Words and Music

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Drama

Music: Classical

A journey of discovery, weaving music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

A weekly journey of discovery, weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

Words and Music: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Transport

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Actors Martins Imhangbe and Ruth Bradley at Contains Strong Language in Coventry.

Actors Martins Imhangbe and Ruth Bradley take us on a journey of discovery on all sorts of transport inspired by, and recorded in, Britain's 'Motor City' - Coventry.

With live music from Warwickshire harmonica virtuoso Will Pound and guitarist Jenn Butterworth, and from singer Amy Kakoura and violinist Simon Chalk with the Coventry composer and co-director of Talking Birds, Derek Nisbet.  

Martins Imhangbe (Bridgerton) and Ruth Bradley (Humans) take us on a journey of discovery on various types of transport inspired by Britain's 'Motor City' - Coventry.  In 1896 Henry Lawson had founded the Daimler Motor Company and built The Motor Mills – the factory which would give birth to the first British car.  Companies including Jaguar, Chrysler, Rover and Humber then located in the Coventry area, leading the city to become the target of the Luftwaffe in the second world war. 

We’re on Planes, with the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Frank Whittle - the Coventry-born inventor of the jet engine. We’re on Trains, with Duke Ellington, Wilfred Owen, and Anna Karenina. And we’re in Automobiles, with Jay Gatsby, Rachel Cusk, and Toad of Toad Hall.

We’re going underground with Seamus Heaney, we’re flying inside our own bodies with Margaret Atwood, and we’re floating in space with the cosmonaut Karpov.

Recorded at the Contains Strong Language poetry and spoken word festival at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.  Other Radio 3 recordings from the festival include episodes of The Verb, The Essay, a Sunday Feature exploring the rebuilding of postwar Coventry and a Free Thinking discussion about the Tudors and historical literature from Walter Scott to Philippa Gregory.

A new Contains Strong Language Festival takes place in Birmingham, across the weekend of September 8th - 11th 2022 when more Radio 3 programmes will be broadcast live and recorded. 

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Image: Coventry Transport Museum
Image Credit: Garry Jones

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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