Programme Information

Richard Madeley sits in for Zoe Ball and is joined by Ambrose Heron to discuss the latest releases. Films under the spotlight this week include Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, in which Clint Eastwood directs the true story of South Africa's team in the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

The latest DVD releases up for review include Pixar's masterpiece, Up, and Eric Bana in an adaptation of best-selling book The Time Traveller's Wife.

Presenter/Richard Madeley, Producer/Mark Simpson

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Brian Matthew presents the programme for all fans of the music of the Sixties.

Today, When I Get Home from the album A Hard Day's Night is the featured Beatles track in The A-Z Of The Beatles.

This week's programme also includes a look at one of Cliff Richard's four-track vinyl releases which featured in the dedicated EP charts for Brian's The EP Collection. Other artists featured this week include Vanity Fair, Elvis, Love Affair, Aphrodite's Child and Bill Oddie.

Presenter/Brian Matthew, Producer/Phil Swern

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Natalie Merchant and Grammy Award-nominee Joan Armatrading MBE are Bob Harris's After Midnight acoustic session guests this week.

American singer-songwriter and 10,000 Maniacs founder Natalie Merchant has recorded some new session tracks from her recent album project, Leave Your Sleep, as well as a selection of old favourites. Bob features one, each Saturday, over the next few weeks.

British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading is the first female UK artist to have debuted at No. 1 in the Billboard blues charts and she is also the first female UK artist to be nominated for a Grammy in the blues category. Joan is one of Britain's leading female artists who has made her mark with songs like Love And Affection, Willow, Drop The Pilot and Lovers Speak. She makes a rare solo acoustic appearance tonight and talks about her latest album and tour.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Mark Simpson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Opera On 3 – Live From The Met: Simon Boccanegra

Saturday 6 February

6.00-9.45pm BBC RADIO 3

Plácido Domingo stars in the title role of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra

Live from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Plácido Domingo stars in the title role of Simon Boccanegra, Verdi's compelling tale of 14th-century Genoese power-politics, illegitimacy and forbidden love.

Plácido Domingo makes history as he takes on Simon Boccanegra, one of the great baritone roles of the repertoire. Bass James Morris plays his nemesis, Jacopo Fiesco.

James Levine conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera.

Margaret Juntwait presents, with guest commentator Ira Siff, and the programme includes backstage interviews and the Met Quiz during the intervals.

Presenter/Margaret Juntwait, Producer/David Papp

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Rory Kinnear stars in this dark fantasy by Alan Harris about two men striving to be warriors in an atomised world. Terry has two lives; he is a clerk in a Cardiff law firm and a warrior in an online game. However, are his lives starting to converge?

He only moved to Wales to be close to oblivious colleague Sally, and now he's lonely, alienated and beginning to get things out of proportion. But, online, Terry is Tork Thunderbolt, a warrior in the Kingdom of Dragons.

His best friend is Greyhawk, a fellow gamer. But Greyhawk is hiding a shameful secret. And that's not the only surprise waiting to derail Terry's delicate grasp on reality.

Producer/Abigail le Fleming

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Ramblings Ep 1/6

Saturday 6 February

6.00-6.30am BBC RADIO 4

In a new series of Ramblings, Clare Balding discovers the joys of group walking and hears why people come together to enjoy the countryside.

Today, Clare meets the "Bradford Grammar School Parents" and joins them on their silver jubilee walk.

For 25 years, a group of Yorkshire friends have been meeting, every few months, for a hike through the countryside of northern England.

The group first met as anxious parents watching their sons play rugby at Bradford Grammar School. When their sons left home they decided to keep in touch by organising regular rambles. Since then, the walkers have helped each other through much that life has thrown at them, using the healing powers of friendship, stunning landscapes and a good, bracing walk.

Clare meets up with the group as they tackle one of their favourite routes, across the horse-racing furlongs of Middleham in Wensleydale.

Next week, Clare meets the Walking The Land group of artists for a stroll near the beautiful Slad Valley outside Stroud.

Presenter/Clare Balding, Producer/Lucy Lunt

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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A food writer and presenter of BBC Two's Cooking In The Danger Zone, Stefan Gates has a strange claim to fame. At the age of four, he and his seven-year-old sister appeared on the gatefold album cover of Led Zeppelin's 1973 rock classic, Houses Of The Holy. For the first time, he investigates the story behind this iconic image.

It's a famously unsettling image. Stefan and his sister, Samantha, appear naked, climbing up the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The image has dogged Stefan all his life. Ever since he was a child, the picture has disturbed him, even scared him, and he has always shied away from it.

Every year, he gets a handful of calls from fans and writers wanting to know about the picture, but he doesn't know much himself. Like many other music fans, he has held the album and stared at it, trying to work it out. But Stefan has never got beyond the cover. He has purposely never looked into the story behind it or the people who put it together – and has never even listened to the record.

In this programme Stefan revisits that chapter in his life, for the first time, as he sets out to confront his own mixed emotions about it. He tells the story behind the image, its ideas and ethics, as well as the difficulties in making it. He meets Aubrey Powell, the designer and photographer of the cover art, from famous graphic design team Hipgnosis.

Finally, he journeys back to the Giant's Causeway itself to listen to the album for the very first time.

Presenter/Stefan Gates, Producer/Russell Finch

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Saturday 6 February

12.00noon-7.20pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch presents an afternoon of live sport from Twickenham on the opening day of the 2010 Six Nations Championship.

At 12.45pm, there's live commentary of the Merseyside derby, as Liverpool take on Everton at Anfield.

There's also coverage of the afternoon's 3pm football matches, including Hull City versus Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers versus Fulham in the Premier League, plus reports from the fifth round of the Scottish Cup. There are also updates from the opening game of the 2010 Six Nations Championship as the 2009 champions Ireland take on Italy at Croke Park, Dublin, with a kick-off at 2.30pm.

From 5pm, there's live commentary of England's opening Six Nations match against Wales, with Ian Robertson and Alastair Eykyn and expert analysis from Matt Dawson and Rob Jones.

At 6.45pm, there's second-half commentary of the Premier League's late kick-off, Tottenham versus Aston Villa, live, from White Hart Lane.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Mark Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Rugby Union

Saturday 6 February

2.15-4.15pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary of the opening game of the 2010 Six Nations Championship, as the 2009 champions, Ireland, take on Italy, live, from Croke Park.

Expert analysis comes from former Ireland winger, Denis Hickie.

Producer/Jen McAllister

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Football

Saturday 6 February

5.25-7.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted Premier League commentary of Tottenham Hotspur versus Aston Villa comes, live, from White Hart Lane.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Ministry of Sound DJ and George Lamb sidekick Marc Hughes kicks off his first 6 Mix of 2010 with a selection of uplifting house classics and brand new tech house from club land.

Marc is a Ministry of Sound resident DJ, a role which has taken him as far afield as Russia and China. He digs in his box to play classics from the likes of Masters At Work, as well as future beats from around the world.

Marc also takes a ride on the disco train, for 40 minutes of pure glitter-ball pleasure.

Presenter/Marc Hughes, Producer/Rowan Collinson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Under the spotlight in World Book Club this month is writer Andrea Levy who talks about her acclaimed novel Small Island.

Winner of the UK's Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, the Orange Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Small Island is a heart-warming and thought-provoking tale of love, friendship and immigration set in London during and after the Second World War.

It focuses on the diaspora of Jamaican immigrants, who, escaping economic hardship on their own "small island," move to England, the "Mother Country", for which the men have fought during the Second World War.

Told through the intertwining stories of three very different characters, the reception offered by an exhausted post-war Britain is not quite the warm embrace that they'd hoped for.

Producer/Karen Holden

BBC World Service Publicity

The cast of new London musical Legally Blonde join Elaine Paige in the studio for a chat and an exclusive performance this week.

There are also listeners' break-a-leg messages and a Big One from Malcolm Prince which, this week, is taken from hit musical Mamma Mia!.

Presenter/Elaine Paige, Producer/Malcolm Prince

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On this week's programme, Brian D'Arcy looks for the signs and wonders of God's presence in the world around us. He explores ways in which God reveals himself through everyday words and deeds as well as through more dramatic signs.

Music comes from King's College Chapel Choir with the Aberdeen University Choral Society, directed by Roger Williams. The organist is Paul Mealor and hymns include: I Cannot Tell; Praise To The Holiest In The Height; and Thine Arm, O Lord, In Days Of Old.

Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Author Arthur Ransome's colourful past has recently hit the headlines after newly released documents reveal his recruitment as a spy by MI5, following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Amazonia is the story of Ransome's dramatic sojourn in Russia, years before he found fame as a children's writer with Swallows And Amazons. From archive sources and published material, writer Garry Lyons creates a tale of war, revolution, romance and espionage.

Struggling author Arthur Ransome, aged 29, flees a failing marriage and a libel scandal in London, arriving in Petrograd, determined to become a fiction writer in defiance of his late father. But trapped in the East, as Europe mobilises for the First World War, he takes a job as war correspondent for the Daily News, and spends time at the front. Still there in 1917, he gets caught up in the revolution, befriends many of the leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin and Trotsky, and falls in love with Trotsky's secretary, Evgenia Shelepina.

Arthur Ransome is played by Rory Kinnear and Evgenia Shelepina is played by Michelle Dockery.

Producer/Melanie Harris

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Four hundred years ago, much of Central Europe was under Turkish rule, and the traces remain to this day. Many bathe, drink coffee and eat croissants, courtesy of the Ottoman Turks. Yet several nations still resist Turkey joining the EU.

Visiting today's Turkish communities in Vienna and the Muslim districts of Sarajevo, Dennis Marks poses the question of whether Europe is in denial about the past influence of the Ottoman Empire to contemporary Austrians, Bosnians and Turks. These artists, scholars, politicians and historians discover what they share and what they fear.

Presenter and Producer/Dennis Marks

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Irish actors Lorcan Cranitch and Orla Charlton explore the Irish landscape in readings spanning from the 9th century to the present day, including work by some of the best-loved Irish poets including Seamus Heaney, PJ Kavanagh, Derek Mahon and Paul Durcan, with music ranging from Arnold Bax to John Cage.

Lorcan and Orla celebrate the beauty of their country but also reveal the air of melancholy that pervades the backdrop of turbulent historical events and economic decline. The programme takes as its title Song For Ireland, a ballad celebrating the beauty of the landscape and hope for the future.

Readers/Lorcan Cranitch and Orla Charlton, Producer/Jessica Isaacs

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

In this week's Living World, Lionel Kelleway explores the dark, damp cellars of Witley Court in Worcestershire, where "meta bourneti", one of two species of cave spider, can be found.

Cave spiders are one of the largest spiders found in the United Kingdom, with adults measuring up to 5cm in leg span and 15mm in body length.

Joining Lionel is Spencer Tricket from English Heritage, who own Witley Court, and John Partridge, Secretary of the British Arachnological Society. But before they can begin their search, they have to wait for the all-clear from Nick Bonsall from Access Ecology, as the spiders share their cellars with "Lesser Horseshoe" bats, which hibernate there in the winter. Once the cellars have been checked, the trio make their way down a spiral staircase and through the labyrinth of dark, damp rooms.

Lionel and his companions find several cave spiders during their quest underground, as well as egg cases, some tiny spiderlings and plenty of webs. Lionel hears how there is more than one kind of spider silk, learns about the spiders' most bizarre feeding habits and discovers why the life of the male spider is probably a short but happy one.

Presenter/Lionel Kelleway, Producer/Sarah Blunt

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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This week's castaway is stylist and presenter Gok Wan. Gok talks to Kirsty Young about his life, his favourite music and how he would cope on BBC Radio 4's mythical island.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle

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Archaeologist and broadcaster Mike Pitts delves into the sometimes murky world of the metal detector – from harmless amateur history buffs, to criminal night-hawkers.

This programme tells the human stories of in-fighting within the metal-detecting community, detailing bust-ups between landowners and "detectorists", battles within the archaeological establishment and the politics of this area. Above all, listeners discover how metal detecting is changing national heritage.

Recently, metal detectors have hit the headlines through some incredible discoveries, including: Viking and Saxon hoards valued into the millions; a Roman cemetery; and even a possible Boudicca's Temple. They've been praised for reporting their discoveries to the authorities and allowing experienced archaeologists to carry out thorough excavations at the find sites. But there is a bigger and much more complex story to tell.

Unique finds inevitably attract huge media attention and there are worries that the attention only serves to encourage the numbers of illegal night-hawkers. Some even fear it could be encouraging a modern gold-rush. It's an issue scaring the "legal" metal detectors and a debate that has split the archaeological community in two.

As well as gaining access to the behind-the-scenes conservation work on recent hoards, this programme hears from a range of experts and people working in the field including: Time Team's Tony Robinson; Terry Herbert, finder of the "Staffordshire Hoard"; Duncan Slarke, Finds Liaison Officer; Pete Wilson, English Heritage; John Browning, a farmer whose site has been targeted by night-hawkers; Jude Plouviez, archaeologist; CI Mark Harrison, Kent Police; Trevor Austin, General Secretary of National Metal Detecting Society; and Tim Sutherland, battlefield archaeologist.

Presenter/Mike Pitts, Producer/Terry Lewis

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Actor Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley

In the final part of John le Carré's The Honourable Schoolboy, dramatised by Shaun McKenna, Smiley's plans to get hold of Russian spy Nelson Ko are coming to a head. But Smiley has pinned his hopes on Jerry Westerby – and Westerby has plans of his own.

The cast stars Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley, Hugh Bonneville as Jerry Westerby and Daisy Haggard as Liese Worth.

Producer/Marc Beeby

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Sunday 7 February

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Colin Murray presents the latest sports news and an afternoon of live action. At 1.30pm, there's commentary of the West Midlands derby, Birmingham versus Wolves, live from St Andrews.

There are also Six Nations updates from Scotland versus France (kick-off 3pm) at Murrayfield and live racing with commentary of the Hennessy Gold Cup from Leopardstown at 3.45pm.

At 4pm, there's top-of-the-table Premier League commentary of Chelsea versus Arsenal, live, from Stamford Bridge.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Ed King

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Rugby Union

Sunday 7 February

2.45-4.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted Six Nations commentary comes from Scotland versus France, live, from Murrayfield. There is expert analysis from former Scotland captain Gavin Hastings.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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NFL American Football

Sunday 7 February

9.00pm-4.00am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Arlo White and Greg Brady present commentary of Super Bowl XLIV, live, from Dolphin Stadium in Miami.

The NFC Champions take on the AFC Champions in the showpiece final of the NFL season. Arlo and Greg have all the build-up to the big match, which starts at approximately 11.20pm.

Presenter/Arlo White

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Huey Morgan meets the latest band to emerge, brimming with brilliance, from Brooklyn – White Rabbits.

With two drummers, two singers and a reputation for an impressively energetic live show, the White Rabbits arrive in the UK with their second album, It's Frightening, ready to cement their burgeoning reputation.

They first registered on the scene in 2007, with their debut album, Fort Nightly, which landed them a tour with the Kaiser Chiefs. Their second album is produced by Britt Daniel, guitarist of Spoon, and is propelled off the starting blocks by the driving beats of lead single Percussion Gun.

The band talk to Huey about their striking percussion section, their communal loft-living arrangements and being a part of the coolest music scene in the world.

Presenter/Huey Morgan, Producer/Becky Maxted

BBC 6 Music Publicity

BBC Radio 1 listeners have the opportunity to vote for the British Breakthrough Act of 2010 at this year's Brits and all the nominees drop by for a chat with Fearne Cotton this week.

This year's nominees are an eclectic collection of the best new British talent – Florence & The Machine, Friendly Fires, JLS, La Roux and Pixie Lott. These acts have all performed in Radio 1's Live Lounge and there will be a chance to hear their tracks again in Fearne's show every day this week.

Listeners can vote online at bbc.co.uk/radio1 from 6-12 February 2010 (voting closes at 7pm on the 12th).

Scott Mills will broadcast live, backstage at the Brits, bringing listeners the best backstage gossip and interviews with the artists, on Thursday 16 February from 4-7pm and online at bbc.co.uk/radio1.

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

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Presenters including Edith Bowman, Trevor & Gemma, Dev and Nick Grimshaw go under the spotlight this week as BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra look at the subject of body image as part of the Nobody's Perfect campaign.

The DJs will be photographed and airbrushed to demonstrate how celebrity pictures seen in magazines can be altered – often so much that the results are completely artificial. Images like these can give young people unrealistic body image goals, so the Radio 1 volunteers will be unpicking the picture-perfect process to see what happens behind the scenes.

The altered images of Edith, Trevor & Gemma, Dev, Nick, plus Ace & Vis and Tom Deacon will be revealed on Friday 5 February at bbc.co.uk/radio1.

BBC Radio 1 Publicity

BBC 1Xtra launches a three-week long celebration of the best in British black music talent – past, present and future – which includes a chance for 1Xtra listeners to vote for their HomeGrown Hero; interviews with some of the UK's most talented black music artists and live sessions with both established and emerging artists.

From Monday 8 February, the station will be paying homage to some of the UK's finest black music artists from previous years with a week of special programming, including a Live Lounge with celebrated urban collective So Solid Crew, which airs during Max's show on Tuesday (1-4pm).

Each evening between 10pm and 1am the station's specialist music DJs talk to their own HomeGrown Heroes. They are as follows:

On Monday 8 February there's R&B With Ronnie Herel and a spotlight on Tony Blackburn – the man who first played black music on Radio 1; on Tuesday 9 February UKG With Cameo and Sticky, a veteran UKG producer, are featured; D&B with Bailey and Slammin Vinyl – promoters of seminal D&B rave – are on the list for Wednesday 10 February; while Thursday 11 February includes Dancehall with Robbo Ranx and legendary UK reggae producer Jazzwad; finally on Friday 12 February there's hip-hop With DJ Semtex and classic foundation UK hip-hop group Hijack.

1Xtra listeners also have the opportunity to vote for their HomeGrown Hero in an online poll, from a shortlist selected by Radio 1 and 1Xtra DJs including Ras Kwame, DJ Semtex, Zane Lowe and Mistajam. The result is revealed on Sunday 28 February during the 100% HomeGrown Show on 1Xtra.

Producer/Rebecca Frank

BBC 1Xtra Publicity

Ken Bruce is joined by The Flying Scot, former racing-car driver Sir Jackie Stewart, who picks his Tracks Of My Years. His choices include music by ELO, Robbie Williams, Eric Clapton and Supertramp.

There's also the Popmaster music quiz, the Record Of The Week and Album Of The Week.

Presenter/Ken Bruce, Producer/Phil Jones

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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The Ocean Ep 1/4

Monday 8 February

11.30pm-12.00midnight BBC RADIO 2 (Copy updated 25 January)

Musician Richard Hawley

Musician Richard Hawley investigates the way seafaring culture has influenced British music, literature, poetry and art, with a six-day tour of the coast from Cornwall to Aberdeen.

Throughout the series, Richard visits Devon, Liverpool, Robin Hood's Bay, Filey, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and explores a number of themes including work songs, piracy, religion, mysticism, emigration, transportation, shipwrecks and safety at sea.

The four-part series includes contributions from historians, folklorists, musicians and writers, including Belle And Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt, Simon Armitage, The Filey Fisherman's Choir and folk musicians Norma and Mike Waterson.

Programme one looks at the sea as a great trafficker of people and the songs and stories written about people leaving and visiting the UK. Richard finds out how the tradition of writing about emigration and immigration has developed over time.

The Clearances in Scotland, the potato famine in Ireland, the collapse of the tin mining industry in southwest England and government strategies to populate areas in Newfoundland through transportation have each led to the mass exodus of people from the UK to unknown territories on the other side of the world. In days when conditions on board ship were poor and sea travel was incredibly dangerous, the trauma of emigration produced a rich tradition of folk songs written by those who faced life in a foreign land, and those who were left behind.

Richard visits the prison museum in Aberdeen, where children were captured before being shipped to British colonies abroad. On a guided tour of Falmouth in Cornwall he hears how people travelled in timber ships sailing to North America.

Today, with air travel and advancements of modern technology, there are fewer artists writing with first-hand experience of sailing to the other side of the world and leaving their families behind forever. Richard discovers how the concept of sea travel still inspires contemporary British artists, albeit metaphorically instead of literally.

The first programme of the series includes contributions from The Watersons in Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby, Stuart Murdoch in Glasgow, Aberdeen’s city council historian, a shanty choir in Devon and poet Simon Armitage.

Presenter/Richard Hawley, Producer/Elizabeth Alker

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

World-famous Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim

Performance On 3 continues its broadcasts of Daniel Barenboim's sold-out Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with his Berlin Staatskapelle at London's Southbank Centre. Tonight, they perform Beethoven's Third Concerto coupled with Schoenberg's Variations For Orchestra.

Beethoven's Third Concerto, written around 1803, is a far more ambitious work than its predecessors, and with its minor key it brings out the more turbulent side of the composer's personality. It took him several years to complete and even at the première – according to his page-turner – there were still incomplete passages which he improvised.

Like Beethoven, Schoenberg was concerned with the transformation of musical material and in his Op 31 Variations For Orchestra he creates a piece which, although it may have an unfamiliar musical language, still has an underlying structure which Beethoven and his contemporaries would have recognised.

As part of the concert, Barenboim also gives an illustrated talk about the work.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Brian Jackson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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In this week's The Essay author and critic Michael Bracewell, dreaming about a visitation by the legendary musician Brian Eno, is informed that "Germany is your America", and that he should get out there and explore the place.

Following much speculation about all things German, after visits to Cologne, Munich and Berlin, and after immersing himself in the music and art of the country (especially electronic music and postmodern art), Bracewell is ready to pronounce on his romantic and prejudicial responses to the country. There is also its food to consider and its youthful fashions.

Presenter/Michael Bracewell, Producer/Duncan Minshull

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Neil MacGregor, continues his re-telling of human history using 100 objects from the British Museum. This week's broad theme traces the beginnings of science and literature from 1500-700 BC in emerging city states around the world.

The development of the first cities had profound consequences; they helped create the right conditions for the world's first written literature and the development of mathematics and scientific knowledge. Developing populations controlled by ambitious new rulers in expanding territories also led to increased warfare and conflict.

In today's programme, Neil introduces listeners to the British Museum's provocative Flood Tablet – a small clay tablet discovered in modern Iraq and brought back to the British Museum. When it was translated in 1872, it turned out to be an account of a great flood that significantly pre-dated the famous Biblical tale of Noah. This discovery caused a storm around the world and led to a passionate debate about the truth of the Bible – about storytelling and the universality of legend.

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Woman's Hour Drama – Writing The Century Ep 1/5

Monday 8 to Friday 12 February

10.45-11.00am BBC RADIO 4

Writing The Century explores the 20th century through the diaries and correspondence of real people. This week's series looks at 1966-1969: Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad/True To My Land.

The Sixties were a time of student unrest around the globe and Wales was not immune. For many years, Welsh identity had been under threat but the political climate was changing and the Welsh were beginning to question their place in the world.

In 1966, Sharon Morgan was a schoolgirl about to go to Cardiff University to study history. Sir Glanmor Williams was an eminent historian, a member of both the BBC Board of Governors and the Broadcasting Council for Wales. Despite their differences, in age as well as temperament, the student activist and the establishment figure shared the same passion – for Wales and the Welsh language.

Dramatised by Tina Pepler from documents at the National Library of Wales, listeners are taken through these turbulent years as a nation begins to reassert itself.

The cast features William Thomas as Glanmor; Helen Griffin as Fay; Elin Phillips as Sharon; Sharon Morgan as Mami; Anya Murphy as Gwen; Dewi Rhys Williams as Iwan; Richard Mitchley as John Rowley; Richard Nichols as George Cook; Liam James as Gareth; Sam Jones as Rhys; Scott Arthur as Dewi; Gareth Williams as Mike; and Catrin Stewart as Janet.

Producer/Kate McAll

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Archaeologist and broadcaster Mike Pitts explores why archaeologists can dig and study the same sites, yet reach vastly different conclusions.

In the first of a two-part series, Mike focuses on Maiden Castle, a spectacular massive earthwork in the Dorset countryside.

Throughout history, Maiden Castle has been a target for excavations but two specific digs have polarised opinions. Firstly, there was Mortimer Wheeler, who dug there with a small army of people in the Thirties, then Niall Sharples, who took a much smaller team back in the Eighties. They came up with rival theories of what Maiden Castle was all about. Wheeler's view was that native Britons were falling under the yoke of the efficient military machine of invading Romans. Sharples, on the other hand, thought Maiden Castle's impressive defences were not about war but ritual and prestige, and the fort was felled not by Roman ballista bolts but by a changing economy.

As well as visiting the site, Mike talks to people involved in both digs – including Beatrice de Cardi, now in her nineties, who was a rookie archaeologist on the Wheeler dig. The programme also hears from Niall Sharples himself, and Peter Woodward, who curates the finds from Maiden Castle at the Dorset County Museum.

Mike brings the digs to life through rare archive recordings, newspaper cuttings, diaries, memoirs and letters.

Presenter/Mike Pitts, Producer/Sian Price

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Quote ... Unquote Ep 1/6

Monday 8 February

1.30-2.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Quote ... Unquote, the quotations quiz presented by Nigel Rees, returns for a new series.

As ever, a host of celebrities will be joining Nigel as he quizzes them on the sources of a range of quotations and asks them for the amusing sayings or citations they have personally collected on a variety of subjects.

Presenter/Nigel Rees, Producer/Sam Bryant

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Written by Ian Kershaw Raft To Bondi is a bitter-sweet comedy about loss.

It is July 1990 and everyone is Nessun dorma crazy because England are in the semi-final of the World Cup. Everyone that is, except 15-year-old Jimmy, who's never really liked football – he can't get worked up about men kicking a ball around. He's surprised his dad has taken an interest as he's never even been to a football match.

Jimmy is really sad – so is his dad – but they don't talk. Then Jimmy meets a young, loud lass called Carol, who is building a raft to take her along the Rochdale canal and then out to Australia to see her own dad. Jimmy thinks she's daft but she's great fun and he pretends to go along with it.

Meanwhile, when Jimmy's dad goes to the pub to watch the match, unbeknown to him, he meets Carol's "mam", Kath. She's inebriated and gets them thrown out so they watch the match at his house. But when Kath wants more than friendship he firmly resists. He can't – not yet.

On the canal things come to a head when the raft sinks and Jimmy loses the photo of his mother. He is distraught – the reason for his sadness is her recent death.

When Jimmy gets back home his dad is visibly moved by Gazza's tears on the football pitch. At last, he and Jimmy can express their emotions to each other and finally acknowledge their loss.

Stephen Hoyle plays Jimmy, with Shannon Flynn as Carol, Mark Jordan as Dad and Naomi Radcliffe as Kath.

Producer/Gary Brown

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Tom Heap explores the cost of delivery goods in this week's Costing The Earth.

According to Freight On Rail, road freight now accounts for eight per cent of UK carbon, while congestion is claimed to cost business £17bn a year. With UK rail lines already feeling the strain, Tom finds out whether rail freight is the answer.

Aviation is commonly seen as the climate change villain but the transport of freight by road and ship is often ignored. Tom investigates just how much pollution is being shifted needlessly by hitching a lift with a 25-year-old Londoner who was named the UK's Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009. His business, Shiply.com, ships people's belongings. The business has been going for just over a year and has already saved over 1.6m kg of CO2 by making use of spare capacities.

On a larger scale, Eddie Stobart is one of Britain's best-known hauliers. The company recently made moves into rail freight but questions remain over just how many deliveries can be made by rail and whether the freight industry as a whole is really facing up to the problem of how to decarbonise transport.

Presenter/Tom Heap, Producer/Helen Lennard

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Capturing America Readings Ep 1/5

Monday 8 to Friday 12 February

10.45-11.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Mark Lawson has selected short pieces by five American authors for this week's Book At Bedtime and introduces each one as part of BBC Radio 4's Capturing America series.

Today's reading presents selections from the diaries of Tennessee Williams which give a tantalising glimpse into the character and frail ego of the renowned playwright. The apprehension that he felt about being accepted – either by lovers or by the literati – reveals the fragile character underneath the bravura and wit. It is read by Paul Birchard.

On Tuesday, Norman Mailer's short story Our Man At Harvard recalls the fraternal shenanigans at the offices of The Harvard Undergraduate Journal, The Advocate. Sophomore students eagerly submit their pieces to the new editor but dark forces are at play, and the promised attendance of Somerset Maugham distracts the young hopefuls from the deception of office politics.

On Wednesday, two friends chew the fat over dinner in Lorrie Moore's sharp story Starving Again. Mave is an acerbic middle-aged New Yorker mopping up the fall-out from her friend, Dennis's, recent marriage break-up.

Thursday presents John Updike's The Astronomer, which pinpoints a seemingly ordinary occasion, yet a moment in time when someone's entire belief system is questioned. Kierkegaard-obsessive Walter and his wife, Harriet, are the somewhat-reluctant hosts of a dinner party in their Manhattan home.

Friday's reading is still to be confirmed, as are the readers for Tuesday to Friday's stories.

Presenter/Mark Lawson, Producer/Sarah Langan

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The final programme of Stephen Sackur's two-part series for BBC Radio 4 continues to explore a crucial, but often-hidden, revolution in the way we are fighting wars. Sackur looks at the increased use of robots on the ground in military operations and some of the extraordinary ambitions of those preparing for a much more robotic future, in which it is claimed robots will feed themselves as they move, select their own targets and be programmed to behave ethically.

Presenter/Stephen Sackur, Producer/Chris Bowlby

BBC News Publicity

Mark Chapman joins the BBC Radio 5 Live Sport team full-time as the new Monday night host. Mark has all the day's sports news and is joined by special guests for the Monday Night Club to discuss the latest big issues in football.

From 9.30pm, Mark is joined by Mark Clemmit for 5 Live Football League, with all the news and reaction from the Championship and Leagues One and Two.

Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Ben North

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Jagz Kooner is a UK-born producer who has worked with Manic Street Preachers, Primal Scream, Garbage and Infadels. He has created remixes for Massive Attack, Rammstein, Siobhan Fahey, Ladytron, Adam Freeland, dEUS, Kasabian and more recently Reverend And The Makers.

Jagz also has tinnitus, which he discusses with Nemone on the show as part of this week's National Tinnitus Week.

Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Fanfarlo join Marc Riley as today's live studio band.

Formed in 2006 by the Swedish musician Simon Balthazar, the London-based band make extensive use of trumpet, violin and mandolin as well as more commonplace instruments such as guitars and drums.

Their debut album, Reservoir, recorded in October/November 2008 in the US, was produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol). The album was released in February 2009.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Choudhry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe presents Faithless in concert from 2003 and archive session tracks from Eighties Scouse dream-poppers the Lotus Eaters, London chill-jazzer Neil Cowley and 2010 hot prospect (and Marc Riley favourite) Jesca Hoop.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Sonia Deol returns to the BBC Asian Network to present a new weekday morning slot. The lifestyle magazine show features a variety of topics, discussing everyday lives across the Asian community. Packed with special guests and celebrity interviews, Sonia gives listeners the low-down on everything from food to beauty and much more.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

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Jodie is stressed as everything is going wrong for her, in the week's first visit to Silver Street. Sway isn't feeling great either but being out of work isn't the only thing keeping him indoors.

Simran, meanwhile, plays agony aunt for Jodie. Later it seems Jodie isn't the only one who needs a sympathetic ear.

Khatija gets back and the first thing she wants is an answer as to why Nadia tried to commit suicide. She then shocks Nadia with a confession of her own...

Jodie is played by Vineeta Rishi, Sway by Nicholas Bailey, Simran by Balvinder Sopal, Khatija by Miriam Ali and Nadia by Sohm Kapila.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

From his home in Perthshire, Desmond Carrington rummages through his collection of 250,000 titles and this week he remembers the American composer Howard Arlen, who wrote more than 400 songs including Over The Rainbow and Stormy Weather.

Presenter/Desmond Carrington, Producer/Dave Aylott

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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In a few weeks' time, British film producer David Puttnam, with broadcaster and author Brian Sibley will be bringing the story of the first 100 years of cinema up to date. But for now, listeners can sit back, dim the lights and open the popcorn, as BBC Radio 2 re-broadcasts their original 1999 programme charting the history of the silver screen.

This programme considers Hollywood's favourite film genres: the western, the musical, the sci-fi epic and the war movie.

Contributors include Ken Annakin, (director of Battle Of The Bulge), Robert Wise, (director of The Day The Earth Stood Still), film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, director Fred Zinneman (High Noon) and lyricist Leslie Bricusse.

Presenters/David Puttman and Brian Sibley, Producer/Malcolm Prince

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Come Fly With Me – The Legacy Of Jimmy Van Heusen Ep 1/2

Tuesday 9 February

11.30pm-12.00midnight BBC RADIO 2

Songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen

Musician, novelist and stage writer Rupert Holmes considers the legacy of songwriter and pilot Jimmy Van Heusen, who wrote many hits for Frank Sinatra.

When Jimmy Van Heusen died 20 years ago, the world of American popular song lost one of its most individual characters. Van Heusen was a man who could combine fine composition with serial womanising in Hollywood, alongside piloting his own aircraft. He wrote 85 songs for his friend Frank Sinatra and his legacy is still felt today, with performers such as Michael Bublé, who has recorded a version of Call Me Irresponsible, having notable successes with his songs.

Van Heusen was born Edward Chester Babcock in 1913. He preferred music to school and worked for a time on a local radio station, composing songs for listeners. Eventually, after a name change, he made it to New York where he began writing hit songs like Polka Dots And Moonbeams. An invitation to Hollywood led to him composing songs for Bing Crosby's road movies and, along with Sammy Cahn, he wrote numbers such as Call Me Irresponsible and High Hopes.

In the first of this two-part series, Rupert Holmes explores Van Heusen's early career and his songwriting partnerships with bandleader Eddie DeLange and lyricist Johnny Burke, which produced hits such as Darn That Dream and Swinging On A Star.

Presenter/Rupert Holmes, Producer/Emma Kingsley

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Listeners can enjoy the final concert in BBC Radio 3's broadcasts of Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with his Berlin Staatskapelle at London's Southbank Centre. Tonight they perform Beethoven's final Fifth Piano Concerto coupled with Schoenberg's lushly late romantic Verklärte Nacht.

Beethoven finished work on this last and most imperious concerto in 1809, just as the walls of Vienna were collapsing before the inexorable might of Napoleon's invading armies. The composer's deafness meant he was no longer up to the job of performing the new work himself.

Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, tells in music a woman's confession to her lover that she has become pregnant by another man.

Both Beethoven and Schoenberg are composers who simultaneously summarised the musical traditions that went before them while pointing to radical new developments.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Brian Jackson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

In a week that explores man's new-found self expression through words and numbers, Neil MacGregor describes the British Museum's most famous mathematical papyrus.

Neil describes how and why the ancient Egyptians were dealing with numbers around 1550BC. This papyrus contains 84 different calculations to help with various aspects of Egyptian life, from pyramid building to working out how much grain it takes to fatten a goose.

Neil describes it as "a crammer for a dazzling career in an ancient civil service."

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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This series of Nature concludes with the second of two programmes exploring people's relationship with the landscape and the value of becoming familiar with "a local patch". Paul Evans begins by examining the personal benefits to be gained from connecting with the landscape and wildlife close to home.

He also explores the connections between observation, knowledge and conservation through Garden Birdwatch and other wildlife monitoring schemes.

Paul discovers that getting to know your local patch – whether it's the garden, the local park, or somewhere else in the neighbourhood – can have long-term benefits for both the individual, increasing a sense of well being, health and enjoyment – as well as having long-term benefits for conservation of wildlife and wild places.

With contributions from Professor Chris Baines, President of the Urban Wildlife Partnerships; Dr Ken Thompson, lecturer at the Department of Animal And Plant Sciences, University Of Sheffield; Mike Toms and Dawn Balmer, British Trust For Ornithology; Gemma Rogers, Royal Society For The Protection of Birds; and Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation.

Presenter/Paul Evans, Producer/Sarah Blunt

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Comedian Robert Webb plunders his bookshelves to present a selection of his favourite prose and poetry in a special edition of With Great Pleasure, recorded at the University Of Bedfordshire.

His selection includes the first piece of writing to make him laugh out loud and a poem that best captures his feelings in his newly acquired role as a father.

The readers are Abigail Burdess and Jonathan Dryden Taylor.

Presenter/Robert Webb, Producer/Paul Dodgson

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Clarinettist and Cambridge English literature graduate Emma Johnson, combines her two passions in this analysis of the influence of John Milton senior on his famous poet son.

Musicologist and performer Richard Rastall has unearthed and recorded many of the elder Milton's pieces including choral, viol consort and song settings. Richard reveals to Emma what he's discovered and what it sounds like in specially reconstructed recordings of works unfamiliar to even scholars.

As well as revealing Milton the composer, this programme explores the life of the man and his relationship with his son. Although a gifted musician, Milton was not able to live on earnings from his compositions alone. A scrivener by trade, he managed to free himself from the Scriveners' Company in 1599 and was subsequently able to afford a private tutor for his son and provide for him when he took a place at St Paul's School and Christ's College, Cambridge. For much of this time the family lived in Bread Street, London. There is written evidence that Milton encouraged his son to be both a man of letters and music.

Emma also talks to Milton scholars and the early music group Fretwork, as they prepare and record John Milton's instrument works – and asks whether it is fanciful to hear in Milton junior's Il penseroso, a son's proud boast of his father's work.

Presenter/Emma Johnson, Producer/Tom Alban

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The Wild West meets the wild West Riding of Yorkshire in Peter Spafford's Buffalo Bill And Little Matty Dyer.

Cardigan Fields, Leeds, 27 September 1903. Buffalo Bill, slayer of the Sioux, the most famous American in the world, disembarks at Armley station with his Wild West show: 500 horses; 800 cowboys and Indians; rough riders from Cossack Russia, Japan, Mexico; 50 cooks; 60 waiters; and 50 buffalo. The first-ever floodlit show, the Wild West will stay in Leeds just five days – long enough to change the life of Matty Dyer.

Matty is the 15-year-old son of the landlord of the local pub. He is in love with 19-year-old Jess, who works in the pub and doesn't take kindly to the attentions of McConnell the big-mouthed cowboy who has arrived with the troupe. But Jess doesn't really notice him – he's just Matty with a club foot, the young brother of her deceased fiancé, Sid.

Matty's other passion is for Native Indian lore – he has always preferred it to the cowboy legends. So when Matty witnesses prejudice against his new-found friend "Small Bear" he is prepared to stand up to McConnell and his hypocrisies. This doesn't sit well with his father who needs his cowboys to fill their boots and his pockets.

The cast stars Kerry Shale as Small Bear and Christian Foster (Lunch Monkeys) as Matty.

Producer/Gary Brown

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Casual Cruelty Ep 1/3

Tuesday 9 to Thursday 11 February

3.30-3.45pm BBC RADIO 4

Casual Cruelty presents a trio of unique short stories by American author Shirley Jackson.

Writing from the Forties until her early death in the Sixties, Jackson's style of "creeping unease" was hugely popular. In recent years she has received increasing attention from literary critics and a new generation of readers. Her deceptively simple and apparently realistic style, often cloaking chilling or darkly hidden agendas, has influenced writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.

Today, Stacy Keach reads her celebrated story, The Lottery, first published in the New Yorker in 1948. The inhabitants of a small farming community in Vermont gather each year for what becomes apparent is a rather different kind of lottery.

Tomorrow, Joanne Whalley reads Trial By Combat. Loneliness, and mysterious pilfering, in a humble New York boarding house are, perhaps, a strange method of seeking companionship.

On Thursday Glenne Headly reads The Villager, where there's pretence, and pretension in a Greenwich Village apartment in which furniture is for sale.

Readers/Stacy Keach, Joanne Whalley and Glenne Headly, Producer/Rosalind Ayres

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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At 16, Benjamin Cohen was at the heart of the dotcom boom during the late Nineties. Now no longer a dotcom millionaire, he confronts his past and finds the fate of the other teenage dotcom entrepreneurs. On 14 March 2000, Lastminute.com was floated on the London Stock Exchange. Benjamin Cohen remembers that day well. It was the day the British dotcom bubble began to deflate and his dreams of being a teenage tycoon began to crumble.

Now 10 years later he faces up to his past. He wants to find out what drove him to devote the adolescent years he could have spent as a normal teenager, poring over business plans and agonising over venture capital equity deals.

Today he is on the other side of the fence, a technology journalist for Channel 4. He recently interviewed the billionaire founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and found it strange that he was now the older journalist interviewing a 24-year-old whizzkid who has revolutionised the way many use the internet.

Benjamin also meets his peers, other former or current teenage dotcom millionaires. He wants to find out what they have in common; what draws them to technology businesses; how far they manipulate the media obsession with teenage millionaires for their own publicity; and whether they are shaped, even constricted, by it.

Presenter/Benjamin Cohen, Producer/Russell Finch

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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A Good Read Ep 1/8

Tuesday 9 February

4.30-5.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Sue MacGregor returns with a new series of A Good Read where she asks her guests what their favourite paperback is. There is just one rule – the book must be currently available in paperback so listeners' can get hold of it should they wish to.

The series kicks off with two lively guests, naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham and writer and performer Stella Duffy.

Other guests in this series include singer-songwriter Richard Hawley; journalist and author India Knight; stand-up comedian Shazia Mirza; journalist and news presenter Ritula Shah; author Julia Blackburn; and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth.

Presenter/Sue MacGregor,
Producers/Beatrice Fenton, Toby Field, Tim Dee, Jolyon Jenkins and Mary Ward-Lowery

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Fabulous Ep 1/4

Tuesday 9 February

11.00-11.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Comedian and actor Daisy Haggard

Daisy Haggard and Katy Brand return with a new series of Fabulous, with Olivia Colman, Anne Reid, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Sally Grace and David Armand.

Faye (Daisy Haggard) is anxious. She knows that today's women are "Fabulous". They have the job, the house, the colour-co-ordinated capsule wardrobe; they cope with singledom, marriage and having kids with peanut allergies; and they all do it effortlessly, with nothing more than a copy of Prima and a poem by Pam Ayres to guide them. So Faye wonders why she can't pull it off.

Fabulous unearths the slightly unhinged madwoman that lurks behind this "having it all" fantasy. The series follows Faye as she tries to get through her day with her "fabulous" facade intact.

This third series finds Faye engaged and drowning in wedding plans. Edith (Olivia Colman) is now godmother to Kim's baby son, Dougal, something Kim has agreed to so that Edith doesn't tell the police that she tried to sell the unborn Dougal on the internet; and Denise (Katy Brand) has nominated herself head bridesmaid, much to Mother's disgust. All of which means that Faye's work and home lives are now inextricably inter-twined, leaving Faye with a whole new host of frustrations.

Producer/Simon Nicholls

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Tuesday 9 February

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORT

Mark Chapman has all the day's sports news and at 7.45pm there's live commentary of Manchester City versus Bolton, plus reports from Fulham versus Burnley, Portsmouth versus Sunderland and Wigan versus Stoke in the Premier League, and updates from a full programme in the Championship.

Presenter/Mark Chapman Producer/Adrian Williams

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Football

Tuesday 9 February

7.40-9.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

• www.bbc.co.uk/football

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary on one of the night's top matches in the Premier League.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Uber cool indie actress Zooey Deschanel and singer-songwriter M Ward have teamed up to create musical duo She & Him and join Lauren Laverne, live in session.

The band have just announced that their second album, Volume Two, will be released on 23 March. Written by Zooey and produced by M Ward, Volume Two is the follow up to the duo's critically acclaimed debut, Volume One.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe's archive gems include concert tracks from Fields Of The Nephilim and archive session tracks from San Franciso indie-folk duo Dodos, Belle And Sebastian spin-off God Help The Girl and sultry Gallic jazz pop from Francoiz Breut.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Kenny and Jaggy go over the game plan for Saturday's match, but some of Kenny's comments seem to be more about the state of his marriage than about football, as the drama continues.

Later Simran invites Sandra to stay with them, but why is Jaggy worried?

Elsewhere, Nadia is concerned about Khatija refusing to go out. Is she ashamed of her daughter? Khatija denies this and changes the subject to Zenab's "snooping". Later Khatija can't sleep and tells Nadia how she really feels...

Kenny is played by Brian Croucher, Jaggy by Jay Kiyani, Simran by Balvinder Sopal, Sandra by Anita Dobson, Nadia by Sohm Kapila and Khatija by Miriam Ali.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

Long-distance relationships can be tough. The travelling and the costs as well as the effort of trying to stay close, even though it may be weeks before you see that special someone face-to-face.

This documentary finds that long-distance relationships can often be worth the wait. Paul, who survived four years of university mainly apart from him girlfriend, is now happily married to her.

Emily is married too, but her husband is in the army and can be away for six months at a time, while Carla is in a long-distance relationship with someone she met online.

Chloe and Alice from Leeds explain how they cope with having boyfriends in jail, while Maria spent £7,000 visiting her boyfriend, before it all went horribly wrong.

BBC 1Xtra Publicity

Performance On 3 continues its focus on the works of Beethoven with the start of a landmark cycle of the composer's symphonies, performed by leading period instrument group The Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment.

They begin their cycle with Symphony No. 4, one of the composer's most underrated yet dramatic pieces, and Symphony No. 7, one of the most popular and a reflection of the time in which it was written during the Napoleonic Wars.

The OAE are conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, with whom the band have a close relationship developed in both opera house and concert hall. Each symphony in this cycle is prefaced with episodes from the life of the composer read by Beethoven biographer John Suchet, adapted from his fictionalised life of the composer, The Last Master.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Brian Jackson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Neil MacGregor's retelling of the history of humanity, using objects from the British Museum's collection, arrives in Crete around 1700BC.

The programme tells the story of man's fascination with bulls and the emergence of one of the most cosmopolitan and prosperous civilisations in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean – the Minoans.

The Minoans of Crete were more powerful than the mainland with a complex and still largely unknown culture. They enjoyed a ritual connection with bulls as well as a rich bronze-making tradition. To consider the Minoans and the role of the bull in myth and legend, Neil introduces listeners to a small bronze sculpture of a man leaping over a bull, one of the highlights of the British Museum's Minoan collection.

He explores the vast network of trade routes in the Mediterranean of the time, encounters an ancient shipwreck and tracks down a modern-day bull leaper to try to figure out the attraction.

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Fags, Mags & Bags Ep 1/6

Wednesday 10 February

11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

Fags, Mags & Bags returns for a third series of low-return retail but high-end comedy featuring more corner-shop capers from Lenzie's Premier convenience store.

The first series saw Ramesh et al boldly complete a magazine part-work and cause a near riot selling beef swastikas. In series two the Majhu family was rocked to its core by the appearance of a much-despised auntie and the shop turned into a temporary shrine to Michael Jackson.

The new series of Fags, Mags & Bags sees Sanjay finding a girlfriend and embracing the arts while the very eco-balance of shop society is thrown into chaos after Ramesh allows Alok to install a slush machine.

Written by and starring Sanjeev Kohli and Donald Mcleary, the comedy featues special guest appearances including Sylvester McCoy.

Producer/Gus Beattie

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Postcards From A Cataclysm presents nine short plays about global annihilation. As an asteroid hurtles towards earth, a variety of people each react in their own unique way.

This innovative drama stars Kenneth Cranham (Hot Fuzz, Layer Cake), Tim Key (Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner 2009) and Josie Long (Skins) alongside writers Tim Crouch, Rommi Smith and The Factory Theatre Company, among others.

The "song-length" plays feature intricate sound design from recent National Film And Television School graduate Zhe Wu and music from the London Community Gospel Choir.

The shorts will also be individually podcast. The result is nine very different, finely crafted audio gems that push the boundaries of sonic storytelling.

The plays include Lost & Found (Part 1 and 2) by David Varela – where Reggie and Colin have one more delivery to make before the end of the world.

The Asteroid Hitters by Rommi Smith in which Wolfie and Rosa plan to spend the apocalypse making love; but Wolfie has a secret.

In Prints (Part 1 and 2) by Lizzie Nunnery time and space begin to warp, and a couple receive ghostly echoes from their past.

Josie's Diary by Josie Long sees Josie lament the lack of her favourite type of bread on the shelves of the supermarket.

In Amazing Grace by The Factory Theatre Company someone, somewhere starts to sing and all around join in; well, all but one.

Tim Crouch's No Milk tells of an elderly couple who snuggle up as the world around them falls apart.

In Phone Message by The Factory Theatre Company the boredom of a traffic jam is broken by terror.

Beth investigates a mysterious voice coming from the granite on Bodmin Moor, in The Voice In The Rock by Carl Grose.

In The NEO NDE [Near Earth Object, Near Death Experience] by Rommi Smith, Marcia can't wait for the end of the world – it will end – they promised.

Producer/James Robinson

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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BBC Radio 4 presenter Laurie Taylor

In this week's Thinking Allowed, Paul Gilroy joins Laurie Taylor to discuss the changing place of black culture.

Cultural critic Paul Gilroy discusses his new book, Darker Than Blue. He talks to Laurie about how jazz, blues, hip-hop and much of what stood for black culture, now seems generically American and is exported around the world. Within the United States, luxury goods, motor cars, branded items and a quest for individual gratification may have diluted the collective spirit that brought African-Americans the civil rights they won.

Paul analyses how American blackness has acquired a high visibility worldwide and has a potent political value to the United States while a global counter terrorist operation is in process.

Paul traces the shifting character of black culture on both sides of the Atlantic and offers an account of what it means to be black in Britain and the United States.

Presenter/Laurie Taylor, Producer/Charlie Taylor

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Wednesday 10 February

7.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Mark Pougatch presents all the day's sports news and, at 7.45pm, there's live commentary on Arsenal versus Liverpool. There are also updates of the evening's other Premier League matches including Everton versus Chelsea and Aston Villa versus Manchester United.

Presenter/Mark Pougatch, Producer/Steve Rudge

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Football

Wednesday 10 February

7.40-9.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

• www.bbc.co.uk/football

Listeners can enjoy uninterrupted commentary on one of the night's top matches in the Premier League.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Every week the Lunchtime show will feature a playlist of hand-picked music from bands and artists. The specially selected tracks will be played out across the week and available in full via the BBC 6 Music website.

This week's Featured Playlist is selected by the dub fuelled ska rocksteady and reggae of Pama International who became the first new band to sign to Trojan Records for 30 years in 2006. Discover the band's influences across the week including tracks by Otis Redding, Burning Spear, Dennis Brown and Culture.

Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Featuring 1993 concert tracks from the much-missed Kirsty MacColl, Gideon Coe tonight selects archive tracks from a recent session by Kurt Vile for Marc Riley plus an epic racket from London (via San Diego) trio The God Machine, recorded for John Peel in 1992.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Khatija and Zenab exchange polite conversation, but it isn't long before they are bickering again, as the drama continues. Later they call a truce.

Jodie decorates the cafe for Valentine's Day; Sway thinks they should play it low-key given everything that has happened recently but will Jodie agree?

A bouquet of flowers is delivered to Sandra, with no card attached. She doubts that Kenny would have sent them but who else could it be?

Khatija is played by Miriam Ali, Zenab by Sudha Buchar, Jodie by Vineeta Rishi, Sway by Nicholas Bailey, Sandra by Anita Dobson, Simran by Balvinder Sopal and Kenny by Brian Croucher.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

Obama's America Ep 1/2

Wednesday 10 February

8.00-8.30pm BBC WORLD SERVICE

In the first of this new two-part series examining Obama's America, Simon Schama explores the battle of ideologies which have formed American foreign policy.

Evoking two former opponents and philosophical warriors of the foreign policy debate: President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur, Simon reflects on the perennial struggle between isolationism and interventionism, idealism and pragmatism that is still being debated in America today. Should the US, with its enormous military might, act as a global sheriff or should it adopt a more hands-off approach, pursuing diplomacy and containment over a desire for outright military victory? Will Obama succeed in his attempt to "choose our better history" and rebuild America's image around the world?

The programme will focus on the Korean War, America's forgotten conflict and one which marked the birth of the nation as a superpower, liberating a new vision of what the US could do in the world and ushering in an era of expansive, interventionist foreign policy.

Presenter/Simon Schama

BBC World Service Publicity

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The final instalment of this three-part series, presented by Bidisha, features full-length interviews tracing the spiritual journeys of three writers through their fiction and poetry.

The poet, artist and film-maker Imtiaz Dharker was born a Muslim in Lahore, Pakistan and educated at a school with a strict Protestant ethic in Glasgow, where her family moved when she was a child. When growing up she began to question and challenge the restrictions of her religion, particularly for women, and poetry provided a platform for her to achieve this.

The titles of some of her poetry collections reflect the issues with which she grapples: Postcards From God and I Speak For The Devil. However, as Bidisha discovers, Imtiaz Dharker is far too sensuous and down-to-earth to want to be labelled a "spiritual writer".

Presenter/Bidisha, Producer/Kate Howells

BBC World Service Publicity

Bob Harris's session guest tonight is Holly Williams, the grand-daughter of country music legend Hank Williams and the daughter of Hank Williams Junior. She joins Bob live in the studio.

Nashville singer-songwriter Holly has recently released her second album, Here With Me, which takes her back to her country roots in contrast with the more alternative, introspective piano balladry of her 2004 debut album.

Following a car crash in 2006, which left her badly injured, Holly rebuilt her career and released Here With Me last year.

Presenter/Bob Harris, Producer/Al Booth

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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A shocking new dawn has broken in the world of Andrew Glasgow in the penultimate episode of the third series of BBC Radio 2's sitcom starring Caroline Quentin (Men Behaving Badly), Simon Greenall (I'm Alan Partridge) and Andy Taylor (My Family).

Andrew has finally severed ties with his terrifying mother and decided to leave home. In tonight's episode, unemployed and destitute, Andrew finds himself alienated from his flatmates and sharing his bedroom with a mysterious stranger.

Producer/Adam Bromley

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Suzi Quatro remembers the cream of female singing stars of the Fifties in tonight's programme, featuring music from Rosemary Clooney, Dinah Washington, the Poni-Tails, Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds and Dodie Stevens.

Presenter/Suzi Quatro, Producer/Mark Simpson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

The City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons, performs works by Mozart and Richard Strauss in tonight's Performance On 3.

Richard Strauss is said to have boasted that he could even depict a knife and fork in music, so it is perhaps not surprising that, when he sets out to depict the majesty of the Alps in his Alpine Symphony, the result is understandably magical. Scored for a huge orchestra with musical portraits of a waterfall, blazing sun on an ice-capped summit and a musical storm, the piece describes an alpine hike from sunrise to sunset.

As Strauss idolised the music of Mozart, it's appropriate that his work is prefaced by two compositions by the 18th-century master. Mozart's Symphony No. 33 was one of the last works he wrote in Salzburg before moving to Vienna, while one of his most popular Piano Concertos, No. 24, features Martin Helmchen as soloist.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Brian Jackson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Neil MacGregor examines the world of around 1,700 years ago in today's edition of A History Of The World In 100 Objects, looking at some of the most powerful objects that remain – discovered in modern-day Iraq, Crete, Egypt and today, in Wales.

Neil describes a remarkable 4,000-year-old gold cape which was discovered by workmen in a Welsh field and is now in the care of the British Museum.

In 1833, a group of workmen were looking for stones in a field near the village of Mold in North Wales when they unearthed a burial site with a skeleton covered by a crushed sheet of pure gold. Neil tells the story of what has become known as the Mold Gold Cape and tries to envisage the society that made it.

This week he has already described the contemporary courts of the pharaohs of Egypt and the palaces of the Minoans in Crete. Nothing like that seems to have existed in Britain at that time but Neil imagines a people with surprisingly sophisticated skills and social structures.

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Capturing America –
Mark Lawson's History Of Modern American Literature Ep 1/8

Thursday 11 February

11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

BBC Radio 4 presenter Mark Lawson

Talking to leading authors from Philip Roth and Toni Morrison to Stephen King and John Grisham, Mark Lawson tells the story of how American writing became the literary superpower of the 20th century.

Drawing on conversations with writers, including the last major interviews given by John Updike, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Capturing America charts how, from the Second World War to the conflict in Iraq, and from Roosevelt to Obama, novelists, playwrights and poets have tackled the big themes of modern American life: power, money, violence, sex, race, religion, depression and diversity.

Mark reveals his candidate for the title of most unfairly neglected modern American writer and will address the criticisms that contemporary American literature has suffered – too male, too big, too triumphalist. This series shows why the country's writing – like its politics – has provoked admiration, but also sometimes anger and resentment from other cultures.

Interviewees include Gore Vidal, Toni Morrison, Joseph Heller, August Wilson, Philip Roth, John Grisham, David Mamet, Edward Albee, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, EL Doctorow, Chang-Rae Lee, Richard Ford, Tony Kushner, Edmund White, Walter Mosley, Jane Smiley, Joan Didion, Harold Bloom, Elaine Showalter, Nicholson Baker, Don DeLillo, Rita Dove, Neil LaBute, John Ashbery, Armistead Maupin, Stephen King, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis and Garrison Keillor, among others.

Presenter/Mark Lawson, Producer/Robyn Read

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Afternoon Play –
Say What You Want To Hear: The Startup Ep 1/2

Thursday 11 February

2.15-3.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Say What You Want To Hear: The Startup by Tim Wright tells the story of two would-be dot.com entrepreneurs launching the Say What You Want To Hear website, which offers users the chance to have their innermost thoughts voiced.

Listeners can send in their personal messages, some of which will be used by Tim, as he writes the second play in this series – Say What You Want To Hear: The Endgame – which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 9 March.

Forty-something Erik is struggling to make a success of his new website with his old school friend Mike. Together, they hope to launch an internet messaging service that will hook in big money by linking up to the international market and their idol Harrison Ford.

When yet another pitch to a US financier bites the dust, Mike suggests they contact their old school pal Stephen who has made a fortune in America. Erik won't hear of it – there's too much water under the bridge. But in fact Mike has already set the ball in motion and, much to Erik's disgust, he finds himself on a flight to New York.

Stephen Tompkinson plays Erik, Ewan Bailey plays Mike and Keely Beresford plays Erik's online girlfriend Scarlett.

This first play leads the audience to the website at bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/swywth/ which offers a place for listeners to leave messages that can be read out by other site users and downloaded for play-back.

Listeners are also encouraged to write messages for the characters in the play and Erik, Mike and Scarlett will continue to message each other over the course of three weeks leading to the second play – Say What You Want To Hear: The Endgame.

Producer/Jeremy Mortimer

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Several billion years ago the Earth was born out of the nuclear reaction of hydrogen and helium in a star. It slowly cooled to produce a thin surface containing around 100 stable chemical elements – most of them in fairly small quantities. Several billion years later, supplies of many of them are running out.

Scientists in Europe and the US warn that 20 of the most important metals, including silver, gold, platinum, copper and zinc, will have reached critical point within 100 years, some much sooner. Former chief scientific adviser to the government David King explains that the scarcity of these and other metals and materials is likely to result in resource wars.

Presenter, materials scientist Mark Miodownik, cares about the loss of these metals, and not just because their disappearance presents huge problems for the electronics industries and medical world which rely on them.

He focuses on the particular problem with platinum – essential for catalytic converters, fuel cells and various medical processes. He learns how Earth's precious reserves of this metal are being blasted out of car exhaust pipes, seemingly irretrievably. But he also meets scientists who have found an ingenious way of recovering the platinum from the dust and sludge at the roadside.

As well as looking at other metals which seem to be disappearing out of this world, Mark also investigates how politicians, engineers, economists and the public can possibly save the day.

Presenter/Mark Miodownik, Producer/Brian King

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Mark Chapman is joined by some top sports correspondents for The Headline Hour, discussing some of the week's major sporting stories.

From 8pm, Mark is joined by Matt Dawson for 5 Live Rugby – Six Nations Preview with all the latest from the first round of matches and a look ahead to the weekend's action.

At 9pm, the talk turns to the Winter Olympics with Eleanor Oldroyd and Vassos Alexander live in Vancouver bringing the latest from the Games.

From 10pm two of 5 Live's pundits go head to head in a topical sports debate in And Another Thing.

Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Ed King

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Five-piece Wirral post-punk band Seal Cub Clubbing Club plays live in the studio for Marc Riley and the listeners this evening.

Seal Cub Clubbing Club's lyrics cover wildly different subjects from Thom Yorke-like mutterings, repetitive instrumental hooks and unconventionally catchy choruses and melodies. Their music is unlike other Merseyside bands The Coral and The Zutons; instead, they are often compared to the likes of The Fall and Radiohead.

Presenter/Marc Riley, Producer/Michelle Chouhdry

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe presents archive tracks from The Kills, recorded live at Somerset House for BBC 6 Music, and archive session tracks from the Jesus Licks, Nottingham drone-pop quintet Six By Seven and Colorama.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Jaggy has expensive plans for Valentine's Day in today's episode of the drama, but in light of their current financial situation, Simran has other ideas.

Sway's luck finally runs out and he comes face to face with Khatija while shopping with Jodie. After listening to Khatija's abuse, Sway heads home with Jodie, feeling deflated.

Meanwhile, Kenny pays Simran an unexpected visit. Later Simran has a chat with Jaggy. She needs to know exactly what's going on inside his head.

Jaggy is played by Jay Kiyani, Simran by Balvinder Sopal, Sway by Nicholas Bailey, Khatija by Miriam Ali, Jodie by Vineeta Rishi and Kenny by Brian Croucher.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

Michael Freedland concludes his journey to mark the 75th anniversary of Elvis Presley's birth by travelling to Las Vegas, before driving through the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles.

In Vegas, Michael takes a tour of the King's Ransom exhibit at the Imperial Palace Hotel, a museum run by Jimmy Velvet. He talks to devoted fan Vicky Sisler; fan club supremo Sue Land; former girlfriend Linda Thompson, who speaks candidly of her time with Elvis, and her brother Sam, who was one of Elvis's bodyguards; and jeweller Stuart Small, who has many tales about Elvis's legendary generosity.

In LA, Michael looks at Elvis's film career and talks to co-star Celeste Yarnall; screenwriter Michael Hoey; friend and impersonator, Jimmy Angel; and Elvis's hairdresser and spiritual companion, Larry Geller. Michael also spends an extraordinary evening in the home of one of Presley's songwriters, Don Robertson.

Presenter/Michael Freedland, Producer/Neil Rosser

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Frank Renton presents recordings by the international hit acts The Brazz Brothers and Canadian Brass from their albums Ngoma and Brass On Broadway respectively, alongside the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble and The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, who play music by Sir Malcolm Arnold, himself a distinguished trumpet player and composer.

Presenter/Frank Renton, Producer/Terry Carter

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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BBC Radio 2 presenter Claudia Winkleman

Claudia Winkleman interviews Bafta-nominated actor, writer, theatre director and painter Sir Anthony Sher, and actress Lucy Cohu. The pair are to star as Tomas and Katrine Stockman in the Norwegian play An Enemy Of The People by Henrik Ibsen in Sheffield Crucible Theatre's first production for two years.

The theatre has been closed for redevelopment and the production is the first to be directed by new artistic director Daniel Evans.

Lucy Cohu is best known for her TV portrayal as Princess Margaret in The Queen's Sister, for which she was nominated for both an Emmy and a Bafta award. She also played Evelyn Brogan in Cape Wrath and Alice Carter in Torchwood – Children Of Earth.

Presenter/Claudia Winkleman, Producer/Jessica Rickson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Performance On 3

Friday 12 February

7.00-9.15pm BBC RADIO 3

Live from St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge in London, the BBC Singers and St James's Baroque perform cantatas, motets and instrumental pieces by JS Bach and some of his illustrious predecessors.

When Bach was appointed Cantor of St Thomas's Church, Leipzig, in 1723 – he was third choice for the job – the town council famously remarked that, since the best was not available, they must make do with the mediocre. But St Thomas's already had a long and distinguished musical tradition before Bach arrived, and this concert explores the music both of Bach and of his predecessors.

Many of these, like Bach, ended their days at St Thomas's and died in office – the Cantor's post was a career-summit from which they wouldn't wish to move. But for Bach, St Thomas's was a step down (after his previous more illustrious appointments at the Ducal and Princely courts) and one from which he spent a considerable amount of time trying to escape.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Brian Jackson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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As part of BBC Radio 3's focus on Turkey, Ian McMillan presents a special edition of The Verb, exploring Turkish literature and featuring an interview with Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, and looking at Turkey's influential poetic avant-garde in the Fifties, the Ikinci Yeni.

Ian talks to Orhan Pamuk, who is as controversial a figure in his own country as he is feted abroad, about the political stance he has taken on issues such as the history of Turkey's relationship with its Armenian population, and the personal cost to him of that stance. Pamuk also discusses his new novel, The Museum Of Innocence, and its portrayal of a Turkish elite stranded between the traditions of their own country and the shallow distractions of Western consumerism.

Ian also explores the lasting influence of the poets who made up the Ikinci Yeni, or Second New, Turkey's avant-garde poetry scene in the Fifties. The work of Ece Ayhan, Ilhan Berk and their colleagues remains little-known outside Turkey and yet their influence is discernible in the work of many contemporary Turkish writers, Orhan Pamuk among them.

The programme also features the best new Turkish writing and profiles the English writers who have chosen to make Istanbul (one of this year's European Capitals of Culture) their home.

Presenter/Ian McMillan, Producer/Laura Thomas

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

A History Of The World In 100 Objects arrives in Egypt around 1270BC as Neil MacGregor explores the life and culture of ancient Egypt through the giant statue of King Ramesses II that towers over British Museum visitors.

King Ramesses II, an inspiration to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was a remarkable ruler who built monuments all over Egypt. He inspired a line of future pharaohs and was worshipped as a god a thousand years later. He lived to be more than 90 and fathered some 100 children.

Neil considers the achievements of Ramesses II in fixing the image of imperial Egypt for the rest of the world. And sculptor Antony Gormley, the man responsible for a contemporary giant statue, The Angel Of The North, considers the towering figure of Ramesses as an enduring work of art.

Presenter/Neil MacGregor, Producer/Anthony Denselow

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The year 1985 was when Ireland stood still and the statues moved. Twenty-five years on, Gerry Anderson finds out why people are seeing visions again.

In February 1985, children in the little north Kerry village of Asdee first reported that a statue of the Virgin Mary was moving. Days later, 36 children report the same. Within weeks, through to the summer's end, moving statues are being declared across Ireland.

According to witnesses statues swayed from side to side, bled black blood, shimmered and shed tears. Pilgrims gasped as these cherished effigies seemed to hover in the air. The entire country became engrossed, with daily media reports following the latest sighting.

Fast forward to October 2009 and thousands of people are gathered at Knock, a shrine in the West of Ireland. A man called Joe Coleman has claimed the Virgin Mary will appear at 3pm through a vision of a "dancing sun" in the sky and people have come from all over Ireland to witness this.

Gerry Anderson travels to Knock, on a cold wet day in December, to witness the third vision that Joe Campbell has foreseen. He finds a much smaller group of dedicated hopefuls. It's a clash of the old Ireland versus the new.

As the country faces bankruptcy, pay cuts and strikes, Gerry finds out why people are returning to a mystical source of comfort in visions and shrines.

Presenter/Gerry Anderson, Producer/Rachel Hooper

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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In the second episode of Bad Faith, Vengeance Is Mine, Jake (Lenny Henry) gets involved in the restorative justice programme which tries to reconcile a bereaved mother and the woman responsible for killing her daughter.

And Jake falls in love with his counsellor – a female rabbi.

Starring alongside Lenny Henry are Danny Sapani, Oscar James, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Edward Clayton, Lolita Chakrabarti, Kerri McLean and Tessa Nicholson.

Producer/Steven Canny

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Colin Murray is joined by Pat Nevin and Perry Groves for Kicking Off With Colin Murray previewing the weekend's action, including the FA Cup fifth-round matches.

From 9.30pm, Sports Express takes a quick-fire look at the current burning issues in sport. Sports Express is also available as a podcast to download at bbc.co.uk/5live.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Francesca Bent

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Rugby League

Friday 12 February

7.55-9.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can enjoy live, uninterrupted Super League commentary on the match between Wigan Warriors and Hull Kingston Rovers from the DW Stadium.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Nemone is joined this afternoon by Johnny Sweet, the winner of the Edinburgh Comedy best newcomer award.

Johnny's debut solo show, Mostly About Arthur, is about his late brother Arthur which he performs with the aid of video, computer presentation and a two-minute biopic play.

Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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The Rock Show invites the members of melodic pop rockers You Me At Six into the studio to play at being DJs for the night and to interview each other.

It has been a whirlwind three years since the Surrey-based quintet were formed. They achieved chart success with their debut album Take Off Your Colours, received two Kerrang! nominations and have toured with the likes of Fightstar and Fall Out Boy.

The guys grill each other about their hopes for the forthcoming year, what it was like working with producer John Mitchell (Funeral For A Friend and Enter Shikari) and how their performances in Australia were received.

Presenter/Bruce Dickinson, Producer/Ian Callaghan

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Kenny turns up uninvited at the Singhs' house on Valentine's Day, in the final visit of the week to Silver Street, and manages to gatecrash dinner with Jaggy, Simran and Sandra. Later, Kenny snatches a moment alone with Sandra and asks her if there is any chance of a reconciliation.

Elsewhere, Sway surprises Jodie with a romantic dinner on the barge. Just as Jodie begins to relax after all her recent financial troubles, she gets a call from Vinnie and can't believe what he tells her.

Kenny is played by Brian Croucher, Jaggy by Jay Kiyani, Simran by Balvinder Sopal, Sandra by Anita Dobson, Sway by Nicholas Bailey and Jodie by Vineeta Rishi.

BBC Asian Network Publicity