The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
It's a time for guilty pleasures, for courtship, for declarations of love, for looking someone in the eye and whispering sweet nothings, accompanied by a compilation of some of the greatest and squishiest love songs from the likes of Celine Dion, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, Jason and Kylie, 10cc and Lionel Richie, all from the Top of the Pops era. If Hot Chocolate and Chaka Khan don't get the temperatures rising, then nothing will.
The medieval era was the heyday of illuminated manuscripts. In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was a flowering of religious texts set into beautifully decorated pages. Among these devotional books were psalters, or books of psalms. Hundreds of these were produced, but the Luttrell Psalter is remarkable for its whimsical, humorous and vivid pictures of rural life and a demonic world that is terrifying and grotesque.
This period also saw the development of literature in English. The great Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English literature, took the bold decision to reject literary convention and write in English. His brilliant, bawdy satire the Canterbury Tales became a medieval bestseller and, as a result, when William Caxton set up his first printing press in London, he chose Chaucer's tales as his first major English publication.
These wonderful books contain clever, often mysterious references for their readers and are crucial milestones in the story of the book, charting the last phase of the manuscript and the arrival of the printed book.
Jo Brand is outraged and appalled by the latest outburst of public crying. It is happening on X Factor, Who Do You Think You Are and even the politicans are at it. It would appear we are awash with tears. Jo is particularly baffled by this outpouring of weepiness as crying is something she rarely does.
In this documentary, Jo decides it's time to get to the bottom of crying: why we do it, who does it and whether we have always done it. And once she discovers crying is in fact good for you, she has no choice but to see if she can actually make a handkerchief soggy too.
To find out more about crying she talks to friends Phill Jupitus, Shappi Khorsandi and Richard E Grant; interviews crying historians, psychologists and biochemists; and, in her quest to discover her own tears, visits Moorfields Eye Hospital to check her tear ducts are in good working order. She subjects herself to joining a class of crying drama students, discovers the world's weirdest crybabies at the Loss Club and finally opens up to Princess Diana's psychotherapist, Susie Orbach.
Having unpicked the watery world of crying, can Jo bring herself to actually shed a tear?
Comedy drama about a group of young Londoners looking for love, who meet prospective partners when they take salsa lessons at a dance club. Fergus is searching for the high-school sweetheart he jilted years ago; Eddie the pickpocket falls for Jocelyn, a grave tender; and Frankie is determined to find the love of his life while still living with his ex-wife. Jimmy, a streetwise cabbie, guides them on their tumultuous search for love.
Series looking at the story of the British novel in the 20th century, told by those who know it best, the authors themselves.
This second part marks the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the atomic age, with humanity now having the power of world destruction. What WH Auden coined the Age of Anxiety had begun. The holocaust and the nuclear cloud dominated the sensibility of the period and as political tensions worsened, the mood of anxiety, horror and fear of possible armageddon intensified. A new generation of novelists were on hand to confront and articulate this age; the period that reaffirmed realism was also the period of its dissolution.
TUESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2011
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00ymjkm)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:35 Timothy Spall: Somewhere at Sea (b00s96y1)
The Call of the Sea
Three-part documentary series featuring one of Britain's best loved actors, Timothy Spall, as he and his wife sail from to Cornwall to south Wales in a Dutch barge.
The first programme sees Timothy and Shane set off in the Princess Matilda from Fowey in Cornwall, heading towards Land's End.
By his own admission, Timothy is an unqualified and slightly nervous mariner, but Shane has every confidence in his sea-faring abilities. The intrepid crew encounter a battleship on what could be a firing range, before getting holed up in the Helford river due to bad weather, which gives them an excuse to meet the locals and witness a lively festival.
But all the time Timothy is fretting over the next leg of his journey, which sees the Princess Matilda circumnavigate the infamous Lizard Point, known as the graveyard of ships with its dangerous rocks stretching four miles out to sea.
TUE 20:05 Britain by Bike (b00td4sg)
West Yorkshire
Clare Balding sets out on a two-wheel odyssey to re-discover Britain from the saddle of a touring cycle.
In a six-part series, Clare follows the wheeltracks of compulsive cyclist and author Harold Briercliffe whose evocative guide books of the late 1940s lovingly describe by-passed Britain - a world of unspoiled villages, cycle touring clubs and sunny B roads. Carrying a set of Harold's Cycling Touring Guides for company and riding his very own Dawes Super Galaxy bicycle, she goes in search of the world he described with such affection.
As she cycles through Bronte Country on the Yorkshire/Lancashire border, Clare uncovers a unique photographic collection depicting the hidden daily life of a Yorkshire mill town, a string of truly remarkable women and a secret club for henpecked husbands.
TUE 20:35 Justice (b00ymjkr)
A Lesson in Lying
Do we all have a categorical duty to tell the truth, even to a murderer? The fourth of Michael Sandel's famous lectures on the philosophy of justice looks at the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose stringent theory of morality allowed for no exceptions. Kant believed that telling a lie, even a white lie, was a violation of one's own dignity.
Sandel tests Kant's theory with his famous hypothetical scenario, The Killer at Your Door. If a friend were hiding inside your home and a person intent on killing them came to your door and asked you where they were, would it be wrong to tell a lie? If so, would it be moral to try to mislead the murderer without actually lying to them? This leads to a discussion of the morality of misleading truths.
Sandel wraps up the lecture with a video clip of one of the most famous recent examples of dodging the truth, President Clinton talking about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
TUE 21:00 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?
TUE 22:00 Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders (b00wwb44)
Sinful Sex and Demon Drink
The pleasures and perils of booze and sex are the focus for the final episode of Ian Hislop's series about Victorian reformers, campaigners and philanthropists. In attempting to wean Britons off alcohol and away from vice, Ian wonders whether the 'do-gooders', despite their extraordinary energy and success in transforming every other aspect of 19th-century society, had finally bitten off more than they could chew.
Ian recovers the hidden histories and remarkable lives of five individuals who gave their all to cure the nation's moral incontinence. But in doing so, Ian also encounters the occasional skeleton in the closet.
Three-times prime minister William Gladstone spent a lifetime touring the streets of London's West End trying to rescue prostitutes. He brought many home to his wife, giving them a meal and a bed for the night. So was this pure philanthropy or something of a darker obsession?
Meanwhile, pioneering sex educator Ellice Hopkins took her efforts to save fallen women one step further, by devoting her life to the thankless task of promoting male chastity.
Joseph Livesey made his home-town Preston the epicentre of the global temperance movement. Thanks to his charisma, many took 'the pledge' of total abstinence. Yet many more continued to take what was known as 'St Monday' to sleep off their hangovers.
The artist George Cruikshank had grown up an enthusiastic drinker but became one of the nation's most zealous temperance campaigners. His masterpiece, The Worship of Bacchus, reveals British society to be corrupted by alcohol from top to bottom. So why did Cruikshank leave a substantial wine cellar to his housemaid turned mistress?
TUE 23:00 Birth of the British Novel (b00ydj1p)
Author Henry Hitchings explores the lives and works of Britain's radical and pioneering 18th-century novelists who, in just 80 years, established all the literary genres we recognise today. It was a golden age of creativity led by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney and William Godwin, amongst others. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy are novels that still sparkle with audacity and innovation.
On his journey through 18th-century fiction, Hitchings reveals how the novel was more than mere entertainment, it was also a subversive hand grenade that would change British society for the better. He travels from the homes of Britain's great and good to its lowliest prisons, meeting contemporary writers like Martin Amis, Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Jenny Uglow on the way.
Although 18th-century novels are woefully neglected today compared to those of the following two centuries, Hitchings shows how the best of them can offer as much pleasure to the reader as any modern classic.
TUE 00:00 Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (b00ydp2y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Sunday]
TUE 01:00 Fig Leaf: The Biggest Cover-Up in History (b00ydp38)
Writer and broadcaster Stephen Smith uncovers the secret history of the humble fig leaf, opening a window onto 2,000 years of western art and ethics.
He tells how the work of Michelangelo, known to his contemporaries as 'the maker of pork things', fuelled the infamous 'fig leaf campaign', the greatest cover-up in art history, how Bernini turned censorship into a new form of erotica by replacing the fig leaf with the slipping gauze, and how the ingenious machinations of Rodin brought nudity back to the public eye.
In telling this story, Smith turns many of our deepest prejudices upside down, showing how the Victorians had a far more sophisticated and mature attitude to sexuality than we do today. He ends with an impassioned plea for the widespread return of the fig leaf to redeem modern art from cheap sensation and innuendo.
TUE 02:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00ydp30)
Sir Anthony Caro
Mark Lawson talks to the influential sculptor Sir Anthony Caro about his life and career in art. In this thoughtful interview Caro reflects on his time as Henry Moore's assistant, his groundbreaking shift from figurative to abstract sculpture, his position on public art and his dream of working 'until I drop'.
Since his pioneering show at the Whitechapel London Gallery in 1963, Anthony Caro became recognised as one of the most important and prolific sculptors in the world. His innovative approach to scale, form and materials to 'expand the language of sculpture' has not only won him international plaudits but has revolutionised the field of three-dimensional art.
TUE 03:00 Birth of the British Novel (b00ydj1p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
TUE 04:00 Justice (b00ymjkr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:35 today]
WEDNESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2011
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00yml52)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 For Crying Out Loud (b00ymhqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
WED 20:30 One Foot in the Past (b0074lpq)
Sculpture
The magic of fountains, the genius of Antonio Canova and the power of the gargoyle are all celebrated in a programme marking the Year of Public Sculpture, 2000.
Kirsty Wark goes in search of the perfect fountain to commemorate Princess Diana. Fountains have never been embraced in Britain, despite their huge popularity on the continent. The country's biggest, at Witley Court in Worcestershire, lies neglected and in need of repair, and the most famous, Eros in London, emits no more than a sad dribble.
Sculptor Alexander Stoddart reveals hidden depths in the work of Canova, the creator of the Three Graces. Often dismissed as shallow and empty, Canova's work, from a king with a female body to a naked Napoleon, has the power to shock and subvert.
Roger Bowdler enters the mysterious world of grotesques, goblins and gremlins. They adorn churches all over the country, but are perhaps the most misunderstood public sculptures of all. Crude and sexual, or comic and deranged, they had a deadly serious role to play in the battle for people's souls.
WED 21:00 Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (b00yml9v)
Mavericks of Empire
By the middle of the 18th century, Britain was in possession of a vast empire. It required a new way of seeing ourselves and so we turned to the statues of ancient Greece and Rome to project the secular power and glory of the British Empire.
The message was clear: Britain was the new Rome, our generals and politicians on a par with the heroes of the ancient world. The flood of funds, both public and private, into sculptural projects unleashed a new golden age, yet it was also a remarkably unorthodox one. The greatest sculptors of the 18th and 19th centuries were those mavericks who bucked prevailing trends - geniuses like John Flaxman, Francis Chantrey and Alfred Gilbert.
Alastair Sooke tells the story of these mavericks and reveals the extraordinary technical breakthroughs behind their key works: carving in marble with a pointer machine and the primal power of the lost-wax technique.
WED 22:00 How to Get a Head in Sculpture (b00vjmqh)
From the heads of Roman Emperors to the 'blood head' of contemporary British artist Marc Quinn, the greatest figures in world sculpture have continually turned to the head to re-evaluate what it means to be human and to reformulate how closely sculpture can capture it.
Witty, eclectic and insightful, this film is a journey through the most enduring subject for world sculpture, one that carves a path through politics and religion, the ancient and the modern.
Actor David Thewlis has his head sculpted by three different sculptors, while the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, artist Maggi Hambling and art critic Rachel Johnston discuss art's most enduring preoccupation, ourselves.
WED 23:00 The Killing (b00ysnxz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
WED 00:00 The Killing (b00ysny1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Saturday]
WED 00:55 Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture (b00yml9v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WED 01:55 How to Get a Head in Sculpture (b00vjmqh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
WED 02:55 For Crying Out Loud (b00ymhqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2011
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00ymlhm)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 South Africa Walks (b00s8fy1)
The Kruger
Having tackled treks across the UK, Julia Bradbury embarks on a grand adventure in South Africa, setting out on four very different walks that explore its claim to be 'a world in one country'.
Julia is a regular visitor to the Rainbow Nation, but this is her chance to go far beyond the normal tourist destinations to a series of increasingly remote locations. However, these are all walks that any reasonably adventurous walker could embark on, and they offer a fresh and personal perspective on a friendly and fascinating country that is so often misunderstood.
Having progressed from South African coast to mountains, Julia ups the ante as she prepares to head out on foot in one of the world's most famous game reserves. Call it exhilarating or foolhardy, this is a walking adventure amongst the biggest and most dangerous beasts in Africa. But Julia is well looked after by Jaco, an expert game ranger who proves that the Kruger is far more than just big cats and elephants. This is a unique opportunity to roam freely in one of the world's true wildernesses.
THU 20:00 Timeshift (b00nrtj6)
Series 9
The Last Days of the Liners
Documentary which tells the story of how, in the years following the Second World War, countries competed to launch the most magnificent passenger ships on the great ocean routes.
National pride and prestige were at stake. The Americans had the United States, the fastest liner of all; the Dutch had the elegant Rotterdam; the Italians had the sleek Michelangelo; the French had the France as their supreme symbol of national culture and cuisine; and Britain had the Queens Mary and Elizabeth.
The coming of the jetliner and the 1960s' assault on class and privilege might have swept this world away, but as the film explains, the giant vessels sailed on. Today, more people than ever travel on big ships - liners that have a modern take on glamour and romance.
THU 21:00 Force of Nature: The Sculpture of David Nash (b00ymlhp)
David Nash is one of Britain's most original and internationally recognised sculptors. In a career spanning 40 years he has created over 2,000 sculptures out of wood, many of then monumental in scale. In this film Nash gives an intimate insight into his unique collaboration with his material. From sawing and gouging to charring and planting, it reveals how he has used his profound knowledge of trees and the forces of nature to inform his work.
Using extensive archive it traces Nash's artistic journey from art school to the rugged mining landscape of Blaenau Ffestiniog in north Wales via the many exhibitions he has had around the world, culminating in the most significant to date at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2010.
THU 22:00 Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure in Stone (b00v3y5s)
The exquisite Rosslyn Chapel is a masterpiece in stone. It used to be one of Scotland's best-kept secrets, but it became world-famous when it was featured in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code.
Art historian Helen Rosslyn, whose husband's ancestor built the chapel over 550 years ago, is the guide on a journey of discovery around this perfect gem of a building. Extraordinary carvings of green men, inverted angels and mysterious masonic marks beg the questions of where these images come from and who the stonemasons that created them were. Helen's search leads her across Scotland and to Normandy in search of the creators of this medieval masterpiece.
THU 23:00 Behind the Scenes at the Museum (b00sjm1w)
National Waterways Museum
Series in which acclaimed filmmaker Richard Macer visits three different museums struggling to connect with a modern audience.
The National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port marks the birthplace of the industrial revolution when canals were built to transport goods to emerging cities like Liverpool and Manchester. A financial crisis has left the museum with a reputation for sunken boats, and unless the situation improves dramatically some of the country's oldest barges and narrowboats might have to be sold off or even destroyed.
The museum's many volunteers are angry and believe its dire predicament is the result of mismanagement, so a new director is being brought on board with the task of saving it. In just a short while Stuart Gillis makes a big impression and the staff and volunteers begin to see him as a saviour. But will Stuart be able to live up to such high expectations?
THU 00:00 imagine... (b00p00f2)
Winter 2009
The Year of Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation, known for works of staggering complexity and scale. He now faces his biggest challenge yet as the first living British artist to have a solo show occupying the entire Royal Academy gallery. His response is a series of audacious installations.
With exclusive access to his studio, Alan Yentob follows him through a period of intense productivity. Kapoor talks candidly about his childhood in India, his early years as an artist and his creative process.
An insight into one of Britain's most accomplished and popular sculptors.
THU 00:50 Henry Moore: Carving a Reputation (b00rm3g3)
Documentary marking the centenary of sculptor Henry Moore's birth, using film footage and notebook extracts to build up a picture from Moore's early life and student days in Leeds to his wartime experiences. His love of natural forms and his placing of sculpture in the landscape led to a reputation that brought him international success.
THU 02:10 Timeshift (b00nrtj6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 03:10 Force of Nature: The Sculpture of David Nash (b00ymlhp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2011
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00ymlhy)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 The Salzburg Festival (b00ymlj0)
Part One
Founded for political reasons, used by the Nazis for political reasons, revived after the Second World War by the US Army for political reasons, dominated for two decades by Herbert von Karajan, a double member of the Nazi party and rescued by Gerard Mortier who believed that all art has a political purpose, the Salzburg Festival remains the most important music festival in Europe - contentious, outrageous and with a phenomenally high standard of performance.
This is the first full-length history of this tortured, annual cultural bun-fight, with an all-star cast including Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Georg Solti, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, James Levine, Karl Bohm, Toscanini, Curd Jurgens, Maximillian Schell, Klaus-Maria Brandauer, Placido Domingo, Valery Gergiev, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Christa Ludwig, Mirella Freni, Mariss Jansons, Thomas Hampson, Lang Lang, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Grace Bumbry, Sena Jurinac, Lisa della Casa, Anna Netrebko, Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Peter Sellars, Pierre Boulez, Bruno Walter, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Wilhelm Bachhaus, Richard Strauss, Lotte Lehmann and Adolf Hitler, plus Festival president Helga Rabl-Stadler and Austrian president Dr Fisher.
FRI 21:00 Toots and the Maytals: Reggae Got Soul (b00ymljb)
The untold story of one of the most influential artists ever to come out of Jamaica, Toots Hibbert, featuring intimate new performances and interviews with Toots, rare archive from throughout his career and interviews with contemporaries and admirers including Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jimmy Cliff, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Marcia Griffiths and Paolo Nutini.
From his beginnings as a singer in a Jamaican church to the universally-praised, Grammy award-winning artist of today, the film tells the story of one of the true greats of music.
Toots was the first to use the word reggae on tape in his 1968 song Do the Reggay and his music has defined, popularised and refined it across six decades, with hit after hit including Pressure Drop, Sweet and Dandy, Monkey Man, Funky Kingston, Bam Bam, True Love Is Hard To Find and Reggae Got Soul.
As Island records founder Chris Blackwell says, 'The Maytals were unlike anything else... sensational, raw and dynamic'. Always instantly recognisable is Toots's powerful, soulful voice which seems to speak viscerally to the listener - 'one of the great musical gifts of our time'. His songs are at the same time stories of everyday life in Jamaica and postcards from another world.
FRI 22:00 Reggae at the BBC (b00ymljd)
An archive celebration of great reggae performances filmed in the BBC Studios, drawn from programmes such as The Old Grey Whistle Test, Top of the Pops and Later... with Jools Holland, and featuring the likes of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Gregory Isaacs, Desmond Dekker, Burning Spear, Althea and Donna, Dennis Brown, Buju Banton and many more.
FRI 23:30 Glastonbury (b00syzjc)
2010
Toots and the Maytals
Mark Radcliffe introduces a set from Jamaica's Toots and the Maytals on the West Holts Stage, recorded at Glastonbury 2010.
FRI 00:30 Arena (b007np3m)
Bob Marley Exodus '77
1977 was the 60th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the 30th anniversary of the Partition of India, the 20th anniversary of the First Age of Rock'n'Roll, the 10th anniversary of Sgt Pepper and the Summer of Love. It was the year of Punk, the Queen's Jubilee and the death of Elvis. It was also the year that Bob Marley, with the album Exodus, reached the whole world.
Marley's legendary concert at the Rainbow that summer took reggae music and the message of Rastafaria to a world that hitherto had been exposed to neither. The programme is a visual evocation of the world of 1977, a world that seems very far away now, and of the spirit of Marley's most significant album. It is not a film about the making of an album, it's a film about an artist and his world; about the impact of the world on Bob Marley and of Bob Marley on the world.
FRI 02:00 Toots and the Maytals: Reggae Got Soul (b00ymljb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 03:00 Reggae at the BBC (b00ymljd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]