Friday Night Is Music Night (known as Sunday Night Is Music Night from 2020) was a long-running live BBC radio concert programme featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra, broadcast from 1953 to 2023 on the BBC Light Programme and its successor BBC Radio 2. The programme was the world's longest-running live orchestral music radio programme (although there were no new editions during the first part of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020).^[2]

The programme featured many types of music, including classical music, light music, film music, theatre music, songs from the musicals, and opera and operetta. It is also notable for its arrangements of popular standards swing, jazz, and folksongs. One of its biggest appeals was its unpredictable playlist, which is left unrevealed until broadcast.

The programme usually featured guest artists between the orchestral pieces, who sang with full orchestral accompaniment. Occasionally, artists such as Donny Osmond and Alanis Morissette performed in the larger venues. The programme also showcased certain sections of the orchestra and features guest instrumentalists, for example the BBC Big Band.

Format

Friday Night Is Music Night traditionally began with the orchestra playing the first bars of an adapted version of Charles Williams's High Adventure. After the fanfare, the compère (in its last years usually Paul Gambaccini or Russell Davies, but formerly Kenneth Alwyn, Richard Baker, Aled Jones, Clare Teal, Ken Bruce, Jimmy Kingsbury, Robin Boyle^[3] or Brian Kay) gives a summary of the programme, before reciting the slogan of the title. This happened again at the close of the programme, with the announcer usually ending on "I hope that once again we have proved that Friday Night is Music Night"

It was broadcast live from many theatres and concert halls throughout the UK, although regularly from the Mermaid Theatre in London, the Watford Colosseum, or the Hackney Empire. The show was not broadcast live every week, but instead previous shows were repeated later in the year when the orchestra was on tour.

History

The programme ran from 1953 to 2023, first on the BBC Light Programme and from 1967 on its successor, BBC Radio 2, making it the world's longest-running live orchestral music radio programme. Many attribute the programme's format to the composer and conductor Sidney Torch. In particular, it was notable in its later years for being one of the few programmes on Radio 2 still to feature light music.^[4]

From the early 1970s onwards it was fronted by Robin Boyle, who, it was later said, "came to be the linchpin of the programme".^[3]

In 2005, the programme was televised for the first time on BBC Four as part of a 1940s' and 1950s' theme night, with a playlist concentrating on classic light music by composers such as Eric Coates, Trevor Duncan, Ronald Binge and Leroy Anderson. The compère was actor and comedian Roy Hudd.^[5] On Friday 19 March 2010, the programme was broadcast from the BBC Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush for the first time. Singers John Lawrenson and Cynthia Glover were for many years the programme's resident musical artists. The show was executive produced by Anthony Cherry for over 40 years.^[6][7]

From April 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, repeats of the programme were broadcast on Sunday nights between 7pm and 9pm, under the title of Sunday Night Is Music Night, as no new editions could be recorded during the first stages of the pandemic. There were a few new editions broadcast after August 2021.^[8]

The Sunday Night is Music Night label was last used for a celebration of the music of Doctor Who presented by Jo Whiley with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in October 2023.^[9]

References

External links

• Friday Night Is Music Night at BBC Online
• BBC Concert Orchestra website
• Biography of BBC Concert Orchestra