Caped Crusading action. The Dynamic Duo have been skeletonised by X-Ray. Is this the end?
Documentary series tracing the changes brought about since the first major influx of people from the Caribbean to Britain. Focusing on the education of black children, their search for an identity through their music and lifestyle, and the tragedy of the New Cross house fire in 1981.
Documentary series giving an unprecedented insight into Jewish life in Britain today. This edition looks at the psychological inheritance of the Holocaust. It may have taken place over half a century ago, but the children of refugees and survivors still find themselves carrying the inherited trauma from the past in their everyday lives. A reflection on the second generation experience which explores how the past informs the present and how history lives on inside our heads.
A man is hit by a car on the day after his girlfriend agrees to marry him. While he is left paralysed from the waist down, his girlfriend falls in love with the husband of the woman who was driving the car.
Four-part series looking at China's largest restaurant explores the strong sense of duty implicit in family relationships in China. It show how waitress Peng has sacrificed her own education to support her sister's studies. The restaurant is also busy preparing for a 70th birthday banquet for Sun and her family, including special dishes such as steamed longevity buns and stir-fried turtle. Through her story, this episode explores China's painful past and the extreme hardship faced by many families. The owner, Qin Linzi, discusses her own difficult childhood and introduces us to her daughter, who has led a privileged life.
Series about China's largest restaurant looks to the future with a banquet for a new baby and the anniversary show organised by the West Lake to celebrate its third year. Managers, chefs and waiting staff take to the stage in an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza rounded off with a star turn by the owner, Qin Linzi. The restaurant addresses the high rate of staff turnover and gives the waiting staff a pay rise, while Qin discusses how important it is for her to drink with her customers.
THURSDAY 26 JUNE 2008
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00c82bn)
The latest news from around the world.
THU 19:30 Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (b0078p7z)
The Damsel
Monty Python star and medieval enthusiast, Terry Jones, takes us on a tour of the Middle Ages, destroying old myths and discovering extraordinary stories of real people. A look at the world of the medieval damsel; not the shy, demure creatures we imagine today but strong independent women who ran businesses, led armies and, when they felt like it, even abducted the lovers of their choice.
THU 20:00 Windrush (b0074kvz)
A British Story
Documentary series tracing the changes brought about since the first major influx of people from the Caribbean to Britain. The 1990s saw the emergence of a new black British identity, with black peers in the House of Lords and black celebrities in sport, entertainment and broadcasting.
THU 21:00 Quincy Jones: The Many Lives of Q (b00c18jl)
From the Jazz Age to Hollywood - 1933-1974
In a career spanning six decades, American jazz musician, composer, arranger, record producer and entrepreneur Quincy Jones has won more Grammy awards than any other artist. His list of other honours includes an Emmy for his work on the seminal American television series Roots and an Oscar for his humanitarian work.
This two-part documentary celebrates the life and career of the man who helped make Michael Jackson the king of pop, arranged Frank Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon, wrote the score for The Italian Job, produced the world's top selling album and single and helped launch the careers of Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith.
At the heart of both films is a wide-ranging interview with Quincy himself, in which he talks candidly about his work and personal life, covering the highs and lows, the triumphs and the tragedies. Family, friends and stars from the music and film industries provide an insight into the man and his unique genius. Both programmes feature archive illustrating the key stages in Quincy's life, including previously unseen home movies and studio footage from his personal archive.
This first part, From the Jazz Age to Hollywood: 1933-1974, spans Quincy's childhood in Chicago, reveals how he discovered music almost by chance and features his first professional engagement at the age of 18, playing trumpet in the Lionel Hampton band. It also charts his Hollywood career writing music for some of the most iconic films of the 1970s and concludes with his life-threatening brain aneurysm.
Contributors include Quincy himself, brother Richard, Harry Belafonte, Michel Legrand, Herbie Hancock, Michael Caine, jazz photographer Herman Leonard, children Martina and Quincy Jones III and former wife Peggy Lipton, and there is footage of Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Ray Charles.
THU 22:00 Quincy Jones: The Many Lives of Q (b00c517s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:05 on Saturday]
THU 23:00 BBC Four Sessions (b0074sjm)
Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band
Series of unique concerts by musicians from around the world.
Bruce Springsteen makes a departure from his rock 'n' roll superstar persona, singing the songs made famous by Pete Seeger in the 1950s. Backed by a hootenanny-style 18-piece ensemble including horns, fiddles and accordion, he performs songs from his album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
THU 00:00 TV's Black Pioneers (b0074tln)
Documentary highlighting the experiences, trials and tribulations of the first generation of black African-Caribbean actors that worked in UK theatre, film and television during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. They recount their lives in the acting profession through personal testimony which is illustrated by the use of archive film and photography. Contributors include Cy Grant, Joan Hooley, George Harris, Mona Hammond, Rudolph Walker and Jim Pines.
THU 00:30 The Black 18th Century (b0074snr)
Documentary exploring the experience of the black population in 18th century Britain.
Political upheavals in parts of the British Empire led to the arrival of thousands of black people, many of whom settled in London. Through the works of artists such as Gainsborough, Hogarth and Zoffany, the film reveals how black people inhabited every stratum of British society, from the most privileged to the most severely dispossessed. Featuring interviews with historians Simon Schama and David Dabydeen.
THU 01:00 Quincy Jones: The Many Lives of Q (b00c18jl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 02:00 Quincy Jones: The Many Lives of Q (b00c517s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:05 on Saturday]
THU 03:00 BBC Four Sessions (b0074sjm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
FRIDAY 27 JUNE 2008
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00c8330)
The latest news from around the world.
FRI 19:30 A Seaside Parish (b0078pf4)
Series 1
Episode 5
Documentary series following Rev Christine Musser in her new Cornish parish. Christine goes out with the H.M Coastgaurd, but is interrupted with the news that a close friend has breast cancer. The Rame Peninsula Choir performs in one of her churches. Christine seeks out local historian, Arthur Bannister to investigate the case of the mysterious jellies.
FRI 20:00 La Fille du Regiment (b008l4g7)
Dawn French introduces, and plays a cameo role in, Donizetti's comic opera, The Daughter of the Regiment. Staged at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, it stars Natalie Dessay as the orphan Marie adopted by a regiment, Juan Diego Florez as the local boy Tonio who meets and falls in love with her, and Felicity Palmer as the Marquise de Berkenfield. The opera is famous for its virtuoso singing roles and in this production there are lots of laughs as well as high Cs.
FRI 22:20 Tales from the Front Room (b0074tkr)
Documentary in which a host of black British names share memories of their front parlour, a room kept pristine and only for strangers, and one of the colonial teachings which early West Indian immigrants brought back to the mother country.
Forced to live out of one room in their early years in Britain, the front room was an aspiration and, like the Sunday Best they'd arrived in, the room bestowed dignity and respectability. Viewed chronologically from 1948 to 2006 and using a mixture of interviews, archive footage and mood reconstructions, the film explores the experiences of an evolving private space, illuminating much of the British experience of the last half century.
FRI 23:20 Glastonbury (b00c8332)
2008
Jimmy Cliff
Mark Radcliffe introduces the headlining set by Jamaican legend Jimmy Cliff from the Jazz World Stage, featuring his songs from The Harder They Come including Many Rivers To Cross and You Can Get It If You Really Want.
FRI 00:40 The Avengers (b0074s9g)
Series 5
Return of the Cybernauts
Classic 60s crime drama series. The deadly automatons are used to take revenge on Steed and Emma.
FRI 01:30 The Avengers (b0074sb3)
Series 5
Death's Door
Classic 1960s crime drama series. Deadly premonitions threaten an international conference.
FRI 02:20 La Fille du Regiment (b008l4g7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]