Programme Information

Aled Jones says Good Morning Sunday to BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson.

John's instinct for a story has led him to regularly be in the right place at the right time, reporting the major upheavals in world history over the past nearly 40 years, and covering the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Aled's faith guest is Canon Ann Easter, who looks at the news of the week from a faith perspective, and gives the Moment Of Reflection.

Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Hilary Robinson for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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With St David's Day on 1 March, Brian D'Arcy takes the opportunity to explore the Welsh national character – in particular their love of hymns.

Tonight's programme includes some inspirational Welsh tunes. And this week's featured choir is the Cardiff University Chamber Choir directed by John Hugh Thomas.

The organist is Robert Court. The hymns include: Lord Enthroned In Heavenly Splendour; King Of Glory King Of Peace; and Immortal Invisible.

Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Michael Berkeley's guest this week is Glaswegian artist Douglas Gordon, who won the Turner Prize in 1996 and represented Britain at the 1997 Venice Biennale.

His work, which spans video and film, sound, photographic objects and texts, has since been exhibited in museums all over the world, including the Museums of Modern Art in New York, Los Angeles and Barcelona, London's Tate Britain and the National Galleries of Scotland.

His video and film work often plays with time elements and employs multiple monitors, displacing traditional expectations. The 1993 film 24 Hour Psycho slowed down Hitchcock's masterpiece to last 24 hours, while Zidane – A 21th Century Portrait used multiple cameras to follow the international football star.

Douglas Gordon draws on a wide range of cultural references in the work, and his personal music choices are equally eclectic. They range from Bach, Schubert, Puccini, Richard Strauss and Fauré to Joy Division, Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed and Cornelius Cardew.

Presenter/Michael Berkeley, Producer/Chris Marshall

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Catherine Bott talks to Owen Rees about the musical legacy of King Joao IV of Portugal and the so-called Golden Age of Portuguese polyphony.

Following an ill-considered crusade against the Moors of Morocco by King Sebastian in 1578 and a period of external domination by Spain, Portugal suffered a subsequent economic decline which lasted for nearly 60 years. This was until the Portuguese nobility reached the end of its tether and led a revolt against their oppressors in 1640, as a result of which the Duke of Braganza was declared the new and rightful king of Portugal and the Algarves.

One of King Joao IV's first actions was to lead his countrymen in a protracted war of restoration against the Spanish, whose armies were finally driven out of Portuguese lands after four more years of fierce fighting.

Joao o Restaurador – John the Restorer – was not just a successful troop-leader. He was also a generous supporter of the arts and a considerably talented musician and composer himself. And, by the time of his death in 1656, he had amassed the biggest music library in the world.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Les Pratt

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Discovering Music – Brandenburg Concertos Ep 1/2

Sunday 27 February

5.00-6.30pm BBC RADIO 3

In the first of two programmes, Sara Mohr-Pietsch joins Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music to unpick some of the musical ideas in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.

Today, Richard and Sara focus on the first, third and sixth concertos, with examples performed by members of the Academy of Ancient Music, and look at how Bach sought to encompass many musical worlds in the celebrated collection of baroque masterpieces. Sara and Richard refer to the set as Bach's "calling card" – a demonstration of what Bach could achieve as a composer in the modern concerto form. The works are generally regarded as some of the greatest instrumental music of the 18th century. The man he was trying to impress was Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg.

Richard Egarr draws attention to many of the symbolic references in these three concertos, and how these chime in with many of the ideas and occupations of Bach's age.

The programmes are recorded before an audience in the Turner Sims Concert Hall of Southampton University, and feature complete performances as well the workshop.

Presenter/Sara Mohr-Pietsch, Producer/Chris Wines

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Don Taylor's translation of the savage tragicomedy by Euripides about a war in the Middle East, fought for the flimsiest of reasons, features an all-star cast.

The Trojan War is over and the Greek forces are making their way home. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Helen of Troy is protesting to anyone who will listen that she is innocent, that she never went to Troy, and that the whole war was fought under false pretences.

When Menelaus is shipwrecked on the shore where Helen has been taking sanctuary, she not only has a lot of explaining to do, but also an escape to plan.

Frances Barber stars as Helen, James Purefoy is her husband and Paul Ritter is King Theoclymenus.

The music is composed and performed by Derek Bourgeois.

Helen is adapted and directed by Ellen Dryden.

Producer/Ellen Dryden

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Historian Tristram Hunt explores ideas which have been developed in Britain or by British thinkers and follows their influence abroad. In this programme, he charts the intellectual currents between England and Ireland in the 1840s – as two nationalist movements emerged onto the political stage.

"Young England", a Tory clique led by future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, wanted to reach back into history, glorifying models of English medievalism and feudalism to solve the chronic social problems unleashed by the Industrial Revolution.

Watching it closely, "Young Ireland" was born in Dublin. They were a small group of agitating Repealers who also re-imagined Ireland's heroic past as a way of forging a new route for Irish nationalism; breaking from its father figure, Daniel O'Connell. Both groups reacted against mechanistic Utilitarianism, and both groups were trying to create a new politics by looking for inspiration from the past. But this is also the story of a British idea which was used to tear apart the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

By following the influences of Thomas Carlyle, Jeremy Bentham, O'Connell, Disraeli and Gladstone, historian Tristram Hunt MP pieces together the flow of ideas between these two "Young" movements as the "Irish question" began to demand an answer.

Presenter/Tristram Hunt MP, Producer/Neil McCarthy

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Jazz Line-Up features a specially assembled big band led by Guy Barker and guests including Cleo Laine, Wynton Marsalis, Stan Tracey, Peter King, Bobby Wellins, Soweto Kinch, Jason Yarde, Norma Winstone and more. Jazz Line-Up broadcasts a concert given last year at London's Barbican to celebrate the British big band in all its styles and guises.

Julian Joseph and Geoffrey Smith take listeners though this evocative journey that features an all-star cast that included sadly the last broadcast by British veteran trumpeter Harry Becket.

Presenters/Julian Joseph and Geoffrey Smith, Producer/Keith Loxam

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Dame Anne Owers, former Chief Inspector of Prisons, joins Kirsty Young to choose her Desert Island Discs.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Genius Unrecognised Ep 1/5

Sunday 27 February

2.45-3.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Director of Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry Tony Hill honours five scientists, dismissed in their day as blue-sky time-wasters, who revolutionised microscopes, electrical power, aircraft, gyroscopic travel and digital sound.

The first programme is the story of Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek, a 17th-century draper and amateur scientist from Holland who was ridiculed by some of London's finest minds when he said he had seen "animalcules" through his home-made microscope.

They laughed at his description of millions of creatures living in water. In fact he had invented a more powerful microscope than any existing, and the creatures he was seeing were bacteria and protozoa.

The programme is recorded at the Royal Society in London, where in 1981 biologist and broadcaster Brian J Ford discovered Van Leeuwenhoek's original specimens hidden among his papers.

Presenter/Tony Hill, Producer/Peter Everett for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Sunday 27 February

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Colin Murray looks back at a busy week of football, cricket and rugby union action in the Sunday Review.

There are also regular updates from West Ham United versus Liverpool in the Premier League (kick-off 1.30pm), and Motherwell versus Celtic in the Scottish Premier League (kick-off 12.45pm), along with Cricket World Cup reports from India versus England in Bangalore.

From 3pm, Mark Chapman has all the build-up to the League Cup final from Wembley, plus updates on the Six Nations rugby union match between Scotland and Ireland.

At 4pm, there's live League Cup final commentary from Wembley on Arsenal versus Birmingham City.

Presenters/Colin Murray and Mark Chapman, Producer/Mike Carr

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

World Cup Cricket

Sunday 27 February

8.50am-5.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary comes from the group match between India and England at the Cricket World Cup, live, from the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Rugby League

Sunday 27 February

7.10-9.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary on Wigan versus St George Illawarra Dragons in the World Cup Challenge.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

The First Time With Adam Ant

Sunday 27 February

12.00noon-1.00pm BBC 6 MUSIC

BBC 6 Music presenter Matt Everitt

Matt Everitt's critically acclaimed series, The First Time, returns for a second series which sees Matt in conversation with some of the most influential musicians of today.

His first guest is Eighties legend Adam Ant. His recent battles with mental health have come to dominate people's memories of Adam Ant – so it's become easy to forget just what a massive star he was. Adam was a key member in the nascent UK punk scene before leading a band which eventually made him one of the biggest stars in the world – blending pop tunes with a punk sensibility and an inspired image that was part Byronic hero, part Beau Brummell and part highwayman.

Matt Everitt speaks frankly to the man once known simply as Stuart Goddard, about the birth of punk, his emergence to become probably the most recognisable and successful major solo pop star of the early Eighties, his spectacular and tragic fall from grace, and how he's been tackling Asperger syndrome to return to the stage and release his first album in seven years.

Presenter/Matt Everitt, Producer/Henry Lopez Real

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Presenter David Attenborough muses over the most peculiar kiwi bird.

Now a national symbol in New Zealand, the kiwi is one of the few flightless birds still in existence in there.

Arguing it is mammal-like, rather than bird-like in its habits, Attenborough ponders on the niche position occupied by this now endangered species.

Presenter/David Attenborough

BBC World Service Publicity