Programme Information

Aled Jones says Good Morning Sunday to the UK's best-selling cookery writer, Delia Smith, as she celebrates 40 years in the business. Delia talks about her career and the influence of her faith.

Kate Saunders reviews a selection of books for Christmas, while Rabbi Pete Tobias discusses the week's news from a faith and ethics perspective and gives the Moment Of Reflection.

Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Hilary Robinson

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Dame Shirley Bassey joins Paul O'Grady in the studio

In a special edition of his show, Paul O'Grady is joined in the studio by Dame Shirley Bassey and plays tracks from the diva's recently released new album, The Performance.

Presenter/Paul O'Grady, Producer/Malcolm Prince

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Brian D'Arcy introduces more hymns for Advent. This week, he looks at the joy of the nativity as preparations for Christmas get underway.

Sunday Half Hour also makes its contribution to the BBC's Sing Hallelujah weekend, which encourages singers of all abilities to join together to perform Handel's famous chorus.

This week's featured choir is from the Blue Coats School, Coventry, with the choir of Holy Trinity, Coventry, directed by Philip Formstone. The organist is Christopher Howard. Hymns featured include On Jordan's Bank and Come Thou Redeemer Of The Earth.

Presenter/Brian D'Arcy, Producer/Janet McLarty

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Michael Berkeley's guest today is the DJ, producer, remixer and garage artist MJ Cole, whose debut was best-selling album Sincere.

He now DJs regularly at festivals including Glastonbury and The Big Chill, and has worked as a remixer with Mariah Carey and Amy Winehouse, among others. A classically trained musician, he has chosen piano music by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, Ravel's String Quartet, John Adams's A Short Ride In A Fast Machine and music by Radiohead and Sting.

Presenter/Michael Berkeley

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Catherine Bott chairs a round-table discussion about how period performance practice, and our perception of it, has developed since the somewhat experimental days of the early music "revival" in the Sixties, and on the impact it has had on music making across the board.

Catherine's guests are all violinists with very different musical backgrounds. Alison Bury has been a member, leader and soloist with some of the best-known ensembles on the circuit, including the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment and the London Baroque Soloists.

Bjarte Eike is a Danish musician whose own ensemble, Baroque Fever, has performed to great acclaim all over Europe.

Daniel Hope is an incredibly experienced international soloist and chamber musician, who has performed and recorded a huge range of repertoire from Schnittke to Bach.

Presenter/Catherine Bott, Producer/Les Pratt

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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The Choir

Sunday 6 December

6.30-8.00pm BBC RADIO 3

Aled Jones introduces a live edition of The Choir, celebrating Sing Hallelujah, a nation-wide project, led by BBC Radio 3 in association with English National Opera, which encourages people to find their voice and discover the joy of singing through Handel's famous Hallelujah Chorus.

Following two major singing events held over the weekend in Glasgow and London, The Choir features the first broadcasts of unique versions of the Hallelujah Chorus, recorded by massed choirs of largely amateur singers.

Aled talks to participants and studio guests in Manchester, and BBC Radio 3 Breakfast presenter Sara Mohr-Pietch is on hand to bring all the news from London. There's music from the BBC Singers, and Aled will be making a sweep across the UK looking at some of the hundreds of groups who registered their performances of the Hallelujah Chorus online.

This diverse collection of performers and performances includes Cantate Girls' Choir, who recently performed the Hallelujah Chorus at Portsmouth Cathedral; Singing For The Brain groups, run by the Alzheimer's Society; and Renewal, a Bristol-based community gospel choir, currently preparing for their Soulful Celebration of Handel, due to take place later this month.

Presenter/Aled Jones, Producer/Johannah Smith

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Actor Dominic West

Actor Dominic West stars in Eugene O'Neill's expressionist classic, The Hairy Ape, which tells the tragic tale of Yank, a "stoker" whose world is turned upside down by the appearance of the daughter of a steel magnate in the engine room of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner on which he serves.

O'Neill, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, is one of America's greatest writers of drama. Although he was fundamental to the development of realism in American drama, The Hairy Ape (written in 1921) is highly stylised and had much in common with the expressionist drama flourishing in Europe at the time.

Producer/Toby Swift

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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As well as reading poetry in books or hearing it read, poetry can also be found on websites, buildings, the tube, toilet doors, even the backs of sheep. Julian May investigates the changing relationship of poetry and its audience.

Perhaps, these days, the significance of the collection of poems is changing. Poetry is often encountered at a public event rather than as a private reflection, at a reading, or online, as an aspect of a virtual community. Poetry is located on websites, underground stations, carved into public buildings or projected onto walls. At the doctors, or even when you close the bathroom door, poetry is there – the waiting room and the public convenience are just two milieux where poetry initiatives have placed new work.

Julian asks whether poetry's increased presence indicates that people care more for it and whether the audience has altered along with the means of delivery.

Presenter and Producer/Julian May

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

The final episode of the autumn series of Living World explores Tufty of Thirlmere – the red squirrel.

Under siege from its North American cousin, the red squirrel manages to maintain a foothold in the wilder areas of England, such as the Lake District. Lionel Kelleway travels to remote woodland near Thirlmere reservoir, well away from the better-known tourist trails, where, with Charlotte Widgery of the Save Our Squirrels project, he opens up a window on the squirrels' world.

As Lionel and Charlotte walk through the beautiful woodland in full autumnal colour, they discover how important Cumbria's Lakeland area is as a refuge for this rare squirrel and, if Lionel's luck holds, he may just encounter the most enigmatic of British mammals at first hand.

However, the red squirrel doesn't live in isolation; Lionel explores the full richness of the woods, capturing the sound and the hoarding behaviour of many animals at this time of year.

Presenter/Lionel Kelleway, Producer/Andrew Dawes

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Libby Purves finds out how the money from last year's BBC Radio 4 St Martin-In-The-Fields Christmas Appeal has been spent to help homeless and vulnerable people across the UK.

For 82 years, radio listeners have been supporting the St Martin-In-The-Fields Christmas Appeal. The money raised helps transform the lives of thousands of homeless and vulnerable people across the UK.

This programme shows how homelessness can happen to anyone. Jason taught humanities and PE. Ironically, he even taught students about homelessness on a citizenship course. For months, he tried to maintain a dual identity, staying on sofas, riding night buses and trying to pretend that he wasn't homeless. When people asked about his big bag, he told them he was going on holiday.

Jay ran a market stall in Devon. But, when his long-term relationship broke down, he had nowhere to live. He explains that it's hard to stay in your own town when homeless, bumping into old friends or customers. So he arrived in London with no birth certificate and just a few clothes.

Both men talk about the pride that stops people from asking for help.

Libby Purves finds out how the Connection at St Martin's provides both practical and emotional support to people who arrive in Trafalgar Square with nowhere to go. She also hears how the money from last year's appeal has supported the work of the Vicar's Relief Fund, which helps people all over the UK who are in desperate need.

Presenter/Libby Purves, Producer/Sally Flatman

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Kirsty Young talks to Attorney General Baroness Scotland about her life, her favourite music and how she would cope on BBC Radio 4's mythical island.

Presenter/Kirsty Young, Producer/Leanne Buckle

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

5 Live Sport

Sunday 6 December

12.00noon-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE

Colin Murray presents an afternoon of live sport, including regular updates from Hamilton versus Hearts in the Scottish Premier League from 12.45pm and Scunthorpe versus Coventry in the Championship from 1.45pm.

From 3pm, there's live Premier League commentary on Fulham versus Sunderland at Craven Cottage, plus updates from rugby union's Premiership matches between Leeds and Harlequins and London Wasps against Leicester.

At 5pm there's second-half commentary on Everton versus Tottenham Hotspur, live, from Goodison Park.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Steve Houghton

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

NFL American Football

Sunday 6 December

9.00pm-12.30am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Darren Fletcher presents coverage of the New York Giants versus the Dallas Cowboys, live, from the Giants Stadium, New Jersey.

Darren is joined by Greg Brady with all the news from around the NFL.

Presenter/Arlo White

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

LA rockers The Bronx have borrowed stylings from pirate Mexican radio for their new album, El Bronx, under the band name Mariachi El Bronx.

Billed as a "vehicle for a border-bending journey of the senses", the band is visiting the UK for a short tour after finding UK success with its Mariachi sound.

Huey Morgan talks to front man Matt Caughthran about The Bronx's successful 2008 Warped tour and their new Mariachi incarnation.

Presenter/Huey Morgan, Producer/Becky Maxted

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Bob Dylan takes Noah's Ark as his theme for the second of two weeks. Among his selections are: White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane; Carried Water For The Elephant by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell; Coyote by Joni Mitchell; and Monkey Man by The Maytals.

Presenter/Bob Dylan, Producer/Frank Wilson

BBC 6 Music Publicity