SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2009

SAT 19:00 Men, Women and Clothes (b00hn6fz)
Facing the Elements

1950s fashion series. Doris Langley Moore shows how protection from the elements has always been of secondary importance. We see how attitudes to covering up changed completely in the 1920s, when the acquisition of a suntan became de rigueur for those serious about style.


SAT 19:25 Wives and Daughters (b00hq1w3)
Episode 2

Adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel which follows the intrigues, loves and losses experienced by young Molly Gibson.

As she comforts Mrs Hamley, who is upset about Osborne's banishment from the house, Molly realises the declining state of the frail woman's health. Molly anticipates the arrival of Cynthia, her new stepsister, and overhears Osborne's secret.


SAT 21:00 New Town (b00hq1w5)
Drama set in Edinburgh's New Town area. Starry architects Purves and Pekkala are offered the chance to redesign a Georgian church, but when the head of Scottish Heritage falls from the church tower in a mysterious accident, it becomes a question of whether he fell or was pushed.


SAT 22:00 Iran and Britain (b00hq1w7)
Documentary in which writer and journalist Christopher de Bellaigue explores the fraught but often surprisingly intimate history of Britain's relations with Iran, and asks why Iranians think that if something goes wrong in Iran then Britain must have something to do with it.

De Bellaigue has lived in Tehran, speaks fluent Persian and knows well the phenomenon of 'Uncle Napoleonism', the notion that the cunning British are 'out to get you' that has been a common attitude in Iranian society for 100 years.

He looks at some key events in the relationship, notably Britain's role in the overthrow of several Iranian governments, its control of Iran's oil and the on-off support for Iran's democrats.

Meeting prominent Iranians, including Uncle Napoleon's inventor and others with direct knowledge of these events, he examines the foundations and justification for these Iranian suspicions and asks if they are still there after 30 years of isolation.


SAT 23:00 Storyville (b0074sxm)
Prostitution Behind the Veil

Director Nahid Persson follows the lives of two Iranian women whose misfortunes have landed them in the same run-down building. Their husbands are serving long prison sentences, both have been left to look after their young children and both have had to resort to prostitution to support their heroin habits.

Persson's sympathetic portrait follows them as they struggle to create a better life for themselves and their children.


SAT 23:55 Comedy Songs: The Pop Years (b00g8t17)
Documentary tracing the modern history of the comedy pop song from the birth of the charts in 1952 to its reinvention in the new millennium.

We discover that George Martin was the missing link between the Goons and the Beatles, that the Barron Knights invented the parody song and that the Two Ronnies were not big fans of Not the Nine O'Clock News.

Almost everyone appears in the comedy song's chequered history of peaks and troughs, from the 1960s satire boom to the 1970s golden period of Monty Python and Billy Connolly and on through the wilderness years of 1980s novelty naffness and the genre's redemption in alternative comedy and the likes of Victoria Wood and Alexei Sayle.


SAT 01:25 Timeshift (b00g8t15)
Series 8

The Comic Songbook

Documentary which celebrates Britain's rich and much-loved tradition of comic songs, from Noel Coward's Mad Dogs and Englishmen to Benny Hill's Ernie, and reveals the skill involved in creating them.

Contributors include Monty Python's Michael Palin and Terry Jones, Neil Innes, Bill Oddie, the Now Show's Mitch Benn, producer Cameron Mackintosh, Nicholas Parsons, Ed Stewart and Kit and the Widow.


SAT 02:25 Iran and Britain (b00hq1w7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


SAT 03:25 New Town (b00hq1w5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2009

SUN 19:00 Stephen Fry in America (b00flx59)
Pacific

Starting in San Francisco where he meets up with Apple's design guru Jony Ive, Stephen explores the Pacific Northwest. He travels up the coast to Mendocino to take part in a drug bust, before joining tree-sitters and Big Foot believers in the Oregon giant redwood forests.

Dope smoking students and edgy cabaret in Seattle give way to the stark wilderness of Alaska and an unsuccessful whale hunt with Eskimos in Barrow, the northernmost city of the USA.

On the islands of Hawaii, he meets a real life Magnum PI , goes swimming with sharks and paddles with surfers. He then sees the death of stars with astrophysicist Alex Filippenko and the birth of new land as lava flows into the sea, creating yet more America.


SUN 20:00 Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home (b00gvk8x)
Documentary which joins former hobo and festival favourite bluesman Seasick Steve on a trip back to his old stomping grounds in America's Deep South. Filmed in Mississippi and Tennessee, the programme follows the musician into his natural habitat of run-down juke joints, roadside diners and freight-train yards, as he reflects on his past life and recent rise to fame.

In addition to Steve's raw, stomping tunes, the soundtrack features Mississippi Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, RL Burnside and BB King.


SUN 20:30 Seasick Steve at Reading 2008 (b00gvk8z)
Seasick Steve and his band bring their unique brand of 'Hill Country' delta blues to the young audience at Reading festival in August 2008.


SUN 21:00 The History Man (b00hq287)
Episode 1

Malcolm Bradbury's satirical novel of 1970's greybrick campus life adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton stars a moustachioed Antony Sher as Howard Kirk, Marxist sociologist, womaniser and bully.


SUN 22:35 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00hq289)
Sir Antony Sher

Antony Sher is a renowned actor, writer and artist. He chats to Mark Lawson about growing up as a white South African, working with his partner Gregory Doran, and failing drama school auditions.


SUN 23:35 Home with Antony Sher (b0074pkc)
Adapted from JG Ballard's short story The Enormous Space, a drama which reveals what happens to a man once he chooses to shut himself off from the outside world and descends into emotional and physical meltdown.


SUN 00:35 Citizen Smith (b0090b8b)
Corby

Writer Michael Smith takes on the guise of a contemporary Citizen Smith, scouring the country in search of a modern day definition of nationality. In the final part, Smith attacks the English lack of national pride. After viewing a pitiful turnout for St George's Day celebrations at Trafalgar Square, he travels to Corby in Northamptonshire, a town flooded by Scottish steel workers in the 1970s. He compares the Scots who he believes still define themselves by national identity to his English countrymen who do not.


SUN 01:05 Why Reading Matters (b00hk7w3)
Science writer Rita Carter tells the story of how modern neuroscience has revealed that reading, something most of us take for granted, unlocks remarkable powers. Carter explains how the classic novel Wuthering Heights allows us to step inside other minds and understand the world from different points of view, and she wonders whether the new digital revolution could threaten the values of classic reading.


SUN 02:05 How Reading Made Us Modern (b00hk7mx)
English literature professor John Mullan explores the dramatic increase in reading which took place in 18th-century Britain, as it went from being the preserve of the rich to the national pastime it is today.

In 1695 a tiny amendment to the British constitution allowed for a flood of publications, without which Britain would be almost unrecognisable. This was the era that gave us the first ever magazines, newspapers and perhaps most vitally, the novel.

Mullan takes us from raucous, politically-charged coffee houses to the circulating library, the social space of the late 1700s. There is a glimpse inside an 18th century lady's closet where she hid with her novel, and Mullan also celebrates the hero of the reading revolution, Dr Samuel Johnson.


SUN 03:05 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00hq289)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:35 today]



MONDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2009

MON 19:00 World News Today (b00hq2vb)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Just Read with Michael Rosen (b00hk9ck)
Children's laureate and poet Michael Rosen, worried that children don't seem to read as much as they used to, takes on an ordinary primary school in Cardiff to see if he can start a reading revolution in just ten weeks.

He gives the staff permission to break into a packed curriculum simply to introduce good books and stories, after discovering that a lot of the children don't have many books at home and have never visited a library.


MON 20:30 The Book Quiz (b00hq2vd)
Series 3

Episode 4

Kirsty Wark presents the literary panel game, as writer Rosie Boycott and children's author Darren Shan battle historical novelist Philippa Gregory and writer/critic Paul Morley.


MON 21:00 Wine (b00hq2vg)
The Firm

Documentary series about the wine industry, taking a look behind the scenes at Berry Brothers and Rudd, widely considered to be the oldest and poshest wine merchant in the world.

After 310 years of business, there is still a Mr Berry at the helm as bombs, wars, kings and queens have come and gone, but this charmed existence may be under threat as the credit crunch bites deep. The film unwittingly becomes a chronicle of the changing world order, where the super-rich look alarmingly as though they are about to turn into the ancient regime.

Quaint anachronism it might seem from the outside, but this is the firm that turned fine wine into the sine qua non of the super-rich. Everyone here - from Berry's larger-than-life Bordeaux and Burgundy buyers to the eccentric and ambitious chateau owners and producers they do business with - services what seemed to be the ever-increasing demand for the finest wines available to humanity, until the rot creeps in and threatens three centuries of history.


MON 22:00 Storyville (b00hq2vj)
Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry

Powerful documentary from Emmy award-winning director Tom Roberts which explores the profound human consequences of America's frontier wars through the moving personal journey of retired US Major Robert 'Snuffy' Gray, who fought with the controversial 7th Cavalry Regiment.


MON 23:30 Storyville (b007mwjw)
How Vietnam Was Lost

Based on David Maraniss's book They Marched into Sunlight, a documentary telling the story of two seemingly unconnected events in October 1967 that changed the course of the Vietnam War.

Whilst a US battalion unwittingly marched into a Viet Cong ambush which killed 61 young men, half a world away angry students at the University of Wisconsin were protesting the presence of Dow Chemical recruiters on campus.


MON 00:50 Wine (b00hq2vg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 01:50 Just Read with Michael Rosen (b00hk9ck)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:50 Wine (b00hq2vg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2009

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00hq325)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Coal House (b00dzxjc)
Coal House at War

Episode 1

Deep in the Welsh valleys, three families give up their 21st century creature comforts and time-travel back to 1944 to face the hardships of life in World War II. Will the community survive without a microwave, mobile, fast car or fast food?


TUE 20:00 Sunday Schools: Reading, Writing and Redemption (b00ccffw)
Documentary investigating the radical impact Sunday schools have had on British society. Their early pioneers upset local bigwigs and the state by teaching the lower orders to read. By Victorian times, huge numbers attended the schools and they even gave birth to major football clubs. In the twentieth century they still had a rich influence on the personal lives of people like Patricia Routledge, Roy Hattersley and Anne Widdecombe. Huw Edwards discovers their forgotten history.


TUE 21:00 The High Life (b00hq327)
Dunk

Sitcom set on a passenger jet. The crew become embroiled in a small business espionage plot. A scientist is kidnapped for her re-creation of a 1950s recipe for tablet.


TUE 21:30 Early Doors (b0078kjr)
Series 1

Episode 6

Comedy series set in a small Manchester public house. It is the trip out to York races and the Big Boys Beano is ready for take-off. Melanie finally gets to meet her real dad as Ken waits nervously for her return. The pub goes into uproar as Tommy buys a round and the mystery over who is putting fag-ends in the urinals is finally solved.


TUE 22:00 Mad Men (b00hq329)
Series 2

Flight One

Drama series which takes an unflinching look at the world of advertising in 1960s New York.

After an American Airlines air crash, Duck wants to go after their account, but he comes into conflict with Don. Pete hears some shocking news. Peggy is left holding the baby.


TUE 22:50 Party Animals (b00795b8)
Series 1

Episode 2

Drama series taking a look at Westminster from the ground up - the young researchers and advisers shouldering huge responsibility in a frantic, high-stakes world.

Ashika visits Scott at the flat to cheer him up after Jake's death. Sensitive counselling cheers him up and he invites her to the New Statesman party later that week. The date goes well until Sophie Montgomery arrives and spreads malicious gossip about Scott. Ashika takes the bait and flees the party, leaving Scott angry and confused.

Ashika leaks a story to the papers about George in retaliation for comments made against James. When she is later threatened by one of George's aide's, James finds it funny. Cracks in their relationship are beginning to show.

A row over the filming of a controversial novel breaks out in Jo's constituency. Kirsty tries to manipulate the situation for political gain. Danny teases her about it, but it backfires and she rejects his invitation for a date.


TUE 23:40 We Need Answers (b00hkbc6)
Series 1

Reading

Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne lead a comic quiz show with a difference, adapted from their award-winning Edinburgh show. Celebrity guests Germaine Greer and Michael Rosen take part to find out which one of them is the smartest, the funniest and the best at surreal physical challenges. All the questions come from the audience members and text-messaging services.


TUE 00:10 New Town (b00hq1w5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


TUE 01:10 Ian Rankin's Hidden Edinburgh (b007vbm9)
Edinburgh is often described as the 'Athens of the North' but its most famous detective Inspector Rebus views Scotland's capital in quite a different light - it is a crime scene waiting to happen.

As his creator Ian Rankin prepares to write the last ever Rebus case, the award-winning author re-visits the key locations from the books. From the city's 'pubic triangle' and the home of Scotland's most infamous madam to a police station where he was interviewed about a real murder, Rankin explores the hidden Edinburgh into which tourists never venture.


TUE 02:10 Sunday Schools: Reading, Writing and Redemption (b00ccffw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 03:10 New Town (b00hq1w5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]



WEDNESDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2009

WED 19:00 World News Today (b00hq381)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 The Book Quiz (b00hq2vd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


WED 20:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007x58q)
Falling in Love

Documentary series which celebrates the birth of motorways and hails the achievements of those behind the 'road revolution'. The first episode takes us from the excitement of the building of the first motorway in Britain, the M6 Preston By-pass, to the celebration of the most complex, Spaghetti Junction.

With amazing archive and often hilarious public information films, we take a trip back to a time when not only were motorways exciting and new, but there was also no speed limit. Interviews with the engineers who designed them, the navvies who built them and the people who drove on them bring to life and celebrate an achievement that we now take so much for granted.


WED 21:00 The Joy of Motoring (b00hq385)
Tristram Hunt shows how motoring has gone from allowing us to explore the beautiful English countryside to the present day of speed cameras, congestion charges and environmental issues. Along the way, he looks at different cars through the ages that define a decade and a generation.


WED 22:00 Tsotsi (b00ht6lc)
Oscar-winning drama. In Johannesburg, young street thug Tsotsi has a taste for violence which borders on the sadistic. But one of his terrible heists goes wrong, leaving him with a baby to look after and proving that he is not completely without hope of redemption.


WED 23:30 From A to B: Tales of Modern Motoring (b00hq383)
It Gets You Out of the House

Series about the British and their cars looks at the hopes and anxieties of seven young drivers as they head towards independence and adulthood.


WED 00:20 The Joy of Motoring (b00hq385)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


WED 01:20 The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (b00hkb0z)
Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long-hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as they are to Europeans.


WED 02:20 The Book Quiz (b00hq2vd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


WED 02:50 The Joy of Motoring (b00hq385)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2009

THU 19:00 World News Today (b00hq4f8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:40 The New Avengers (b00htg9x)
Series 1

Gnaws

1970s action adventure. When a careless scientist spills some radioactive isotope and washes it down the sink, there are reports of something nasty in the sewers. Steed, Purdey and Gambit investigate after a team of maintenance men disappear while checking the underground pipes.


THU 20:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00hq4fb)
North Yorkshire Moors

Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of mid-20th century.

In a classic Morris Minor Traveller, he drives from Scarborough to Whitby via the Yorkshire moors. On the way, he learns about the rise and fall of the British seaside resorts, takes a toll road through the Dalby Forest and checks out the mythical roadside wonder that is the Hole of Horecum.

He finds out how the village of Goathland now lives a double life, and ends up with a carload of goths on their way to visit Whitby Abbey.


THU 21:00 Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady (b00hq4fd)
Penelope Keith tells the story of Edwardian 'it girl' and motoring pioneer Dorothy Levitt.

She retraces Levitt's 1905 journey from London to Liverpool in a De Dion motor car, with the aid of Dorothy's handbook The Woman and the Car and advice from motoring historians and veteran car enthusiasts. The story is further illustrated by archive material from the period.


THU 22:00 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00hq4fg)
Escape from London

Novelist and raconteur Michael Smith explores Britain's modern obsession with cars and driving, as well as seeking to understand the effects it has on our daily lives. Whilst travelling to all corners of the UK, he questions why we love them, what they say about us and whether there is a car out there that even a stubborn non-driver like him could one day fall in love with.

The young Geordie kicks off his odyssey by abandoning the cosy familiarity of his beloved London, with its tangible roots and history, to thrust out into the anonymous suburbia that he has christened Drivetime Britain.


THU 22:30 We Need Answers (b00hq4fj)
Series 1

Motoring

Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne lead a comic quiz show with a difference, adapted from their award-winning Edinburgh show.

Celebrity guests Julia Bradbury and Robert Llewellyn take part in a knock-about quiz to find out which one of them is the smartest, the funniest and the best at surreal physical challenges.

All the questions come from the audience members and text-messaging services.


THU 23:00 Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady (b00hq4fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 00:00 The Joy of Motoring (b00hq385)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Wednesday]


THU 01:00 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00hq4fg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


THU 01:30 We Need Answers (b00hq4fj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]


THU 02:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00hq4fb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


THU 02:30 Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady (b00hq4fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 03:30 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00hq4fg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]



FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2009

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00hq4qp)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Transatlantic Sessions (b00ht7sm)
Series 1

Episode 7

Country and traditional singers and instrumentalists from Scotland, Ireland and North America in performance on Scotland's west coast, hosted by fiddle players Aly Bain and Jay Ungar and featuring US singer Emmylou Harris.


FRI 20:00 Motown at the BBC (b00hq4qr)
To mark the 50-year anniversary of Motown in 2009, a compilation of some of the iconic record label's greatest names filmed live in the BBC studios. Visitors from Hitsville USA over the years have included Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops and The Jackson 5.


FRI 21:00 Legends (b00hq4qt)
The Motown Invasion

Documentary revealing what made Motown special in Britain through the lens of two decisive moments in 1965 - the Motown Revue UK tour and the Sounds of Motown Ready Steady Go! television special.

Arriving in London in March 1965, the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder were bussed across Britain on a tough but crucial tour.

The television special, recorded during the tour, kicked open the door, thrusting Motown's slick routines and magical music into front rooms across the nation.


FRI 22:00 Storyville (b0074qf6)
Standing in the Shadows of Motown

Documentary telling the story of the Funk Brothers, the Motown session musicians who were behind more number one hits that the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined. Drawn together from Detroit's jazz and blues scene, the film recounts their evolution of the Motown sound from its origins to its demise in LA during the 1970s, and reunites the surviving Funk Brothers for the first time in thirty years.


FRI 23:45 Mad Men (b00hq329)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


FRI 00:35 The New Avengers (b00htg9x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:40 on Thursday]


FRI 01:25 Legends (b00hq4qt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:25 Motown at the BBC (b00hq4qr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 03:25 Transatlantic Sessions (b00ht7sm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]