Wednesday 24 Sep 2014
Programme Information
Network Radio BBC Week 21: 22-28 May
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 21: Saturday 22 May 2010
BBC RADIO 1 Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1
On Saturday 22 May and Sunday 23 May, BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend descends on Vaynol Estate, Bangor, North Wales, with a spectacular line-up of international and UK bands, artists and DJs, performing live over two days.
This year is Radio 1's 10th Big Weekend and it promises to be bigger and better than ever. With live music across four stages, Radio 1's flagship event will also be broadcast on BBC Three, as well as having a major online presence at bbc.co.uk/radio1.
Saturday's Main Stage artists include Dizzee Rascal, Cheryl Cole, Alicia Keys, 30 Seconds To Mars, Lostprophets, Justin Bieber and Florence and the Machine. Faithless, MGMT, Tinie Tempah and Ellie Goulding play the In New Music We Trust stage, while MistaJam, Toddla T, Alex Metric and Westwood take to the Outdoor Stage. The full line-up can be found at bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend.
BBC Radio 1 DJs will be broadcasting live from the Big Weekend across Saturday and Sunday. Edith Bowman kicks things off at 7am, followed by Vernon Kay from 10am. At 1pm Jo Whiley takes over the reins, with Chris Moyles on duty from 4pm. Trevor Nelson's show (6pm) is simulcast with Radio 1Xtra, and Dev rounds off proceedings at 8pm before the day's highlights from the Outdoor Stage can be heard from 10pm-1am.
BBC Radio 1 Publicity
BBC RADIO 1Xtra Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/1Xtra
BBC Radio 1Xtra broadcasts live from BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend on Vaynol Estate, Bangor, North Wales, which brings together a host of UK and worldwide artists for two days of spectacular live music.
BBC Radio 1's flagship event sees some of the biggest and most exciting names in urban music play live sets on the Outdoor Stage on Saturday 22 May and Sunday 23 May.
Westwood, Target & Cameo and Ras & Seani B are among those taking to the stage on Saturday, highlights of which will be broadcast on Radio 1Xtra from 10pm. Ace and Vis (4-6pm) and Trevor Nelson (6-10pm) also host shows live from the festival.
BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend will be broadcast on BBC Three as well as having a major online presence at bbc.co.uk/radio1.
BBC Radio 1Xtra Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
BBC 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny sits in for Dermot O'Leary this week and has live music from indie rockers The Temper Trap.
This Australian foursome made the BBC's Sound Of 2009 shortlist and worked on their first album, Conditions, with producer Jim Abiss, who's best known for his work on Arctic Monkeys' Mercury-winning debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Released last summer, Conditions includes their Top 10 hit Sweet Disposition.
Shaun can be heard on 6 Music each weekday morning between 7-10am.
Presenter/Shaun Keaveny, Producer/Ben Walker
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Two Episodes Of MASH is a comedy sketch show written by and starring acclaimed stand-up comedians Diane Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. The pair are currently preparing for their third show together at the Edinburgh Fringe in August.
Diane and Joe take their inspiration from everyday life, successfully combining the mundane with the surreal. The show features comedy banter and ear-catching sketches such as Fly In The Car, Bees and Secret Agent 00-9062.
Since embarking on his stand-up career in 2004 Joe Wilkinson has earned critical acclaim supporting Alan Carr and Russell Howard on tour. Originally from Bolton, Lancashire, Diane Morgan is a trained actress and acclaimed stand-up. Her TV credits include Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights and Ken Campbell's Warp Experience.
Two Episodes Of MASH continues BBC Radio 2's season of pilots showcasing a diverse array of comic talent including Matt Horne and Tim Minchin. It was recorded without a studio audience – just Diane and Joe in a radio studio, with some great comedy writing and sound effects.
Producer/Clair Wordsworth
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
An American singer-songwriter who lives in Germany, Marybeth D'Amico came to songwriting relatively late in life. Tonight she joins Bob Harris to play songs from her new album Heaven, Hell, Sin And Redemption.
A journalist by trade, in 2002 Marybeth lost her position as an editor at an Amsterdam-based magazine. With some time on her hands, the wife and mother of two, who had recently taken up the guitar, began penning her first songs on the living room couch. The discovery of the work of Patty Griffin was another key moment in her musical career.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Fifty years after 16 countries in Africa became independent, Lucy Duran and French journalist Florent Mazzoleni play rare tracks from that period. Music played a central role in the search for a new identity, and in the Sixties and Seventies some of the continent's greatest dance music was created. Today's programme celebrates countries that became independent in the first half of 1960, including Congo, Senegal, Guinea and Cameroon.
Florent Mazzoleni has travelled all over Africa collecting music and, in particular, documenting the soundtrack of the golden era of Atlantic African music. The programme includes tracks from Florent's collection, many of which have not been re-released since their limited pressing in the Sixties and Seventies, let alone played on British radio. These are tracks that reflect a unique period in African history: a period of liberation and short-lived optimism.
Another programme with Florent will be broadcast in September 2010, celebrating some of the African countries that became independent in the second half of 1960, such as Mali, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Gabon.
Please note this programme was originally scheduled for broadcast on Saturday 1 May.
Presenter/Lucy Duran, Producer/ James Parkin
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Prokofiev's The Gambler, recorded at the Royal Opera House, stars soprano Angela Denoke, tenor Roberto Saccà and bass John Tomlinson. The Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House are conducted by Antonio Pappano.
The curtain opens on the town of Roulettenburg, where the whole of life is based around the casino. In the middle of this money driven world is the possibility of a love story, but is Alexei really in love with Polina, or addicted to her in the same way he is to gambling?
Prokofiev's rarely heard score is based on Dostoyevsky's novel, and contains some of his most unusual and energetic music. The cast of colourful characters includes Roberto Saccà and Angela Denoke as the lovers, and John Tomlinson as the General whose life disintegrates as his aged aunt gambles away his inheritance.
Andrew McGregor is joined by Prokofiev biographer David Nice, and the programme includes interviews with the cast, conductor and director.
Presenter/Andrew McGregor, Producer/Ellie Mant
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Ramblings Ep 1/6
In a new series of Ramblings presenter Clare Balding walks the South Downs Way meeting various guests along the way.
Starting at the coast near Eastbourne, she meets a group of disabled ramblers with a passion for the countryside of East Sussex.
Presenter/Clare Balding, Producer/Maggie Ayre
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Archive On 4 explores the hugely popular Second World War radio broadcasts of JB Priestley, the "voice of Britain" during the darkest days of the war.
Marking the 70th anniversary of a broadcasting phenomenon, Archive On 4 explores the story of how Yorkshireman JB Priestley became the voice of the nation during the war.
Using original broadcasts, information stored in BBC files and interviews with his son Tom Priestley and stepson Nicolas Hawkes, the programme revisits these extraordinary broadcasts and asks why, in spite of their popularity, Priestley was taken off air.
Presenter/Martin Wainwright, Producer/Catherine Plane
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Mark Pougatch presents an afternoon of sport live from Wembley Stadium, with all the day's sports news plus the build-up to this afternoon's Championship play-off final at 3pm. There's live commentary of the game, with the winner securing a place in the Premier League.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Steve Houghton
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
5 Live Sport
Mark Chapman presents commentary of the 2010 Champions League Final, Inter Milan versus Bayern Munich, live from the Bernabeu stadium in Madrid. Kick off is at 7.45pm with commentary from Alan Green, John Murray and Mark Lawrenson.
Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Mark Williams
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Rugby Union
Listeners can hear uninterrupted commentary on the European Rugby Cup Final live from Stade de France, Paris.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Richard Bacon brings two hours of anecdotal, observational conversation for the everyman listener. Alongside best friend and right-hand-man Marc Haynes, Richard provides his trademark audience participation and listener-led topical chat. Mundane texts, records of achievement and Twittercisms are punctuated with playlisted music, plus a few picks from Richard's own collection.
Presenter/Richard Bacon, Producer/Dan Crocker
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Saturday 22 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Raj and Pablo interview the stars of new Bollywood blockbuster movie, Kites. Indian actor Hrithik Roshan and Mexican star Barbara Mori tell all about the passionate action-packed thriller – a dual-language tale of love between a man and a woman from India and Mexico, who speak different languages and are from different cultural backgrounds. The pair talk about their experiences and share all the latest Bollywood gossip.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Sunday 23 May 2010
BBC RADIO 1 Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1
BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend coverage continues, with shows broadcast live from Bangor, North Wales.
The second day of the annual music festival sees international superstar Rihanna leading the line up on the Main Stage, with Pendulum, Biffy Clyro, JLS, Pixie Lott and Ke$ha also performing to an audience of lucky music fans.
Vampire Weekend, Plan B, Marina And The Diamonds and Delphic perform on the In New Music We Trust Stage, while a stellar DJ line-up on the Outdoor Stage includes Kissy Sell Out, Judge Jules and Tiesto.
BBC Radio 1 DJs will be broadcasting live from the Big Weekend throughout Sunday. Edith Bowman kicks things off at 7am, followed by Fearne Cotton from 10am. At 1pm Jo Whiley takes over the reins, with Reggie Yates and the Chart Show from 4pm. Scott Mills is on duty from 7pm and Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac round off proceedings in the final slot from 10pm to 12midnight.
Radio 1's Big Weekend will also be broadcast on BBC Three and there is an online presence at bbc.co.uk/radio1.
BBC Radio 1 Publicity
BBC RADIO 1Xtra Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/1Xtra
BBC Radio 1Xtra broadcasts live from the second day of BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Bangor, North Wales.
Radio 1Xtra's Ace and Vis present a three-hour show from the festival, where today Semtex and Robbo Ranx, Bailey and Fabio, Rampage and Westwood are among the DJs playing on the Outdoor Stage.
Radio 1's Big Weekend will also be broadcast on BBC Three as well as having a major online presence at bbc.co.uk/radio1.
BBC Radio 1Xtra Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Aled Jones says Good Morning Sunday to singer-songwriter Sandi Thom, whose new album Merchants And Thieves was released earlier this month. Sandi tells Aled how faith has influenced her career and performs live in the studio.
Interfaith minister Akasha Lonsdale shares her practical knowledge of each of the major world religions, for today's multicultural society. This morning she reflects on the news of the week from a faith perspective and delivers the Moment Of Reflection.
Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Hilary Robinson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Actor Toby Stephens, who is currently starring in Tom Stoppard's critically acclaimed The Real Thing at The Old Vic, joins Michael Ball for Sunday Brunch this week, live from London.
Michael invites listeners to keep up to date with the latest in current affairs and showbiz news as he reviews the newspapers and previews the best of the week's movie, DVD, TV and radio entertainment.
Alongside a selection of great music, there's also regular features Ball's birthday bonanza and the classic album track.
Presenter/Michael Ball, Producer/Jodie Keane
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Today is the feast of Pentecost commemorating the birth of the Christian church.
Brian D'Arcy celebrates by looking at some of the traditions of Whitsuntide, including the northern Whit walks. He explores the background and importance of the festival and marks it with traditional hymns and prayers.
This week's featured choir is the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union, directed by Michael Bawtree. The organist is Morley Whitehead.
Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Canadian-born author Rachel Cusk, whose books include Arlington Park and The Bradshaw Variations, discusses a range of music from Bach to Stravinsky with Michael Berkeley.
After finishing her schooling in England, Rachel Cusk went to Oxford University. In 1993, she won the Whitbread First Novel Award for Saving Agnes. Since then her books have included A Life's Work: On Becoming A Mother (2001); Arlington Park (2006); The Bradshaw Variations (2009); and The Last Supper: A Summer In Italy (also 2009), which is a memoir of a three-month family stay in Italy.
Rachel Cusk's music choices are all classical, with focus on piano and vocal music. They start with Bach and Beethoven played on the piano by Glenn Gould and Richard Goode respectively. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Handel's As With Rosy Steps The Morn. Then there's music by Benjamin Britten (the opening of the canticle Abraham And Isaac), and part of Gerald Finzi's Eclogue, played by pianist Piers Lane with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Presenter/Michael Berkeley, Producer/Chris Marshall
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Harriett Gilbert tells the story of the life and work of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
For many, Mahmoud Darwish was the poet laureate of the Arab world, until he died in August 2008. This programme explores the life of the poet, who performed his work to crowds of 25,000 and wrote speeches for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
At the age of six, after an Israeli attack on Darwish's village in Upper Galilee, his family became refugees in Lebanon. From then on he lived throughout the Middle East, until his return to Ramallah in 1995.
Inter-cut with poetry read by Sam West, voices from Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Cairo and London discuss this "saviour of the Arab language", with contributions from novelist Adhaf Soueif, poet Ruth Padel, writer and human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh and the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen.
Presenter/Harriett Gilbert, Producer/Rebecca Stratford
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Living World Ep 1/4
Living World begins a new series with a report suggesting that the juniper, one of only three native British conifers, could be extinct in Britain within 50 years.
Juniper berries give gin its distinctive flavour, but rabbits are threatening its future.
About a fifth of the UK population of Juniper can be found at Porton Down near Salisbury, the site of the Ministry of Defence civilian science centre, The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. The problem is that the bushes are either middle aged or, at more than 100 years old, close to the end of their lives. There are no young junipers growing because the seedlings are being eaten by rabbits which share the range.
Presenter Lionel Kellaway ventures to Porton Down to find out more. He talks to Lena Ward, who has studied junipers for 41 years and meets Carl Mayers, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Project Leader.
Lena is fascinated with juniper and reveals that 19 species of invertebrates on Porton Down rely on it. She explains that, as a plant which prefers impoverished soils, it could thrive here. But it's in trouble because its seedlings are being eaten by rabbits and surrounded by other plants like blackthorn.
Carl explains how the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is working with Plantlife to collect berries, check seed fertility and process seeds. The seeds are then sown on the Porton Down range and protected with special rabbit-proof cages to give them a head start. If successful, this technique could not only secure the future of the juniper on Porton Down but elsewhere in Britain – a reason for gin and tonic drinkers to raise their glasses.
Presenter/Lionel Kellaway, Producer/Tania Dorrity
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Kirsty Young's castaway on this week's edition of Desert Island Discs is entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley, who arrived in Britain as an unaccompanied child refugee in 1939.
Dame Stephanie started what became Xansa with £6 in 1962. She built the company to become a leading business technology group, pioneering new work practices and changing the position of professional women along the way.
Since retiring in 1993, she has served on various corporate boards, but her focus has been increasingly on philanthropy. She has a key interest in autism – her son Giles was autistic and died in 1998 at the age of 35.
Dame Stephanie tells Kirsty about her life, her favourite music and how she might cope on BBC Radio 4's mythical desert island.
Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Dr Catherine Cowley investigates whether greed is a vital dynamic behind a successful economy.
Having worked in the City before becoming an academic and a nun, Dr Catherine Cowley is well acquainted with the temptations and the financial risks faced by city workers on a daily basis. Dr Cowley questions whether money is the only motivation for those who work in the City and discusses whether greed is in fact a necessary and vital dynamic behind a successful economy.
Dr Edward Skidelsky, lecturer in Philosophy at Exeter University, says that economists in the past assumed that growth was a process with an end, and once that end came, people would enjoy the fruits of wealth. As Karl Marx put it, "we'd hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and discuss poetry in the evening".
Producer/Rosemary Foxcroft
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Steven Mackintosh stars in Paul Gallico's prize-winning novella, The Snow Goose, in BBC Radio 4's celebration of Neglected Classics.
Open Book asked various authors to champion a favourite neglected classic on the programme. The Snow Goose, chosen by Michael Morpurgo, won the listeners' vote and was subsequently dramatised for The Classic Serial.
It tells the story of Philip Rhayader, an outsider, who has settled in an old lighthouse on the Essex coast. Mistrusted by the villagers because of his disfigurements, Philip is a proud and lonely man who spends his days painting and caring for the birds that populate the marsh.
When a young girl, Fritha, brings him a wounded snow goose, it begins a regenerative tale of friendship and love that culminates in a courageous act of bravery by Philip during the rescue of soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk.
The story is thought to be loosely based on the artist and naturalist Sir Peter Scott.
The dramatisation stars Steven Mackintosh and Georgia Groome as the artist and the beautiful young girl who befriends him.
Dramatist Nick Warburton is an award-winning radio writer and has written numerous plays for radio. He also writes for stage and screen and has published several children's books.
Producer/Sally Avens
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
All the latest sports news and live action from 5 Live Sport include reports from the opening day of the French Open Tennis championship from Roland Garros, Paris, plus updates of the final day of the PGA Golf Championship at Wentworth and county cricket news.
Producer/Louise Sutton
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Rugby League
Live from Odsal, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra's rugby league coverage continues with commentary on the Super League encounter between Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Fun Lovin' Criminal Huey Morgan meets Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.
Tony recently celebrated Black Sabbath's 40th anniversary and is promoting the 30th anniversary re-release of the Ronnie Dio-era Heaven And Hell album.
Huey talks to Tony about four decades of rocking out, how Django Reinhardt inspired him to fulfill his musical aspirations and the stories behind some of the most seminal guitar riffs in heavy rock.
Presenter/Huey Morgan, Producer/Rebecca Maxted
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Legendary DJ Andrew Weatherall returns for the next edition of his 6 Mix residency.
Weatherall is best known for his work with Primal Scream and his pioneering techno DJ sets, but has also recently remixed the likes of the Manic Street Preachers and Doves.
In the latest edition of his 6 Mix residency, Andrew plays an eclectic selection of tracks, from indie to rockabilly, as well as new work fresh from his studio. He also opens the doors to his "Sunday night disco" featuring a live 30-minute mix of upfront music and club favourites.
Presenter/Andrew Weatherall, Producer/Rowan Collinson
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Morcheeba's appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 1998 is featured in today's Live Music Hour. There are also archive session highlights from the Dandy Warhols and Duritti Column.
Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Claire Slevin
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Sunday 23 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
For the second year running, BBC Asian Network is at the Baishaki Mela, East London – Europe's biggest Bengali event. On Sunday 23 May, the Asian Network takes over three areas at the festival, bringing listeners the best from the festival.
The Weavers Field main stage will be hosted by Sonia Deol and Shawkat Hashmi and includes performances from Kumar Bishwajit, Band Lalon, Shahnaz Belly, Salma, Ronti, Himongshu Goswami and Rukhsana Safa.
The Allen Gardens Arena will be hosted by Bobby Friction, with DJ Kayper, and will see performances from Lokkhi Terra, Deshi Movement, 789 Crew, The Nasha Experience and BBC Blast with SLAMbassadors winning lyricist, Naga.
This special Bengali show will feature all the highlights and music from the festival's main stage.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Monday 24 May 2010
BBC RADIO 1 Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1
Vernon Kay tells BBC Radio 1's Story Of The Big Weekend, from its first incarnation 10 Big Weekends ago to 2010's event in Bangor. Vernon goes behind the scenes to see how an event of this scale is put on, how the bands are chosen and how it all comes together. He also finds out how the event came into existence in the first place.
BBC Radio 1 Stories explore the musical back-stories of listeners' favourite artists, eras, genres and scenes. Previous episodes in the series have included International Radio 1, Art Of Noise, Life In Jail and The A-Z Of Vampire Weekend.
Presenter/Vernon Kay, Producers/Louise Katterhorn and Alice Lloyd
BBC Radio 1 Publicity
BBC RADIO 2 Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
BBC Radio 2 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Sixties, the decade that changed the UK, and the world, for ever, with a season of programmes including documentaries covering popular culture, music and eyewitness accounts. Presenters include Robert Vaughn, Tony Blackburn, Alice Cooper and Brian Matthew alongside Guy Garvey and Michael Sheen. Two of the decade's movers and shakers, Vicki Wickham and Tony King, present personal eyewitness accounts of "their" Sixties.
Perhaps like no other world leader, the life of John F Kennedy still intrigues and fascinates, despite it being nearly 50 years since his untimely death. Robert Vaughn (The Man From UNCLE and BBC One's Hustle) looks back at how JFK changed politics for ever and shaped the Sixties. He also assesses why the world is still enraptured by him.
When elected in 1960, Kennedy epitomised the hope of the new decade and a feeling that America was emerging from post-war austerity and into a new colourful world which it would shape. With rock 'n' roll, big brands and Hollywood, the USA would conquer the world and, at its helm, was a leader who sold out magazines and excited a nation.
Kennedy kick-started and influenced the decade of hope. From space travel to civil rights, the Cold War to Vietnam, his policies shaped the decade of the Sixties, while his mix of showbiz friends, a glamorous wife and his brilliance in front of the TV cameras made him a paparazzi target and brought in a new era of politics. Yet away from the cameras, he hid many secrets; few knew of his litany of health problems (he was given the last rites several times) or his extra-marital affairs.
With contributions from JFK's inner circle, including speechwriter and confidante Ted Sorensen, close friend and newspaper editor Ben Bradlee and writer Gore Vidal, this documentary hears first-hand about Kennedy's life and looks at his continued appeal. The programme also hears from contributors who experienced the JFK years while growing up, including former BBC political correspondent John Sergeant, who was a young man on a gap year in America when Kennedy was in his pomp, and Mickey Dolenz, singer in The Monkees, who lived the JFK-inspired "American dream".
Presenter/Robert Vaughn, Producer/Mark Sharman
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Bringing together the combined forces of the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, four choirs and a first-class roster of vocal soloists, Sir Mark Elder conducts Mahler's monumental symphony – Symphony No. 8, Symphony Of A Thousand.
Its epic dimensions and staggering vision, requiring a vast number of performers, including blazing brass around the balconies, have earned it the reputation of a work of Olympian proportions. To quote Mahler himself: "Imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound." The words combine the medieval hymn, Veni, Creator spiritus, and a setting of the final scene of Goethe's Faust.
Soloists include sopranos Claire Rutter, Aga Mikolaj and Anna Leese, mezzo-sopranos Sarah Connolly and Catherine Wyn-Rogers, tenor Lars Cleveman, bass-baritone Gerald Finley and bass James Creswell.
The performance is preceded by an organ improvisation on the symphony's Veni, Creator spiritus theme by Olivier Latry, one of the foremost organists of the time.
Presenter/Ian Skelly, Producer/Anthony Sellors
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
The Essay – The King Returned Ep 1/5
Jonathan Sawday paints a picture of Restoration Britain in five essays this week: the politics, the science, the culture and the philosophy which made this an extraordinary period of history.
In May 1660, Charles II was invited to return to England and take the throne lost by his beheaded father. A dozen years of Puritan rule were overthrown with a resuming of vigorous cultural life. There was an ebullient outpouring of baroque music, liberated playwriting, scientific progress, stately architecture and courtly entertainment that became known as the Restoration.
Caricatured as excessive in today's costume drama, this was a time that was also energetic, experimental and outward looking. From the foundation of the Royal Society to the construction of St Paul's, to the new contractual nature of government, this was a period which marked the creation of crucial aspects of modern Britain. But in the 1660s, how much was really "restored" of pre-Cromwellian Britain, and how much was actually newly introduced? How much that was restored had really never gone away?
On the 350th anniversary of the King's return, Sawday attempts to retell the story of the Restoration in a new way – through five essays, each of which provides a snapshot of cultural and intellectual life.
Presenter/Jonathan Sawday, Producer/Matthew Dodd
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
A History Of The World – Warren Cup
Throughout this week, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum in London, explores the ways in which people were seeking pleasure around the world 2,000 years ago, from pipe smoking in North America to court etiquette in China.
He starts with the Roman Empire and a silver cup that offers a rare glimpse into the world of sex in ancient Rome. The cup features such explicit images of homosexual acts that it was once banned from America and museums refused to buy it. The Warren Cup is now one of the British Museum's better known objects.
In today's programme, Neil examines the sexual climate of Rome and asks how acceptable homosexuality was at this time and why the Romans were so keen to copy the Greeks. Historians Bettany Hughes and James Davidson help provide the answers.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Philip Sellars, Paul Kobrak, Anthony Denselow and Jane Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Woman's Hour Drama – The Private Patient Ep 1/10
In The Private Patient, PD James's latest Dalgliesh mystery, journalist Rhoda Gradwyn checks into Cheverell Manor, an exclusive cosmetic surgery clinic in Dorset.
The clinic's owner, George Chandler-Powell, is faced with his right-hand man, Marcus Westhall, and his sister, Candace, trying to persuade him that it may not be a good idea to admit such a well-known investigative writer. Meanwhile, Rhoda is told a dark secret about the stone circle next to the clinic.
The Private Patient is the latest in the long-running Dalgliesh series and is dramatised by Neville Teller.
Carolyn Pickles is the narrator, Christine Kavanagh is Rhoda Gradwyn, Jonathan Keeble is George Chandler-Powell, Alison Pettitt is Candace Westhall, Adrian Grove is Marcus Westhall, Bertie Carvel is Robin Boyton and Charlotte Worthing is both Sharon Bateman and Mary Keyte.
Producer/Peter Leslie Wild
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Football Fights Back explores the initiatives being undertaken in a bid to stamp out racist abuse in football.
Presenter Hardeep Singh Kohli talks to former professional football player Leroy Rosenior who made his debut for Fulham Football Club as a teenager in the Eighties. He was one of the few professional black football players and remembers the racist abuse as being both threatening and uncontrolled. Leroy talks about the progress that has been made since then but also emphasises that there is work still to be done.
Hardeep also attends an educational event organised for local schoolchildren by the Show Racism The Red Card campaign.
Kick It Out director Piara Powar talks about one of the latest co-operative ventures between Kick It Out and the Football Association – a short film aiming to show the ugliness of homophobic abuse.
Hardeep questions the value of this kind of initiative and meets Ivor Baddiel who, together with his brother, David Baddiel, is launching a film which attacks anti-Semitism.
Hardeep meets Sue Law, head of equality at the Football Association, and speaks to Rafal Pankowsky, who has made a study of far right-wing and neo-Nazi influences on football behaviour, and who has worked with FARE, Football Against Racism in Europe.
Presenter/Hardeep Singh Kohli, Producer/Richard Bannerman
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Part of the BBC's Eighties Season, Tony Maudsley stars as Sam Leach in Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais's tribute to a man, a city, a moment ... John Lennon, Liverpool, December 1980.
When just 40 people turn up to John Lennon's memorial service in Liverpool in December 1980, his old friend and promoter Sam Leach is forced to act.
The play draws together fragments of reportage from the time, interviews with Lennon himself, the true story of Leach – The Beatles' first promoter – with the fictional stories of two lost young people.
Joanna Monro plays Joan Leach, Lauren O'Neil plays Debbie Leach, Laura dos Santos plays Janine Hobday, Bruce Alexander plays Morris Tate, Craige Els plays Clive Inch, Billy Butler plays himself, John Shortell plays Kenny Stratton and Alison Pettitt plays Carol Stratton. Other cast members include John Biggins, David Seddon, Rufus Wright and Nigel Hastings.
Producer/Jessica Dromgoole
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Book At Bedtime – A Vision Of Loveliness Ep 1/5
In Louise Levene's dark comedy, a naive young girl learns about the grubby glamour of Sixties London, A Vision Of Loveliness is read by Emilia Fox.
After the discovery of a lost handbag, Jane James meets a beautiful young model and her life takes an unexpected turn.
Jane is convinced she must have been born to better things than a dingy bedroom in her Aunt Doreen's house in Norbury and evenings spent eating gala pie and tinned potato salad in their "sitting-cum-dining room".
So, armed with her well-thumbed copy of Lady Be Good, she practises her French turns, her killer smile and precisely how much thigh to show when crossing her legs, and dreams of a time when she can be a part of the world she glimpses through the Mayfair windows of the cashmere shop where she works.
When she finds a crocodile handbag left in a pub, it leads her to Suzy St John, a girl-about-town with the glamour, confidence and irresistible allure that Jane has been practising for so long.
Suzy takes Jane under her wing and Jane becomes Janey, a near carbon-copy of her new best friend and a delighted adventurer in an easy, sleazy, Sixties West-End world of part-time modelling and full-time man-trapping.
Her new, improved self catwalks confidently through nightclubs, rag trade showrooms and luxury Mayfair flats but Jane finds that she can never quite drown out the carping voice of her past – or the nagging doubt that there might be slightly more to life than a mutation mink jacket or an engagement ring.
When a shocking act of violence threatens to bring Jane's glittering new life crashing down around her, she must call on all her powers of reinvention if her dyed-to-match stilettos are to carry her away unscathed.
Reader/Emilia Fox, Producer/David Roper
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
5 Live Sport
Mark Chapman has all the day's sports news and, from 8pm, live commentary of England's international friendly against Mexico from Wembley Stadium.
Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Francesca Bent
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Lauren Laverne is joined by Yeasayer for a live session in the BBC 6 Music studios.
The Brooklyn band's second album, Odd Blood, was released earlier this year and earned them much acclaim, both commercially and critically. They join the show today for an electro-tinged session of greatness and talk to Lauren about what the summer holds for them.
Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales
BBC 6 Music Publicity
The Mystery Jets play a live session for Steve Lamacq from the BBC's Maida Vale studio to celebrate the release of their forthcoming third album, Serotonin.
Presenter/Steve Lamacq, Producer/Paul Sheehan
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe mines the BBC archives once again to play concert tracks from Headxswim, playing Glastonbury Festival in 1998. Session tracks include Scottish poppers Ballboy and Warp Records' veteran dance moodists Autchre.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
The Live Music Hour features The Band at the Carter Brown Amphitheatre, Washington DC in 1976, plus sessions from Julian Cope in 1989 and Tunng in 2007.
Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Claire Slevin
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC ASIAN NETWORK Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork
Following on from the weekend's programming, Bobby Friction presents a Baishakhi special in tonight's show. Showcasing the highlights from both the main stage and the Allen Gardens Arena, listeners hear from artists including The Nasha Experience and 789 Crew.
Throughout the week Bobby's show includes the best bits from the Allen Garden stage.
BBC Asian Network Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Monday 24 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Culture, lifestyle, values and ideals are increasingly important factors as US States compete for global economic and political dominance. This kind of influence – attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals – is known as soft power. It thrives on influence, not coercion, and many 21st-century leaders are keenly aware of its importance.
Since Barack Obama came to office, the media has widely reported on American soft power – something that many think declined during the Bush years. But who will challenge Washington to be tomorrow's No. 1 soft power?
Philip Dodd continues his examination of how the global soft power battle is shaping up and what weapons are being deployed – from global sporting fixtures and cultural events to China's soft power offensive in Africa.
Presenter/Philip Dodd, Producer/Michael Gallagher
BBC World Service Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Tuesday 25 May 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Tuesday 25 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Jamie Cullum continues to showcase his love for all types of jazz, and music rooted in jazz, from its heritage to the future. This week's show features a Maida Vale session with multi Grammy winner, songwriter, vocalist and conductor Bobby McFerrin.
Best known for his hit songs Don't Worry Be Happy and Thinkin' About Your Body, the talented vocalist performs a selection of his works a cappella, creating the entire accompaniment with his mouth. Listeners can expect some new material and some classic songs.
Jamie also presents his usual blend of jazz standards, alternative album tracks by known artists and new music from the current scene.
Presenter/Jamie Cullum, Producer/Karen Pearson
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
To mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Let It Be, Elbow front-man and BBC 6 Music presenter Guy Garvey tells the story of the fractious and often bitter sessions that documented the demise of the popular culture icons of the Sixties, The Beatles.
Featuring contributions from many of those who worked on the Let It Be sessions, including director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, engineer Alan Parsons, photographer Ethan Russell, author Richard DiLello and engineers Dave Harries and Brian Gibson, this programme explains how a project (originally a TV documentary, titled Get Back, which was designed to re-energise the band and capture their stripped down rock 'n' roll roots), instead documented power struggles, bickering and conflict.
The project was perhaps doomed from the start. Paul McCartney's original suggestion was for the group to play three shows, which he hoped would refocus and invigorate the band after the tensions experienced during the recording of the White Album. When this plan failed to materialise, the idea evolved into a worldwide broadcast of a live concert.
Paul decided that the rehearsals should be filmed for a documentary that would promote the live broadcast and they began at Twickenham Studios on 2 January 1969. Everyone involved in the rehearsals considered them to be disastrous.
The intrusive film cameras and the cold, unfamiliar setting of Twickenham Studios contributed to the ill feeling. George announced that he was leaving the band and went to Eric Clapton's house, where he wrote Here Comes The Sun, but within a few days he was persuaded to return to the group.
After three weeks of filming, the band were still unable to agree on a location for the proposed concert, so Michael Lindsay-Hogg suggested they stage an impromptu performance on the rooftop of their Apple headquarters. The live performance took place on 30 January in front of a small audience of friends and employees but was stopped by the police after complaints about noise. Filming continued the following day and then no further work was carried out on the project until March, when John and Paul called engineer Glyn Johns to EMI and offered him free rein to produce an album from the recordings.
John booked time at Olympic Studios to mix the album and presented it to the group at the end of May. Originally intended for release in July 1969, it was pushed back to September, to coincide with the TV special and film about the making of the album, and then further delayed because the band decided to release Abbey Road instead.
On 15 December, Johns was approached again, but this time with the instruction that the songs match those included in the (as yet unreleased) film. New mixes were prepared but once again rejected. Then in March the following year the session tapes were given to American producer Phil Spector, who worked on the tracks and compiled Let It Be. By the time the album and the film with the same name were finally released on 8 May 1970, The Beatles had broken up.
Guy Garvey's BBC 6 Music show can be heard on Sunday nights at 10pm.
Presenter/Guy Garvey, Producer/Des Shaw
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Tuesday 25 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev perform Debussy's L'après midi d'un faune, two symphonies by Stravinsky and the première of James MacMillan's Violin Concerto, with Vadim Repin as soloist.
James MacMillan's latest work, a new violin concerto, is performed as part of the orchestra's season-long celebration of the composer's 50th birthday.
Three masterpieces frame the new work: Debussy's enticing Prélude á l'après-midi d'un faune, of which his biographer claimed, when it was written in 1894, "nothing like it existed in music", and two of Stravinsky's greatest neo-classical works – his Symphony in C and the Symphony of Psalms.
Presenter/Ian Skelly, Producer/Anthony Sellors
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Tuesday 25 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
A history of the world, as explained through objects from the British Museum, arrives in North America 2,000 years ago with a stone pipe used in rituals.
It is one of hundreds of pipes shaped as animals that were found in huge mounds in present-day Ohio.
Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, pieces together the evidence for how these pipes were used. Tony Benn and artist Maggie Hambling consider the allure of smoking from a modern perspective, while Native American historian Gabrielle Tayac describes how the pipe formed a central role in traditional ritual and religious life.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Philip Sellars, Paul Kobrak, Anthony Denselow and Jane Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Every hero worth their salt has a sidekick: Batman had Robin, Quixote had Panza and Holmes his Watson. In Sidekick, presenter Frank Cottrell Boyce finds out that sidekicks are every bit as interesting as the hero.
The sidekick is not, by definition, the focus of attention. They are destined to be overshadowed by their better half – the hero who will save Gotham, solve the uncrackable case or rescue the girl from the bad guys.
But without the sidekick these heroes would often remain too distant, too powerful or just too brilliant for us to ever really love them. So in steps the earthy, flawed and loyal sidekick to provide the audience with someone to connect to; a character who knows how the world really works, to help the hero.
Whether it's in countless children's films, from Eddie Murphy's Donkey to Mike Myers's Shrek, or a hundred comic books and cartoons or high literature – from Cervantes to Sterne and Shakespeare to Verne – the sidekick provides the laughs, the pratfalls and the focus of our empathy.
Frank Cottrell Boyce talks with those who've created sidekicks, those who've played the parts and those who've studied just how essential these characters are in making fiction seem believable and offering a human face to the often inhuman character supposedly at the centre of the show.
Presenter/Frank Cottrell Boyce, Producer/Geoff Bird
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Scorched is Nicola Jones's thriller in which Mike returns home 30 years after his teenage sister's disappearance.
The story follows Mike as he tries to discover what happened to her and begins to wonder if his father is telling the whole truth.
In 1976, Mike's 16-year-old sister, Evie, walked out of the house and never came back. There didn't seem to be any explanation, but Mike was 13 at the time and didn't want to upset his mum by asking too many questions. Now Mike is in his forties, his mum is dead and a rare visit to his home town provides him with an opportunity to investigate the events of that scorching summer and reinterpret them from an adult perspective.
A meeting with an old school friend forces Mike to question his father more closely.
The cast includes Tom Roberts as Mike, Kim Wall as Bern, Gabriel Towell as young Mike, Chandeep Uppal as Evie, Bharti Patel as Sylvia, Robert Wilkinson as Jason and Sean Connolly as the taxi driver.
Producer/Peter Leslie Wild
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
More Actors' Words Ep 1/3
Anna Massey tells the story of a young woman finding her way in Fifties bohemian London, part of a series of stories written and read by actors.
More Actors' Words is a second series of stories written and read by three actors. Anna Massey, James Dreyfus and Tracy-Ann Oberman take listeners to three varied worlds.
In the second tale, The Accident, James Dreyfus tells the story of grieving parents on a country estate.
In the third story, Girl On An Island, Tracy-Ann Oberman tells the story of Augustus Caesar's daughter in Imperial Rome.
Readers/Anna Massey, James Dreyfus and Tracy-Ann Oberman, Producer/David Roper
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Karole is 55 years old, a grandmother and a female bouncer. She's spent the last two decades working the doors of some of London's toughest venues, meeting the good, the bad and the punchy.
In Ladies On The Door, Karole describes what it's like for women who work in the world of pub and club security.
With the help of Dr Kate O'Brien, a lecturer in criminology who has also worked as a door supervisor for her research, the programme follows Karole as she searches and manages hundreds of drunk and noisy revellers during an average night on the job.
From scuffles at the door to finding hidden drugs and alcohol, Karole, and security staff like her across the UK, rarely get a quiet night. The programme hears how they handle the increasing menace of drunken girls who "kick off", and reflects on why there has been such an increase in drunkenness and violence among some young women.
Away from the singing, shouting, pushing and shoving, Karole looks back at more than 20 years in door security, how the rules have changed for the people managing the public and how that same public has changed too.
Producer/Russell Crewe
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Viv Anderson, the first black footballer to play for England, champions the life of Arthur Wharton, the first black professional player, in the final episode of this series of Great Lives.
Arthur Wharton was born in Ghana in 1865. He came to England to study, but he very quickly started to gain a reputation as an athlete, winning the 100m in a world record time of 10 seconds. He was a superb all-round athlete, and excelled in football and cricket.
In his career he played for Preston North End, Sheffield United, Rotherham Town, Stalybridge Celtic and Ashton North End. He ended his career at Stockport County in Division Two, and, for the remainder of his working life, he laboured as a colliery haulage hand in the pits.
Wharton came from a middle-class background, but his choice of a life of sport meant that a career in civil service administration was quickly closed to him. He chose to do what he loved to do, but paid a terrible price. As his playing career collapsed, he developed a drink problem, and died a penniless alcoholic.
Presenter/Matthew Parris, Producer/John Byrne
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Micky Flanagan – What Chance Change? Ep 1/4
In his first ever radio series, cockney geezer Micky Flanagan regales listeners with his personal story of how he went from tabloids to broadsheets; from white bread to paninis; from street parties to dinner parties; and from apples and pears to stocks and shares.
Micky charts his journey through stand-up comedy and documentary features which go "behind the scenes" to look at the way in which the people in his life helped him make these transitions and explore the way class shapes peoples' experiences.
Each week's episode focuses on a different decade of Micky's life. Just like Forrest Gump he always seems to have been well placed to observe social changes in British society. In the Seventies – a working class youth in the East End of London – he left school and worked in the fish market, as the East End began to be gentrified. In the wealthier Eighties, when travel abroad was becoming an option for those other than the very rich, Micky moved to New York.
At the dawn of Thatcherism, Micky was an entrepreneur, until Open University broadened his horizons. Micky's shift from the mean streets of the East End to the leafy lanes of Dulwich is a fascinating story, all the better told through Micky's own blend of comedy.
Micky Flanagan – What Chance Change? tells of Micky's journey from working-class boy to middle-class gent – and being caught awkwardly between the two.
Presenter/Micky Flanagan, Producer/Tilusha Ghelani
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
All In The Mind Ep 1/8
Claudia Hammond returns with a new series of All In The Mind and looks at what the future holds for mental health care. Users of mental health services also voice their concerns.
Claudia gathers together users of mental health services as well as key professionals in the field, to discuss the issues. With a new Government installed, she explores how ministers will balance demands for improved access to mental health services against pressures for budget cuts to balance the books.
Presenter/Claudia Hammond, Producer/Fiona Hill
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Tuesday 25 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Mark Pougatch has all the day's sports news and, from 8pm, is joined by special guests to look ahead to next month's World Cup in South Africa.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Patrick Nathenson
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Tuesday 25 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Lauren Laverne is joined by Avi Buffalo for a live session in the BBC 6 Music studios.
The Californian band is made up of singer Avi Zahner-Isenberg, Rebecca Coleman, Arin Fazio and Sheridan Riley, and their eponymous debut album is released this month.
Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe's archive choices include Japan playing live at the peak of their New Romantic powers in 1981 and sessions from robotic surf-noir outfit Man Or Astroman and Cardiacs spin-off The Sea Nymphs.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
The Live Music Hour features goth superstars The Cure, playing live at Camden Palace in 1985. There are also Peel sessions from Iced Bears in 1986 and The Chameleons in 1981.
Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Claire Slevin
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Wednesday 26 May 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Wednesday 26 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
BBC RADIO 2'S 60S SEASON
They Ain't Heavy, They're The Hollies Ep 1/2
As part of BBC Radio 2's 60s Season, Brian Matthew presents the first of a two-part profile on The Hollies, a group formed nearly 50 years ago but still very active today.
During their Sixties heyday, they were one of the most prolific chart acts in the UK and matched this with American success to rival The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five and Herman's Hermits.
The programme features specially recorded interviews with Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and Bernie Calvert, as well as Tony Hicks and Bobby Elliott, both of whom are fast approaching their sixth decade in the group.
Part one of this profile, which includes their hits along with some rare recordings, looks at the early days of the band, leading to the departure of Graham Nash.
Brian Matthew's Sounds Of The 60s can be heard on BBC Radio 2 on Saturdays at 8am.
Presenter/Brian Matthew, Producer/Neil Myners
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Wednesday 26 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
A history of the world, as told through objects from the British Museum, continues with a large stone belt, evidence of a 3,500-year-old ball game from Central America.
This week, director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor looks at objects of leisure and pleasure from around the world 2,000 years ago. Today's object is a large stone belt, a heavyweight ceremonial version of the leather and fibre padding that was used in an ancient ball game in central America. This was a game with a rubber ball that dates back as far as 3,500 years ago – the world's oldest known organised sport.
Neil offers up the rules of the game and describes how it connected players to the realm of their gods. Historian Michael Whittington considers the ritual aspects of the game while writer Nick Hornby describes how sport straddles the emotional territory between the sacred and the profane.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Philip Sellars, Paul Kobrak, Anthony Denselow and Jane Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Did being a "latch-key kid" have any impact on individuals and influence the way latch-key kids went on to bring up their own children?
Some claim the evils of modern society are a result of working mothers. But women have worked since the industrial revolution and the term "latch-key kids" was coined in the early 1800s.
It came to prominence during the Forties, when it was used for children whose fathers were away at war while their mothers were part of the labour force. Yet this was the generation who grew up to build pre-war Britain and take on feminism, pushing equality forward.
While all the studies assume that children suffer, the latch-key kids are rarely heard themselves. This programmes features children from various generations who talk about what it meant for them for their mothers to work.
Producers/Lucy Lunt and Sara Conkey
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
All that lies between Turkish exile Taline and her new life in the UK is her over-zealous immigration official, Carl.
Taline is a young Turkish student fleeing an assassination attempt and seeking asylum in the UK. But first she has to get through her screening interview with Carl.
Carl has a passion for procedure, but he's captivated by her story and vows to help Taline find her feet in the alien environment of East Croydon.
However, Carl's interest in Taline soon takes a darker turn. As he learns more about this enigmatic woman, a dangerous obsession begins, and the cracks in Taline's story threaten to tear her life apart.
Written by Kris Kenway, The Line stars Toby Jones as Carl and Marina Koem as Taline.
Producer/James Robinson
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Wednesday 26 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Mark Pougatch has all the day's sports news and, from 8pm, is joined by guests to look at the media's role at the forthcoming World Cup in The England Bubble.
From 9pm listeners can enjoy 5 Live Cricket ahead of England's first Test match against Bangladesh, which starts at Lord's tomorrow.
Presenter/Mark Pougatch
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Wednesday 26 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Jo Good sits in for Lauren Laverne today and is joined by Dr Dog, live in session.
The Philadelphia-based psych rockers released new album Shame Shame last month and join Jo to play a couple of tunes from said album.
Presenter/Jo Good, Producer/Gary Bales
BBC 6 Music Publicity
The Jesus And Mary Chain add beats to feedback in concert in 1988, plus Gideon Coe selects sessions from virtuoso folk/bluesman Peter Astor's project The Wisdom Of Harry; and Jack Rose.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
The Live Music Hour features a vintage Wooden Tops set at Glastonbury in 1987, as well as sessions from Steel Pulse and the 747s.
Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Claire Slevin
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Thursday 27 May 2010
BBC RADIO 2 Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio2
Tift Merritt joins Bob Harris on this week's show to talk about her music and perform tracks from her new album, See You Over The Moon.
Born in Houston, Texas, Tift started out playing small clubs and released a seven-song EP in 1999, a compilation of country songs featuring two original songs and five cover versions.
Her debut album, Bramble Rose, was released to huge critical acclaim and the follow-up, Tambourine, was Grammy nominated for 2004 Country album of the year.
The following year she received three Americana Music Award nominations for album of the year, artist of the year and song of the year for Good Hearted Man. In 2006 Tift spent several months in Paris, where she wrote the songs for her 2008 album Another Country.
Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Jo Whiley introduces Keane at the BBC Radio Theatre, in a concert recorded specially for BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 15 May.
Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley and Richard Hughes play classic hits and preview tracks from their new EP Night Train, which is named after their favourite mode of transport on a recent world tour.
There are also regular show features including the Gig Guide, Gig Review, Support Slot and the Classic Live Album listener choice.
Presenter/Jo Whiley
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
Sir Tim Rice continues to celebrate the musical heritage of the United States, and this week reaches New Mexico.
Artists featured in this programme packed full of gems include John Denver, Buddy Holly And The Crickets, Fats Domino, Norman Petty and the Flintstones.
Presenter/Tim Rice, Producers/Anthony Cherry and Ruth Beazley
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
BBC RADIO 3 Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Afternoon On 3 features operas on Thursday afternoons until the start of the BBC Proms in July as part of the BBC's major new season celebrating opera.
Today's programme features Act 1 of Rossini's Zelmira from last year's Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, starring soprano Kate Aldrich in the title role and tenor Juan Diego Flórez as Ilo. Roberto Abbado conducts the Teatro Comunale di Bologna Chorus and Orchestra.
Act 2 follows in tomorrow's programme (Friday 28 May).
Presenter/Penny Gore, Producer/Mark Lowther
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
A history of the world, as told through objects in the British Museum, arrives in China 1,500 years ago and features an ancient scroll painting that attempts to define proper behaviour for women.
Throughout this week Neil MacGregor explores pleasure and recreation across the ancient world. Today he arrives in China to explore a painting based on a poem that tried to outline proper behaviour for women during the tumultuous time that followed the collapse of the Han Empire.
This 11ft-long scroll offers a guide to manners along well-established Confucian principles. Neil tells the story of the scroll and finds out what it was about women's behaviour that was so worrying to men of the period. Historian Shane McCausland, politician Charles Powell and Chinese art expert Jan Stuart help paint the picture.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Philip Sellars, Paul Kobrak, Anthony Denselow and Jane Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Paul Bayley examines history of the flexidisc, a cheap, lo-fi way of releasing a record.
From the Fifties to the Nineties, the cheapest way of releasing records was on flexidiscs. In the West they were frequently given away free, but in Russia the flexi was revolutionary.
Originally developed in the Thirties to play at 78rpm, by the Sixties, seven-inch 45rpm flexidiscs were so cheap to produce, and so light and bendy, that they were often given away free with magazines.
In the Soviet Union, though, where flexidiscs were called roentgenizdat, and were recorded on disused medical x-ray sheets, the audio was usually of an illegal nature, such as jazz or, later, punk rock.
In tracking down the story of flexidiscs, Paul meets collector Jez Randall, journalist Ian Shirley and novelist Tim Lott, who co-founded Flexipop magazine in the early Eighties – a magazine which gave away a free flexi with every issue.
The programme includes extracts from flexidiscs, including several advertisements for products as diverse as crisps, hair pieces and rat poison; music from big band jazz to beat groups to punk rock; and some of the most famous recordings made on flexidisc including Beatles' fan club records, Private Eye's satirical flexidiscs and the sound of humpback whales, from the world's biggest circulation flexidisc ever.
Presenter/Paul Bayley, Producer/Bob Dickinson
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Eleanor Oldroyd has all the day's sports news and, from 7.45pm, all the latest from the world of athletics in 5 Live Track And Field.
From 9pm, Eleanor is joined by former England international Matt Dawson for 5 Live Rugby.
Presenter/Eleanor Oldroyd
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Test Match Special
Uninterrupted commentary on the opening day of the first Test between England and Bangladesh comes live from Lord's, with the award-winning Test Match Special commentary team.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Thursday 27 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
American anglophile Bill Bryson has breakfast with Shaun Keaveny and brings listeners news of his new book, At Home – A Short History Of Private Life, "an inwards look at all human life through a domestic telescope".
Presenter/Shaun Keaveny, Producer/Lisa Kenlock
BBC 6 Music Publicity
East London noise merchants Male Bonding join Nemone for a chat about their debut album, Nothing Hurts.
The trio recently signed to the legendary Sub Pop label and have toured with The Vivian Girls, The Dum Dum Girls, Strange Boys, Metronomy and Crystal Castles. Most tracks on their debut album are no longer than two minutes long; as guitarist John Webb put it: "I don't like long songs. I lose interest when listening to them, and I lose interest when writing them. We always end up speeding things up without meaning to. Too much coffee."
Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Thursday is "round table" day on Steve Lamacq's show. Lammo welcomes Kev from Two Door Cinema Club and Keith from We Are Scientists into the studio to chat about some interesting new releases.
Presenter/Steve Lamacq, Producer/Paul Sheehan
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Gideon Coe uncovers a 1995 concert from the Lightning Seeds. Sessions include Seattle's godfathers of Grunge, Mudhoney, from the same year and Fizzbombs for Janice Long in 1987.
Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Chris Hawkins showcases a set from Zebra, recorded at the BBC's Paris Theatre in 1975, plus sessions from that same year from June Tabor and Maddy Prior, and Heavenly recorded in 1991.
Presenter/Chris Hawkins, Producer/Claire Slevin
BBC 6 Music Publicity
Network Radio BBC Week 21: Friday 28 May 2010
BBC RADIO 3 Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Leonidas Kavakos is conductor and soloist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in this performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 6 at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.
The orchestra's Beethoven Symphony Series comes to a genial close with the Pastoral Symphony, one of his sunniest most uplifting symphonies. It is preceded by the Violin Concerto, played by Leonidas Kavakos.
Presenter/Ian Skelly, Producer/Anthony Sellors
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Lopa Kothari introduces sounds from around the world, plus a session by desert blues group Tamikrest, who have been branded as the "spiritual sons" of Malian super-group Tinariwen.
Tamashek is the language of the Touareg, a nomadic people inhabiting the Saharan desert across various countries, including Niger, Algeria, Libya and Mali.
The name Tamikrest is Tamashek for junction, connection or coalition. The seven members of Tamikrest, who originate from Mali, Niger and Algeria, came together to express their Touareg identity through Ishumar rock, the Touareg rebel music.
Tamikrest's songs praise the desert, a place that is fundamental for the Touareg. It was in the silky dunes of Essakane at the 2008 Festival of the Desert where they met Dirtmusic, a group of rock 'n' roll veterans from the USA and Australia.
With their tents side by side not only did they share Touareg tea, but also found themselves jamming together and discovered that their ideas and music fitted perfectly.
Presenter/Lopa Kothari, Producer/James Parkin
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
BBC RADIO 4 Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
Neil MacGregor continues his account of world history, told through objects at the British Museum, with an exploration of Britain at the time of the Roman collapse. Neil uses a silver pepper pot to tell the story of the end of Roman rule in Britain.
Throughout this week, Neil has been looking at how different cultures pursued pleasure some 2,000 years ago, from smoking in North America to court manners in China.
Today, the director of the British Museum looks at how Roman Britain's elite developed a taste for luxury goods and high living in the years before their demise. He tells the story through a silver pepper pot discovered as part of a buried hoard – possibly hidden by Romans on the run.
He describes the ambitions of this ancient elite and how they satisfied a particular taste for pepper. The programme includes contributions from food writer Christine McFadden and historian Roberta Tomber.
Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producers/Philip Sellars, Paul Kobrak, Anthony Denselow and Jane Lewis
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Writer and gardening expert Alys Fowler observes the life of a rubbish skip from dusk to dawn. As darkness falls, what secrets and treasures do skips reveal, and just who is the Garbage Guru?
Alys explores where the idea for skips came from, when they became a common feature of everyday life and why they are called skips.
No stranger to "liberating" skipped curios for her garden and home, Alys builds a picture of people's behaviour in and around these metal Aladdin's caves and unearths amusing and amazing tales to add to skip folklore.
It's not just about old floorboards and broken sofas – passers-by have discovered everything from priceless antiques to an escaped prisoner in skips. And, if communities need affordable extra amenities such as a swimming pool or skateboard park, there's an artist who has created those very things from old skips.
Presenter/Alys Fowler, Producer/Neil Cargill
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5live
Russell Fuller presents all the day's sport news and looks ahead to the weekend's sporting action.
From 8.30pm, David Croft and guests preview this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix in 5 Live Formula 1.
Presenter/Russell Fuller, Producer/Patrick Whiteside
BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity
BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA
Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/5livesportsextra
Test Match Special
Test Match Special's award-winning team present uninterrupted commentary on the second day of the first Test between England and Bangladesh, live from Lord's.
Producer/Jen McAllister
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity
BBC 6 MUSIC Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/6music
Lauren Laverne is joined by Divine Comedy for a live session in the BBC 6 Music studios.
After 20 years of sustained success, Neil Hannon and chums release their new album, Bang Goes The Knighthood, at the end of May.
The last time Lauren sang on a record was on the Divine Comedy single Come Home Billy Bird.
Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales
BBC 6 Music Publicity
After eight years of fronting the Rock Show for BBC 6 Music, Iron Maiden front-man Bruce Dickinson presents one final show.
To sign off, Bruce promises a very personal selection of music. The usual format, like the proverbial hotel TV set, goes out of the window as he plays nothing but his favourite tracks and bands.
Tonight's programme features the music that inspired him to become a musician – Deep Purple and Black Sabbath – to bands he's toured with – Judas Priest and Dream Theater – and bands he thinks are the future of the music, including System Of A Down and Killswitch Engage.
There's also some more obscure favourites, some classics past and present and, from the BBC's archives, Iron Maiden live at the Reading Festival in 1982, during Bruce's first whirlwind year with the band.
Aiming to go out with a bang and a belly laugh, Bruce will spin some top tunes and pepper it all with choice observations and anecdotes from half a lifetime of fronting a rock band and eight years fronting a radio show for the BBC.
Presenter/Bruce Dickinson, Producer/Ian Callaghan
BBC 6 Music Publicity
BBC WORLD SERVICE Friday 28 May 2010
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Each month in London a group of ex-pat Iranians get together to share poetry dating back almost 800 years.
The words of Persian poets Hafez, Sa'adi and Ferdouzi have become anchors to a country that many left behind three decades ago.
Iranian-born British documentary film-maker Amir Amirani sets out to discover why these poems capture the imagination of many Iranians and why are they revered as philosophical and spiritual texts.
Amir hears the memories and stories of ex-pat Iranians living in the UK and Paris – satirists, poets, historians, academics and musicians. He discovers that, for many, their books of poetry were among the few possessions that accompanied them as they fled, following the fall of the Shah in 1979.
Presenter/Amir Amirani, Producer/Caroline Beck
BBC World Service Publicity
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