SATURDAY 29 OCTOBER 2011

SAT 19:00 Life (b00p90d6)
Plants

Plants' solutions to life's challenges are as ingenious and manipulative as any animal's.

Innovative time-lapse photography opens up a parallel world where plants act like fly-paper, or spring-loaded traps, to catch insects. Vines develop suckers and claws to haul themselves into the rainforest canopy. Every peculiar shape proves to have a clever purpose. The dragon's blood tree is like an upturned umbrella to capture mist and shade its roots. The seed of a Bornean tree has wings so aerodynamic they inspired the design of early gliders. The barrel-shaped desert rose is full of water. The heliconia plant even enslaves a humming bird and turns it into an addict for its nectar.


SAT 20:00 Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with English National Ballet (b00zs817)
Episode 3

The final episode offers a raw and revealing insight into English National Ballet, one of the world's premier ballet companies, at the climax of one of its most demanding years. From injury and pain to success and elation, the series exposes the storm behind the calm of big ballet productions.

Wayne Eagling has a highly demanding job as the artistic director of English National Ballet, looking after the 64 dancers that produce eight ballets a year. He has also decided to put his neck on the line by creating his first full length ballet for the company - The Nutcracker. As the company's crucial and lucrative Christmas production, there is no room for error and Wayne must complete the two hour ballet on an extremely tight schedule.

The film follows the creative processes of a choreographer under pressure and a new production fighting against time. With an important audience of critics, donors and government officials expected on opening night, the show must be finished. But with rehearsals running late and severe snow disrupting the making of the sets, it seems the dancers, costume-makers and technical staff are all fighting for stage time right up until the curtain rises.


SAT 21:00 Wallander (b00ww5kf)
Firewall

Part 1

Two-part thriller based on Henning Mankell's novel. Detective Superintendent Kurt Wallander investigates two apparently unrelated deaths, which turn out to be linked to an international cyber-terrorism plot. During the investigation, Wallander discovers that he suffers from diabetes and a mysteriously alluring nurse offers to help him deal with his condition.


SAT 22:25 The Secret Life of Ice (b016fpyy)
Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent, yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock, but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multimillion-tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons.

Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme, she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.


SAT 23:25 The Slap (b016lvbz)
Hector

It's Hector's 40th birthday and he's having a barbecue party. Everything should be wonderful, but there are tensions and deceptions under the surface and when an adult slaps an annoying child around the face it's a catalyst for hidden feelings to explode.

The story unfolds through the points of view of eight characters as a court case proceeds, as affairs begin and end, as a pregnancy is decided and marriages morph and change. Each character's life is profoundly affected by 'the slap'; each character is in some way 'slapped' and forced to face up to fundamental truths about themselves.


SAT 00:15 Top of the Pops (b016fpyw)
14/10/76

David Hamilton introduces 1976 chart hits by Simon May, Liverpool Express, JALN Band, Sherbet and David Essex. Dance sequence by Ruby Flipper.


SAT 00:50 BBC Four Sessions (b0074pq4)
Bert Jansch

Legendary Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist Bert Jansch performs a career retrospective concert at LSO St Luke's in East London to celebrate his 60th birthday. Guests include ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, Ralph McTell and fellow Pentangle member Jacqui McShee.

Bert Jansch was one of the key trailblazers of the British folk scene of the 1960s. As a soloist, and then with folk-jazz outfit Pentangle, Jansch blazed a trail for an iconoclastic blend of folk, blues, jazz and original songs that has made him a hero to the likes of Neil Young and Jimmy Page. His guitar and singing style remain unique.

This concert features many of the songs that Jansch has played throughout his career, including Davy Graham's Anji, Jackson C Frank's Blues Run The Game and traditional material like Blackwaterside, together with more recent songs like Riverbank and Crimson Moon.


SAT 01:50 Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with English National Ballet (b00zs817)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 01:50 Life (b00p90d6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 30 OCTOBER 2011

SUN 19:00 The Story of British Pathé (b013g7dm)
The Birth of the News

For more than half a century, the film and newsreel company British Pathé documented almost every aspect of everyday life in Britain and around the world. Covering everything from major world events and exotic foreign travelogues to the pageantry of state occasions and gritty social issues, the company amassed a unique documentary record of 20th-century life. This series delves into British Pathé's amazing treasure trove of images, beginning with the work of the buccaneering cameramen behind Pathé's newsreels - men who witnessed pivotal moments in history and created many of the conventions of news programming that we still use today.


SUN 20:00 The Viking Sagas (b0110gnv)
Hundreds of years ago in faraway Iceland the Vikings began to write down dozens of stories called sagas - sweeping narratives based on real people and real events. But as Oxford University's Janina Ramirez discovers, these sagas are not just great works of art, they are also priceless historical documents which bring to life the Viking world. Dr Ramirez travels across glaciers and through the lava fields of Iceland to the far north west of the country to find out about one of the most compelling of these stories - the Laxdaela Saga.


SUN 21:00 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
The Peak District

The national parks are Britain's most treasured landscapes, but they are increasingly becoming battlefields. They were designated 60 years ago as places for everyone, but is that still the case? In this series, the award-winning film-maker Richard Macer spent a year amid conflicts in three different parks, on a journey to discover who they are really for.

In each park the stories are very different, but there is something that unites them all - fiercely divided communities who are prepared to fight in order to preserve their right to enjoy the countryside. For each film Macer has secured access to the National Park Authority - an organisation which looks after the landscapes and decides upon planning matters. In all these stories the park authorities have a key role to play in trying to find amicable solutions to the problems which confront them.

A war is breaking out in the charming villages of the Peak District, with walkers, horseriders and residents angry at 4x4 drivers and trailbikers motoring up and down the green lanes for pleasure. So an 80-year-old retired primary school teacher decides to launch a campaign to get the motorists banned from a lane in her village of Great Longstone. Over the next few months the campaign snowballs, and more and more villages decide they've had enough of the off-roaders on their lanes.

Macer filmed for over a year in the Peak District and was granted exclusive access to the inner workings of how the park is run. Will the Peak District Park Authority bow down to public pressure or will it side with the off-roaders?


SUN 22:00 Cloud 9 (b0155p5d)
German drama in which a woman in her sixties embarks on an affair after 30 years of marriage.


SUN 23:35 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


SUN 00:35 Upside Down: The Creation Story (b016myqs)
Millions of sales on both sides of the Atlantic, near bankruptcy, pills, thrills, spats, prats, successes, excesses, pick-me-ups and breakdowns - all spiralled together to create some of the most defining music of the 20th century.

This is the definitive and fully-authorised documentary of the highs and lows of the UK's most inspired and dissolute independent record label - Creation Records. Over 25 years after Creation's first records, it follows the story from the days of the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub to the Boo Radleys, the Super Furry Animals and of course Oasis, among many, many more.

The label's enigmatic founder Alan McGee talks candidly of the trail which led from humble beginnings in Glasgow, via drink and drug dependency to being wined and dined at No 10 Downing Street by Tony Blair.


SUN 02:20 Creation at the BBC (b016myqv)
A trip through the BBC archives from programmes such as Whistle Test, the Oxford Road Show, Top of the Pops and Later with Jools Holland to find some rare and some familiar footage of the bands who were on one of the UK's most seminal and important record labels, Creation Records.

Founded in 1983 by Alan McGee, Dick Green and Jo Foster, Creation Records was started off as a cottage industry producing 7" singles from a bedroom and went on to sign the one of the biggest bands in the world - Oasis.

From East Kilbride the Reid brothers, Jim and William, bandmate Douglas Hart and drummer Bobby Gillespie exploded onto the scene as the Jesus and Mary Chain on Whistle Test in 1985, and from the same year a rare piece of footage from Peter Astor's band The Loft on the Oxford Road Show. The Loft morphed into his next project the Weather Prophets, who we see on the Whistle Test later that year.

My Bloody Valentine nearly bankrupted Creation but produced one of the label's flagship albums, Isn't Anything, while Slowdive were front runners in the 'shoegazing' scene. The 1990s heralded the halcyon days of Creation with the release of Primal Scream's zeitgeist album Screamadelica and arguably the most important band of the decade, Oasis, signing to the label in 1993. Thus followed a string of chart successes for Creation with Ride, the Boo Radleys, Super Furry Animals, Teenage Fanclub and, of course, Oasis.

The label disintegrated in 1999, but undoubtedly produced some of the most important records of the late 1980s and 1990s.


SUN 03:20 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



MONDAY 31 OCTOBER 2011

MON 19:00 World News Today (b016ptr2)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Perfume (b012cnns)
Bottling the Memory

Perfumers are molecular chemists and sensual creatives who seek to trigger pleasurable memories and associations through our most primitive sense. We follow three different types of perfumer - or nose - to find out how they do it and what it takes to become one.

Jean Claude Ellena is in-house nose at French brand Hermes. We spend time with him in his studio in the woods, musing, sniffing and then creating a fragrance inspired by a secret garden. American Christopher Brosius is the Proust of perfume, a punk star with a mission to create scents that that can speak to us of times past - whether through the smell of tomato leaves or musty books. Jean Guichard is the principal of the Parisian school for noses. There are more astronauts than there are perfumers - so how does he spot the right stuff in students who may not be aware they have it?


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b016ptr4)
Series 5

Analysts vs Technologists

Three professional analysts square up to three colleagues at a creative engineering firm in the last of the quarter-finals. They compete to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random, from Private Wilhelm to Jelly Babies to Mandrakes to David Sutch.


MON 21:00 Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan (b016ptr6)
Just how did the Devil get inside our heads? And who put him there? For Halloween, award-winning comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton (creator and star of Radio 4's acclaimed infernal comedy Old Harry's Game) explores just who the devil Satan is, where he comes from and what he has been up to all this time.


MON 22:00 Psychoville (b00vsv1c)
Halloween Special

Psychoville returns with a spooktacular hour-long Halloween special. Four tales of terror unfold as location manager Phil Walker investigates the abandoned ruins of Ravenhill Psychiatric hospital. Does the ghost of evil governess Edwina Kenchington still walk the empty corridors? What other horrors lie within these crumbling walls?


MON 23:00 A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (b00v9gy5)
Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood

Three-part series in which actor and writer Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Doctor Who, Sherlock) celebrates the greatest achievements of horror cinema.

A lifelong fan of the genre, Mark begins by exploring the golden age of Hollywood horror. From the late 1920s until the 1940s, a succession of classic pictures and unforgettable actors defined the horror genre - including The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, Dracula with Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff.

Mark explains just how daring and pioneering these films were, and why they still send a chill down the spine today. He also traces how horror pictures evolved during this period, becoming camp and subversive (The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, both directed by Englishman James Whale), dark and perverse (films like Freaks, which used disabled performers), before a final flourish with the psychological horror of RKO Pictures' films (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie), which still influence directors today. However, by the early 1950s the monsters were facing their biggest threat - the rise of science fiction films in the post-war atomic era.

Along the way, Mark steps into some of the great sets from these classic films, hears first-hand accounts from Hollywood horror veterans, discovers Lon Chaney's head in a box and finds out why Bela Lugosi met his match in Golders Green.


MON 00:00 Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan (b016ptr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 01:00 Only Connect (b016ptr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 01:30 Perfume (b012cnns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:30 The Viking Sagas (b0110gnv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Sunday]


MON 03:30 Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan (b016ptr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 01 NOVEMBER 2011

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b016pvq8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Return to Pembrokeshire Farm (b00nk324)
Episode 4

Griff's restoration on the cottage is almost complete, except now there is a problem with the roof on both the mill and the cottage. Meanwhile, George is off to visit one of the last working water mills in Wales to get ideas for the interior of the mill.


TUE 20:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00j6sjc)
Richard Wilson Learns to Drive

In preparation for a motor journey around Britain, Richard Wilson is put through his paces as he learns how to use a gear stick again, having driven only automatics for the past 30 years.

He drives classic cars, goes off-road, experiences the thrills and spills of the skidpan and gets a lesson in driving high performance cars from five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell.


TUE 20:30 Blackpool on Film (b00tlvj3)
From the earliest Victorian filmmakers to the news cameras of today, this programme uses moving images from almost every decade in between to tell the story of this fascinating seaside town. With wall-to-wall archive including newsreel, documentary films and entertainment shows, it explores over a century of filmmaking to get to the heart of a remarkable British holiday resort.


TUE 21:00 The Road to Coronation Street (b00ttj2r)
6.53pm, December 9th 1960, Granada Studios, Manchester. With minutes to go until the live transmission of episode one, creator Tony Warren is being sick in the toilets, actress Pat Phoenix is missing and so is the cat from the opening shot.

This is the epic story of one man's struggle to make a programme that no-one wanted. Granada's formidable bosses Sidney Bernstein and his brother Cecil are not enthusiastic, but together with producer Harry Elton and director Derek Bennett, Tony takes up the battle. He wants cobbles, a pub, seven houses and a shop, but above all he wants Northern actors. Led by casting director Margaret Morris and her young assistant Josie Scott, the hunt begins for the legendary cast - Doris Speed, Pat Phoenix, Violet Carson and William Roache. With a last-minute change of title, Coronation Street is born.


TUE 22:15 Timeshift (b00tp1cv)
Series 10

The North on a Plate

Paris-based cultural historian Andrew Hussey follows his success with France on a Plate by travelling back to his homeland, the north west of England, in search of its lost food culture.

He brings with him the French idea of terroir, a term used by their wine growers and foodies - a belief that a food from a particular area is rendered unique though a particular set of local circumstances including culture and landscape.

As he wanders around the north west, Andrew asks if this rather highbrow foodie term can be applied to common northern grub such as a Blackpool chip or a Wigan pie. As he isn't a foodie he relies on local people to help him out, including three generations of a Wigan biker club and a woman who knows far too much about rhubarb.

In doing so, he uncovers some fascinating cultural history and the role of the Industrial Revolution in defining modern eating habits. And, most importantly, he redefines the concept of terroir by giving it a northern accent.


TUE 23:15 Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children - Update (b00zp6n9)
Comic Relief presents an updated version of 2010's astonishing film, Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children. The original told a powerful tale of the gaping chasm between what the children of Zimbabwe hope for and what their country can provide. One year on, this update comprises a shortened version of the documentary, and a chance to catch up with the children and see how their lives have changed since the film was first shown.

Beautifully shot, this moving film is full of harrowing moments, not least the emptying of a school, class by class, as pupils who haven't paid their school fees are sent home.


TUE 00:15 Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan (b016ptr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


TUE 01:15 Psychoville (b00vsv1c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]


TUE 02:15 Timeshift (b00tp1cv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:15 today]


TUE 03:15 The Road to Coronation Street (b00ttj2r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 02 NOVEMBER 2011

WED 19:00 World News Today (b016pvyk)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 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 20:00 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 21:00 imagine... (b007cjkz)
Autumn 2006

And Then There Was Television

Alan Yentob celebrates the 70th anniversary of the world's first scheduled high-definition television service, by the BBC from Alexandra Palace in 1936. He take some of the pioneering engineers and on-screen talent back to the studios to see what they can remember of TV's early days - from Picture Page to Muffin the Mule to the first news programme and the potter's wheel 'interlude'. Plus, some amazing archive footage and the Queen's 1953 coronation, the event that single-handedly changed how people viewed the fledgling TV service.


WED 22:00 The Fools on the Hill (b016wznh)
Dramatisation of the events surrounding the opening night of British television. August 1936, and the BBC prepares for the world's first high-definition TV service. However, behind the scenes at Alexandra Palace complications arise in more ways than one.


WED 23:15 Demob Happy: How TV Conquered Britain (b0074rt1)
A chronicle of a formative era in British broadcasting following World War II. Hitherto, radio output had been genteel and sedate, in the music hall tradition. But after 1945, a new generation of producers, writers and performers emerged, making radical, sometimes anti-establishment comedies including The Goons and Hancock's Half Hour. Also at this time, the dominance of radio was challenged by the re-emergence of television and the BBC's TV monopoly ended with the arrival of ITV in 1955.


WED 00:15 Cloud 9 (b0155p5d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Sunday]


WED 01:50 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Sunday]


WED 02:50 The Fools on the Hill (b016wznh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]



THURSDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2011

THU 19:00 World News Today (b016pwgr)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b016x02p)
21/10/76

Ed Stewart introduces 1976 chart hits by Paul Nicholas, John Miles, Demis Roussos, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel and the Climax Blues Band.


THU 20:00 Timeshift (b016pwgw)
Series 11

Of Ice and Men

Timeshift reveals the history of the frozen continent, finding out why the most inhospitable place on the planet has exerted such a powerful hold on the imagination of explorers, scientists, writers and photographers.

Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place on the globe. Only a handful of people have experienced its desolate beauty, with the first explorers setting foot here barely a hundred years ago.

From the logbooks of Captain Cook to the diaries of Scott and Shackleton, from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to HP Lovecraft, it is a film about real and imaginary tales of adventure, romance and tragedy that have played out against a stark white backdrop.

We relive the race to the Pole and the 'Heroic Age' of Antarctic exploration, and find out what it takes to survive the cold and the perils of 'polar madness'. We see how Herbert Ponting's photographs of the Scott expedition helped define our image of the continent and find out why the continent witnessed a remarkable thaw in Russian and American relations at the height of the Cold War.

We also look at the intriguing story of who actually owns Antarctica and how science is helping us reimagine a frozen wasteland as something far more precious.

Interviewees include Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Francis Spufford, Huw Lewis-Jones, Sara Wheeler, Henry Worsley, Prof David Walton and Martin Hartley.


THU 21:00 Symphony (b016pwgy)
Genesis and Genius

Simon Russell Beale presents a radical reappraisal of the place of the symphony in the modern world and explores the surprising way in which it has shaped our history and identity.

The first episode begins amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution with the arrival in England of Joseph Haydn, dubbed the 'Father of the Symphony'. It continues with Mozart, the genius who wrote his first symphony at the age of eight, and Beethoven, the revolutionary who created the idea of the artist as hero and whose Eroica Symphony changed music for ever.

The music is performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Sir Mark Elder.


THU 22:00 The Slap (b016pwh0)
Anouk

Anouk did not witness the slap - she was watching something far more disturbing. She is going through a mid-life crisis, has a dependent mother, a toyboy who may or may not be serious about her, and someone wants her job. For Anouk the slap was a trivial incident blown out of proportion, but it may still have an effect on her.


THU 22:55 Top of the Pops (b016x02p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 23:25 Symphony (b016pwgy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 00:25 Timeshift (b016pwgw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


THU 01:25 Wallander (b00ww5kf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


THU 02:50 Symphony (b016pwgy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2011

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b016px7l)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Eroica (b0074rcn)
Collaboration between the BBC's classical music and drama departments, a factual drama about the genesis of Beethoven's Symphony No 3, the Eroica. It is set over the course of a single day in June 1804 at the Viennese palace of Beethoven's patron, Prince Lobkowitz. The composer hears his music for the very first time and waits for the answer to his proposal of marriage from the woman he adores.


FRI 21:00 Nirvana Live at the Paramount (b016fr66)
2011 marked the 20th anniversary since the Nirvana album Nevermind, their major label debut, elevated Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl from a critically-acclaimed Aberdeen, Washington, cult band to generational spokesmen who had unwittingly created a cultural shift and musical touchstone.

Rising to number 1 the world over by the end of 1991 and ultimately selling over 30 million copies worldwide, Nevermind would come to be much more than one of the most successful and influential albums of its or any era. This Halloween concert, recorded at the Paramount in the band's home town of Seattle in 1991, features a healthy sprinkling of tracks from Nevermind including Lithium, Polly, Breed and Smells Like Teen Spirit, as well as fan favourites Sliver and About a Girl.

As the band that returned unaffected rock 'n' roll integrity and passion to the top of the charts, they proved a singular inspiration to fans and musicians alike over the last two decades, and will undoubtedly do so for generations to come.

The Paramount concert, transferred from 16mm film and multi-track audio, is the only known Nirvana concert to be shot on film.


FRI 21:55 Seven Ages of Rock (b007r4t0)
Left of the Dial: US Alternative Rock

The rock marathon continues with the story of the contrasting fates of two of America's biggest, most authentic bands: Nirvana and REM and the hidden links between them that almost saved the life of troubled Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.

In 1991, Nirvana's Nevermind album launched the 'grunge' explosion that put the Seattle music scene on the map and gave a voice to the alienated youth pushed to one side by the Reagan revolution. But Cobain was a reluctant idol who struggled to cope with his new status and his band's growing mainstream appeal. Nirvana had their roots in the underground and college music scene pioneered by bands like REM and Pixies and this programme tells how REM also ended up gravitating towards Seattle, where a friendship developed between lead singer Michael Stipe and Cobain.

In the end it was not enough to save Cobain, who killed himself in 1994, but his triumph and tragedy continues to cast a powerful shadow over the whole of rock.


FRI 22:55 The Last 48 Hours of Kurt Cobain (b00795mc)
The week before Kurt Cobain was found dead from a single gunshot, he went missing. His whereabouts for that week had been a mystery. This programme uses the testimony of people who knew him, of the witnesses who saw him in that last week and of the ordinary people who found themselves written into his story to give a picture of his final hours.


FRI 00:15 Eroica (b0074rcn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 01:40 Seven Ages of Rock (b007r4t0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:55 today]


FRI 02:40 Nirvana Live at the Paramount (b016fr66)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]