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.
Documentary which takes a glorious journey back to the 1950s, when the coach was king. From its early origins in the charabanc, the coach had always been the people's form of transport. Cheaper and more flexible than the train, it allowed those who had travelled little further than their own villages and towns a first heady taste of exploration and freedom. It was a safe capsule on wheels from which to venture out into a wider world.
The distinctive livery of the different coach companies was part of a now-lost world, when whole communities crammed into coach after coach en route to pleasure spots like Blackpool, Margate and Torquay. With singsongs, toilet stops and the obligatory pub halt, it didn't matter how long it took to get there because the journey was all part of the adventure.
The extraordinary story of comedian Bob Monkhouse's life and career, told through the vast private archive of films, TV shows, letters and memorabilia that he left behind.
Singer and comedienne Gracie Fields from Rochdale was the nation's darling. Beginning on the cusp of World War II and at the phenomenal peak of her career, this heart-breaking love story tells of Gracie's relationship with Italian-born Hollywood director Monty Banks and its staggering repercussions.
Screen adaptation of Tracy Chevalier's best-selling novel, inspired by the Johannes Vermeer painting of the same name. Set in mid-17th-century Delft, Holland, 17-year-old Griet is forced into servanthood when her father suffers an accident and becomes unable to work. She is taken on at the Vermeer household, where her presence immediately provokes hostility from members of the family - particularly the artist's wife and eldest daughter - when she starts to forge an understanding with her mysterious master.
SUNDAY 09 JANUARY 2011
SUN 19:00 The Normans (b00tcgkl)
Men from the North
In the first episode of a three-part series, Professor Robert Bartlett explores how the Normans developed from a band of marauding Vikings into the formidable warriors who conquered England in 1066. He tells how the Normans established their new province of Normandy -'land of the northmen' - in northern France. They went on to build some of the finest churches in Europe and turned into an unstoppable force of Christian knights and warriors, whose legacy is all around us to this day. Under the leadership of Duke William, the Normans expanded into the neighbouring provinces of northern France. But William's greatest achievement was the conquest of England in 1066. The Battle of Hastings marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and monarchy. The culture and politics of England would now be transformed by the Normans.
SUN 20:00 Dan Snow's Norman Walks (b00t6yc2)
Sussex: The Invasion Walk
As part of the BBC's Norman season, historian Dan Snow puts his walking boots on and sets off to see what the British landscape can teach us about our Norman predecessors. From their violent arrival on these shores to their most sustaining legacies, Dan's three walks follow an evolutionary path through the Normans' era, from invasion to conquest, to successful rule and colonization.
On the Sussex coast, along the Welsh border and on the edge of the North York Moors, Dan explores the landscape and whatever evidence might remain; earth mounds, changing coastlines, viewpoints, and of course the giant stone castles and buildings that were the great symbol of Norman rule. All these elements offer clues as to how the Norman elite were ultimately able to dominate and rule our Anglo-Saxon kingdom.
As Dan discovers, there are a great many unknowns about events in 1066 and thereafter. But one thing is clear - wherever they went, the varied British landscape and its diverse people offered a fresh challenge to the Normans.
The exploration begins on the Sussex coastline, on the cliffs overlooking the Channel, where William the Conqueror and his army first encountered British soil in the run-up to Hastings. But whilst the end result of William's invasion is in no doubt, how much do we really know about events leading up to the battle?
From Hastings to the town of Battle, Dan's first walk traces events in the two-week period between the Norman landings and the battle itself. By exploring the coastline and investigating what the opposing armies did for two weeks, Dan begins to satisfy his curiosity about why the battle took place when and where it did.
SUN 20:30 Johnny Kingdom's Year with the Birds (b00vnf8g)
Episode 1
Johnny Kingdom, gravedigger-turned-amateur filmmaker spends a year recording the bird life in and around his home on his beloved Exmoor.
Johnny has spent three years creating a wildlife habitat on his 52-acre patch of land on the edge of Exmoor. He's been busy nailing nest boxes on tree trunks, planting a wildflower meadow, dredging his pond, putting up remote cameras and wiring them up to a viewing station in his cabin on the land - all the time hoping against hope that not only will he attract new wildlife but also that he will be able to film it.
This year he is turning his attention to the bird life, hoping to follow some of the species he finds near his home and on his land, across the seasons. We see the transitions from the lovely autumn mists of the oak wood, through the sparkling snow-clad landscape of a north Devon winter, into spring's woodland carpet of bluebells and finally the golden glow of early summer.
The bulk of the series is from Johnny's own camera. Don't expect the Natural History Unit - instead expect passion, enthusiasm, humour and an exuberant love of the landscape and its wildlife.
The series begins at the end of autumn, with Johnny clearing out bird boxes and sorting out his new remote cameras in preparation for the winter. There are two birds in particular that he wants to film - the great spotted woodpecker and the wren. But the harsh winter looks as if it could spell trouble for the wrens and it will be spring before Johnny knows how well they have fared.
He has better luck with the woodpecker and eventually finds their roost. Meanwhile, at home, he struggles to get shots of a mistle thrush as his wife Julie and his neighbours disturb this shy bird as it feasts on a rowan tree.
SUN 21:00 Still Folk Dancing... After All These Years (b00wgrtr)
Young Northumbrian folk-singing siblings Rachel and Becky Unthank take a journey around England from spring to autumn 2010 to experience its living folk dance traditions in action. They lead us through the back gardens and narrow streets of towns and villages from Newcastle to Penzance to discover the most surprising of dances, ceremonies, rituals and festivities that mark the turning of the seasons and the passing of the year.
On their journey the Unthanks learn about the evolving history of the dances, whether connected to the land and the cycles of fertility or to working customs and practices in industrial towns. The girls talk to local historians and visit Cecil Sharp House to explore the dances' 20th century revival and codification through archivist Sharp and others, and we get to enjoy extraordinary film archive of the dances through the decades which show that although the people have changed, the dances have often remained remarkably constant.
Rachel and Becky grew up clog dancing in their native Northumberland and now get to observe and try other English dances, including travellers' step dancing in Suffolk, horn dancing with huge antlers in Staffordshire and stick dancing in Oxfordshire. This curious but vibrant world of local dances flies in the face of modernisation, and sometimes of ridicule, to keep the traditions and the steps alive.
SUN 22:00 Priceless (b00xf5fn)
Romantic comedy in which Jean, a shy waiter working in a grand hotel in the south of France, is mistaken for a successful millionaire by beautiful scheming opportunist Irene. When Irene discovers his true identity, she abandons him, only to find that a lovestruck Jean has no intention of letting her get away.
SUN 23:40 Classic Albums (b00x7chg)
Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes
The third album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released in 1979, has long been regarded as a classic and demonstrates the musical and songwriting virtuosity of a great frontman and his amazing backing band. A mix of rootsy American rock 'n' roll and the best of the British invasion, of jangling Byrds guitars and Stones-like rhythms, Damn the Torpedoes was the album that took Petty into the major league and redefined American rock.
This programme tells the story behind the conception and recording of the album and how it transformed the band's career. Using interviews, musical demonstration, acoustic performance, archive footage and a return to the multi-tracks with the main protagonists, it shows how Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch created their songs and sounds with the help of co-producer Jimmy Iovine and engineer Shelly Yakus. Additional comments from journalists and other producers and musicians help tell the story and put the album into its rightful place in rock history.
Recorded in secrecy at a time when the band was fighting for creative independence amidst a legal wrangle with their record company, the album is imbued with an anger and a gutsy attitude the situation had created. Many songs from the album are still played live and form an important part of Petty's body of work, including Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, Even the Losers, Shadow of a Doubt, Louisiana Rain, Century City and top ten hit Don't Do Me Like That.
Damn the Torpedoes hit number two in the US for seven weeks, initially selling over 2.5 million copies, and launched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers onto the world stage and into superstar territory, standing as one of the great records of the late 70s and early 80s.
SUN 00:35 Rock Goes to College (b00phv9m)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Pete Drummond introduces Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in concert at Oxford Polytechnic in 1980.
SUN 01:20 Still Folk Dancing... After All These Years (b00wgrtr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
SUN 02:20 Dan Snow's Norman Walks (b00t6yc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUN 02:50 The Normans (b00tcgkl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MONDAY 10 JANUARY 2011
MON 19:00 World News Today (b00xf6jj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire (b00t3tj6)
Power and Privilege
John Sergeant continues his 3,000-mile journey along India's rail tracks, travelling north to south to discover how the railways not only shaped its history but also its future.
Starting in New Delhi, John reveals how the railways' extraordinary construction story began with locomotives and track being shipped from British shipyards. He visits Gwalior to discover the extent of collusion between the privileged maharajahs and the British Empire, and at Victoria Terminus he reveals the politics and the power behind its grand design.
But it is at Bhore Ghat - just outside Mumbai - where John discovers the 19th-century British engineers' crowning construction achievement and the extraordinary human cost that made it all possible. He concludes that today it is India's railways that continue to change the lives of its one billion people in ways that would have delighted its colonial architects.
MON 20:30 Only Connect (b00xygp6)
Specials
Series 3 vs Series 4 Winners Special
Victoria Coren presents a special edition of the quiz show in which knowledge will only take you so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital. The Gamblers, the winners of series three, square up to the Epicureans, the winners of series four, connecting such subjects as Nero, Mary Portas, Alan Cumming and Elton John.
MON 21:00 Rich Hall's 'The Dirty South' (b00t26zf)
Rich Hall sets his keen eye and acerbic wit on his homeland once again as he sifts truth from fiction in Hollywood's version of the southern states of the USA. Using specially shot interviews and featuring archive footage from classic movies such as Gone With the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire and Deliverance, Rich discovers a South that is about so much more than just rednecks, racism and hillbillies.
MON 22:30 Storyville (b00xf6jl)
Secrets of the Tribe
The field of anthropology goes under the magnifying glass in a fiery investigation of the seminal research on Yanomami Indians, also known as the 'Fierce People'. In the 1960s and 70s, a steady stream of anthropologists filed into the Amazon Basin to observe this 'virgin' society untouched by modern life. Thirty years later, the events surrounding this infiltration have become a scandalous tale of academic ethics and infighting.
MON 00:00 Macbeth (b00wnstq)
Film version of director Rupert Goold's highly-acclaimed production with Sir Patrick Stewart as Macbeth and Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth, originally staged by Chichester Festival Theatre and later a sell-out hit in the West End and on Broadway.
Shot on location in the mysterious underground world of Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, the film is set in an undefined and threatening central European world. Immediate and visceral, this is a contemporary presentation of Shakespeare's intense, claustrophobic and bloody drama.
Patrick Stewart won Best Actor and Rupert Goold Best Director in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for the stage production and both Stewart and Fleetwood were nominated for Tony Awards for their performances.
Director of the play ENRON and the Royal Shakespeare Company's current Romeo and Juliet, Rupert Goold has been described by critic Benedict Nightingale as 'the hottest, most exciting director around', and Macbeth is his debut as a film director.
MON 02:30 Rich Hall's 'The Dirty South' (b00t26zf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 11 JANUARY 2011
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00xf6p1)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 The Beauty of Maps (b00s3v0t)
Medieval Maps - Mapping the Medieval Mind
Documentary series charting the visual appeal and historical meaning of maps.
The Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest intact Medieval wall map in the world and its ambition is breathtaking - to picture all of human knowledge in a single image. The work of a team of artists, the world it portrays is overflowing with life, featuring Classical and Biblical history, contemporary buildings and events, animals and plants from across the globe, and the infamous 'monstrous races' which were believed to inhabit the remotest corners of the Earth.
The Mappa Mundi, meaning 'cloth of the world', has spent most of its long life at Hereford Cathedral, rarely emerging from behind its glass case. The programme represents a rare opportunity to get close to the map and explore its detail, giving a unique insight into the Medieval mind. This is also the first programme to show the map in its original glory, revealing the results of a remarkable year-long project by the Folio Society to restore it using the latest digital technology.
The map has a chequered history. Since its glory days in the 1300s it has languished forgotten in storerooms, been dismissed as a curious 'monstrosity', and controversially almost sold. Only in the last 20 years have scholars and artists realised its true depth and meaning, with the map exerting an extraordinary power over those who come into contact with it. The programme meets some of these individuals, from scholars and map lovers to Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, whose own work, the Map of Nowhere, is inspired by the Mappa Mundi.
TUE 20:00 Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's (b00j8bwk)
Episode 2
Three-part series exploring the Baroque tradition in many of its key locations. Starting in Italy and following the spread of the wildfire across Europe and beyond, art critic Waldemar Januszczak takes us on a tour of the best examples of Baroque to be found, and tells the best stories behind those works.
He follows Baroque to its dark heart in Spain, focusing on the route of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and featuring star painters Velasquez, Caravaggio and Zurburan. He then carries on through Belgium and Holland to discover such celebrities as Rubens and Vermeer.
TUE 21:00 Secret Lives of the Artists (b0074qm1)
Constable in Love
John Constable's painting The Haywain embodies pretty and cosy England, adorning many a tea towel and postcard. But behind the image of rural calm lies a passionate artist whose pictures hide an erotic undercurrent - a story of forbidden love to rival even Shakespeare's ill-fated lovers. Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals the true story of Constable and an untold love story sublimated on canvas.
TUE 22:00 Mental: A History of the Madhouse (b00sfpvf)
Documentary which tells the fascinating and poignant story of the closure of Britain's mental asylums. In the post-war period, 150,000 people were hidden away in 120 of these vast Victorian institutions all across the country. Today, most mental patients, or service users as they are now called, live out in the community and the asylums have all but disappeared. Through powerful testimonies from patients, nurses and doctors, the film explores this seismic revolution and what it tells us about society's changing attitudes to mental illness over the last sixty years.
TUE 23:00 The Brain: A Secret History (b00xhgkd)
Mind Control
In a compelling and at times disturbing series, Dr Michael Mosley explores the brutal history of experimental psychology.
To begin, Michael traces the sinister ways this science has been used to try to control our minds. He finds that the pursuit of mind control has led to some truly horrific experiments and left many casualties in its wake. Extraordinary archive material captures what happened - scientists systematically change the behaviour of children, law-abiding citizens give fatal electric shocks and a gay man has electrodes implanted in his head in an attempt to turn his sexuality.
Michael takes a hallucinogenic drug as part of a controlled experiment to try to understand how its mind-bending properties can change the brain.
This is a scientific journey which goes to the very heart of what we hold most dear - our free will, and our ability to control our own destiny.
TUE 00:00 Horizon (b00x7cb3)
What Makes Us Clever? A Horizon Guide to Intelligence
Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how our understanding of intelligence has transformed over the last century. From early caveman thinkers to computers doing the thinking for us, he discovers the best ways of testing how clever we are - and enhancing it.
TUE 01:00 Secret Lives of the Artists (b0074qm1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 02:00 Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's (b00j8bwk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUE 03:00 Storyville (b00xf6jl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 on Monday]
WEDNESDAY 12 JANUARY 2011
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00xf6xh)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 The Boats That Built Britain (b00sbp0t)
The Pickle
HMS Pickle is the unsung hero of the British navy. In 1805 Britain had just won the most significant sea battle in history, Trafalgar. But how to get the message home to an expectant nation? Enter the Pickle, the smallest ship in the fleet, a little boat with a revolutionary new design that beat her bigger rivals back to Britain to deliver the news. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sets out in the Pickle and tells the story of a boat that, against all the odds, delivered the most important news in Britain's maritime history.
WED 20:00 Art of the Sea (b00s96xz)
In Words
Novelist Joseph Conrad described the sea as another planet. Majestic, dramatic and sometimes terrifying, the sea has held a real fascination for British writers. From Shakespeare to Coleridge, Robert Louis Stevenson to Patrick O'Brian, it has inspired some of our most gifted authors.
Poet and novelist Owen Sheers sets off to discover whether there is anything that unites the great British sea stories. In the company of both seafarers and sea writers, he explores the transformative effect that the sea has had on the human mind.
WED 21:00 Timeshift (b00xf6xk)
Series 10
The Modern Age of the Coach
Documentary which brings the story of the coach up to date, as it explores the most recent phase of Britain's love affair with group travel on four wheels - from school trips and football away-days to touring with bands and 'magic bus' overland treks to India.
The establishment of the National Coach Company may have standardised the livery and the experience of mainstream coach travel in the 1970s, but a multitude of alternative offerings meant the coach retained its hold on the public imagination, with even striking miners and New Age travellers getting in on a very British act.
WED 22:00 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 23:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007xmbm)
The Honeymoon Period
The second episode in this evocative series about Britain's motorways explores how they have transformed where we live, work and play in Britain over the last 50 years. From unbelievably glamorous early service stations to contemporary shopping centres with the infrastructure of a small town, this enthralling film is a journey through the wonderful, and the weird, places motorways have taken us. Contributors include seminal planner Sir Peter Hall, author Will Self, caravanners, hitchhikers and commuters, all on our eagerness to accelerate down the slip road, and the social changes that have followed.
WED 00:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007xmdn)
The End of the Affair
When the first motorways opened they did so to national celebration. But after the first 1,000 miles had been built, their impact on both town and country was becoming apparent and people started to protest.
Middle England rose up and disrupted public inquiries to voice their frustration at motorway building, but it continued and over time the frustration gave way to concerns about saving the planet. In the early 1990s that meant young people willing to risk everything to stop the motorways being built. The programme shows how people began to question the promises made by the motorway, and along the way found their voice of protest.
WED 01:00 Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady (b00hq4fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
WED 02:00 Art of the Sea (b00s96xz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 03:00 Timeshift (b00xf6xk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 13 JANUARY 2011
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00xf7jl)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Storyville (b00rh93j)
Barbados at the Races
The Jockey's Prayer
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.
This part is about the lives of three very different riders and centres on the life of the Bajan jockey - the trials and deprivations of keeping on top of your game, the glory and glamour of success and the temptations and pitfalls that can come hand in hand with financial rewards. All these forces create a tight-knit community united by their mutual competitiveness and their love of the adrenaline-fuelled buzz of the track.
THU 20:00 The Joy of Stats (b00wgq0l)
Documentary which takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics to explore the remarkable power they have to change our understanding of the world, presented by superstar boffin Professor Hans Rosling, whose eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend.
Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be.
Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes.
The film also explores cutting-edge examples of statistics in action today. In San Francisco, a new app mashes up police department data with the city's street map to show what crime is being reported street by street, house by house, in near real-time. Every citizen can use it and the hidden patterns of their city are starkly revealed. Meanwhile, at Google HQ the machine translation project tries to translate between 57 languages, using lots of statistics and no linguists.
Despite its light and witty touch, the film nonetheless has a serious message - without statistics we are cast adrift on an ocean of confusion, but armed with stats we can take control of our lives, hold our rulers to account and see the world as it really is. What's more, Hans concludes, we can now collect and analyse such huge quantities of data and at such speeds that scientific method itself seems to be changing.
THU 21:00 The Brain: A Secret History (b00x7cb5)
Emotions
Dr Michael Mosley continues his exploration of the brutal history of experimental psychology. Experiments on the human mind have led to profound insights into how our brain works - but have also involved great cruelty and posed some terrible ethical dilemmas.
In this film, Michael investigates how scientists have struggled to understand that most irrational and deeply complex part of our minds - our emotions.
Michael meets survivors - both participants and scientists - of some of the key historical experiments. Many of these extraordinary research projects were captured on film - an eight-month-old boy is taught to fear random objects, baby monkeys are given mothers made from wire and cloth, and an adult is deliberately violent before a group of toddlers.
Michael takes part in modern-day experiments to play his own small part in the quest to understand emotions.
THU 22:00 Five Daughters (b00s8j55)
Episode 2
With the discovery of two bodies in quick succession, fear and panic begin to take hold on the streets of Ipswich.
Based on the testimony of many of those most closely involved with those tragic events, this episode follows the young women and their families as more disappearances are reported and the police investigation quickens.
THU 23:00 Priceless (b00xf5fn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
THU 00:40 The Brain: A Secret History (b00x7cb5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 01:40 Mental: A History of the Madhouse (b00sfpvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Tuesday]
THU 02:40 Storyville (b00rh93j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 03:10 The Brain: A Secret History (b00x7cb5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 14 JANUARY 2011
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00xf7jx)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Mozart Uncovered (b0074q3f)
Symphony No 39 in E Flat
Conductor Charles Hazlewood rehearses and performs some of the key works featured in the BBC series The Genius of Mozart and analyses them in more detail. Mozart's Symphony No 39 in E flat major, K543 is examined by Hazlewood and his specially-formed period orchestra. This was the first of Mozart's three last great symphonies, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity in just six weeks.
FRI 20:30 Transatlantic Sessions (b007zmn2)
Series 3
Episode 2
Folk musicians come together in what have been called the greatest backporch shows ever. Jerry Douglas demonstrates his Grammy award-winning dobro skills and other highlights include Eddi Reader with Tim O'Brien, Julie Fowlis with Donal Lunny and Darrell Scott backed by Karen Matheson.
FRI 21:00 The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (b00xf8k7)
During the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Sister Rosetta Tharpe played a highly significant role in the creation of rock & roll, inspiring musicians like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. She may not be a household name, but this flamboyant African-American gospel singing superstar, with her spectacular virtuosity on the newly-electrified guitar, was one of the most influential popular musicians of the 20th century.
Tharpe was born in 1915, close to the Mississippi in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. At the age of six she was taken by her evangelist mother Katie Bell to Chicago to join Roberts Temple, Church of God in Christ, where she developed her distinctive style of singing and guitar playing. At the age of 23 she left the church and went to New York to join the world of show business, signing with Decca Records. For the following 30 years she performed extensively to packed houses in the USA and subsequently Europe, before her death in 1973.
In 2008 the state governor of Pennsylvania declared that henceforth January 11th will be Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day in recognition of her remarkable musical legacy.
FRI 22:00 Hugh Masekela: Welcome to South Africa (b00s6bln)
South African musician Hugh Masekela celebrates his 70th birthday and reflects on his career in performance and interview, from first picking up a trumpet in the 50s through the apartheid years, exile and stardom in America, his return to South Africa on Nelson Mandela's release, and concluding with his vision of the future for his country.
The programme also features performances from his 70th birthday concert at the Barbican in London in December 2009, where he was joined by the London Symphony Orchestra, their Community Choir and guest South African singers.
FRI 23:00 Legends (b00vv0zz)
Roll over Beethoven - The Chess Records Saga
Chicago's Chess Records was one of the greatest labels of the post-war era, ranking alongside other mighty independents like Atlantic, Stax and Sun. From 1950 till its demise at the end of the 60s, Chess released a myriad of electric blues, rock 'n' roll and soul classics that helped change the landscape of black and white popular music.
Chess was the label that gave the world such sonic adventurers as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf and Etta James. In this documentary to mark the label's 60th anniversary, the likes of Jimmy Page, Mick Hucknall, Public Enemy's Chuck D, Paul Jones and Little Steven, as well as those attached to the label such as founder's son Marshall Chess, pay tribute to its extraordinary music and influence.
The film reveals how two Polish immigrants, Leonard and Phil Chess, forged friendships with black musicians in late 1940s Chicago, shrewdly building a speciality blues label into a huge independent worth millions by the end of the 1960s. Full of vivid period detail, it places the Chess story within a wider social and historical context - as well as being about some of the greatest music ever recorded, it is, inevitably, about race in America during these tumultuous times.
FRI 00:00 The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (b00xf8k7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 01:00 Arena (b00wbp64)
Dave Brubeck - In His Own Sweet Way
Three young men who emerged in the 1950s - Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Dave Brubeck - not only captured the public's imagination, but in their own unique way determined the evolution of jazz as we know it today.
This Clint Eastwood co-produced documentary tells Dave Brubeck's personal story, tracing his career from his first musical experiences to the overwhelming success of the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the iconic status he and his varied forms of musical expression have achieved.
It is told with contemporary interviews, vintage performances, previously unseen archive and additional performances filmed especially for the documentary. The story is also told by Dave and Iola Brubeck, both in their own words and by musical example. Contributors include Bill Cosby, Jamie Cullum, Yo-Yo Ma, George Lucas and Eastwood himself.
In 2009 Brubeck was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, with Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, Grace Bumbry and Mel Brooks. He played with his sons for President Obama at the White House, and 55 years ago became the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine. His classic Take Five is as familiar today as in 1959 when it was a Top 10 hit all over the world.
Brubeck has an unlikely origin for a jazz giant, growing up on a ranch in Monterey, California. Monterey resident Clint Eastwood introduced Brubeck and his Cannery Row Suite at the 2006 Monterey Jazz Festival and each were so inspired by the success of the event they agreed to move forward with this full-length documentary together.
FRI 02:30 Hugh Masekela: Welcome to South Africa (b00s6bln)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 03:30 The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (b00xf8k7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]