BBC Radio 2 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Light Programme.

BBC Radio 2

Sarah Kennedy

The show for early risers - Pause for Thought, Swing Time, Showtune,& entertainment news.

The show for Dawn Patrollers with Pause for Thought, Swing Time, the Showtune,& entertainment news.

The show for Dawn Patrollers with news, Pause for Thought, Swing Time, the Showtune, your comments, travel and entertainment news.

Sarah Kennedy: 22/09/2009

22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Sarah Kennedy, 22/09/2009

On the Dawn Patrol. With a review of the newspapers and Pause for Thought.

Amazing music. Played by an amazing line up.

Radio 2: Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up. The home of great music, entertainment and documentaries

Wake Up to Wogan

Terry Wogan's regular morning broadcast, featuring music, news and chat

Wake Up to Wogan: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Wake Up to Wogan, 22/09/2009

Terry Wogan's award-winning breakfast show combines music and banter.

Terry Wogan's award-winning breakfast show combines music and banter. Includes Pause for Thought.

Ken Bruce

The best in music every weekday with Ken Bruce, with live sessions.

Ken Bruce: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Ken Bruce, 22/09/2009

Graham Coxon chooses songs by Split Enz and Leonard Cohen in Tracks of My Years.

With the Daily Love Song, the Album Of The Week from Paloma Faith and PopMaster. Plus Graham Coxon chooses songs by Split Enz and Leonard Cohen in Tracks Of My Years.

Ken Bruce redefines the astrophysics of radio as he fuses music atoms with pithy banter particles in Radio 2's Big Bang. Featuring Tracks Of My Years and the Traffic guru, Lynn Bowles. Graham Coxon chooses songs by Split Enz and Leonard Cohen (probably not the one you think). Two more pop fans fight it out on PopMaster and Ken will play a lovely Love Song about love at about 10:15am.

Jeremy Vine

Jeremy Vine and guests discuss the news headlines and talk to the people making them

Jeremy Vine: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Jeremy Vine, 22/09/2009

Jeremy talks to Nick Clegg. We also discuss dirty rivers, affairs and endangered species.

Jeremy speaks to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. We discuss how dirty rivers are in the UK, the teacher who had an affair with her pupil and should we bother trying to save the panda?

Jeremy speaks to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, we discuss how dirty our rivers are in the UK, the teacher who had an affair with her pupil and should we bother trying to save the panda?

Steve Wright in the Afternoon

Steve Wright's afternoon show with special guests, music and a host of other features

Steve Wright in the Afternoon: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Steve Wright in the Afternoon, 22/09/2009

With John Motson, Alexei Sayle, the Non-Stop Oldies and brain-busting Factoids!

Steve Wright chats to John Motson and Alexei Sayle, and brings listeners brain-busting Factoids and the Non-Stop Oldies.

Steve Wright chats to John Motson and Alexei Sayle, and brings you brain-busting Factoids, the non stop Oldies, the national and international news from the world of entertainment, and the best music from across the globe.

Steve Wright

Chris Evans

Chris Evans' drivetime slot, with laughter-inducing chat and music

Chris Evans: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Chris Evans, 22/09/2009

Osteopath Tim Allardyce put a bit of snap, crackle and pop pressure on Chris's joints!

Sarah Jessop chats to Chris straight from the 4th plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. And osteopath Tim Allardyce pops a bit of pressure on Chris's joints!

A space normally reserved for generals and kings, Sarah Jessop joins us straight from the 4th plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. And osteopath Tim Allardyce pops a bit of pressure on Chris's joints!

Desmond Carrington: The Music Goes Round

Desmond Carrington dips into classics from all musical genres

Desmond Carrington dips into classics from all musical genres from the 1920s to the present day

Desmond Carrington: The Music Goes Round: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Desmond Carrington: The Music Goes Round, 22/09/2009

Desmond shares tunes on the theme of the 'boot fair' from his collection of 250,000 titles

Desmond searches his collection of 250,000 titles for some good tunes, some unexpected ones and a few you may have never heard. He takes the 'boot fair' as his theme.

Desmond rummages through his collection of 250,000 titles to share some good tunes, some unexpected ones and a few you may have never heard before. This week, Desmond is downsizing and takes "boot fair" as his theme.

Desmond Carrington

The Radcliffe & Maconie Show

BBC Radio 6 Music

A late-night mix of live sessions, celebrity guests and listener interaction

Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie with a late-night mix of live sessions, celebrity guests and listener interaction

The Radcliffe and Maconie Show

The Radcliffe & Maconie Show: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 6 Music - The Radcliffe & Maconie Show, 22/09/2009

Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconle

The Organist Entertains

Nigel Ogden presents a programme of popular organ recordings

Nigel Ogden presents a programme of popular organ recordings, including pipe and electronic organs

The Organist Entertains: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - The Organist Entertains, 22/09/2009

Nigel Ogden presents a programme of popular organ recordings.

Nigel Ogden presents a programme of popular organ recordings with some entertaining pieces from the organ world.

Nigel Ogden

With The Orqanist Entertains. Popular organ recordings, including classics and standards.

Radio 2 Comedy Greats

Radio 2 profiles the lives and careers of some of the UK's greatest comedians

Radio 2 Comedy Greats: The Stanley Baxter Story

The Stanley Baxter Story

BBC Radio 2 - Radio 2 Comedy Greats, The Stanley Baxter Story

Eddie Izzard presents a rare profile of comedy actor Stanley Baxter.

Eddie Izzard presents a profile of comedy actor Stanley Baxter. Featuring contributions from Maureen Lipman, Julia McKenzie, Stanley himself, and some of his character creations.

Eddie Izzard presents a rare profile of comedy actor, Stanley Baxter. 

For many of a certain generation, Stanley Baxter is a part of their childhood or their adolescence, a comic who would turn up on TV from time to time and then, as often as not, disappear for another year. Stanley became more painstaking with his shows as the years rolled by and by the mid 1970s he was only doing one show a year - at Christmas. 

But what shows they were! Snappy one-liner sketches forming the comedy grout for great production number parodies of Hollywood movies, in which Stanley played all the parts. He was Mae West in an alternative Gone With The Wind; he was Katherine Hepburn in a version of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? where Sidney Poitier would have been welcomed with open arms; and he was Judy Garland in an Oz ruled by Ronald Reagan. 

He began his career during wartime on the BBC Scottish Home Service, after making a local name for himself doing impressions in Glasgow church halls. After a spell in the army in National Service, Stanley joined the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre where he learnt his craft under the highly respected director Tyrone Guthrie. Another member of the Citizens' was Jimmy Gilbert, who moved to London and invited Stanley to take part in a television revue series he was putting together in 1959. On the Bright Side was a success and Stanley was on his way.

He did several sketch series for the BBC in the years that followed but by the mid 70s, he was down to one minutely crafted Christmas show a year, working with the same writer, Ken Hoare and the same director, David Bell, every time. His most recent outing was an archive Christmas special last year on ITV with one or two new sketches.

Stanley is a comedian who is an impressionist but whose impressions work in spirit rather than accuracy - he is first and foremost a comedy actor. He is also a perfectionist, something that may have worked against him in a world where television budgets have shrunk. But the shows are gems, polished jewels forever captured in the amber of comedy history. 

Interviewees include Maureen Lipman; Julia McKenzie; Denise Coffey; TV director/producers Jimmy Gilbert, Tom Gutteridge, John Kaye Cooper and John Bishop; actor David Kernan; film director Ken Annakin; Barry Cryer; TV boss Jim Moir; Gordon Kennedy; Justin Edwards; and Stanley Baxter himself, along with many of his character creations. This documentary first broadcast in 2009.

Eddie Izzard presents a rare profile of comic actor and impressionist Stanley Baxter, who contributes to the programme, both in and out of character. Baxter cut his teeth during wartime on the BBC Scottish Home Service and, from 1959 with On the Bright Side, became a popular TV regular, with several BBC sketch series. But by the mid-1970s Baxter was a rare comic commodity, appearing mainly at Christmas, though in finely tuned programmes.
Interviewees include actresses Julia McKenzie, Maureen Lipman and Denise Coffey, actors David Kernan, Justin Edwards and Gordon Kennedy, comic Barry Cryer, film director Ken Annakin (Very Important Person, The Fast Lady), and television directors, producers and executives.

The Stanley Baxter Story 10.30pm Radio 2
"This man seems to have spent his entire career dressed in women's clothing," declares Eddie Izzard at the start of this enlightening biography of Stanley Baxter (above). That's rich coming from a man not averse to a full-on flirtation with frockery himself, but it is said with nothing but admiration. In fact the warmth with which Stanley Baxter is described by the likes of Maureen Lipman, Barry Cryer, Billy Connolly and Julia McKenzie would keep the 82-year-old comic actor comfortable for years if it was converted into central heating. What they all recognise is that beneath the multiplicity of funny faces, extraordinary voices and relentless costume changes, Baxter has never shied away from humour that requires a bit of intelligence and cultural awareness from his audience.

(Jane Anderson)

The Music of the Montreux Jazz Festival - Concert Highlights

The Music of the Montreux Jazz Festival - Concert Highlights: Episode 4

Episode 4

BBC Radio 2 - The Music of the Montreux Jazz Festival - Concert Highlights, Episode 4

Jamie Cullum introduces highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival.

Jamie Cullum presents highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival. With music from the Blind Boys of Alabama, Madeleine Peyroux, Harlem Kingston Express and CTI All Stars Band.

Jamie Cullum presents the final programme of highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival, featuring music from the Blind Boys of Alabama, Madeleine Peyroux, Monty Alexander & Harlem Kingston Express, and the CTI All Stars Band.

Jamie Cullum presents highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival

Jamie Cullum presents a four part series featuring highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival

4/4. Singer Jamie Cullum presents highlights from the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival, held in July. Tonight's final instalment features music by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Madeleine Peyroux and others.

Janice Long

Great music and chat, with a weekly interview and Spoken Word Session every Wednesday

Music you love, plus great guests and a weekly Spoken Word Session that you won't hear anywhere else

Janice Long: 22/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Janice Long, 22/09/2009

Aswad join Janice to talk about their new album and pick some favourite tunes.

Aswad join Janice to talk about their new album, City Lock, and pick some favourite tunes. Plus there's Radio 2's Record and Album Of The Week and some Tunes Of The Unexpected.

Aswad join Janice to talk about their new album City Lock and pick some favourite tunes. Plus there's Radio 2's Record and Album Of The Week and some Tunes Of The Unexpected.

Alex Lester

Weekday morning music and entertainment with Alex Lester

Alex Lester: 23/09/2009

23/09/2009

BBC Radio 2 - Alex Lester, 23/09/2009

Alex presents the Best Time of the Day Show.

Alex presents the Best Time of the Day Show, with musical selections from Lester's Library and the Listeners' Library, and a Pause for Thought.

An early morning mix of music & conversation, including the first Half-Time Hooter of The Week. Also on the Best Time of the Day Show, Alex dips into his own record collection to choose a new release or classic track from Lester's Library - and something selected by you in the Listeners' Library.

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Chris Evans

Chris Evans

22/09/2009

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