At 7pm Mark has a round-up of the day's action followed by commentary of Newcastle United versus Sheffield United live from St James Park at 7.45pm.

From 10pm Mark is joined by Mark Clemmit for all the news and reaction from the Championship and Leagues One and Two in 5 Live Football League.

Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Francesca Bent

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Rugby League

Easter Monday 5 April

3.25-5.15pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted Super League commentary on Castleford Tigers versus St Helens comes live from The Jungle.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Andrew Collins plays a selection of tracks chosen by American singer-songwriter Laura Veirs for Lunchtime playlist. Her choice of tracks includes a selection from Fleetwood Mac, Fleet Foxes, Mirah and The Shins

Presenter/Andrew Collins, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Electronic music enthusiast and Wall Of Sound label boss Mark Jones hosts a special bank holiday edition of Back To The Phuture, celebrating the new romantic sounds from the Eighties to the present day.

Alongside classic tunes from Ultravox and the Human League and new music from Hurts and Ali Love, Mark talks to Visage front-man and club promoter Steve Strange about the part he played in the movement. Best known for their hit single Fade To Grey, Visage has been celebrating their 30th anniversary with a brand new Best Of compilation and series of new cutting-edge club mixes.

In this in-depth interview, Steve tells Mark about founding of the infamous Blitz club, appearing in David Bowie's video for Ashes To Ashes and putting on gigs by Depeche Mode and Spandau Ballet at the Camden Palace, as well as picking tracks which inspired him from T Rex, Grace Jones and Roxy Music. In the final hour of the show, there's a guest mix from Steve's former partner in Visage and Blitz club DJ Rusty Egan including music from Gary Numan, Kraftwerk and Duran Duran.

Presenter/Mark Jones, Producer/Rowan Collinson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish give listeners another chance to catch up on the Adam And Joe Podcast from March 2008 titled Minor Surgeries. This is also available as a podcast to download after the show.

Presenter/Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, Producer/James Stirling

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Listeners can re-live Raj and Pablo's recent In Conversation With... with Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol Devgen and Karan Johar.

It's a must-listen to as three of Bollywood's biggest stars reveal all, and they're all together! Listeners can relax, and unwind as they listen to the living legends' thoughts and feelings about the film My Name Is Khan, love, life and the Bollywood industry.

Presenters/Raj and Pablo

BBC Asian Network Publicity