Programme Information

Nigel Ogden reminds listeners of some of the theatre organs which can be heard regularly in public concerts around the UK, in this week's edition of The Organist Entertains.

He begins with the ex-Odeon Manchester Wurlitzer, now in the safe keeping of the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust.

The programme features the Compton and Wurlitzer at the notable Burtey Fen Collection in Lincolnshire; the two instruments currently installed at The Folly Farm Theme Park in Tenby; and the Pipes in the Peaks located at Dovedale Garage in the Peak District.

Finally, Phil Kelsall MBE, resident organist at the most played organ in the world, rounds things off with a Noel Coward medley on the Tower Ballroom Wurlitzer in Blackpool.

Presenter/Nigel Ogden, Producer/Terry Carter for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Frank Renton presents both familiar and unusual movie soundtracks as arranged for brass band in tonight's Listen To The Band.

The show includes the truly Gothic main theme from Batman; Speak Softly Love from the score of The Godfather; the waltz from Murder On The Orient Express; and the Latin sounds of Chuck Mangione's The Children Of Sanchez.

Presenter/Frank Renton, Producer/Terry Carter for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Sir Tim Rice continues his American music odyssey

Sir Tim Rice reaches Louisiana, the Creole State, as he continues to celebrate the musical heritage of the United States.

This week's featured artists include Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Sidney Bechet, Ray Charles and Britney Spears.

Presenter/Sir Tim Rice, Producers/Anthony Cherry and Ruth Beazley for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Actor Bill Nighy reads a summery tale of love and friendship

Bill Nighy reads a summery tale of love and friendship by Guy de Maupassant.

The narrator recalls the days when he and four friends shared a little rowing boat (the Feuille-a-I'Envers), and spent their summers idling on the Seine. However, when one of them introduces a girlfriend into the group, the story takes an unexpected turn, and each embarks on their own affair with the carefree Mouche... a sort of ménage-a-cinq. When harmony is threatened, their collective friendship steers them clear of certain tragedy.

Reader/Bill Nighy, Producer/Sasha Yevtushenko

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

The Choice Ep 1/4

Thursday 12 August

9.00-9.30am BBC RADIO 4

Michael Buerk returns with a new series of The Choice and, each week, he talks to people who have made life-changing decisions.

In the first programme, Michael hears from Heather Pratten about how she chose to help her two terminally ill sons.

Heather's life has been dogged by one of the most devastating of diseases. Huntington's chorea is an inherited condition that attacks the brain and destroys the personality before leading to a slow and sometimes painful death. It turned her husband from a kind man into an aggressive stranger before he died. Then Heather had to wait and watch her five children to see where, and how, it would appear in the next generation.

When two of her sons developed the symptoms she faced not one but two terrible choices.

Presenter/Michael Buerk, Producer/Amanda Hancox for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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GPs Who Need GPS Ep 1/5

Thursday 12 August

9.30-9.45am BBC RADIO 4

Each week listeners join Dr Rachel Weldon on her high-speed sea commute to the furthest reaches of the Small Isles as she tends to rural patients in her inflatable boat.

GP Rachel Weldon's medical practice stretches beyond the shores of the remote Isle of Eigg to cover the other Small Isles of Muck, Rum and Canna.

The very suburban GP Phil Hammond narrates the journeys taken by Rachel, her husband and boatman Eric and collie dog Laurie, as they carry out their monthly round to Canna.

Presenter/Phil Hammond, Producer/Lucy Adam for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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John Harris explores the work of a group of authors who captured a northern social realism in the Thirties with writing that went on to shape the views of northern living for generations.

Walter Greenwood, Howard Spring and Louis Golding wrote about Greater Manchester at a time of severe economic depression and great poverty with their novels describing conditions that resonate with life today – cuts in welfare, increased unemployment and a coalition government.

Greenwood's Love On The Dole, Golding's Magnolia Street and Spring's Fame Is The Spur depict a tough, working-class life and, although the three authors wrote from slightly different perspectives, they all describe people enduring a grim, hard existence in an industrial landscape.

As the final parts of industrial Manchester and Salford are finally transformed by investment and modernisation, The Manchester Writers visits the streets that inspired these authors and hears how their work has endured and influenced ideas of northern England.

Presenter/John Harris, Producer/Helen Lee for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

BBC Radio 5 Live sport has the latest sports news and reaction and, from 8pm, The Phil Tufnell Cricket Show takes a look back at the second Test between England and Pakistan.

At 9.30pm, 5 Live Golf brings listeners the latest from the golfing world.

Producer/Patrick Nathenson

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Swimming

Thursday 12 August

3.55-6.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Listeners can hear uninterrupted commentary from the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Steve Lamacq's Thursday Roundtable outing welcomes The Wonder Stuff's Miles Hunt, composer and producer William Orbit and Orbital's Paul Hartnall into the studio to discuss the week's upcoming new releases.

Presenter/Steve Lamacq, Producer/Paul Sheehan

BBC 6 Music Publicity