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Richard Coles

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Saturday Live: Kanya King

04/10/2014

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Live, Kanya King

Kanya King, founder of the MOBO Awards, joins Aasmah Mir and Richard Coles.

Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir are joined by Kanya King, founder of the MOBO Awards; George the Poet; and Ben Collins, aka the Stig. With Inheritance Tracks from Bonnie Langford.

Presented by Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir.

Kanya King MBE is the founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards, Europe's leading urban music brand, which has played a major role in bringing black music and culture to the mainstream. Now in its 19th year, it reaches in excess of 400 million viewers. Kanya reveals how she started it from a makeshift office in her bedroom, and by re-mortgaging her home.

George The Poet describes his dizzying itinerary from Uganda to the Albert Hall via Stonebridge Park, and King's College Cambridge and performs from his latest work about fatherlessness and premature parenthood.

Ben Collins is better known as "The Stig" from the BBC's internationally acclaimed Top Gear TV show. He discusses how he has coached hundreds of celebrities from Tom Cruise to Lionel Richie and his twenty year career as one of the best drivers in the world - from Le Mans Series racing to NASCAR, piloting the Batmobile and dodging bullets with James Bond.

JP Devlin goes to meet Mike Cobb. As a budding songwriter in the 1970s Mike found himself recording at a studio in Leatherhead. It was located above the local Co-Op dairy. His songs didn't go anywhere but he ended up staying on at the studio as a studio manager for the next 11 years. The Police recorded their album Outlandos D'Amour there and all the while the milk floats whirred in and out. They'd start at 5am when many bands like The Police were in the middle of recording. Milkmen would bump into bleary eyed rock stars. Did the early morning sound of the milk floats inspire some of the great tunes of the 70s and 80s?

Phil Worsley and pupils from The Joseph Whitaker School in Nottingham explain how they are preparing to smash the world speed record for a model car.

Bonnie Langford shares her Inheritance Tracks - Bring Me Sunshine by Morecambe and Wise, and The Overture of Gypsy by Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra.

And Len Biddlecombe has written 47 poems for his wife Barbara, to mark every year they have spent together. Barbara now has Alzheimer's and lives in a nursing home. Len shares his last poem to her.


The MOBO Awards 2014 - will take place on 22 October at The SSE Arena, Wembley.

George the Poet's new EP is Chicken and Egg. He will be performing at the Scala London on 13 October.

How to Drive - The Ultimate Guide - from the man who was The Stig, by Ben Collins, is published by Macmillan.

Bonnie Langford is appearing in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Life of Love by Len Biddlecombe is published in paperback by Blackheath Dawn Ltd.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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