SATURDAY 25 APRIL 2009

SAT 19:00 Graham Hill: Driven (b00bv14q)
Emotive documentary portrait of a sporting legend who lived and died during a time when sex was safe and motor racing was dangerous!

Graham Hill was an eccentric, charismatic Englishman from a bygone era of sporting endeavour. With great determination he won the Formula 1 World Championship, the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24 hours race, thereby achieving the 'triple crown' of motor racing - a unique feat that remains unmatched to this day. Graham also won the glamorous Monaco Grand Prix five times during an era when drivers routinely met violent death. Away from the circuit, he was a raconteur of hilarious proportions, a dashing figure with a keen eye for the ladies. He was an irrepressible free spirit who simply didn't know when to quit.

Ultimately, it was to be his undoing.

Graham's illustrious racing career spanned three decades, which at its height saw him routinely slugging it out with fellow F1 champions Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart. Close friends yet intense rivals on the track, they were the 'Three Musketeers' during a golden era of motor racing. But what was the truth behind Graham's popular public image? 30 years on from his death, his family, close friends and former colleagues paint an intimate, revealing and entertaining portrait of a sporting hero tragically killed in a plane crash in 1975.


SAT 20:00 Queens of British Pop (b00jnjfm)
Episode 1

Queens of British Pop and narrator Liza Tarbuck offer a celebration of six female pop stars, singers and icons that lit us up from the early 60s to the late 70s.

Programme one tells the story of Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Suzi Quatro, Siouxsie Sioux and Kate Bush - some of the female artists that emerged alongside some of Britain's defining musical movements, from the swinging sixties through to glam rock and punk.

The programme gives an insight into the lives of these top female artists, offering first-hand or eyewitness accounts of the highs, the lows and the obstacles they had to overcome. The selected artists have pushed boundaries, played around with gender roles and had their private lives overshadow their success, but it is their experiences that have helped change the face of British pop as we know it today.

Includes new interviews with Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Suzi Quatro, Siouxsie Sioux and contributions from Tom Jones, Lulu, Burt Bacharach, John Lydon, Martha Reeves, Nancy Sinatra, Mark Radcliffe, Henry Winkler, Marc Almond, Peter Gabriel, Claire Grogan, Jarvis Cocker, Kiki Dee, Nigel Havers, Lily Allen and Adele, to name but a few.


SAT 21:05 Queens of British Pop (b00jt56r)
Episode 2

A celebration of six queens of British pop music, and a look at their impact between 1980 and 2009.

This programme profiles Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet, Kylie Minogue, Geri Halliwell, Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis. These female stars take us from post-punk to The X Factor, with a slice of girl power along the way.

Narrated by Lisa Tarbuck, with contributors including Annie Lennox, Dawn French, Dave Stewart, Alison Moyet, Pete Waterman, Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis, Lily Allen, Adele, Marc Almond and more.


SAT 22:05 Dusty (b0074q99)
Series 2

Episode 4

Vintage episode of Dusty Springfield's 1960s TV series, featuring special guest Tom Jones. Madeline Bell, Lesley Duncan and Margaret Stredder supply the backing vocals.


SAT 22:30 Cilla (b00k35l5)
Series 2

Episode 8

Edition of Cilla Black's 1960s TV series. Cilla sings Step Inside Love and Pass Me By, and performs duets with Georgie Fame on For Once in My Life and Dusty Springfield on If You're Ever (Friendship). Dusty and Georgie also take the mic for solo numbers.

Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Graeme Garden do a Top of the Form take-off and a ritual Japanese wrestling act, while comedian Tom Ward does a drunk act.


SAT 23:20 The Sandie Shaw Supplement (b00k7653)
Quicksand

1960s show in which Sandie Shaw performs music on the theme of transport and travel. She is filmed riding a horse on a Welsh beach, in a racing car, on a Marylebone station platform and in the studio, singing Route 66, Do you Know the Way to San Jose, Homeward Bound, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Girl Don't Come, Got to Go, Planes and Boats and Planes, Day Tripper and Ticket to Ride.


SAT 23:45 Lulu's Back in Town (b00k35lc)
Episode 3

Edition of Lulu's 1960s TV variety show, in which she sings solo numbers and duets with guests Les Dawson and the Everly Brothers.


SAT 00:10 Kate Bush at the BBC 1979 (b00k35n4)
1979 Christmas special featuring Kate Bush. She performs Gymnopedie No 1, Symphony in Blue, Them Heavy People, Madrigal, December, Wedding List, Egypt, Ran Tan Waltz, Man with the Child in His Eyes and Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak.

Guest star Peter Gabriel sings Here Comes the Flood and duets with Kate on Another Day.


SAT 00:55 Queens of British Pop (b00jnjfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:00 Queens of British Pop (b00jt56r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:05 today]


SAT 03:00 Graham Hill: Driven (b00bv14q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 26 APRIL 2009

SUN 19:00 Cranford (b008flrv)
Series 1

November 1842

A theft from the Doctor's house and an attack on Mr Johnson spread panic and the fear of an imminent crime wave. Suspicion and mistrust ripple through Cranford and Miss Pole resorts to desperate measures to safeguard her treasures.

To save his father, Harry is forced to make a formidable decision, thereby putting himself in danger. In these uncertain times, the ladies cluster together at Christmas.

With the coming of spring, love blossoms in many hearts as Valentine cards arrive, but are they really tokens of love? And can the culprit be unaware of the catastrophe that could result from his pranks?


SUN 20:00 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00jzjs4)
Fruit and Veg

A look at the changes in the way fruit and veg was grown, picked and sold, told through three of the staples in the British landscape - apples, strawberries and tomatoes.

Home movies and archive footage reveal the extent of the revolution in how the fruit was picked and the impact supermarkets had on the fortunes of the small- and medium-sized growers.


SUN 21:00 Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters (b00d298z)
Jimmy Doherty travels to Nepal to meet an ancient group of people who risk their lives to farm their local honey.

A keen beekeeper with a passion for honey, Jimmy has always been blown away by the sheer variety of flavours, appreciating a good honey like others enjoy a fine wine. So when he heard about an ancient group of people in Nepal who are willing to risk their lives to taste their local honey, he knew he wanted to share the experience.

As a 'honey hunter' Jimmy must scale a massive cliff to reach the home of more than two million bees and dangle 200 feet up to get their honey. If successful, the reward is not only to learn more about these amazing bees, but also to taste one of nature's finest bounties - beautiful wild honey.


SUN 22:00 Who Killed the Honey Bee? (b00jzjys)
Bees are dying in their millions. It is an ecological crisis that threatens to bring global agriculture to a standstill. Introduced by Martha Kearney, this documentary explores the reasons behind the decline of bee colonies across the globe, investigating what might be at the root of this devastation.

Honey bees are the number one insect pollinator on the planet, responsible for the production of over 90 crops. Apples, berries, cucumbers, nuts, cabbages and even cotton will struggle to be produced if bee colonies continue to decline at the current rate. Empty hives have been reported from as far afield as Taipei and Tennessee. In England, the matter has caused beekeepers to march on Parliament to call on the government to fund research into what they say is potentially a bigger threat to humanity than the current financial crisis.

Investigating the problem from a global perspective, the programme makers travel from the farm belt of California to the flatlands of East Anglia to the outback of Australia. They talk to the beekeepers whose livelihoods are threatened by colony collapse disorder, the scientists entrusted with solving the problem, and the Australian beekeepers who are making a fortune replacing the planet's dying bees. They also look at some of the possible reasons for the declining numbers - is it down to a bee plague, pesticides, malnutrition? Or is the answer something even more frightening?


SUN 23:00 Horizon (b00k35xs)
1989-1990

The Company of Ants and Bees

Documentary in which Professor James Gould argues that ants and bees have important things to tell us about human society and its future chances.


SUN 23:50 Newswipe (b00jzjs6)
Series 1

Episode 5

Charlie Brooker sets his satirical sights on news and current affairs.


SUN 00:20 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00jzjs4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SUN 01:20 Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters (b00d298z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


SUN 02:15 Who Killed the Honey Bee? (b00jzjys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


SUN 03:15 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00jzjs4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



MONDAY 27 APRIL 2009

MON 19:00 World News Today (b00k361j)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 James Ravilious: A World in Photographs (b0088zhx)
Alan Bennett narrates a documentary about James Ravilious, one of the great unknowns of British photography.

Son of the renowned water-colourist and engraver Eric Ravilious, he dedicated his art to a small area of north Devon, where over a period of two decades he took more than 80,000 photographs.

This collection has become one of the most comprehensive and poignant archives in the country, documenting an English world and way of life most people had thought long gone.


MON 20:00 Who Killed the Honey Bee? (b00jzjys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Sunday]


MON 21:00 The Weather (b00jzjhx)
Winds

Documentary series about the weather. This episode looks at wind - a phenomenon caused by the interaction of temperature, pressure and the earth's rotation, which took scientists over a thousand years to fully explain.

We witness some remarkable wind-related stories, such as the tornado that flung Dorothy Allwright and her caravan into the air, and how Scottish engineer James Blyth invented the first electricity-producing wind turbine in 1887.

Once we looked to the gods to explain the wind, until science unlocked its mysteries. Today, we may have come to understand the wind, but we have also realised that we will never master it, and that this elemental force cannot be ignored.


MON 22:00 BBC Four Sessions (b00jzk8b)
Marianne Faithfull

1960's It Girl-turned-arthouse singer, Marianne Faithfull, exudes charm in a performance in front of an intimate audience of friends and fans at LSO St Luke's in east London.

A great band accompany her on an eclectic mix of songs from her critically-acclaimed covers album Easy Come Easy Go, including The Decemberists' The Crane Wife 3, Morrissey's Dear God, Please Help Me, Dolly Parton's Down From Dover and Randy Newman's chilling In Germany Before the War.

There are also dips into the past, with her first ever live performance of the original 1960s arrangement of As Tears Go By, plus the early Jagger-Richards song Sister Morphine.


MON 23:00 Close Up (b0077vhw)
Marianne Faithfull - Keeping the Faith

Musician and 1960s icon Marianne Faithfull reveals the highs and lows of her personal and professional life.


MON 23:50 Irina Palm (b00k7cb9)
Comedy-drama starring Marianne Faithfull. A middle-aged widow takes a job in a Soho sex club in order to raise money for her grandson's life-saving operation.


MON 01:25 The Weather (b00jzjhx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:25 Who Killed the Honey Bee? (b00jzjys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Sunday]


MON 03:25 James Ravilious: A World in Photographs (b0088zhx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



TUESDAY 28 APRIL 2009

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00k364z)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Landscape Mysteries (b0078m6j)
Britain Before the Ice

Series in which Professor Aubrey Manning seeks to solve some of the enduring mysteries of the British landscape through clues in geology, archaeology and natural history.

He travels to the Gower Peninsula in south Wales, where, in 1823, the skeleton of a young man who had died 29,000 years ago was found. Professor Manning tries to unravel the mystery of the lost world in which this man lived.


TUE 20:00 Inside the Medieval Mind (b009s80l)
Knowledge

Leading authority on the Middle Ages, Professor Robert Bartlett, presents a series which examines the way we thought during medieval times.

To our medieval forebears the world could appear mysterious, even enchanted. Sightings of green men, dog heads and alien beings were commonplace. The world itself was a book written by God. But as the Middle Ages grew to a close, it became a place to be mastered, even exploited.


TUE 21:00 Marcus Brigstocke's Trophy People (b007d56n)
Series 1

Bell Ringing

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke invites himself to this year's National Bell Ringing Contest to find out exactly what it takes to be a champion bell ringer. This event is being held at Worcester Cathedral where hundreds of ringers and supporters gather to listen to the bells and drink copious amounts of real ale.


TUE 21:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00k21gn)
Series 1

David Davis

Marcus Brigstocke invites his guest, politician David Davis, to try some new cultural experiences for the first time.


TUE 22:00 Mad Men (b00k3651)
Series 2

The Mountain King

Drama series which takes an unflinching look at the world of advertising in 1960s New York. Don renews his acquaintance with an old friend. Pete's personal problems impact on a major account. Joan introduces her fiance to the office staff.


TUE 22:45 The Thick of It (b007rvgp)
Special: Spinners and Losers

Special double-length episode of the award-winning political comedy.

The Prime Minister resigns six months too early and all hell breaks loose at Number 10. Malcolm Tucker's political career hangs in the balance. He has just seventeen hours to spin himself back into power, and it's going to be the longest night of his life.


TUE 23:45 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.


TUE 00:15 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00hw3yt)
Long Days on Watling Street

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.

Smith travels the length of the historic Watling Street, which splits England in two and has inspired both literature and art, and asks whether the road's new found efficiency and convenience has replaced its cultural value.


TUE 00:45 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j0gsv)
Life on the Road

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.

Smith gets in the passenger seat with all manner of people who call the road their home, asking how they survive a life of perpetual motion while losing himself in the constant flow and undertow of the road.


TUE 01:15 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j4dfy)
Me and My Car

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.

He almost finds true love in the passenger seat of a vintage Jag, but it breaks down and he is subjected to a hellish day at a car expo. Finally, it's time for him to learn to drive, or not as the case may be.


TUE 01:45 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j8cpr)
Freedom

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 and what they say about us.

Smith travels north of the border and finally, after weeks of bondage in the complex networks of traffic-jammed England, he finds a road to truly fall in love with. With this love, a sense of the road and its purpose and function become clear and we see a most unlikely of converts to the divinity of the A82.


TUE 02:15 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00jf4js)
The Endless Road

Novelist and raconteur Michael Smith explores Britain's modern obsession with cars and driving.

Smith waxes lyrical on his new-found passion for travelling, if not for driving per se, having finally discovered a means of transport that suits him: hitching. Falling in and out of cars, driven almost exclusively by young, attractive, Europeans, he manages to travel the full length of the country.

Eager for adventure, he recognises that the road can go on forever - even where Top Gear fails to reach - and drives through the airlocked Channel Tunnel into Europe. Smith heads for his beloved Burgundy, at peace with the purpose of the road and what it means to him.


TUE 02:45 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00k21gn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


TUE 03:15 The Thick of It (b007rvgp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:45 today]



WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL 2009

WED 19:00 World News Today (b00k3683)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Wainwright Walks: Coast to Coast (b00jzjyq)
Eden and the Pennines

Julia Bradbury follows in the footsteps of legendary guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright by walking across the whole of northern England from the west to the east coast.

This was Wainwright's last great venture and has become his greatest legacy - a beautifully simple proposition, linking three national parks that lie between the Irish and the North Sea.

36 years after its creation, Julia is off, through sunshine, wind and rain to cross the changing landscape, understand the history and meet the people that make up almost 200 miles of northern England.

Julia sets off across the Eden Valley, a sparse land today but full of signs of ancient and uncertain human habitation. Kirkby Stephen is the one bustling modern outpost on this section, the launchpad for Julia's climb up and over the Pennines. The spine of England is a landmark on the walk, but during the wettest autumn in memory it is a major, boggy challenge.


WED 20:00 Victorian Farm (b00h4lqr)
Episode 3

Historical observational documentary series following a team who live the life of Victorian farmers for a year. Wearing period clothes and using only the materials that would have been available in 1885, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are going back in time to relive the day-to-day life of the Victorian farmer.

The project is based on the Acton Scott estate in Shropshire - a world frozen in time, lost in Victorian rural England. Its buildings and grounds are cluttered with antique tools and machinery collected by the Acton family who have lived on the estate since the 12th century. The team have resurrected this lost world and brought it back to life, as it would have been in the 1880s. This was a time that saw a revolution in British agriculture. But it also meant centuries-old crafts and skills were being lost to industrialized farming. It is a period that marks the crossroads between the old and the new.

Working for a full calendar year Ruth, Alex and Peter are rediscovering a lost world of skills, crafts and knowledge assisted by an ever-dwindling band of experts who keep Victorian rural practices alive. Each month and season will bring pressing priorities, from tending to livestock and repairing buildings to raising crops, preparing food and crafting furniture and tools. Can they make a success of farming the Victorian way? It is the New Year and the farm needs emergency repairs. So the team go back to DIY basics, with the help of the woodsman, the blacksmith and the basket maker. Ruth has a go at some traditional potions and remedies. When the wheat crop comes under attack, its time for some pest control, Victorian style, as Alex and Peter join a pheasant hunt. Alex goes out catching rabbits with a team of Victorian poachers. And with spring around the corner the first baby animals are ready to be born.


WED 21:00 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00k3685)
Wheat

Documentary series about the history of 20th-century farming in Britain looks at wheat and tells how the country became self-sufficient in producing bread-making wheat after the Second World War.

Told through the working lives and home movie archives of three wheat-farming families from the east of England, it reveals how farmers went from horse power to machine power and how they used science and genetics to transform the size and yield of wheat and the rural landscape, with controversial outcomes for the countryside.


WED 22:00 Wainwright Walks: Coast to Coast (b00jzjyq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 22:30 Newswipe (b00k3687)
Series 1

Episode 6

Charlie Brooker sets his satirical sights on news and current affairs, with the help of Nick Davies and Peter Oborne.


WED 23:00 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00k21gn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 on Tuesday]


WED 23:30 Pop on Trial (b008s9p2)
1980s

Stuart Maconie puts pop in the dock to decide which has been the most influential musical decade. In the era of New Romantics, rap and the Madchester scene, ABC's Martin Fry, Soul II Soul's Jazzie B and Miranda Sawyer join Stuart to judge the 1980s.


WED 00:30 Pop on Trial (b008s9r8)
1990s

Stuart Maconie puts 1990s pop in the dock to decide if it is music's most important decade. Guests Goldie, Caitlin Moran and Paolo Hewitt debate Britpop and the rise of manufactured bands from Take That to the Spice Girls.


WED 01:30 Batman (b0080tm0)
Series 1

Instant Freeze

The caped crusader faces a frosty reception from Mr Freeze when he puts a chill on the Circle of Ice diamond.


WED 01:55 Batman (b00814pg)
Series 1

Rats Like Cheese

Mr Freeze has frozen Batman in a block of ice, and the Boy Wonder to the floor. Can the dynamic duo thaw out in time to make the cold-hearted criminal feel the heat?


WED 02:20 Mad Men (b00b3zd3)
Series 1

Shoot

Drama series set in the world of advertising in 1960s New York. Betty is used by a rival ad agency to try to hire Don. Peggy is putting on weight. The agency tries to spruce up their Nixon presidential campaign to counteract a successful Kennedy ad by Jackie Kennedy.


WED 03:05 Mad Men (b00b6km7)
Series 1

Long Weekend

Drama series set in the world of advertising in 1960s New York. Don loses an important account so Roger attempts to cheer him up with the aid of twin models. But things end badly and Don, in shock, finds comfort in the arms of Rachel. Joan's roommate makes an unnerving confession.



THURSDAY 30 APRIL 2009

THU 19:00 World News Today (b00k36fd)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:40 The New Avengers (b00k7cfm)
Series 2

The Hostage

Purdey is kidnapped, and her kidnappers demand some Allied attack plans as ransom. Steed has them in his possession, but has the whole thing been a set up to make him look like a traitor?


THU 20:30 Wainwright Walks: Coast to Coast (b00k36fg)
Swaledale Uncovered

Julia Bradbury follows in the footsteps of legendary guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright by walking across the whole of northern England from the west to the east coast.

This was Wainwright's last great venture and has become his greatest legacy - a beautifully simple proposition, linking three national parks that lie between the Irish and the North Sea.

36 years after its creation, Julia is off through sunshine, wind and rain to cross the changing landscape, understand the history and meet the people that make up almost 200 miles of northern England.

The fourth stage of Julia's journey is entirely devoted to one great valley, Swaledale in Yorkshire. Wainwright studied this 22-mile section in utmost detail, presenting a varied route of valley bottom and windswept moor top. The villages, landscape and the history are a delight, just as Wainwright predicted, with Julia learning much about the lost mining industry that was once the lifeblood of Swaledale.


THU 21:00 Timeshift (b00k36fj)
Series 9

Farm to Pharma: The Rise and Rise of Food Science

Documentary which explores the history of British food science, taking a fascinating voyage through over a century of petri-dishes, vitamins and E-numbers.

The connection between food manufacturers and the white coat brigade is nothing new. One hundred and fifty years before Heston Blumenthal, Birmingham chemist Alfred Bird was reinventing custard because his wife had an allergy to eggs.

By the 1930s, George Orwell was already complaining about the chemical by-products that the British people were eating, but when war gave scientists a chance to remake the British diet the improvement in the nation's health was extraordinary.

Charting the growing role that food science has played in our daily lives, we meet Tony Blake, the food scientist who pioneered instant soup for Batchelors, and we learn about biochemist Jack Drummond, the tragic mastermind of British food in the Second World War, who died alongside his family as in a mysterious murder.

We discover how vegetarian product Quorn was invented to prevent a global food crisis and how breakthroughs in flavour chemistry helped create the day-glo processed foods of the 1970s. We recall Margaret Thatcher's early career as a food scientist and find out why there was no such thing as a free lunch when it came to the promise of fat-free snacks.


THU 22:00 Flight of the Conchords Special: One Night Stand (b00801jb)
The duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement perform several of their best and silliest songs, including Business Time, Jenny and Albi the Racist Dragon.


THU 22:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00k36fl)
Series 1

Esther Rantzen

Marcus Brigstocke invites his guest Esther Rantzen to step out of her comfort zone and try some new cultural experiences.


THU 23:00 Newswipe (b00k3687)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 on Wednesday]


THU 23:30 Timeshift (b00k36fj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 00:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00k36fl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]


THU 01:00 Newswipe (b00k3687)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 on Wednesday]


THU 01:30 Flight of the Conchords Special: One Night Stand (b00801jb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


THU 02:00 Wainwright Walks: Coast to Coast (b00k36fg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


THU 02:30 The New Avengers (b00k7cfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:40 today]


THU 03:25 Newswipe (b00k3687)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 on Wednesday]



FRIDAY 01 MAY 2009

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00k36m1)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Playing Elizabeth's Tune (b0074nw3)
A concert by the Tallis Scholars recorded in Tewkesbury Abbey featuring the music of Elizabethan composer William Byrd, including his Mass for Four Voices.


FRI 21:00 Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites? (b00kc752)
Documentary telling the story of what happened to blues music on its journey from the southern states of America to the heart of British pop and rock culture, providing an in-depth look at what this music really meant to a generation of kids desperate for an antidote to their experiences of living in post-war suburban Britain.

Narrated by Nigel Planer and structured in three parts, the first, Born Under a Bad Sign, focuses on the arrival of American blues in Britain in the late 50s and the first performances here by such legends as Muddy Waters, Sonnie Terry and Brownie McGhee.

Part two, Sittin' on Top of the World, charts the birth of the first British blues boom in the early 60s, spearheaded by the Rolling Stones and groups such as the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, the Animals and the Pretty Things.

The final section, Crossroads, looks at the next, more hardcore British blues boom of the mid-to-late 60s, with guitarists Eric Clapton and Peter Green and the international dominance of their respective bands, Cream and Fleetwood Mac.

Featuring archive performances and interviews with Keith Richards, Paul Jones, Chris Dreja, Bill Wyman, Phil May, John Mayall, Jack Bruce, Mick Fleetwood, Ian Anderson, Tony McPhee, Mike Vernon, Tom McGuinness, Mick Abrahams, Dick Taylor, Val Wilmer, Chris Barber, Pete Brown, Bob Brunning, Dave Kelly and Phil Ryan.


FRI 22:30 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.

Includes the seminal slide guitar of Son House, the British R&B of The Kinks, the unmistakeable electric sound of BB King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, as well as less familiar material from the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Freddie King and Long John Baldry.


FRI 23:30 Mad Men (b00k3651)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


FRI 00:15 The New Avengers (b00k7cfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:40 on Thursday]


FRI 01:10 Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites? (b00kc752)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:40 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]