Programme Information

The Beatles' legacy is mostly talked about when it comes to rock 'n' roll, but what influence has the band had on hip hop, soul, reggae and dubstep? This one-hour documentary, first broadcast last year on BBC Radio 1Xtra, looks to answer this question with an exclusive interview with music icon Sir Paul McCartney.

Presented by 1Xtra DJ Semtex, the documentary includes some of the biggest names in British and American music – including Q-tip, ?uestlove from The Roots, Common, Benga and Roots Manuva – explaining how they have been influenced by the group and how they grew up listening to their records and went on to feature them in their own work.

Highlights include Sir Paul revealing how he persuaded Jay-Z to perform with him at the Grammys and how he feels about The Beatles' music being covered and sampled by so many artists and producers. He also talks about how The Beatles were first inspired by black musicians such as Chuck Berry and Marvin Gaye back in the Sixties.

The programme also looks at the controversial issue of sampling and copyright clearance, the most infamous example being DangerMouse's 2006 Grey Album which mashed up The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album. Sir Paul says that, although his record company strongly disapproved, he thought ultimately it was a tribute. He is also pleased about how The Beatles' music has gone full circle and been re-used and re-interpreted for a new audience of young fans.

Presenter/Semtex, Producer/Unique Radio Productions

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

Paddy O'Connell sits in for Jeremy Vine this week.

Presenter/Paddy O'Connell, Producer/Phil Jones for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Slumdog Millionaire Director Danny Boyle

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle presents a profile of a composer who is a superstar on some continents, yet virtually unknown on others: AR Rahman, who has been composing film scores for around 20 years and who has won every major award in film music circles.

Rahman has sold over 200 million records and worked with Michael Jackson, MIA, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Byrne, Vanessa Mae and The Pussycat Dolls. He studied classical music at London's Trinity College of Music but now lives in Chennai, and was cited by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

This programme features an exclusive interview with the usually publicity shy composer, plus contributions from Meera Syal, Don Black, Shekhar Kapur, Anil Kapoor, composer Craig Armstrong OBE, and Raj and Pablo from the BBC Asian Network.

Presenter/Danny Boyle, Producer/Nick Minter for Head Of Media

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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This week's guest is Holly Johnson, who first came to prominence as the singer and lyricist for Eighties band Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Holly joins Jools Holland and his band on an impromptu version of The Animals' House Of The Rising Sun.

Presenter/Jools Holland, Producer/Sarah Gaston for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

When Walt Disney matched up Paul Dukas's symphonic poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Mickey Mouse in the classic film animation Fantasia, he brought Dukas a fame that the French composer had never experienced in his lifetime.

It's perhaps rather unfair that his reputation rests virtually on just one piece, although it becomes more understandable when one considers that he was a composer who was forever discarding his efforts, revising and reducing to such an extent that fewer than 20 of his works remain. Nonetheless, during his lifetime Dukas was an influential voice in musical circles, comfortably sharing his time between roles as a musicologist, music critic and teacher. The roll-call of his students is impressive, including Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé, Jean Langlais and Olivier Messaien.

As a Parisian born and bred he knew all the significant figures in France's musical life at this time including Fauré, d'Indy, Chausson, Chabrier and Debussy, who he first met as a student at the Paris Conservatoire. They all seem to have appreciated his intelligence during this period of dramatic aesthetic change. Through his musical criticism he promoted the composers he admired: Rameau, Gluck, Wagner and his friend Debussy. Both Debussy and Fauré appreciated his incisive writing, which Fauré described as being "remarkable, instructive and zesty".

The week begins with a look at Dukas's development up to the point when he wrote The Sorcerer's Apprentice, including the work that first brought Dukas to public attention, Polyeucte, and an early Overture, Le roi Lear, a student work which Dukas never heard performed in his lifetime.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Johannah Smith

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert

Monday 28 February

1.00-2.00pm BBC RADIO 3

Katie Derham presents a concert live from the Wigmore Hall in London, as celebrated French soprano Sandrine Piau and acclaimed violist Antoine Tamestit team up with pianist Markus Hadulla to perform an all-Schubert programme.

The concert culminates in one of the composer's most popular works, in which all three players join together: Der Hilf auf dem Felsen (Shepherd On The Rock), originally scored for clarinet but here arranged for viola.

Presenter/Katie Derham, Producer/Helen Garrison

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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This year sees the 200th anniversary of Liszt's birth and this week Afternoon On 3 marks the occasion with performances, by BBC orchestras, of some of his passionate and colourful tone poems. The week also sees the release of a new recording of Britten by the BBC Philharmonic, plus a special focus on music from the recent Royal Northern College of Music Festival of Brass.

Highlights include the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda's performances of Liszt's Hamlet and Hungaria, on Monday and Tuesday respectively, as well as performances from the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble on Wednesday and Edward Gardner conducting Paul Watkins and the BBC Philharmonic in Britten's Cello Symphony on Friday.

Presenter/Penny Gore, Producer/Elizabeth Funning

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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The BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vassily Sinaisky performs Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Winter Daydreams, and Alfred Schnittke's provocative take on the Faust legend, his cantata Seid nüchtern und wachet.

In the early Eighties, Alfred Schnittke produced a typically provocative take on the Faust legend. His Faust Cantata blends tango, cabaret, rock gig, medieval incantation, grand opera and bawdy theatre to chart the terrible story of its hero's frenzied descent into hell. This is contrasted by the richness of Russian life, landscape and folk-music depicted in Tchaikovsky's exquisite First Symphony.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Peter Thresh

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Book Of The Week – Bird Cloud Ep 1/5

Monday 28 February to Friday 4 March

9.45-10.00am BBC RADIO 4

Laura Brooks reads Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx experiences the joys and challenges of building her perfect home on a remote prairie in Wyoming.

Proulx's first work of non-fiction in 20 years tells a personal story of designing and constructing a house in harmony with her interests, work and personality.

Reader/Laura Brook, Producer/Gaynor Macfarlane for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Woman's Hour Drama –
Chronicles Of Ait: Echo Beach Ep 1/5

Monday 28 February to Friday 4 March

9.45-10.00am BBC RADIO 4

Greg Wise and Indira Varma star in Michael Butt's romantic mystery Echo Beach.

The remote east coast settlement of Ait is reckoned to have siren-like powers to entrap and enthral its visitors – and that, at least, is how it appears to disaffected writer Linus Scott when he arrives from London in search of oblivion, for his first encounter is with a mermaid emerging from the North Sea.

Actually, Alice Pyper isn't strictly speaking a mermaid, just a lovely local woman taking a cold swim, but Scott is captivated by her beauty and, on a later meeting, with other paraphernalia of enchantment, for she insists on telling him a local story of passionate concern to her, a legend-like narrative of unexplained tragedy and loss on nearby Echo Beach. Scott's dormant writer's appetite is awakened and, rather against his will, he finds himself caught up in both a beguiling story of family treachery, and a tantalising love affair.

The cast features Greg Wise as Linus Scott, Indira Varma as Alice Pyper, Amanda Drew as Naomi Pyper, Jonathan Keeble as Jonathan and as Robert, Simon J Williamson as Ben and Patience Tomlinson as Agnes.

Echo Beach is the second story from the Chronicles Of Ait to come to BBC Radio 4, connected to the first tale only by the location and the names of its two main characters.

Producer/John Taylor for Fiction Factory

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The Generation Gap Ep 1/10

Monday 28 February to Friday 4 March

3.45-4.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Two people from different generations discuss how society's approach to dealing with crime has changed, as The Generation Gap returns for a new series.

The two people are linked in some way; either they both do the same job in different eras, or they are two generations of the same family working in the same profession. The series sheds light on changes of society over the past 30-50 years.

This week's five montage-style programmes begin on Monday when forensic pathologists discuss how they unpick the evidence at the crime scene and autopsy room.

On Tuesday, in Police Custody Officers, two police sergeants working on the front line in Gwent discuss the differences in how they deal with a suspect coming into police custody.

On Wednesday, women's refuge workers discuss how support for victims has changed and compare how victims of domestic abuse are treated – not only reflecting changes in legislation but also the attitudes of both the police and society.

On Thursday, the programme discusses the differences in the role of magistrates. Anne Fuller wanted to be a magistrate in the Seventies but, at 38, was told that she was too young. Now magistrates can be as young as 18 and diversity is encouraged. David Singh was only 27 when he joined the bench at Wimbledon.

On Friday in Prisoners, ex-offenders Tony and Patrick were both prisoners in Liverpool's Walton jail. Both had been in and out of trouble since their teenage years with a string of offences including robbery and, in Tony's case, drug-dealing. Patrick is in his fifties and Tony is in his thirties and they had very different experiences of prison life.

Producer/Laura Parfitt for Juniper Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Throughout the week Front Row features interviews from authors whose books are part of the 25 titles being given away during Saturday's World Book Night, when one million books will be distributed free.

On Tuesday John Wilson interviews Ben Macintyre about his book Agent ZigZag, the true story of an infamous British wartime double-agent.

On Friday Kirsty Lang interviews cook and writer Nigel Slater about his childhood memoir Toast, the story of a boy's hunger.

Other authors to be confirmed.

Listeners can hear from many of the other authors taking part in World Book Night by visiting the Radio 4 Author Interviews Collection on the Radio 4 website: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4.

Presenters/Mark Lawson, John Wilson and Kirsty Lang, Producer/John Goudie for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Ian Peacock investigates the story of two giants, separated by 200 years but united by geography and a common genetic mutation.

Charles Byrne was 7ft 6in and the star of an 18th-century freak show. At the age of 19 he came from his native Ireland to London, where he became rich. But his health deteriorated and he died at the age of 22. Today his skeleton is on display at the Hunterian Museum in London.

Brendan Holland is another Irish giant, and still alive. He was born in Northern Ireland, close to Charles Byrne's birth place. He is 6ft 9in. Like Byrne, he travelled to London at the age of 19. He complained of headaches for two to three years, a protruding jaw, and enlarged hands and feet. He was diagnosed with acromegalic gigantism and successfully treated with radiotherapy. But until recently he had no idea he was related to Charles Byrne.

But in a remarkable medical detective story, using DNA extracted from Byrne's skeleton, scientist Márta Korbonits has shown that Brendan and many other Irish sufferers are related to the famous Irish giant, including Brendan's third cousin. Genetic mapping will now help Márta to find other subjects carrying the gene, to allow early detection and prevention of excessive growth, and to greatly improve their life chances. The idea that the genes of an 18th-century giant could change the lives of 21st-century patients is, for Márta, the most fascinating part of her discovery.

Presenter/Ian Peacock, Producer/Beatrice Fenton for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Book At Bedtime – Chronicle Of A Death Foretold Ep 1/5

Monday 28 February to Friday 4 March

10.45-11.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Heat, dust and South American passion take the listeners somewhere intense in this compelling story from Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez.

This is a classic "whydunnit": a gripping narrative of motive which enables the narrator to directly involve the listener as the chronicle examines the apparent facts.

The reader is yet to be confirmed.

Producer/Jill Waters for The Watershed Partnership Ltd

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Mark Watson's Live Address To The Nation

Monday 28 February

11.00-11.30pm BBC RADIO 4

In this new pilot from Mark Watson, he continues his quest to improve the world, nimbly assisted by Tim Key and Tom Basden and with the additional help of the listening audience in this live broadcast.

Mark asks the big questions that are crucial to people's understanding of themselves and society. In a dynamic and thought-provoking new format he opens the floor to the live audience and invites them to jump into the conversation via tweets and messages to work out how everyone can make the world a better place.

This week Mark looks at ambition: if is it always a positive thing to be ambitiously reaching for the stars, even if those stars are way out of the galaxy, or whether people should sometimes be a bit more humble and accept their shortcomings.

Presenter/Mark Watson, Producer/Lianne Coop for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Monday 28 February

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Chapman presents The Monday Night Club with football debate and discussion and the day's sports news, including a look ahead to the evening's Premier League action as Manchester City take on Fulham at Eastlands.

From 8pm there's live commentary on the game and then, from 10pm, The Final Whistle has all the post-match reaction, including listeners' calls.

Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Mike Carr

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Lauren Laverne makes a welcome return to the BBC 6 Music airwaves to guide listeners through weekday mornings with plenty of new music, old favourites, live sessions, cultural musings and special guests.

First in the studio to play live for Lauren are Noah And The Whale. The band play tracks from their third album, Last Night On Earth.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC 6 Music Publicity