May is the time of summer rescheduling and a lot of the familiar winter programmes and presenters simply disappear. Where do they go between now and the contract-signing winter season in September? One such is The Arts Show, which rests to make room for Kay Sheehy and The Main Event (RTE Radio 1, 3 p.m., Monday to Friday). Last year's successful line-up of music, arts and entertainment coverage with news and reviews of what's happening at home and abroad, is repeated.
IN The Company of Women fills the The Life and Living slot on Mondays (RTE Radio 1, 3.30 p.m.) and introduces women who have "met life's experiences with dignity and resolve". There are no victims here - just women who have an alternative insight into the lives that contemporary Irish women lead today.
Marie Heaney uses a clear modern style to retell such wonderful tales as The Birth of Cchulainn, The Finn Cycle and The Children of Lir - stories that reflect times and traditions long since gone but which still have much to offer through their characters. Those passionate heroes, tyrants, troublemakers and headstrong individuals are always among us. The author reads from Over Nine Waves - A Book of Irish Legends in The Book On One slot (RTE Radio 1, 2.45 p.m., Monday to Friday).
IF she's wise the latest legend in a long line of child stars, Charlotte Church, will try to glean how those other young stars coped - Shirley Temple, Lena Zavaroni, Hayley Mills, and Aled Jones. Last year the singing starlet signed a five-album deal with Sony and her first album, Voice of an Angel, went to the top of the classical charts. She is the youngest performer ever to achieve this and to break into the US Top 30, beating Stevie Wonder by four weeks. Little Big Voice (BBC Radio 4, 1.30 p.m., Tuesday) asks how has she taken to her fame, fortune and trappings at the tender ago of 12.
MORE burgeoning piggy-bank balances in Inside Track (BBC Radio 4, 8 p.m., Monday) as Sara Parker follows the fortunes of two computer geniuses. There's Martin, the technical director of his father's company who's recently been awarded a £40,000 development grant and hailed as the next Bill Gates, and there's Julian, who runs his own computer business and has plans to begin employing staff later in the year. Incredible really, as Martin and Julian are both schoolboys, aged 14 and 13 respectively.
ALL those young supporters of Boyzone, the fans with the declining piggybank balances especially, are invited to vote for their Boyzone Most Wanted in Boyzone By Request (BBC Radio 1, 4 p.m., Monday). The first gold disc of By Request is the sough-after prize.
Boyzone's Ronan Keating continues his career expansion in a new six-part series Ronan Keating's Celtic Heart (BBC Radio 2, 10 p.m., Wednesday), a guide to the Irish music scene. It includes the "oldies but goodies" like Van Morrison, Clannad and Donal Lunny, the "girl power" girls like Enya, the Corrs and Sinead O'Connor and not forgetting the "boys with guitars" - U2, Ash, the Pogues and Elvis Costello.
Finally, to mark the first anniversary of Frank Sinatra's death there's a repeat of Frank Sinatra - The Voice Of The Century (BBC Radio 2, 10 p.m., Friday).