Since the inception of the League, Essex have never finished lower than fourth and are led again by Brian Taylor, who has recently become an England selector.
Derbyshire, who came third in the League in 1970, are campaigning this year under a new captain, Brian Bolus.
During the tea interval at 4.10*: Profile of a Cricketer: Keith Fletcher (Essex and England) by Jim Laker
Frank Bough introduces the programme which includes news of today's other fixtures.
Commentators at the County Ground, Chelmsford, John Arlott and Jim Laker
Weather
A digest of the news of the week and other world matters of interest, plus a visual commentary for those who cannot hear.
With Robert Dougall
Written and narrated by Kenneth Allsop
New York - the ultimate in man-made environments and the last place to make a wildlife film... or is it?
There are, in fact, parakeets nesting in air-conditioners and Western jack-rabbits living alongside the jets at Kennedy Airport; so it's not just the usual opportunists like squirrels and pigeons who have found their niches.
In New York it's short-sighted to see only the people, concrete and glass in front of your eyes. This film reveals a new kind of jungle in which an astounding variety of plants and creatures have found the necessary resilience, adaptability and tolerance to survive and prosper.
(from Bristol)
A wild bunch: page 4
A series of five widely differing ballets from Prague, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Frankfurt Nederlands Dans Theater in an adventurous ballet on the theme of aggression, created for them by Hans van Manen.
The situation is an enclosed space containing a door and a digital clock. The action is set in real time. It is accompanied by familiar sounds and falls into two parts.
The series comes from the Royal College of Art, London, where Professor Stuart Hood gives students the opportunity of talking to the people who made these European ballet programmes.
Talking about Situation:
Hans van Manen, choreographer
Klaus Lindemann, TV director, and Manfred Grater, producer WDR
A West German television production
by Julia Jones
with Bill Owen as Robert and Renee Asherson as Evie
Robert: "I got up this morning and looked out over London - and I took a decision. And what is more important, I stood by it."
Robert's decision not to go to the seaside with his family gives him time to face a certain reality.
A new comedy film series recreating the successful feature film, starring two young surgeons who work in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and are intensely dedicated-to off-duty relaxation.
The Korean war rages. But at a field hospital in the combat zone Hawkeye and Trapper are doing their best to ignore it. Case in point: their scheme to raise money to send a young Korean houseboy to medical school certainly causes a major diversion...
A second helping: pages 8-9
With special guest Roger Daltrey
featuring Bill and Taffy, Pan's People, Alyn Ainsworth and his Orchestra
Weather
William Rushton, John Wells and Keith Dewhurst cordially invite you to another late soiree.
