BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards

The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of the folk scene. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.

Award recipients have included Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, John Martyn, Steve Earle, The Dubliners, Martin Carthy, Billy Bragg, Shirley Collins, Kate Rusby, Cara Dillon, Eliza Carthy, Bellowhead, June Tabor, Aly Bain, Richard Thompson, Seth Lakeman, Show of Hands, Lau, Tom Paxton, Don McLean, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Nic Jones and Bella Hardy.

Presenters of Folk Awards over the years have included a great many folk musicians but also folk fans from outside the scene, notably Sir David Attenborough, Peter O'Toole, The Who's Roger Daltrey, Brenda Blethyn, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sean Bean, Julia Donaldson, Alex Salmond, Bob Hoskins and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker.

The event, which takes place in April, has been staged at The Brewery in London, The Lowry theatre in Salford, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and, in 2014, the Royal Albert Hall. In 2015 the event was staged at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom, headquartered at Broadcasting House in London.

The BBC is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with over 20,950 staff in total, of whom 16,672 are in public sector broadcasting; including part-time, flexible as well as fixed contract staff, the total number is 35,402.

The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBC's extensive radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. From 1 April 2014, it also funds the BBC World Service, launched in 1932, which provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic, and Persian, and broadcasts in 28 languages.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV programme)

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four was ranked in seventy-third position.

Background

Orwell's novel was adapted for television by Nigel Kneale, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass for the popular science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected Rudolph Cartier, perhaps the BBC's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically. Cartier, a veteran of the UFA film studios in 1930s Germany who had fled the Nazi regime for Britain in 1936, had worked with Kneale the previous year on The Quatermass Experiment and was a veteran of many television drama productions.

Billionaire Boys Club (clothing retailer)

Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream are two lines of clothing established by Pharrell Williams and Nigo, founder of clothing label BAPE. The lines consist of T-shirts, polos, sweatshirts, knits, denim, suits and shirts; outerwear in leather, down, cotton, and technical fabrics; hats, sneakers, underwear, socks and accessories. The items are produced in very limited quantities and are usually sold for high prices.

History

In 2005, Pharrell Williams, one half of The Neptunes partnered with Japan's fashion icon Nigo, the founder of A Bathing Ape (BAPE). The two collaborated to create and launch two new premium streetwear brands: Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream. The brand suffered many setbacks after its original conception due to disputes between Williams and Reebok. Reebok was originally set to release the clothing line alongside the Ice Cream sneaker line. Although the sneakers made it, the clothing line was postponed and all projects came to an end in late 2004/early 2005. It was at the very end of 2005 when the brand was finally launched as a partner company to A Bathing Ape.