Programme Information

Jamie Cullum showcases his love for all types of jazz, and music rooted in jazz, from its heritage to the future.

This week, he heads to Rhode Island in the US for a special show recorded at the world-famous Newport Jazz Festival. Artists performing there include Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Ahmad Jamal and the Chick Corea Freedom Band.

From backstage at the festival, Jamie reports on the atmosphere, chats to the artists and grabs live performances from a range of exciting musicians performing there.

Presenter/Jamie Cullum, Producer/Karen Pearson for Folded Wing

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Guitar legend Les Paul

Aged a youthful 94, Les Paul died in August 2009.

A year on, fellow guitar legend Duane Eddy assesses the life and legacy of the man who not only helped pioneer the solid state electric guitar, but who also developed modern recording techniques, without which popular music would not be what it is today.

Without Les Paul, there would be no overdubbing, no multi-tracking, no tape delay and most of all no Gibson Les Paul guitars – one of the most sought-after instruments in rock, jazz, popular music and the blues.

Joined by the likes of BB King, Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Jeff Beck, Albert Lee, will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas), Joe Bonamassa, Ace Frehley (Kiss), Andy Summers (Police), Keith Urban, Nile Rogers and Jimmy Page, Eddy also hears from Les Paul himself, speaking in what was possibly his last full-length interview, given a few months before his death.

Presenter/Duane Eddy, Producers/Marya Burgess and Paul Kobrak

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

Today's ethical dilemma centres on a woman who, having attempted suicide, is brought to A&E by her husband. She is unconscious and her suicide note says she has taken an overdose to escape severe arthritis, which has confined her to a wheelchair for the past six months and given her years of pain.

Having witnessed one of her parent's and one of her husband's parent's deaths in distressing circumstances years ago, she has always maintained with everyone she knew that she doesn't ever want to be admitted to intensive care.

She has left five copies of her "advance directive" with her husband, sister, daughter, lawyer and GP.

The staff in A&E are torn about what to do and whether they should admit her to intensive care and save her life, or let her die.

Joan Bakewell is joined by a panel of experts to discuss the complex ethical issues surrounding this case.

Presenter/Joan Bakewell, Producer/Beth Eastwood for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Former Monty Python star Terry Jones explores what modern comedy owes to the surrealism of the Theatre of the Absurd.

He investigates whether the Theatre of the Absurd – the surreal plays of Ionesco, Adamov and others – paved the way for future zany and unsettling comedy, such as that of the Python team.

Many of these plays might now seem irrelevant – a strange kink in the history of drama – but their legacy could arguably be the surreal humour enjoyed today, as Terry discovers.

Recorded partly in Paris, where in a tiny theatre two of Ionesco's plays have been in a continuous run since 1957, the programme revives absurd plays, finds out why they were written and sets Terry the task of placing them in the family tree of influences that culminated in zany modern comedy.

Presenter/Terry Jones, Producer/Susan Marling for Just Radio Limited

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Professor Robert Winston explores whether Franz Schubert really did have syphilis, as many of his biographers have presumed, as he continues his exploration into the relationship between the music and the medical conditions of composers who suffered mental and physical illness.

Professor Winston looks at the evidence that Schubert contracted syphilis and wrote his greatest works under the shadow of this chronic and, at the time, incurable disease.

Franz Schubert was often uncomfortable in the polite circles of middle-class Viennese society. Professor Winston assesses the evidence that Schubert was lured into an unsavoury clandestine lifestyle that led to him contracting the disease, which many writers have assumed cast a shadow over both his remaining life and his music.

Presenter/Professor Robert Winston, Producer/Chris Taylor for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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The Other Garden And Collected Stories
By Francis Wyndham Ep 1/3

Tuesday 10 to Thursday 12 August

3.30-3.45pm BBC RADIO 4

These three tales by Francis Wyndham recall a poignant and eccentric England of the Forties. The subtle stories of desire and yearning during the dark days of the Second World War are matchless in tone and nuance and centre on the young and old, on those upstairs and downstairs, and on those living in town and country.

Today's tale, The Facts Of Life, tells the story of a boy, Young Newton, who is called in to see the headmaster about a rather delicate subject on his last day at school. The reader is Bill Nighy.

In Wednesday's story, Dear Derek, read by Emily Woof, Agatha is drawn to Phillip, the young house guest – but she shouldn't be snooping in his bedroom, should she?

Thursday's story, read by Amanda Root, is Matchlight. After a dull night at the cinema, a female is mysteriously approached by someone on the way home...

Readers/Bill Nighy, Emily Woof and Amanda Root, Producer/Duncan Minshull for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Historian Bettany Hughes chooses Greek poet Sappho as her Great Life, as the biographical series continues.

Greek poet Sappho has been described as everything from a great intellectual to little more than a vamp. Hard facts about her life are in short supply – it is known that she lived on the island of Lesbos over two and half thousand years ago, and fragments of her poetry still survive. The best examples deal with the language of desire, but whether she really was a lesbian, as is often claimed, is less clear.

Bettany is as obsessed with who Sappho might be, as with whom the fragmentary evidence suggests she was. Sappho also makes for an enigmatic choice for presenter Matthew Parris to decipher.

Presenter/Matthew Parris, Producer/Miles Warde for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Sue Armstrong investigates the growing pressure on developing countries as tobacco companies battle to attract new smokers.

In much of the rich world, smoking is on the wane in the face of rising taxes on cigarettes, bans on promotion and lawsuits against tobacco companies. But elsewhere, smoking is exploding.

The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that tobacco will kill more than eight million people worldwide each year by 2030, with 80 per cent of these premature deaths in low- and middle-income countries.

Sue hears about Malawi's growing dependency on tobacco as a cash crop. Although the government has tried to introduce minimum prices, many small farmers hardly cover their costs and continue to live on less than a dollar a day, despite supplying the raw material for one of the richest industries in the world.

Malawi has not yet signed up to the WHO's international Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and rules about cigarette advertising and promotion are lax compared to rules in the developed world. In this programme, Sue explores whether cigarette manufacturers are trying to build up new markets in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.

Presenter/Sue Armstrong, Producer/Ruth Evans for Ruth Evans Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Olivia Colman, Sharon Horgan and David Mitchell lead a stellar cast in Amy Shindler and Beth Chalmers's situation comedy, set in 17th-century London, about Samuel Pepys's less famous sister and her disastrous love life.

Samuel Pepys's diaries make occasional mention of his sister, Pauline, who has come to visit. She appears not to have been an entirely welcome guest. This comedy is inspired by Pauline, and by many other unwelcome lovelorn house guests throughout human history.

Meet Pauline Pepys. Her love life is in tatters, her sister-in-law wants her to move out of the spare room, and her best friend is her worst enemy. Oh, and this being London in the 1660s, there's a nasty spot of plague about too.

Pauline falls for a handsome executioner but he seems to prefer her best friend Charlotte, so Charlotte offers to fix Pauline up with a very romantic poet. Meanwhile, Elizabeth – Mrs Pepys – has arranged for a lavish portrait of herself and Samuel that is not altogether going to plan. And to cap it all, the maid is doing something awful with a dead fish and a goat.

This new historical comedy stars Olivia Colman as hopeless romantic Pauline; Sharon Horgan as Charlotte, the vainest woman in Britain; David Mitchell as a distinctly itchy Samuel Pepys; Katherine Parkinson as Elizabeth, who is very stressed about making the right impression on society; Tom Hollander as Russell de Bret, a man who in the 21st century would be a rock star but who has chosen instead the career of public executioner; Rebekah Staton as the peculiarly fish-obsessed housemaid Jane; and Dave Lamb as a very angry painter and a very sad poet.

Happy Tuesdays, a new collaboration between BBC Radio and Television, showcases a series of new comedy pilots for Tuesday nights on BBC Radio 4.

Producer/Gareth Edwards for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Mark Chapman has all the day's sports news and reaction, and is joined by special guests to preview tomorrow's night's international football friendly between England and Hungary at Wembley. Plus there are reports from the first round of the League Cup, and, from 9pm, 5 Live Tennis has all the latest tennis news.

Presenter/Mark Chapman, Producer/Ben North

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Test Match Special

Tuesday 10 August

10.45am-6.30pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary on the fifth and final day of the second Test between England and Pakistan comes live from Edgbaston with the Test Match Special commentary team.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity