Programme Information

As The Phantom Of The Opera celebrates its 25th anniversary, Don Black talks to composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyricist Charles Hart, producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh and musical stager and choreographer Gillian Lynne, to explore The Phantom Phenomenon.

Don asks why this long-established musical continues to break records: it's the longest running Broadway musical and the second longest in the West End. To date, it's been seen by 130 million people in 145 cities in 27 countries around the world and taken an estimated gross of $5.6 billion worldwide – more than any film or stage play in history, including Avatar, Titanic, ET and Star Wars.

To mark the anniversary, a special performance was staged at London's Royal Albert Hall in October. It was streamed live via satellite to cinemas across the globe, achieving yet another record as the biggest box-office result for any non-feature film big screen release in the UK.

Presenter/Don Black, Producer/Julie Newman

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

BBC Radio 3's Lunchtime Concert presents music from this year's summer Welsh Festivals.

Tuesday's Lunchtime Concert comes from the Gower Festival 2011. Recorded in the Mumbles on the Gower peninsula, Clara Mouriz creates a musical journey, from an Italian soirée in Venetian dialect to the perfumes and rhythms of her native Spain.

Wednesday's concert comes from the Presteigne Festival 2011 concert hosted by the 14th-century parish church of Pembridge in tranquil border country. The Navarra Quartet partners one of the giants of the chamber repertory – Beethoven – with music by Zita Bruzaite, a contemporary Lithuanian composer often compared to Haydn for her wit and ingenuity.

Thursday's concert presents music from the Machynlleth Festival 2011.

Friday's concert comes from Gregynog Festival 2011. Founded in 1933 by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, the Gregynog Festival has earned a reputation for bringing the finest musicians of the day to its idyllic countryside location in mid-Wales. As part of the 2011 festival, BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Escher Quartet pick up the festival's theme of "gold" with music by two synaesthetes, Debussy and Sibelius – their rich musical palettes intimately bound up with their perceptions of colour.

Producer/Michael Surcombe

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Jim Al-Khalili talks to tissue engineer Molly Stevens about growing bones, creating finger joints and becoming noticed as a brilliant research scientist.

Molly Stevens does geeky, hard-core science but her main aim is to help people. In the past five years, she's been awarded countless prizes for cutting-edge research and is starting to get noticed beyond the lab.

In short, she grows bones. Getting stem cells to grow into bones is a serious challenge but recently Molly and her team have made phenomenal progress. These techniques could revolutionise the treatment of broken or brittle bones, help fix ailing organs and improve the lives of soldiers who've lost limbs in Afghanistan.

Jim finds out what makes a good tissue engineer, why Molly chose to work in this area and how easy she finds it to balance family life with award-winning research.

Presenter/Jim Al-Khalili, Producers/Anna Buckley and Geraldine Fitzgerald for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Ken Clarke's Jazz Greats – Lee Morgan Ep 1/4

Tuesday 15 November

11.30am-12.00noon BBC RADIO 4

Ken Clarke QC, MP, and guest lecturer and musician Ian Smith examine the life and music of trumpeter Lee Morgan, in the first of a new series of Jazz Greats.

Lee Morgan's tense, urgent trumpet with his searing high register and funky timing was the essence of harp-bop. He became a professional musician in his late teens when he joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956.

It was the perfect launch-pad for his career and he went on to play with Art Blakey, John Coltrane and Benny Golson. Perhaps best known for his landmark album The Sidewinder, he became one of Blue Notes' best loved stars. But his fast-living lifestyle resulted in a serious heroin addiction, a clash with gangsters and a rather dramatic demise.

Presenter/Ken Clarke QC, MP, Producer/James Hale for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Brain Culture – Neuroscience And Society Ep 1/3

Tuesday 15 November

4.00-4.30pm BBC RADIO 4

In this three-part series, Matthew Taylor explores the coming "Brain Culture" – how a new understanding of our brains could transform our systems of law, education and political control.

In part one, Matthew asks if new technology involving brain scans will transform our criminal justice system. He meets the doctor who operated on a paedophile’s brain – seemingly curing him – and looks at studies on the brains of criminal psychopaths which are changing our understanding of anti-social behaviour.

Matthew examines the controversial questions these ideas raise around the notion of guilt and reveals how scans have already been used to test evidence in courts, including a murder trial. The programme continues on Tuesday 22 and 29 November at 4pm as part of BBC Radio 4's Brain Season.

Presenter/Matthew Taylor, Producer/Mukul Devichand for the BBC

BBC News Publicity

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All In The Mind Ep 1/6

Tuesday 15 November

9.00-9.30pm BBC RADIO 4

As part of BBC Radio 4's programming about the human brain, Claudia Hammond interviews one of the world's most influential psychologists, Daniel Kahneman. The Nobel laureate psychologist discusses his lifetime contribution and his pioneering psychological approach to economic theory and behavioural economics.

They discuss whether conjoined twin girls, joined at the head, could have two brains but share a mind. One girl is pricked for a blood test; her sister cries. Or one watches television; the other laughs at the images her sister sees. What does the connection of these young girls' brains reveal about the difference between brain and mind?

Kahneman also discusses his latest groundbreaking research into judgement, decision making, happiness and well-being. He argues that cognitive blind spots mean people often don't know why they make the judgements and choices they do.

Presenter/Claudia Hammond, Producer/Pam Rutherford for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

As Derek Jacobi reads Anthony Horowitz's new Sherlock Holmes novel, The House Of Silk, as Book At Bedtime on BBC Radio 4, over the next seven days BBC Radio 4 Extra repeats this classic Arthur Conan Doyle drama starring Clive Merrison.

Three years after his sleuth friend's final encounter with Moriarty, Watson faces tragedy – and murder.

BBC Radio 4 Extra Publicity

Lauren Laverne

Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 November

10.00am-1.00pm BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC

Lauren Laverne welcomes Death Cab For Cutie on Tuesday and Neon Indian on Wednesday into the studio to play live sessions.

Death Cab For Cutie released their seventh album, Codes & Keys, earlier this year to great reviews and a big chart placing in their home country, entering at No. 3 in the Billboard album countdown. Ben Gibbard and his band join Lauren to play tracks from the album.

On Wednesday it's the turn of Neon Indian to play live for Lauren and the listeners. Neon Indian, aka producer Alan Polomo, has been a darling of the music blogging world for a couple of years. He released his second album as Neon Indian, Era Extrana, earlier this year to great acclaim and some commercial success as it entered the Top 100 of the US Billboard album charts.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC Radio 6 Music Publicity