Programme Information

Simon Mayo

Monday 7 February

5.05-7.45pm BBC RADIO 2

Simon Mayo presents Drivetime live from The Brewery in London, ahead of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards

In this Drivetime special Simon Mayo and the team present the show live from The Brewery in London, ahead of this evening's prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

From 7pm, Simon Mayo previews the awards and talks to nominees, presenters and performers, before handing over to Folk Awards co-hosts, Radio 2's folk show presenter Mike Harding and singer Barbara Dickson.

Presenter/Simon Mayo, Producers/Carmela DiClemente and Andy Warrell

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2011

Monday 7 February

7.45-10.00pm BBC RADIO 2

• www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/events/folk-awards-2011

Mike Harding and Barbara Dickson present the 12th BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, which celebrate the UK's vibrant folk scene and achievements from the past 12 months, and honour outstanding lifetime contributions.

This year's event, which for the first time will be broadcast live on the network, also includes the presentation of the Radio 2 Young Folk Award, an annual search for the most promising young folk artist in the UK.

Head of Music for Radio 2 and 6 Music, Jeff Smith, comments: "Radio 2 supports an eclectic mix of over 20 music genres, and folk is integral to this offering. And in 2011, for the first time the Folk Awards ceremony is combined with the Young Folk Award. By doing this, the network aims to celebrate and capture the very essence of folk music – the bringing together of generations to share and celebrate this hugely important music scene."

Following the release of their album, Hedonism, which was recorded at the iconic Abbey Road studios and produced by John Leckie, exuberant folk big band Bellowhead are leading the way with four nominations for Best Group, Best Live Act, Best Album for Hedonism and Best Traditional Track for New York Girls. Front man Jon Boden is also nominated for Folk Singer of the Year.

Making his mark once again at these awards, having won two in 2009, Chris Wood is shortlisted for Folk Singer of the Year, Best Album for Handmade Life and Best Original Song for the affecting ballad Hollow Point. A debut duo album for mother and daughter Eliza Carthy and Norma Waterson has led to three nominations – Best Duo, Best Album for Gift and Best Traditional Track for Wayfaring Stranger. And vocal trio Coope Boyes And Simpson are nominated for Best Group and Best Album for As If...

There are several artists this year receiving their first Folk Award nominations: Irish singer Heidi Talbot for Folk Singer of the Year and Best Traditional Track for Willie Taylor; the twice Mercury Award-nominated talent Laura Marling is up for Best Original Song for Rambling Man; and Cornish shanty choir Fisherman's Friends – who made history in 2010 with the first ever album of traditional folk music to enter the Top 10 in the network album charts – are nominated for Best Group.

Donovan, an artist who has influenced generations of musicians and music fans, will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award and performs an acoustic version of one of his classic songs. There are also live performances from Bellowhead and folk superstar Kate Rusby, plus festival favourites The Levellers, Chris Wood and Fisherman's Friends.

Guest presenters include star of BBC Two series Episodes Tamsin Greig, Radio 2 presenter Mark Radcliffe and best-selling novelist Joanna Trollope, who included a reference to the Radio 2 Folk Awards in one of her books.

The ceremony will be streamed live at bbc.co.uk/radio2 and on the BBC Red Button.

Presenters/Mike Harding and Barbara Dickson, Producer/Kellie While for Smooth Operations

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Music legend Bob Dylan who turns 70 in 2011

Bob Dylan turns 70 on 24 May 2011 and this Celtic Connections concert kicks off the festivities as Ricky Ross presents Forever Young – A 70th Birthday Tribute To Bob Dylan, recorded live at Celtic Connections 2011 in Glasgow.

The show features a Scottish and international musical cast of Dylan fans including Tim O'Brien, Josh Rouse, Rosanne Cash, Thea Gilmore, Laura Cantrell, James Grant, Kris Drever, Rab Noakes and Gemma Hayes, with Glasgow's own Roddy Hart And The Lonesome Fire as house band for the evening.

Presenter/Ricky Ross, Producer/Richard Murdoch for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Donald Macleod introduces the life and music of the Italian composer whose comic operas were the toast of some of the greatest world leaders of the day.

Giovanni Paisiello was one of the most popular opera composers of his day, fêted all over Europe by dignitaries including Napoleon, Catherine the Great and Emperor Joseph II. And yet, other than a handful of operatic arias, he's virtually unknown today. Donald looks at the life and times of this prolific composer who produced nearly 100 operas and made a significant contribution to the development of opera.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Deborah Preston

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Despite political tensions between Finland and Russia during Sibelius's lifetime, he still enjoyed Russian music, and there is a nod towards Tchaikovsky in his First Symphony, performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

Rachmaninov's bittersweet Fourth Piano Concerto complements this, with brilliant young pianist Simon Trpceski. And the programme opens with more music from Scandinavia: Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite, which contains some of the most memorable tunes ever written.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Janet Tuppen

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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Jez Nelson presents a concert by the Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio. Now in their 40th year, the Schlippenbach Trio is one of the most enduring and respected ensembles in free improvising.

Founder of the influential Globe Unity Orchestra during the Sixties, pianist Schlippenbach is a key figure in the pioneering post-war generation of German jazz musicians.

In this trio with percussionist Paul Lovens and British saxophonist Evan Parker, he has released a series of important albums throughout his career, including Pakistani Pomade (1972) and Elf Bagatellen (1989). This 40th anniversary concert, recorded at London's Vortex club, reveals the Trio's recent engagement with Thelonious Monk's music.

Presenter/Jez Nelson, Producer/Russell Finch

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

After expulsions in Europe, Jolyon Jenkins visits Roma communities in Britain to find out how they survive, and whether poverty leaves them open to exploitation by criminal gangs.

Nicolas Sarkozy has been criticised for deporting Roma families, having accused them of prostitution, drug trafficking and exploiting children. With less publicity, Sweden has also been expelling its Roma, and the Finnish Prime Minister has urged the public not to give money to Roma beggars.

There seems to be an impression that since European citizens got the right to travel freely, countries have seen an influx of Roma, accompanied by criminality.

Jolyon visits Roma communities in Britain to find out why they came here, and what life holds for them in the UK. With restrictions on work, and without automatic rights to benefits, many live in poverty. Increasingly Roma now sell the Big Issue magazine to make ends meet, and even small villages now have their resident Eastern European Big Issue vendor.

But the Roma, who come from countries including Romania, Slovakia and Bosnia, have a distinctive culture and can be hard to reach. Persecution and discrimination in their home countries has left a legacy of mistrust. And in turn poverty leaves them open to exploitation by criminal gangs in their own community, as recent court cases involving benefit fraud and child trafficking have shown.

Jolyon investigates whether these cases represent a true picture of Roma life or are just a small minority.

Presenter/Jolyon Jenkins, Producer/Liz Carney for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Just A Minute Ep 1/8

Monday 7 February

6.30-7.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Chairman Nicholas Parsons and panellist Paul Merton kick off a new series of the popular game show

In the first show of a brand new series of Just a Minute the panellists are Paul Merton, Gyles Brandreth, Shappi Khorsandi and prog-rock legend Rick Wakeman, who makes his debut on the show.

The panellists try to talk for a minute without hesitation, repetition or deviation about subjects given to them by chairman Nicholas Parsons.

Producer/Tilusha Ghelani for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Caribou Island Ep 1/10

Monday 7 to Friday 11 February

10.45-11.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Caribou Island is David Vann's compelling story of a marriage unravelling under the stormy skies of Alaska.

On the shores of a glacier-fed lake Gary is going to follow his dream regardless of the cost to his marriage.

Gary is a medievalist who fled to Alaska 30 years ago with his young wife Irene, in search of an idyll, and he is now determined to begin once again. He will build a simple cabin and at last find peace. Irene joins him in his endeavour but there are costs. Meanwhile, her daughter Rhoda dreams of marriage with Jim, a dentist, who is about to enter his own mid-life crisis.

Fluid, often funny and sometimes raw, Caribou Island explores the depths to which an unravelling marriage can sink and the hopes the young still entertain.

In the first episode, read by William Hope and abridged by Sally Marmion, Gary and Irene load up with logs and set out to build their own piece of paradise.

Reader/William Hope, Producer/Di Speirs for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Matthew Sweeney chooses poems influenced by depressive illnesses, with Kit Wright and Jean Binta Breeze reading their own work and contributions from Emily Dickinson and John Clare.

According to a study by clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, poets are 30 times more likely to undergo a depressive illness than the rest of the population, and 20 times more likely to be committed to an asylum.

It is the unconscious that drives poetry, the jumps and sudden lurches that forge new connections with things not connected before, new ways of seeing. And it is also in the unconscious that the voices of the irrational lurk.

In Out Of The Vortex, Irish poet Matthew Sweeney chooses poetry that speaks to him, from the classics of John Clare and Emily Dickinson to that of contemporary writers. Poets Kit Wright and Jean read their own work and Jean Binta Breeze tells Matthew how voices on the radio influenced her magnificent dub poem Riddym Ravings.

The poems cover a range of moods – humour as well as gloom, calm as well as chaos – and show that mental disorder, rather than being a condition suffered by a few, can approach and invade very many lives. As Matthew himself has experienced, the act of writing can help offset the advance of chaos, shaping it into the order of words.

Presenter/Matthew Sweeney, Producer/Merilyn Harris for Ladbroke Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Mark Chapman presents football banter and debate, plus all the day's sports news in The Monday Night Club.

From 9pm listeners can catch up with the latest news and interviews from the Football League.

In Football Express at 9.30pm Mark Chapman and Dave Vitty present the burning football issues of the moment in just 30 minutes.

At 10pm there is more on one of the day's big sports stories.

Presenters/Mark Chapman and Dave Vitty, Producer/Mike Carr

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

5 Live NFL

Monday 7 February

8.00-9.00am BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Those who couldn't stay up into the small hours last night can hear a re-run of the final quarter of the Super Bowl from Dallas, Texas. This is also repeated from 9-10am.

Producer/Simon Crosse for USP

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Led by core members brothers Peter and David Brewis, and aided and abetted by Kevin Dosdale and Ian Black, Sunderland's Field Music released one of the records of 2010, the double album Field Music Measure.

The band have picked some of their favourite tracks for Nemone's Lunchtime Playlist which will be played throughout the week. Their choices include tracks by David Bowie, Thomas White, The Futureheads, Robert Fripp and Duke Ellington.

Presenter/Nemone, Producer/Dina Jahina

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Gideon Coe's live archive concert choices come from Bristolian rapper Tricky and the band formed by the O'Neill brothers following the demise of The Undertones, That Petrol Emotion. Sessions from the vaults are by The Fall (1978), Baba Maal (1988), Laura Veirs and Scouse psychedelic sea shanty specialists The Coral, playing a session for BBC 6 Music in 2007.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Mark Sheldon

BBC 6 Music Publicity