BBC Week 24 Programme Information Week Commencing 8/6/2019

BBC Week 24 Week Commencing 8/6/2019

Programme Information Television & Radio

BBC Northern Ireland Press Office

Email: PressOfficeBBCNI@bbc.co.uk bbc.co.uk/mediacentre bbc.co.uk/iplayer

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THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS TELEVISION & RADIO / BBC NI WEEK 24

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SATURDAY 8 JUNE The Lynette Fay Show BBC Radio Ulster

SUNDAY 9 JUNE Blackwater  NEW BBC Radio Ulster

WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE Spend It Like Stormont  NEW BBC One Northern Ireland

EDITORIAL 2019 ______

SATURDAY 8 JUNE TELEVISION & RADIO HIGHLIGHTS / BBC WEEK 24 ______

The Lynette Fay Show Saturday 8 June BBC Radio Ulster, 7pm Also available via BBC Sounds

It’s Country Music Awards weekend and to celebrate, Lynette Fay broadcasts live on BBC Radio Ulster from the famous Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee.

There's a long held fascination with Nashville in this part of the world, it’s the home of the Grand Ole Opry, the Honky Tonk and country music.

The Lynette Fay Show special on Saturday 8 June from 7pm will present listeners with a flavour of the city, its rich history, what’s happening there now and its links with Belfast, providing insight into the city’s illustrious music venues. Lynette will have the lowdown on the country music awards, the time of year when country music royalty descend on downtown Nashville.

So dust down your stetson and pull on the cowboy boots -The Lynette Fay Show is ‘Keepin’ Er Country’ from the heart of Nashville.

The programme will also be available via BBC Sounds.

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SUNDAY 9 JUNE TELEVISION & RADIO HIGHLIGHTS / BBC WEEK 24 ______

Blackwater  NEW Begins Sunday 9 June BBC Radio Ulster, 12.30pm Also available on BBC Sounds

Blackwater, a drama first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, is part of a new strand of dramas coming soon to BBC Radio Ulster.

Written by Claire McGowan, this is a multi-voiced thriller set in a small fictional town in Northern Ireland. Blackwater tells the story of golden girl Zoe (Clare Dunne) who has been dead for ten years, her body dragged from the River Black after a night out to celebrate the end of school.

But now a woman who says she’s Zoe has turned up in her hometown of Blackwater on the border, with no memory of the last decade. She claims she woke up in a forest nearby, bruised and bleeding, and doesn’t know where she’s been all this time. What happened to her? Is she really Zoe? If so, who’s in her grave?

Blackwater will run over five weeks on BBC Radio Ulster. It is part of Storytellers, a new home for drama on BBC Radio Ulster. From Sunday 14 July we will begin a two week run of stories written by Brian Friel read by Adrian Dunbar. These will be The Gold In The Sea, Death Of A Scientific Humanist and the following week; True Kinsman and The Skelper.

Following this, we will have the late James Ellis reading his own collection of stories (Sunday 28 July) adapted to an Irish setting from French folklore. These stories, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005, were recorded by a turf fire of a farmhouse in the intimate company of friends at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

Gemma McMullan, Content Editor of Radio Drama BBC NI says: “Storytelling has always been a rich part of our culture so we are delighted that BBC Radio Ulster listeners will now be able to enjoy and celebrate the creativity of some of our very finest writing and acting talent.”

Andy Martin, Head of Factual & Innovation, BBC NI says: “We are delighted that BBC Radio Ulster is the new home for a rich collection of dramas reflecting life here at home and further afield. We aim to get more writing talent from Northern Ireland reflected on the radio network, locally and nationally. We also want to leverage the fantastic pool of local acting and production talent. Storytellers on Sundays at 12.30pm is a good start.”

Blackwater writer, Claire McGowan, from Rostrevor says: “I'm so pleased that Blackwater will find a new audience on BBC Radio Ulster. It's been a wonderful opportunity for me as a new writer to set a drama at home, with voices from Northern Ireland.”

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WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE TELEVISION & RADIO HIGHLIGHTS / BBC WEEK 24 ______

Spend It Like Stormont  NEW Wednesday 12 June BBC One Northern Ireland, 9pm Available to watch on the BBC iPlayer after broadcast

In Spend it Like Stormont presenters Tara Mills and William Crawley break down the cost of our public services and in the absence of a Northern Ireland Assembly, speak to those in charge of government departments to find out why those services are under such strain.

It examines the areas of Health, Education and Justice as the three biggest spenders of our budget locally and explains how and where the money is spent.

Working alongside the Economic Policy Centre at Ulster University, the programme asks three groups of people aged 18-34, 35-64 and over 65s, to see what decisions they would make with the country’s coffers. The audience will also be able to play along with these financial scenarios in an interactive online game.

William said: “I’ve been across Northern Ireland, in our hospitals and schools to hear about the impact that increasing demand is having on our public services. It’s clear we as a society have many decisions to make about the best way to spend our money but it’s far from straightforward – while we would all like more money to spend, there’s only a limited amount to go around.”

Tara Mills said: “We often hear debates about how much money we raise in Northern Ireland and how much we get from Westminster. This programme dispels those myths and clarifies once and for all the true figures.

“We bring together different groups of people to pretend to be Finance Minister for the day. It’s fascinating to see where they would like to see money spent – and who would lose out. And there’s even the chance to play the game yourself after the programme is aired.”

Tara and William are joined in the programme by one of Northern Ireland’s top economists, Neil Gibson, who helps explain some of the economic context behind government spending decisions.

The production team also worked with data experts at investigative news and analysis website The Detail. Kathryn Torney, editor of The Detail, said: “We analysed statistics on public expenditure to see how funding is currently allocated across Northern Ireland’s government departments and kept the focus on the big spenders - health, education and justice.

“With the help of the Economic Policy Centre at Ulster University, we also looked at how the money could be spent differently. Should we scrap university tuition fees, give a pay rise to teachers or increase rates bills?

“Our conclusion was that when it comes to government spending, there are no easy answers.”

Spend It Like Stormont, directed by Michael Fanning, is a Below The Radar production for BBC Northern Ireland.

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