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Puppet theatre has been an integral part of Czech culture for centuries, and few tourists leave Prague without taking in a performance of Don Giovanni or the Marriage of Figaro, or at least bringing home a marionette, be it a devil or angel, king or court jester. Children here grow up on characters like Spejbl and Hurvinek; the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) even offers a masters degree in "alternative and puppet theatre direction." So little wonder that enthusiasts from around the world journey to Prague to take workshops under master Czech

This is the season of summer music festivals around the country, but the festival in the tiny mountain village of Paseky nad Jizerou is special. This is an isolated community of little wooden cottages, clinging to a hillside in the Krkonose Mountains up in the north of the Czech Republic. What makes this village special is an extraordinary musical tradition, going back nearly two centuries. The Paseky music festival, that takes place this weekend, builds on this tradition. To give you a taste of the festival, and the very special atmosphere of

The Daneceks were for years a fairly normal Czech-American family, living their lives, sending their kids to school and paying off their mortgage. But three weeks ago the family's lives were turned upside-down, when - after 15 years - they were deported from the United States. This expulsion is the latest in a series of misfortunes to have struck the Daneceks, who are now living in cramped temporary accommodation near Prague.

Thousands of Czech women are registered as being married to Germans, Americans, Brits and Italians. But finding a westerner married to a Czech male is nigh on impossible. Only 29 Americans, and 19 Brits were wedded to a real-life Czech male in the last figures for 2003; making them an extremely rare breed.

It has been over a year since the internationally successful reality-based TV contest known as "Pop Idol" first aired in the Czech Republic. Known here as Cesko hleda superstar the programme brought instant fame to singers, with most of last year's finalists releasing albums since. In this Panorama we'll be looking at arguably the three best singers to emerge from the first series: Aneta Langerova, who won, along with Samer Issa and Martina Balogova - who were among the top finalists.

The Czech children's program "Vecernicek" is practically a national institution at the age of 40. The program, which has consistently combined the talents of excellent Czech illustrators, writers, animators and directors, is by now a part of the Czech cultural heritage. Kate Barrette finds out more about the show which has helped make animated fairy tales a part of this nation's identity.

The 150-member Boston Gay Men's Chorus (BGMC) is one of New England's largest and most successful choirs. It has broken ground in affirming the positive image of the gay community in the United States, and is now on a tour of Europe. In Prague, the BGMC held a gala concert at one of the city's great concert venues last week. Radio Prague's David Vaughan met up with the chorus's executive director, Steven Smith, before the performance.

This week we treat our loyal listeners—especially the beer-lovers among you—to a special edition of Panorama. Now beer has been measured in the Czech lands with degrees, according to a method devised by one Professor Balling in the 17th century. But calibrating the strength of a poem, essay or story about beer is less of an exact science, and our staffers had a hard time choosing a winner for the 2005 Radio Prague listeners' competition. This year the topic was, "What Czech beer means to me" a weighty question to which the English section alone

Dozens of alumni of the Czechoslovak state schools set up in the United Kingdom by the wartime government in exile arrived in Prague this week—along with file boxes stuffed full of treasured keepsakes from those childhood days in perilous times. The former refugees came to donate their class photographs, report cards, school newspapers, diaries and other mementos to the Czech National Archives' collection.

A good many Czechs in the Toronto would no doubt recognise her in the street, either because they've met her before at local events or because they've seen her on TV. She's Marketa Slepcikova, the hard-working producer and host of 'Novy Zaber' - a half-hour weekly programme in Czech - serving Ontario's Czech and Slovak communities. Novy Zaber means "New Focus" and it is that show that is the focus of our programme today.