Highlights from the award-winning show's 2005 programmes, which featured hundreds of interviews with people in the news and Radio 2 listeners who joined the debates.

2/4. The life and career of singer, actor, political activist and social historian Harry Belafonte, who was raised in Harlem, New York City, to West Indian parents before establishing himself both as a popular calypso-influenced singer and Hollywood actor
(Carmen Jones (1954) and Island in the Sun (1957)). Belafonte became the first black television producer and, since the 1960s, has lobbied on behalf of African
Americans. The series includes an in-depth interview with Belafonte, plus input from Odetta,
Nana Mouskouri , Bill Cosby and others. This edition recalls the 1956 LP
Calypso, which featured the big 1957 hit Banana Boat (Day-O) and which became the first album to sell a million. The disc triggered a worldwide calypso craze.

Ken Bruce looks back on 52 years of Friday Night Is Music Night with archive performances by Bryn Terfel, Dionne Warwick , Lesley Garrett , Ute Lemper, Clare Teal ,
Cliff Richard , Lionel Richie , Donny Osmond , Will Young, Jamie Cullum , John Barrowman , Andrea Bocelli and many other A-list performers. Producer Alan Boyd

Frank Renton winds down 2005 with a selection of brass requests.

Fiona Bruce sits in for Mariella Frostrup with the current arts.

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