Programme Information

BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend

Sunday 23 May

7.00am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 1

• www.bbc.co.uk/radio1
• Feature

X Factor runners up, boy band JLS

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 1's Big Weekend

Sunday 23 May

4.00-7.00pm BBC RADIO 1XTRA

• www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra
• Feature

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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

Living World Ep 1/4

Sunday 23 May

6.35-7.00am BBC RADIO 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

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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

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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

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Actor Steven Mackintosh

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

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

Rugby League

Sunday 23 May

4.40-6.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

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

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

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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

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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 presenter Anwarul Hoque

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