Programme Information

In session for tonight's Bob Harris Country is Californian singer-songwriter Rita Hosking, who plays live songs from her latest album, Come Sunrise.

Raised in the mountains of Northern California, Rita comes from a line of coal miners and loggers and her music takes this rural heritage as its inspiration, blending old-time country, folk and bluegrass sounds.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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BBC Radio 2 In Concert

Thursday 22 July

8.00-10.00pm BBC RADIO 2

Jo Whiley introduces Will Young in concert, recorded earlier this month at Kenwood House in London.

Jo also celebrates the very best live music on BBC Radio 2 over the past week. Her weekly Gig Guide gives listeners all the latest news on who has released tickets for up-and-coming tours, and she reveals which gig she's sent her reviewer to watch this week.

Listeners can contact Jo with stories about the latest gigs by emailing inconcert@bbc.co.uk or texting 88291 during the show.

Presenter/Jo Whiley, Producer/Radio 2 Live Music for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Frank Renton presents music specially recorded for the programme from one of the oldest bands in Britain, The Hepworth (Cookson Homes) Band, with conductor Brian Grant.

They are well known for playing entertaining concerts and their programme tonight includes the classic March On The Quarter Deck by Kenneth Alford, who is often referred to as Britain's own Sousa because of the quality of his march writing. Other music includes Gordon Langford's arrangement of All Through The Night, James Curnow's Blenhein Flourishes, Euphonium player Michael Howley plays the Marvin Hamlish tune, Looking Through The Eyes Of Love, and they end with the ever-popular Songs Of The Quay by Goff Richards.

Presenter/Frank Renton, Producer/Terry Carter for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Sir Tim Rice continues his musical tour of America

There's no place like Kansas, as Sir Tim Rice follows his musical road all the way to the "Sunflower State".

Artists featured in tonight's show include Gene Autrey, Wilbert Harrison, Melissa Etheridge, Marvin Rainwater, The Shangri-Las, Charlie Parker, rising-star Janelle Monae and the original cast of Oklahoma!.

Presenter/Sir Tim Rice, Producers/Anthony Cherry and Ruth Beazley for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

BBC PROMS 2010
Performance On 3 – Prom 8

Thursday 22 July

7.30-10.00pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/proms
• Press pack

Live from London's Royal Albert Hall, Rob Cowan introduces two immensely powerful pieces from the Second World War, which frame this concert given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under principal conductor Thierry Fischer.

Shostakovich was in Leningrad when Russia entered the war against Germany in 1941 and where, between July and October, he witnessed, first hand, the Nazi's siege of the city, while he worked on his Seventh Symphony.

As the Nazis invaded, Britten received an anonymous invitation from the Japanese government to write a work commemorating the founding of the Mikado dynasty 2,600 years earlier. He completed his Sinfonia da requiem the following year, but the Japanese government rejected it as inappropriate for their celebrations and too Christian in its nature. The work reflects the composer's feelings about the inhumanity of war and, basing it on the liturgy of the mass of the dead, he dedicated it to the memory of his parents.

Also in tonight's concert is Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Alexander Toradze. The concerto exploits the percussive potential of the piano, and, in turn, expresses his take on clean neo-classical lines, contrasted with tumbling leaps and richer more romantic textures, indebted to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.

This BBC Prom is repeated on Monday 26 July at 2pm on BBC Radio 3 and is also broadcast live on BBC Four.

Presenter/Rob Cowan, Producer/Tim Thorne

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Ben Schott charts the history of the most influential form of mass publication in the 16th and 17th centuries. At their height, apart from the Bible, almanacs were the best-selling books on the market, with over 400,000 sold annually.

Combining the characteristics of calendar, self-help manual and pocket encyclopaedia, almanacs contained utilitarian information on just about everything: feast days; when to sow crops; how to let blood; how to write an IOU; and even advice on amateur surgery. They also included dramatic astrological prophesies about the likelihood of plague, famine and war. Passages were read to boost soldiers' morale in battle and by MPs in the House of Commons.

Behind the scenes at The British Museum, Dr Irving Finkel outlines the almanac tradition – from Babylonian clay tablet to Gutenberg's earliest printed material. And the British Library's Moira Goff lets Ben loose in the archives to peruse The Kalender Of Shepherdes and the oldest Old Moore's Almanack [sic].

Almanacs played a central part in spreading knowledge, literacy, popular journalism and advertising. Ben digs up early adverts for pills, potions and all manner of quackery. But they were also mocked in many ways, as Dr Adam Smyth explains.

The blank pages inserted into almanacs were used for jottings of accounts and personal memos, so they also give a personal written diary.

Presenter/Ben Schott, Producer/Tamsin Hughes for Testbed Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Face The Facts Ep 1/6

Thursday 22 July

12.30-12.55pm BBC RADIO 4

In the first of a new series of Face The Facts, John Waite investigates the chaos within the UK's fire safety system.

John discovers how some publicly owned buildings fail to comply with the law on fire safety and how crown immunity means those responsible are safe from prosecution.

This investigation follows the programme's earlier revelations on tower blocks deemed a danger to residents, and the fire fighters' training college, which was reported not to have followed fire safety laws when one of its own buildings burnt down.

Presenter/John Waite, Producer/Jon Douglas for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Questions, Questions Ep 1/6

Thursday 22 July

1.30-2.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Stewart Henderson presents a new series of the interactive problem-solving programme which offers answers to those intriguing questions of everyday life, inspired by current events and popular culture.

Each programme is compiled directly from the well-informed and inquisitive BBC Radio 4 audience, who bring their unrivalled collective brain to bear on the puzzlers every week.

Questions, Questions has become something of an institution on BBC Radio 4, providing informed and ingenious answers to a variety of questions. How do you know when a volcano is extinct? When was the conventional heart icon first drawn? How do woodpeckers keep their beaks sharp? Why do we put pork with apple, and lamb with mint sauce?

Presenter/Stewart Henderson, Producer/Dilly Barlow for Whistledown Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Recorded For Training Purposes Ep 1/6

Thursday 22 July

11.00-11.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Recorded For Training Purposes returns for a fourth series, featuring Rachel Atkins, Dominic Coleman, Lewis Macleod, Julie Mayhew, Ingrid Oliver and Ben Willbond.

This razor-sharp sketch show about modern communication takes aim at such idiocies of modern life as TV talent show formats and disclaimers at the end of emails.

As always, the programme's open-door policy means that anyone could send in their sketches. Some 1,500 were sent in this way, with every single one being read by a script-editor or producer – with the funniest material being recorded in front of a studio audience and broadcast.

The scripts were edited by award-winning writers James Cary, Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris.

As part of BBC Radio Comedy's commitment to discovering and developing new writing talent, some of the new writers, whose material was used in series three, were given one-to-one script-editing notes and feedback from the production team.

Producer/Ed Morrish for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Thursday 22 July

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Russell Fuller has all the day's sports news.From 8pm, the focus shifts to golf in 5 Live Golf, with Andrew Cotter bringing reaction to the weekend's Open.

At 9pm, Cornelius Lysaght, former Champion jockey Mick Fitzgerald and Clare Balding have the latest racing news in 5 Live Racing.

Presenter/Russell Fuller, Producer/Mark Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Uninterrupted commentary on the second day of the second Test between Pakistan and Australia comes live from Headingley with the Test Match Special commentary team.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Lauren Laverne is joined by Lucas Renney for a live session in the BBC 6 Music studios.

The former Golden Virgins front-man recorded his debut solo record, Strange Glory, last year, with former Cocteau Twin and head of Bella Union Records Simon Raymonde. The album finds the singer moving into folk territory with great skill and ease.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Curly Hair are in session with Marc Riley, more lovely people from Brighton's Willkommen Collective. The band includes Benjamin, Jessica, Michael, Martha and they're just over a year old.

They've shared stages with the likes of Local Natives, The Leisure Society, Micachu & The Shapes, Peter Broderick, Holly Miranda, Wintersleep, Peggy Sue and toured with Malcolm Middleton. They released their debut EP, Ivy League, through their own Toy Soldier label and their new single, Pumpkin Eye, is released at the beginning of August.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe presents vintage sessions from Eighties rockabilly revivalists Guana Batz and late-era prog-rockers National Health.

More highlights come via Hastings-based singer James Blackshaw and, all the way from Long Beach, California, Avi Buffalo, both for Marc Riley.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon

BBC 6 Music Publicity