SATURDAY 16 JULY 2011

SAT 19:00 The Blue Planet (b0074mjc)
The Deep

More people have walked on the moon than have travelled to the very depths of the deep ocean. David Attenborough journeys into the abyss to show us, for the very first time, strange creatures straight out of the film Alien, many of which are new to science. Terrifying fish with massive teeth that eat prey twice their size and weird jellyfish that flash in the darkness. And deep sea sharks never filmed before and submerged mountain ranges and volcanoes far larger than anything on land.


SAT 20:00 If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home (b0109gmn)
The Living Room

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, looks at the room that has had more names and been through more changes than any other in the house. She tries out the communal medieval great hall, holds a candlelit tea party in a Georgian drawing room, explores the development of taste in a grand country house, discovers the wonders that gas and electric lighting brought to the Victorian parlour, and experiences leisure 1950s style. Includes interviews with historian Amanda Vickery and writer Adrian Tinniswood.


SAT 21:00 Wallander (b00sjbw3)
Series 2

The Angel of Death

A choir of young women give an acclaimed guest performance in a country church outside Ystad. But when an 18-year-old member of the choir disappears, Wallander and the Ystad police are brought in to investigate. Initially it seems as if she left of her own free will, but soon traces are found that point in the opposite direction.


SAT 22:30 Sidekick Stories (b00rbl44)
A celebration of the TV sidekick.

Narrated by Catherine Tate (Donna Noble to David Tennant's Dr Who), Sidekick Stories looks at the role of the assistant/companion on television, from drama to sitcom, and light entertainment to children's programmes.

What are the literary antecedents of the TV sidekick - and who's the greatest of them all? What's the dramatic function of the game show hostess? Did the That's Life reporters feel emasculated? How do you create a memorable robot? And what's it like playing straight man to a puppet?

We examine the role of the companion in Dr Who (the man with the most sidekicks in TV history) and reveal the hidden talents of the magician's assistant. There's Edward Hardwicke on how to play Dr Watson; Andrew Sachs on the enduring appeal of Manuel, and Isla St Clair on life as 'principal boy' to Larry Grayson's 'dame'.

The show also features Ian Carmichael (Lord Peter Wimsey; Jeeves and Wooster) in his last ever television interview.


SAT 23:30 Eddie Izzard: Stripped (b00wyfvw)
Comedian Eddie Izzard performs his stand up show Stripped. Recorded at the Lyric, London in 2008.


SAT 01:00 Top of the Pops (b012hsws)
David Hamilton looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Pilot, Brian Ferry, The New Seekers, Osibisa, Art Garfunkel, and The Real Thing.


SAT 01:45 If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home (b0109gmn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:45 The Blue Planet (b0074mjc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 17 JULY 2011

SUN 19:00 Sahara with Michael Palin (b0074p4m)
Destination Timbuktu

Series charting Michael Palin's trek across the Sahara Desert. Leaving the desert behind, Michael briefly savours the delights of cosmopolitan Senegal - jazz clubs, wrestling competitions, dance troupes and the queen of the Senegalese soaps, Marie-Madeleine.

Joining the so-called Bamako Express, he endures two days and nights on the train, but in the process gets to know a schoolmistress who is nothing if not forthright about the disadvantages of polygamy.

In Bamako he finds renowned kora player, Toumani Diabate, and delights in a master class before heading off to Dogon country.

The Dogon people have one of the most distinctive and celebrated cultures of West Africa and they nearly kill him with a combination of excessively complex origin myths, an exploding flintlock and boiling hot millet.

Celebrating the Muslim 'Tabaski' feast in the beautiful city of Djenne with a man called Pygmy and securing a passage on a cargo boat with a Norwegian missionary called Kristin, the rest of the journey down the Niger River to Timbuktu seems plain sailing, until the boat runs aground a day from its destination.


SUN 20:00 The Lighthouse Stevensons (b00y6hym)
The story of the remarkable family who tamed the wild Scottish coastline, told 200 years after the building of their first iconic lighthouse, the Bell Rock.


SUN 21:00 Formula One's 60th Anniversary: Plus Ça Change (b00zwmh2)
The 60th anniversary of Formula 1 is celebrated by a unique gathering of eighteen world champions at the season-opening Grand Prix of 2010. Bahrain's ultra-modern desert circuit is a world away from the post-war austerity of F1's first ever race at Silverstone in 1950 and yet, as legends such as Jackie Stewart, Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell and Lewis Hamilton share their racing experiences, it seems that some things never change.


SUN 22:00 I've Loved You So Long (b012rhqz)
For 15 years Juliette has had no contact with her family, who had rejected her. On her release from prison, Léa, her younger sister, takes her into her home which she shares with her husband Luc, his father, and their young children and they try to rebuild their relationship.


SUN 23:50 imagine... (b011rqt7)
Autumn 2010

Ray Davies - Imaginary Man

As the creative powerhouse behind hugely influential band The Kinks, Ray Davies was responsible for writing some of the best-loved songs of the 60s, including pop classics You Really Got Me, Tired of Waiting For You, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset. Alan Yentob meets Davies, a unique talent who describes with rare candour his troubled relationship with fame and the vicissitudes of his career. They also discuss a new album of Klassic Kinks Kollaborations which is near completion and features musical luminaries such as Bruce Springsteen, Mumford and Sons and Metallica.


SUN 01:10 The Kinks at the BBC (b012ht1w)
The story of The Kinks, one of the UK's most important and influential bands, as told from the vaults of the BBC archive.

From their humble beginnings in north London, brothers Ray and Dave Davies, school friend Pete Quaife and local drummer Mick Avory exploded onto the music scene of early 1960s London.

From this series of unique archive performances, we learn that blues was their first love and Dave's signature guitar sound would go on to influence a generation of guitar players. As Ray's uniquely English songwriting style developed, the spectre of Ray and Dave's rocky fraternal relationship continually loomed in the background, through concerts for The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1970s to appearances on Top of the Pops in the 1980s.

The inevitable band split came in 1996, and the BBC archive continues with Ray's reinvention as a solo artist with performances on the Electric Proms and up to the present day on Later... with Jools Holland. All the while the brothers continue to tease and goad the press - and one another - with talk of a Kinks reunion.


SUN 02:10 Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come (b012ht1t)
Dave Davies, the legendary guitarist of the Kinks, relives his tumultuous life and times amidst the serenity of his Exmoor sanctuary. Walking across the moors that have fascinated him since childhood, Dave takes us back to life with Brother Ray in an extended working class family amidst the austerity of postwar London. Bringing to life its deprivations and triumphs, he reveals the profound sense of community and family bonds which underpins the extraordinary story of the Kinks. From their formation at a North London Secondary Modern, through time spent as backing band to an upper class crooner at debutante balls, Dave tells how the Kinks career as Searchers sound alikes was almost over before it began.

That all changed though when Dave attacked his amp with a rusty Gillette razor blade in the front room of their semi detached house in Muswell Hill. Slashing the speaker, he produced the distorted, barking dog guitar riffs which powered their first hit, You Really Got Me, catapulted the Kinks to worldwide fame and in the process rearranged the sonic architecture of the 1960s. Finding himself at the unlikely age of 15 enshrined along with Brian Jones and Keith Moon as one of the three undisputed Kings of Swinging London, Dave trailblazed the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. As he puts it, Dave did the partying and Ray wrote about it. In America Dave's shoulder length hair and subversive sexuality on stage drove teenage TV audiences wild whilst scandalising the Rat Pack generation.

Dave explains why The Kinks' refusal to compromise who they were resulted in them being banned from America at the height of their fame. For the next four years, while the Beatles, Stones and Who went onto global megastardom, the Kinks re-invented themselves as the quintessential English group with timeless hits such as Sunny Afternoon, Waterloo Sunset and Days. With disarming honesty, Dave reveals how the burning glass of fame caused the sibling rivalry between him and Ray to explode into violence on stage and mental cruelty off it. He tells how, by the end of 60s, the breakdown of the relationship between the warring brothers and his own surfeit of girls, drink and pills led to the mother of all rock 'n' roll meltdowns. Following the failure of his briefly successful solo career, Dave finds himself locked in a New York hotel room, listening to voices telling him to jump.


SUN 03:25 Sahara with Michael Palin (b0074p4m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



MONDAY 18 JULY 2011

MON 19:00 World News Today (b012nl25)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Born to Be Wild (b00cskdd)
Butterflies

Series on amateur naturalists focuses on those immersed in the strange and colourful world of butterflies and moths. Changes in the numbers of these creatures reflect wider changes in the British countryside, so studying them is both a consuming passion and a conservation challenge.

One enthusiast has walked hundreds of miles to count butterflies; another has devoted his time and his greenhouse to growing one rare butterfly; a third is fanatical about moths and has learned to identify all 2,500 British species; and one has been getting his hands dirty to restore a chalk down and its butterfly star to their former glory.

The programme reveals the highs and lows of British butterflies and moths and gives a window onto the lives of four of the passionate people that are fighting to save them.


MON 20:00 Twitchers: A Very British Obsession (b00vnflv)
Every year, a secret tribe take to the roads of Britain. In the space of a few months they will drive thousands of miles and spend thousands of pounds in pursuit of their prey. Their aim is to see as many birds as possible, wherever that bird may be.

Welcome to the very competitive world of the twitcher - obsessives who'll stop at nothing to get their bird.


MON 21:00 British Masters (b012rf9g)
In Search of England

The inter-war years were a period of alarming national change. With a generation of youth lost to the trenches and the cracks in the Empire growing fast, the nation's confidence was in tatters. If we were no longer a mighty Imperial power, what were we? John Nash's mesmerising visions of rural arcadia, Stanley Spencer's glimpses of everyday divinity, Alfred Munnings' prelapsarian nostalgia, Paul Nash's timeless mysticism, John Piper's crumbling ruins, even William Coldstream's blunt celebration of working-class life - all, in their own way, were attempts to answer this question. And, as a reprise of war grew ever more likely, they struggled more urgently than ever to create an image of Britain we could fight for.


MON 22:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00yb5xz)
Gilbert and George

Mark Lawson talks to the controversial artists and 'living sculptures' Gilbert and George about their lives and careers. Since meeting as students at St Martins School of Art in 1967, Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore have forged an extraordinary artistic partnership ranging from photo-pieces and dirty word pictures to their latest postcard exhibition. Their vivid, graphic work set out to challenge the elitist art world through universal themes of identity, sex, class and nationality.


MON 23:00 A303: Highway to the Sun (b0116ly6)
The A303 is the road that passes Stonehenge on the way to the beaches of Devon and Cornwall. On the way, it whisks drivers through 5,000 years of remarkable moments in British history. And it is the star of this film made for armchair travellers and history lovers.

Writer Tom Fort drives its 92-mile length in a lovingly restored Morris Traveller. Along the way he has many adventures - he digs up the 1960s master plan for the A303's dreams of superhighway status, meets up with a Neolithic traveller who knew the road like the back of his hand, gets to know a section of the Roman 303, uncovers a medieval murder mystery and discovers what lies at the end of the Highway to the Sun.


MON 00:00 This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting (b01173pk)
400 years of art history in 90 minutes? This film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, including artists, critics and academics, out into the countryside to take a look at how we have depicted our landscape in art, discovering how the genre carried British painting to its highest eminence and won a place in the nation's heart.

From Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad, the paintings reveal as much about the nation's past as they do the patrons and artists who created them. Famous names sit alongside lesser-known works, covering everything from the refined sensibilities of 18th-century Classicism to the abstract forms of the war-torn 20th century with a bit of love, loss, rivalry and rioting thrown in.

Contributions come from a cast as diverse as the works themselves, including filmmaker Nic Roeg, historian Dan Snow and novelist Will Self, who offer a refreshingly wide range of perspectives on a genre of art which we have made very much our own.


MON 01:30 Twitchers: A Very British Obsession (b00vnflv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:30 Born to Be Wild (b00cskdd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 03:00 British Masters (b012rf9g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 19 JULY 2011

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b012st36)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Grand Tours of Scotland (b00v8s6r)
Series 1

The Romantic Ideal

Paul Murton follows in the footsteps of the first tourists to Scotland. With a Victorian guidebook in his hands, Paul travels across the country tracing the changes that have taken place since the birth of Scottish tourism 200 years ago.

For centuries, Scotland was regarded as a place to avoid, and early travellers complained about the terrible weather, bad food, poor roads and the uncouth habits of the natives. To find out what changed to make Scotland an internationally celebrated tourist destination, Paul recreates six Scottish tours suggested by a well-thumbed, 19th-century copy of Black's Picturesque Guide to Scotland.

In this first journey, Paul goes in search of the romantic ideal, travelling from the Trossachs out to Iona and then the fabled Isle of Staffa - all places that enchanted and inspired visitors with the magic of Scotland's unique history and landscape.


TUE 20:00 The Story of Maths (b00dzy91)
The Genius of the East

When ancient Greece fell into decline, mathematical progress stagnated as Europe entered the Dark Ages, but in the east mathematics reached new heights.

Du Sautoy visits China and explores how maths helped build imperial China and was at the heart of such amazing feats of engineering as the Great Wall.

In India, he discovers how the symbol for the number zero was invented and Indian mathematicians' understanding of the new concepts of infinity and negative numbers.

In the Middle East, he looks at the invention of the new language of algebra and the spread of eastern knowledge to the west through mathematicians such as Leonardo Fibonacci, creator of the Fibonacci Sequence.


TUE 21:00 Britain Through a Lens: The Documentary Film Mob (b012p53d)
The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life.

They were an odd bunch, as one wit among them later admitted. "A documentary director must be a gentleman... and a socialist." They were inspired by a big idea - that films about real life would change the world. That, if people of all backgrounds saw each other on screen - as they really were - they would get to know and respect each other more. As John Grierson, the former street preacher who founded the Movement said: "Documentary outlines the patterns of interdependence".

The Documentary Film Mob assembles a collection of captivating film portraits of Britain, during the economic crisis of the 1930s and the Second World War. Featuring classic documentaries about slums and coal mines, about potters and posties, about the bombers and the Blitz, the programme reveals the fascinating story of what was also going on behind the camera. Of how the documentary was born and became part of British culture.


TUE 22:00 The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon (b0074r7l)
Life and Times

If it hadn't been for the intervention of a local film historian who rescued 800 reels of film from a shop basement in Blackburn, just before they were dumped on a skip, we would have been deprived of the most wonderful insight into the life of the Edwardians.

Filmed between 1900 and 1913 by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, the films were handed over to the British Film Institute for painstaking restoration which took four years to complete.

These two enterprising men roamed the country filming the everyday lives of people at work and play: we watch them spill out of the mills in their thousands, promenade in their Sunday best in the park, relax at the seaside and attend football matches - not least we see the first ever footage of Manchester United.

This first programme contains footage of work, trams, shipyards and preparations for war in South Africa.


TUE 23:00 Waiting for Work (b00tw1jx)
Waiting for Work was a documentary written and directed by Jack Ashley. Politically passionate and one of the first working class reporters at the BBC, he wanted to show the suffering caused by high unemployment in Hartlepool. With no work, no prospects, and little money, Ashley asked how the unemployed reacted to their situation in an affluent society.

The documentary caused a storm when it was first shown in 1963. The original film is followed by a report by Ashley's daughter Jackie on how it changed politics in the north of England.


TUE 00:00 World War Two: 1941 and the Man of Steel (b011wh1g)
Marking the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, historian Professor David Reynolds reassesses Stalin's role in the life and death struggle between Germany and Russia in World War Two, which, he argues, was ultimately more critical for British survival than 'Our Finest Hour' in the Battle of Britain itself.

The name Stalin means 'man of steel', but Reynolds's penetrating account reveals how the reality of Stalin's war in 1941 did not live up to that name. Travelling to Russian battlefield locations, he charts how Russia was almost annihilated within a few months as Stalin lurched from crisis to crisis, coming close to a nervous breakdown.

Reynolds shows how Stalin learnt to compromise in order to win, listening to his generals and downplaying communist ideology to appeal instead to the Russian people's nationalist fighting spirit. He also squares up to the terrible moral dilemma at the heart of World War Two. Using original telegrams and official documents, he looks afresh at Winston Churchill's controversial visit to Moscow in 1942 and re-examines how Britain and America were drawn into alliance with Stalin, a dictator almost as murderous as the Nazi enemy.


TUE 01:30 The Story of Maths (b00dzy91)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 02:30 Grand Tours of Scotland (b00v8s6r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 03:00 Britain Through a Lens: The Documentary Film Mob (b012p53d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 20 JULY 2011

WED 19:00 World News Today (b012st93)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Top of the Pops (b012s2bf)
Tony Blackburn looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, Billy Ocean, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, 5000 Volts, The Real Thing and Candy Staton.


WED 20:00 Time to Remember (b00tzlzz)
Stage and Screen

In the 1950s, the newsreel company Pathe mined their archive to produce a series of programmes for television called Time to Remember. Made by the producer Peter Baylis, they chronicled the political, social and cultural changes that occurred during the first half of the 20th century.

Each episode was narrated by a prominent actor such as Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Anthony Quayle, Edith Evans, Basil Rathbone and Joyce Grenfell, all reading scripts recalling historic, evocative or significant moments from an intriguing past.

In 2010, the material from the original Time to Remember has been collected together thematically to create a new 12-part series under the same title that offers a rewarding perspective on the events, people and innovations from history that continue to shape and influence the world around us.

Archive footage from the theatres, music halls and cinemas of the 1920s and 30s combines with characterful voiceover to give a glimpse of the entertainment industries in their early 20th century golden age. It includes footage of Charles Laughton applying his own stage make-up, chorus line auditions and rehearsals in the West End, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visiting Europe, and Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie, 1929's Blackmail.


WED 20:30 On Film (b012p58f)
Bristol on Film

Bristol has fascinated film-makers from the moment the camera was invented. From shipping, sherry and tobacco to Brunel, bridges and the blitz, this programme explores the visual archives that document this ancient city.


WED 21:00 Regional TV: Life Through a Local Lens (b012p58h)
This is the story of how we fell in love with regional telly. Contributors including Angela Rippon, Michael Parkinson and Martin Bell describe the excitement and sense of adventure that existed during the very early days of local TV. In the late 50s and early 60s viewers were offered a new vision of the places where they lived. ITV and the BBC took advantage of transmitter technology and battled for the attention of an emerging regional audience.

The programme makers were an eclectic bunch but shared a common passion for a new form of TV that they were creating. For more than half a century they have reported on local stories. The early film-makers were granted freedom to experiment and create different shows and formats, including programmes that would later become huge hits. Regional TV also acted as a launch pad for presenters and reporters who would become household names.

But just how real was this portrayal of regional life? And how will local life be reflected on our screens in the future?


WED 22:00 Nurse Jackie (b00znyg9)
Series 2

Silly String

Drama series. The hospital's biggest donor is insulted by Coop. Jackie reconsiders her affair with Eddie again when she sees the behaviour of O'Hara's lover.


WED 22:30 Syrian School (b00r0rnk)
Being Inspired

Five-part series following a year in the life of four schools in Damascus, a high pressure crossroads in the Middle East.

It concentrates on some remarkable characters finding their way in a country that has never before opened ordinary life up to the cameras in this way, challenges the usual cliches of Arab life and charts the highs and lows of the school year.

As a teenage girl it isn't easy to find ways to express yourself in Syria, but there's one outlet that is releasing a wave of emotion in Zaki Al-Arsouzi Girls' High School - the poetry society. Under the stimulating teaching of Mr Muhanned the girls can talk freely about their dreams, of love and hope, away from the constraints of wider society.

Now they will do it in public, at the school's writers' showcase. Ala hopes her heartfelt love poems, inspired by a failed relationship she struck up by mobile phone, are good enough for the big stage, while a trip to the October War Panorama museum drives Lemiss to write of the love she feels for her country.


WED 23:30 Wallander (b00sjbw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


WED 01:00 Top of the Pops (b012s2bf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 01:30 Time to Remember (b00tzlzz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:00 On Film (b012p58f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


WED 02:30 Regional TV: Life Through a Local Lens (b012p58h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 21 JULY 2011

THU 19:00 World News Today (b012st9y)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 BBC Proms (b012p5db)
2011

Mark Elder Conducts The Halle

Suzy Klein and Zeb Soanes present music from Sibelius, including his seventh symphony. Hungarian-born pianist Andras Schiff joins Sir Mark Elder and the Halle for a performance of Bartok's lyrical Third Piano Concerto, written at the end of the composer's life while in exile in New York, and the concert ends with Janacek's show-stopping Sinfonietta, an exhilarating evocation of his home city of Brno. Includes the interval conversation with Mark Elder, Andras Schiff and members of the Halle.


THU 21:45 On the Streets (b00vtwp1)
Filmmaker Penny Woolcock spent eight months in a parallel world, the world of the homeless, befriending people and finding out where they eat, sleep and socialise.

While making her film, Woolcock realised that the very real problems of homeless people have very little to do with the lack of a roof over their heads or a bed to sleep in. Their problems come from their past lives - and are less easy to remedy. Despite the efforts of different charities to move people into homes, the streets are often where they feel safe and what they know best.

In this moving documentary, Woolcock gives the seen-but-unheard residents of London's streets a voice.


THU 23:15 British Masters (b012rf9g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 00:15 The Art of Cornwall (b00wbn80)
The art colony of St Ives in Cornwall became as important as Paris or London in the history of modernism during a golden creative period between the 1920s and 1960s. The dramatic lives and works of eight artists who most made this miracle possible, from Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis to Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, are featured in a documentary which offers an alternative history of the 20th century avant-garde as well as a vivid portrayal of the history and landscapes of Cornwall itself.


THU 01:45 BBC Proms (b012p5db)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



FRIDAY 22 JULY 2011

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b012stcc)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b012rzdr)
2011

Spanish Night with the BBC Philharmonic

From the Royal Albert Hall a programme infused with the spirit and rhythms of Spain presented by the BBC Philharmonic and their newly appointed Basque-born Chief Conductor Juanjo Mena, who speaks to us during the interval. Music by Debussy and Ravel frame a performance of Manuel de Falla's Evocations in Sound, Nights in the Gardens of Spain - with piano soloist Steven Osborne.


FRI 21:40 Lemmy: The Movie (b012p5vv)
Film which celebrates the life and rock 'n' roll philosophy of the late Motorhead frontman and bassist Lemmy. Born Christmas Eve 1945 in Stoke and schooled in part on Anglesey, Ian Fraser Willis acquired the name 'Lemmy' while roadying for Jimi Hendrix and co when he hit London in 1967; it comes from the oft repeated saying 'Len' me a quid'.

Lemmy became the bass player in Hawkwind and sang their biggest hit, Silver Machine, before forming his own hard rockin' metal trio Motorhead in the mid-70s, blending punk and primal rock into a foot-to-the-floor, hard driving rock 'n' roll aesthetic which resulted in monster hits like Ace of Spades and the live album No Sleep Til Hammersmith in the early 80s and to which he has remained constantly steadfast.

Joining Lemmy and members of Motorhead to celebrate his life and times are Hawkwind's Dave Brock, Metallica's James Hetfield, Dave Grohl, Alice Cooper, Peter Hook and Jarvis Cocker.


FRI 23:35 Originals (b0074tmc)
Hawkwind - Do Not Panic

The inside story of Hawkwind, one of Britain's wildest acid rock bands. Emerging from the Ladbroke Grove underground at the end of the 60s, the band trailed radicalism and counter-culture in their wake, and have been a direct influence on punk, metal, dance and rave. Includes interviews with some of the band's enduring legends, including bassist Lemmy, writer Michael Moorcock, founder members Terry Ollis, Nik Turner and Mick Slattery, and former managers Doug Smith and Jeff Dexter.


FRI 00:35 Metal Britannia (b00r600m)
Nigel Planer narrates a documentary which traces the origins and development of British heavy metal from its humble beginnings in the industrialised Midlands to its proud international triumph.

In the late 60s a number of British bands were forging a new kind of sound. Known as hard rock, it was loud, tough, energetic and sometimes dark in outlook. They didn't know it, but Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and, most significantly, Black Sabbath were defining what first became heavy rock and then eventually heavy metal.

Inspired by blues rock, progressive rock, classical music and high energy American rock, they synthesised the sound that would inspire bands like Judas Priest to take metal even further during the 70s.

By the 80s its originators had fallen foul of punk rock, creative stasis or drug and alcohol abuse. But a new wave of British heavy metal was ready to take up the crusade. With the success of bands like Iron Maiden, it went global.

Contributors include Lemmy from Motorhead, Sabbath's Tony Iommi, Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden and Saxon's Biff Byford.


FRI 02:05 BBC Proms (b012rzdr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]