SATURDAY 27 MARCH 2010

SAT 19:00 Life (b00p4rl4)
Creatures of the Deep

Marine invertebrates are some of the most bizarre and beautiful animals on the planet, and thrive in the toughest parts of the oceans.

Divers swim into a shoal of predatory Humboldt squid as they emerge from the ocean depths to hunt in packs. When cuttlefish gather to mate, their bodies flash in stroboscopic colours. Time-lapse photography reveals thousands of starfish gathering under the Arctic ice to devour a seal carcass.

A giant octopus commits suicide for her young. A camera follows her into a cave which she walls up, then she protects her eggs until she starves.

The greatest living structures on earth, coral reefs, are created by tiny animals in some of the world's most inhospitable waters.


SAT 20:00 Monsoon Railway (b007rv05)
Part 2

Second of two films by director Gerry Troyna, painting an affectionate portrait of the Indian railway culture.

Indian Railways is a vast organisation, employing 1,500,000 people and catering for every aspect of their lives from cradle to grave. The documentary follows three typical employees as they face the annual battle to keep trains running during the monsoon season.


SAT 20:50 Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (b00f2ksz)
Produced in 1955 and part of the British Transport Films' collection, this short film follows the heroic actions of railway workers who rescue a snowbound train in the north Pennines.


SAT 21:00 Wallander (b00rs406)
Series 2

The Revenge

Original Swedish TV adaptation of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander detective series.

Kurt Wallander has finally achieved his dream and bought a house by the sea, enjoying long summer evenings and strolls on the beach with his dog. But his peace and quiet is shattered when the town's power station blows up. As more acts of sabotage follow, Ystad is in chaos and Wallander fumbles in darkness as he tries to chase down the culprits.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:30 Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock (b00j09r4)
Documentary in which Paul Merton explores Alfred Hitchcock's early British films.

These moody features - some silents such as The Lodger and others talkies like Blackmail - provided the essential cinematic DNA for his rise to prominence as Hollywood's 'master of suspense'.

Merton sees Hitchcock as a man immersed in the visual language of cinema, who understood how to use camera movement and lighting for dramatic effect. For Hitchcock, heavily influenced by the German expressionist cinema, the pictures would always be more important than the dialogue.

Using clips and previously unseen archive interviews with Hitchcock, Merton weaves together a playful narrative of the director's early career and macabre world, revealing a man with a great sense of humour.

He talks to those who knew and worked with Hitchcock, including actress Anna Massey, director Roy Ward Baker, Hitchcock's official biographer John Russell Taylor and the great cinematographer Gil Taylor, the latter about working on two Hitchcock films at either end of his career - Number Seventeen in 1932 and Frenzy in 1972.


SAT 23:30 The Armstrong and Miller Show (b00p27k7)
Series 2

Episode 6

Sketch show starring Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller features Flanders and Swann-alikes Brabbins and Fyffe, and a nightmarish experience for one man in a bank.


SAT 00:00 Newswipe (b00qvl9l)
Series 2

Episode 5

Another instalment of caustic commentary, satirical observations and laughs from Charlie Brooker, with the regular mix of contributors and fun.


SAT 00:30 Leeds International Piano Competition (b00nf10f)
2009

Episode 6

Every three years since 1963, Leeds plays host to the cream of young international concert pianists who travel there to take part in the city's International Piano Competition. Past winners have included musical greats like Rada Lupu and Murray Perahia.

Huw Edwards introduces the final competitor, Sofya Gulyak from Russia, who performs Brahms's Piano Concerto No 1. Special guests Cristina Ortiz and Lucy Parham add expert comment, while Clemency Burton-Hill reports on the action backstage.


SAT 02:30 BBC Proms (b00lt0rq)
2009

Prom 10: Orchestre National de Lyon

From Ravel and Takemitsu to Debussy's La Mer, this rollercoaster of a Prom celebrates the fascinating musical links between east and west. The French Orchestre National de Lyon, under their half-German, half-Japanese music director Jun Maerkl, perform with the young Japanese virtuoso violinist Akiko Suwanai, while Mayumi Miyata introduces the oriental instrument known as the sho to the Proms audience. Presented by Charles Hazlewood.



SUNDAY 28 MARCH 2010

SUN 19:00 Mediterranean Tales (b00rw1vv)
Venice

Writer and journalist Irma Kurtz takes a journey around the Mediterranean, following in the path of Mark Twain's The Innocent Abroad. This edition explores the city of Venice, where Irma meets crime novelist Donna Leon, walks out with Casanova scholar Maurice Agosti and discovers the true life of a gondolier.


SUN 19:10 In Memory of Me (b00rs130)
Andrea (Christo Jivkov) an intelligent and handsome young man, seems to have everything necessary to succeed. But the world's infinite possibilities have only confused him and in this disoriented state, he undertakes the novitiate, a period of spiritual training leading to priesthood. In the monastry he discovers more than a simple world of semi-silence and prayer and begins to question his faith. In Italian with English subtitles.


SUN 21:00 Paul Merton's Weird and Wonderful World of Early Cinema (b00rs132)
Paul Merton goes in search of the origins of screen comedy in the forgotten world of silent cinema - not in Hollywood, but closer to home in pre-1914 Britain and France.

Revealing the unknown stars and lost masterpieces, he brings to life the pioneering techniques and optical inventiveness of the virtuosos who mastered a new art form. With a playful eye and comic sense of timing, Merton combines the role of presenter and director to recreate the weird and wonderful world that is early European cinema in a series of cinematic experiments of his own.


SUN 22:00 The Thieving Headmistress (b00792bc)
Drama-documentary based on the true story of Colleen McCabe, an ex-nun who as a headmistress embezzled her school out of an estimated half a million pounds.

While McCabe enjoyed the champagne lifestyle with her ecclesiastical friends, pupils and teachers at the school sat shivering in classrooms without heat and books.

Despite suspicions among parents and staff, the death knell for McCabe's regime came when the Labour government returned grant-maintained schools to LEA control. Local authority auditors stepped in and the full extent of her theft and fraud became clear.


SUN 23:00 Mad Men (b00rm50b)
Series 3

The Color Blue

Betty discovers Don's cache of photographs, revealing his past life. The arrival of the brother of Don's new mistress complicates his affair, while Pryce is told that his boss is selling Sterling Cooper.


SUN 23:45 Paul Merton's Weird and Wonderful World of Early Cinema (b00rs132)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


SUN 00:45 Dear Diary (b00pq8hj)
Richard E Grant

A series asking what we get from reading and writing diaries.

Writing a diary can be dangerous - as can reading one. Richard E Grant, a diarist since childhood, uncovers the power of the diary. He considers the diaries of Joe Orton, Kenneth Williams, Erwin James, John Diamond and Rosemary Ackland and asks whether a diary should, or could, ever be totally honest, wholly accurate and absolutely true.

Richard talks with Joe Orton's sister, Leonie, about her long-held belief that Orton's confessional diary was actually responsible for him losing his life. He also meets prison diarist Erwin James to understand the power of writing for a serving offender. Joss Ackland tells Richard about editing his wife's 50-plus years of diary writing, and Richard meets with Sheila Hancock to talk about Kenneth Williams's diary, in which she appeared many times. Williams had a charming public face but in the diaries he could be savage. He even wrote that he'd never again speak to Sheila Hancock.


SUN 01:45 Mad Men (b00rm50b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


SUN 02:35 Paul Merton's Weird and Wonderful World of Early Cinema (b00rs132)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


SUN 03:35 BBC Proms (b00lz3ds)
2009

Prom 30: Knussen Conducts Knussen

One of the towering forces in British music today, Oliver Knussen, conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a colourful programme that includes Stravinsky's musical poker-game Jeu de Cartes, Respighi's Fountains of Rome, the Proms premiere of Virga by the young Scot Helen Grime, Balakirev's oriental fantasy Islamey and Knussen's own Horn Concerto, performed by Martin Owen. Presented by Suzy Klein.



MONDAY 29 MARCH 2010

MON 19:00 World News Today (b00rs1qf)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Paul Merton's Weird and Wonderful World of Early Cinema (b00rs132)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Sunday]


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b00rs1qh)
Series 3

Archers Admirers vs Gamblers

Quiz show presented by Victoria Coren in which knowledge will only take you so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital.

In the first of the Semi Finals, three lovers of the pastoral world of Radio 4's The Archers face new opponents.

How will they respond to the threat of cavalier risk-taking from a team of confirmed Gamblers? They'll compete to draw together the connections between elements which at first glance seem utterly random, including purple dye and the Jules Rimet trophy.


MON 21:00 How to Win an Election: A Panorama Guide (b00rs1ql)
In the 1950s, politicians cared little for what Churchill called the 'idiot's lantern'. Now television is central to a political leader's image and his chances of winning an election.

This is the story of how politicians abandoned the soapbox for the studio - from the early performances of the two Harolds, Macmillan and Wilson, through the TV campaigns of Margaret Thatcher to the spin-doctored presentation of Tony Blair. Has television finally reduced our politicians to actors spouting soundbites?

With six decades of fascinating archive from television's longest running current affairs programme - Panorama - this is the story of how television has changed British politics.


MON 22:00 The Secretary who Stole Four Million Pounds (b0078wzb)
Drama-documentary about Joyti De-Laurey, the PA at Goldman Sachs whose 4.5 million pound sting led to her being called the Picasso of con artists.

The film combines revealing interviews with Joyti's friends and family and compelling, darkly comic drama that takes the viewer inside the head of a fantasist.

Joyti's heroic spending was the stuff of dreams. She blew millions on cars, jewellery and gifts, whilst maintaining an elaborate web of lies and fantasies that meant no-one questioned her new-found wealth. But the more money she stole, the more she needed. An unstoppable cycle that inevitably led to her capture and a 7-year jail sentence.


MON 23:30 Only Connect (b00rs1qh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 00:00 How to Win an Election: A Panorama Guide (b00rs1ql)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 01:00 Dear Diary (b00pws9f)
Mariella Frostrup

Mariella Frostrup asks what it takes to write a compelling diary. She discovers more about the diaries of Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank and Adrian Mole through meeting Virginia Nicholson, Jacqueline Wilson and Sue Townsend.

In seeking to find out what separates a simply dedicated diarist from a great one Mariella travels to Charleston to meet Virginia Nicholson, the grandniece of her favourite diarist, Virginia Woolf. Despite leading inexorably towards her taking her own life, Woolf's diaries are surprisingly funny, and their immediacy and humanity pulls us into her world.

Teenage is a time when many commit their most intimate thoughts to their diary, though few continue into adulthood. Mariella visits Jacqueline Wilson to talk about the teenage diary - often silly, full of self-obsession and lacking in irony. In fact, the former children's laureate describes her own teenage diary as written by 'such an idiot'. But Jacqueline is in awe of the skilled teenage writers who use their diary as confidante to create something resonant and lasting and admits to a lifelong obsession with Anne Frank. Anne Frank couldn't possibly know the end to her story as she wrote. But is there a reader who comes to her diaries without the added poignancy of the tragic end colouring how they respond to every entry?

The importance of a diary's detail and honesty come to dominate Mariella's trip to Leicester to see Sue Townsend. They discuss whether a fictional diary can possibly be entirely fictional, and Sue confesses that there are more similarities between her and her diary-keeping creation, Adrian Mole, than one might imagine.

Contributors include Eileen Atkins, Hermione Lee, Deborah Bull, Kathy Lette, Gyles Brandreth, Ellie Kendrick, Simon Brett, John Lahr and Simon Garfield.


MON 02:00 BBC Proms (b00m433v)
2009

Prom 39: Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus

Charles Hazlewood presents as the Proms mark the 75th birthday of one of Britain's greatest living composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, with a rare performance of the central act of his monumental opera The Mask of Orpheus. It is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers and a cast that includes Alan Oke and Christine Rice, and conducted by Martyn Brabbins with Ryan Wigglesworth.

Brabbins opens the concert with Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, a piece which won the Radio 3 Listeners' Award at the 2006 British Composer Awards.

Stravinsky's elegant ballet music Apollo contrasts these two contemporary works.


MON 04:30 How to Win an Election: A Panorama Guide (b00rs1ql)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 30 MARCH 2010

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00rs21k)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
Episode 8

Comedians Andy Hamilton and Reginald D Hunter host a series in which qualified professionals and experts submit their theories about life, the universe and everything for examination by a panel of Hamilton, Hunter and a guest celebrity, who then make a final decision on whether the theory is worth keeping.

The guest is broadcaster Clare Balding and the experts are David Ryan and Marcus Chown.


TUE 20:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00l7qdh)
Episode 1

King Henry VIII had a fascinating and enlightening relationship with art. He came to the throne as the Renaissance swept across Europe, yet England's new king never lost sight of the medieval chivalry of his forefathers. In the first of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks at the palaces, tapestries, music and paintings created in Henry's name and questions whether the art he commissioned compensates for the religious treasures he would come to destroy.


TUE 21:00 The Genius of Omar Khayyam (b00rs21m)
Filmed in part across Iran during the run up to the 2009 election and presented by Sadeq Saba.

Born almost 1000 years ago in Persia, Omar Khayyam was an astronomer, mathematician and poet. His contribution to algebra and geometry has sealed his reputation as one the greatest mathematicians of all time; and a lunar crater has been named after him for his advances in astronomy.

Omar Khayyam lived during a medieval golden age of science and learning in the East. He was among a group of pioneering scientists who were influenced by ideas from ancient Greece, India and China. The film reveals how Islam and the advancement of science went hand in hand.

In the West, Khayyam is best known for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam most famously translated by a Victorian man of letters called Edward Fitzgerald. Published in 1859, the same year as Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the film shows how and why the Rubaiyat became one of the most famous poems in the English language, attracting a who's who of literary admirers including Thomas Hardy, TS Eliot and Arthur Conan Doyle.

A decade after its success in England, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was published in America where its message of live for the day instantly captured the public imagination. Its popularity spawned all sorts of products including Omar tooth powder, playing cards, and the first illustrated editions of the Rubaiyat. America's favourite poet, Walt Whitman was a fan, and soldiers took miniature copies of the Rubaiyat to the battleground.

Omar Khayyam remains a significant figure in present day Iran, and the film explores why despite his apparent religious scepticism, Khayyam's philosophy continues to resonate with modern Iranians.


TUE 22:00 Storyville (b00rs21p)
Barbados at the Races

The Favourite

Four-part series looking at Barbados today through the lives, at work and at play, of the island's horse racing community. The series is centred on the Barbados Turf Club and follows the stories of a colourful cast of characters, from the big white owners at the top of the tree right down to the poor black exercise riders and grooms.

The Club and its racecourse have been based at the former British army garrison on the edge of the island's capital, Bridgetown, for over a hundred years. The quirky and, at times, spiritually-minded series looks at how the culture of Barbados today, its institutions and the mindset of its people, have been shaped by the colonial past and the legacy of slavery.

There are two big races a year at the Turf Club - the Gold Cup and the Derby. This programme follows the build up for the Derby through the eyes of those who have trained and groomed the clear favourite in preparation for this historic race.

Areutalkintome is on the verge of becoming only the sixth horse in over a century to complete the Triple Crown - all he has to do is win the Derby. As those around Areutalkintome face up to their role in his success, the programme becomes about more than just horse-racing. It is about chance, predictability, life, death, fate and faith.


TUE 22:30 The Antiques Rogue Show (b00gn6y7)
A compelling drama documentary about one of the world's prolific and most diverse art forgers. The Greenhalgh family lived by modest means on a council estate in Bolton but, tucked away in the garden shed, Shaun Greenhalgh was creating fake paintings, antiques and sculptures that would dupe the art world out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He was aided by his octogenarian parents, George and Olive (played by Peter Vaughan and Liz Smith), who concocted elaborate back stories for each forgery. Their trump card came with a fake Egyptian statue, supposedly passed down from George's grandfather, which they sold to Bolton Museum for nearly half a million pounds. Despite the windfall the family continued to live a frugal lifestyle, revelling instead in the satisfaction derived at deceiving the art experts.

Emboldened by their success, the family couldn't resist another audacious attempt - to pass off a fake Assyrian relief to the British Museum, a costly mistake that ultimately led the police to their door. But the real victim of the story is the son, Shaun Greenhalgh, touchingly portrayed by Jeremy Swift. Here was a man still living at home in his forties, who in a different family, in different circumstances could have been heralded as an artistic genius, but who instead languishes in prison on a four-and-a-half year stretch.


TUE 23:30 Kidult: My Kid Could Paint That (b00csk9p)
Documentary that gets to the heart of an extraordinary artworld cause célèbre.

In the span of only a few months, 4-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown - and sold over $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called 'a budding Picasso'. Inside Edition, The Jane Pauley Show, and NPR did pieces on her, and The Today Show and Good Morning America got in a bidding war over an appearance by the bashful toddler. There was talk of corporate sponsorship with the family fielding calls from The Gap and Crayola.

Then, five months into Marla's new life as a celebrity, and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. CBS's 60 Minutes aired an exposé suggesting strongly that the paintings were painted by her father, himself an amateur painter. As quickly as the public built Marla up, they tore her down. The New York Post asked whether 'the juvenile Jackson Pollock may actually be a full-fledged Willem de Frauding'. The Olmsteads were barraged with hate mail and ostracized, whilst sales of the paintings dried up and Marla's art dealer considered moving. Embattled, the Olmsteads themselves turned to a documentary filmmaker to clear their name.

Torn between his own responsibility as a journalist and the family's desire to see their integrity restored, the director finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a situation that can't possibly end well for him and them, and could easily end badly for both.


TUE 00:50 BBC Proms (b00ml7p3)
2009

Prom 40: Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Charles Hazlewood introduces the annual Proms performance of Beethoven's 9th, his life-affirming choral symphony, recorded earlier in the season with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, soloists Rebecca Evans, Caitlin Hulcup, Anthony Dean Griffey and James Rutherford, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus conducted by Ilan Volkov.

Stravinsky's ballet music Orpheus opens the programme.


TUE 02:50 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 03:20 The Genius of Omar Khayyam (b00rs21m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2010

WED 19:00 World News Today (b00rs299)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Storyville (b00rs21p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


WED 20:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00lc71z)
Episode 2

In the 1530s, King Henry VIII was at a crossroads. In his desperation for a new wife and an heir he had broken with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. Isolated and vulnerable, he needed a powerful new image as head of church and state.

In the second of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks for clues in the king's art to glimpse what was going on inside his head as he faced his darkest days.


WED 21:00 Canoe Man (b00rs2kc)
It was the story that gripped a nation.

John Darwin was a real life Reggie Perrin who faked his death to fund a better life, disappearing at sea in a canoe, while his wife, Anne, played the grieving widow. Even the couple's sons were fooled.

This compelling drama documentary has collaboration from the journalist who had exclusive access to Anne Darwin in the vital few days before her arrest and to whom she confessed all.

As the story unraveled in the glare of the media spotlight, Anne Darwin desperately tried to keep the lie intact.

This unique telling of this extraordinary tale uses as its basis the three very different versions of the story Anne Darwin told to try and fool the press and the police.


WED 22:00 Mad Men (b00rs2kf)
Series 3

The Gypsy and the Hobo

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

Don finally makes his confession to a furious Betty. A potential client and former acquaintance of Roger's calls to the agency, with more than work on her mind. Joan's husband searches for a new job.


WED 22:45 Timeshift (b00pht5q)
Series 9

Oliver Postgate: A Life in Small Films

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a man whose name was Oliver Postgate. He had a shed where he made things.

With his friend Peter Firmin, Oliver created entire worlds for characters including Bagpuss, The Clangers and Ivor the Engine. These stories fired the imaginations of generations of children, and his lullaby voice became a universal reminder of childhood.

Time Shift celebrates Oliver Postgate's life and work through a treasury of clips from well-known and rarely seen films, alongside film and photos from the family archive. Fans including Lauren Child (Charlie and Lola) and Andrew Davenport (In the Night Garden) are on hand to heap praise on the man who is such an inspiration for their work.

Postgate's family help delve deep into his history and discover the inventions, such as Oliver's old camera adapted with Meccano, that powered his imagined worlds. Co-creator Firmin reveals the story behind his most celebrated characters and introduces his daughter Emily, familiar to millions as the owner of Bagpuss.

The documentary also reveals how, as the grandson of Labour leader George Lansbury, Postgate's life was shaped by radical politics. His deeply held beliefs influenced his classic creations, and campaigning became his focus until his death in December 2008.


WED 23:45 Timeshift (b00pht5s)
Series 9

Clement Freud: In His Own Words

When Clement Freud died in April 2009, Britain lost not only one of its best-loved broadcasters but also one of its last great polymaths - a man whose long and varied career encompassed being a Liberal MP, cookery expert, newspaper columnist and author.

Freud's lugubrious expression and distinctive voice launched him as a TV personality in the 1960s with a series of dog food commercials, but his early life was just as colourful - the grandson of Sigmund Freud, he was a commis chef at the Dorchester Hotel and a liaison officer at the Nuremberg war crimes trials of 1946.

This documentary draws together interviews with Freud from across four decades, including previously unaired material, to allow him to tell the story of his remarkable life in his own inimitable way.


WED 00:45 Canoe Man (b00rs2kc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


WED 01:45 Storyville (b00rs21p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


WED 02:15 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00l7qdh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 03:15 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00lc71z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 04:15 Sacred Music (b00rm59l)
Series 2

Gorecki and Part

Simon Russell Beale visits Poland and Estonia to discover why the sacred music of the two highly spiritual composers Gorecki and Part strikes such a chord in today's noisy and fast-moving world.

Alongside music performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, Simon's journey takes him through the turbulent religious and political history of Eastern Europe as he explores the important symbolic role of sacred music in the struggle against Communism.



THURSDAY 01 APRIL 2010

THU 19:00 World News Today (b00rs2vv)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Only Connect (b00rs1qh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


THU 20:00 Astaire and Rogers Sing George and Ira Gershwin (b00rw6ct)
A compilation of classic songs from the Great American Songbook written by brothers George and Ira Gershwin for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.


THU 20:10 An American in Paris (b0074r4z)
Multi-Oscar-winning musical built around a Gershwin score, set in early 20th-century Paris. Jerry, an American painter living in Paris, is loved by the rich and beautiful Milo, but he falls in love with a poor orphan who is engaged to someone else. Songs include I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You and Our Love Is Here to Stay, plus a 17-minute fantasy ballet sequence.


THU 22:00 Wallander (b00rs406)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


THU 23:30 Canoe Man (b00rs2kc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Wednesday]


THU 00:30 In Search of the Perfect Loaf (b00rm55q)
Documentary which follows award-winning artisan baker Tom Herbert in his search to bake a loaf that will win him first prize at the National Organic Food Awards.

Tom Herbert's family have been baking bread in the Cotswolds for five generations. Tom started baking with his father and grandfather and at 16 began his formal apprenticeship. Fresh out of college, he won Young Baker of the Year and now, at 32, Tom continues to win awards for the family firm, Hobbs House Bakery.

Tom is passionate about handmade bread and critical of what he describes as the 'plastic-wrapped pap' of the mass-produced bread market. However, given that sales of handmade bread only account for 2 per cent of the market, Tom has his work cut out if he is to convert more people to the joys of handmade bread.

Tom's quest to make the perfect loaf takes him to Cornwall to meet archaeologist Jacquie Wood, to learn how our ancestors might have baked bread. At the medieval water mill at Stanway House in Gloucestershire he meets Professor Brian Reuben, a leading authority on the history of bread, and he visits Brackman's Jewish bakery in Salford run by third generation baker, Andrew Adelman. Here, Tom learns how to make the specialist Jewish bread challah and meets the rabbi who, on his daily inspection of the baking methods and ingredients, ensures that they conform to Jewish religious law.

Tom's journey helps him to come up with what he hopes will be a competition-winning loaf for the National Organic Food Awards - a huge two-kilo, white, spelt, sourdough loaf made using his family's 40-year-old sourdough, organic spelt from Somerset, Cornish sea salt and Cotswold water from a local spring. Tom names it 'The Shepherd's Loaf'. But while it's his perfect loaf, will the judges agree?


THU 01:30 Timeshift (b00rm508)
Series 9

Bread: A Loaf Affair

The aptly-named Tom Baker narrates a tale of aspiration, industrialisation and plain old-fashioned snobbery in a documentary which unwraps the story of the rise of the popular loaf and how it has shaped the way we eat.

Historically, to know the colour of one's bread was to know one's place in life. For centuries, ordinary people ate brown bread that was about as easy on the teeth as a brick. Softer, refined white bread was so expensive to make that it became the preserve of the rich. Affordable white bread was the baker's holy grail - but almost as soon as it became possible to achieve, dietary experts began to trumpet the virtues of brown. Not surprisingly, the British public proved reluctant to give up their white loaves, and even a war couldn't change their eating habits.


THU 02:30 In Memory of Me (b00rs130)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 on Sunday]



FRIDAY 02 APRIL 2010

FRI 19:00 Sacred Music (b00rs3w2)
Series 2

Searching Out the Sacred

Simon Russell Beale returns to the UK to explore how three very different musical approaches to Christian music have captured the spiritual imagination of the nation. The composers James MacMillan, Sir John Tavener and John Rutter give a special insight into the challenges and rewards of writing sacred music for the 21st century. Music is performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen.


FRI 20:00 Walk On By (b00784n3)
From Russia with Love

Documentary series charting the evolution of pop from Tin Pan Alley to today's billion-dollar industry.

It begins by tracing the roots of pop in the meeting of two cultures: Jewish and African-American. Among the refugees from Eastern Europe who arrived in the USA and shaped the sound of the 1920s and 30s were Irving Berlin and George Gershwin.


FRI 20:50 Astaire and Rogers Sing George and Ira Gershwin (b00rw6ct)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Thursday]


FRI 21:00 ... Sings the Great American Songbook (b00rs3w4)
Presenting the best and most eclectic performances on the BBC from the world's best-known artists performing their interpretations of classic tracks from The Great American Songbook.

In chronological order, this programme takes us through a myriad of BBC studio performances, from Dame Shirley Bassey in 1966 performing The Lady is A Tramp, to Bryan Ferry in 1974 on Twiggy's BBC primetime show performing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, to Captain Sensible on Top of the Pops in 1982 with his number one hit version of Happy Talk, through to Kirsty MacColl singing Miss Otis Regrets in 1994 to Jamie Cullum with his version of I Get a Kick Out Of You on Parkinson in 2004 and bang up to date with Brit winner Florence from Florence and the Machine performing My Baby Just Cares for Me with Jools Holland on his Annual Hootenanny at the end of 2009.

The Great American Songbook can best be described as the music and popular songs of the famous and prolific American composers of the 1920s and onwards. Composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Hoagy Carmichael to name but a few... songwriters who wrote the tunes of Broadway theatre and Hollywood musicals that earned enduring popularity before the dawning of rock 'n' roll.

These famous songwriters have penned songs which have entered the general consciousness and which are now best described as standards - tunes which every musician and singer aspires to include in their repertoire.


FRI 22:00 Arena (b00rs3w6)
Frank Sinatra: The Voice of the Century

Arena explores the rise of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra from his early family background to overwhelming showbusiness success. Interviews with friends, family and associates reveal a star-studded career in music and film alongside a fascinating private life of four marriages, liaison with the Kennedy family, Las Vegas business interests and an alleged association with the mafia.


FRI 23:35 Judy, Frank and Dean (b00gd3c3)
Legendary TV concert film featuring Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Believed lost for years, it features performances of San Francisco, The Man That Got Away, Trolley Song and many more.


FRI 00:25 Walk On By (b00784n3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 01:15 ... Sings the Great American Songbook (b00rs3w4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:15 Judy, Frank and Dean (b00gd3c3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:35 today]


FRI 03:05 Sacred Music (b00rs3w2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]