SATURDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2013

SAT 19:00 Frozen Planet (b00zj35p)
Autumn

For the animals in the polar regions, autumn means dramatic battles and epic journeys. Time is running out - the Arctic Ocean is freezing over and the sea ice is advancing at 2.5 miles per day around Antarctica.

Polar bears gather in large numbers on the Arctic coast as they wait for the return of the ice. Soon, tempers fray and violent sparring contests break out. Meanwhile, 2,000 beluga whales head for one special estuary, a gigantic 'whale spa' where they will thrash their snow-white bodies against the gravel and exfoliate. Inland, the tundra undergoes a dramatic transformation from green to fiery red. Here, musk ox males slam head-first into each other with the force of a 30mph car crash as they struggle to defend their harems. Frisky young caribou males play a game of 'grandma's footsteps' as they try to steal the boss's female.

Down in Antarctica, adelie penguin chicks huddle together in creches. When a parent returns from fishing, it leads its twins on a comical steeplechase - sadly there's only enough for one, so the winner gets the meal. Two months later and the chicks are fully feathered, apart from downy mohican hairdos. They are ready to take their first swim - reluctantly though, as it seems penguins are not born with a love of water! And with good reason: a leopard seal explodes from the sea and pulls one from an ice floe, a hunting manoeuvre that has never been filmed before.

As winter approaches and everyone has left, the giant emperor penguin arrives and makes an epic trek inland to breed. The mothers soon return to the sea leaving the fathers to hold the eggs and endure the coldest winter on earth.


SAT 20:00 Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited (b01skwfd)
The First Anglo-Saxons

Julian Richards returns to the excavation of two early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries to explore the mystery of the Anglo-Saxon invasions that began after the fall of the Roman Empire. In particular, the rich burial of a warrior and his horse offers up fresh clues to some of the very first pioneers.


SAT 21:00 Borgen (b037sphb)
Series 3

The Right Shade of Brown

Chaos and confusion rule in the party rooms of the New Democrats as many people have now attached themselves to the party. TV1 has invited them to participate in a panel discussion on the integration of ethnic minorities and so they need to find a party spokesperson on integration. They also need to find funding for the party.

Chaos also rules at home as Gustav is sick, and Birgitte and the children move into a new, cheaper apartment, which does not impress Magnus. At the same time, Birgitte is having a problem with one of her hands, sometimes losing sensation in some of her fingers.

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:00 Borgen (b0383kr7)
Series 3

Their Loss...

The quality of Danish bacon is called into question as Birgitte's English boyfriend, Jeremy, falls ill after eating pork. At the same time, the government are trying to relax the rules applying to Danish pig farms. Birgitte appears on TV1 where she argues for protecting citizens, not the industry, and for quality rather than quantity.

In order to learn as much as possible about the pig farming industry, Katrine takes Birgitte to visit her brother, who is a pig farmer

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 23:00 Kings of 70s Romance (b007cjtw)
While teenage girls in the 1970s were screaming for Donny Osmond and David Cassidy, the more mature woman had fantasy figures of her own setting her heart a-flutter. Kings of 70s Romance tells the story of these - some might say unlikely - pin-ups. Whether it was Gilbert O'Sullivan or Barry White, Leo Sayer or David Soul - or for those with more exotic tastes, Demis Roussos - these were men whose lyrics conjured up images of candle-lit dinners, red roses, and cosy nights in with the man of your dreams. For millions of female fans their romantic music was the perfect soundtrack for dreams of escape from the day-to-day drudgery of life in 70s Britain. As well as our main contributors we feature comments form Gloria Hunniford and Martha Kearney.


SAT 00:00 Top of the Pops (b03j49l4)
Tony Blackburn presents the weekly look at the 1978 pop charts, with Rocky Sharpe & the Replays, Hot Chocolate, the Buzzcocks, Elkie Brooks, Mankind, Chic, Elton John, Boney M and dance sequences by Legs & Co.


SAT 00:40 Anyone for Demis? How the World Invaded the Charts (b013g87k)
The British have a love-hate relationship with the foreign pop song. For years they were frequent visitors to the charts and were bought in their millions. Once heard never forgotten, these international hits conjure instant memories of a holiday abroad, musical portraits of countries far away.

This documentary tells the story of these musical imports from the Second World War to the present day. It reveals surprising stories behind some of the songs and asks what made them so popular.

The programme starts with the fad for Hawaiian music in wartime Britain. Dodging the bombs was Felix Mendelssohn and his Hawaiian Serenaders. Hula dancer Doreena Sugundo, who joined the band aged seventeen, remembers their exotic stage act and the intricacies of the homemade grass skirt.

In the 1950s the foreign pop song was a fixture in the newly-formed charts. From Anton Karas's zither music to the Obernkirchen Children's Choir, continental pop sold in its millions. On BBC television, calypsos from Harry Belafonte and Cy Grant were family favourites, while Danish aristocrats Nina and Frederik brought a certain cosmopolitan cool with their versions of international folk music.

One would think that the worldwide success of the Beatles would see off these foreign pretenders. Not so, as in their breakthrough year of 1963 they were challenged in the charts by the Singing Nun's song Dominique. But the Singing Nun's subsequent fall from grace rivals any rock and roll tragedy.

People travelled the world through their record collections and on the new BBC2 Nana Mouskouri brought an early version of world music to our homes. In the late 1960s the package holiday boom meant that ordinary Britons could visit the places they'd only dreamt of seeing. Holiday songs like Sylvia's Y Viva Espana were souvenirs of a week in the sun and Greek balladeer Demis Roussos became the 1970s' most unlikely sex symbol.

Since then there has been the fad for pan pipes, initially coming not from the Andes but Romania, and in the 1980s the success of Paul Simon's Graceland and the emergence of world music. As our holidays became more exotic and our tastes for food more international, so music from around the world has become more dominant, with the craze for Latin and salsa music.

So now when music is truly global, and international stars like Shakira bestride the music world, has the foreign pop song had its day? Will there ever been another foreign pop sensation like the Singing Nun or the pan pipes, and is there anyone for Demis?

Featuring interviews with Nana Mouskouri, Sylvia, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Gipsy Kings. Narrated by Liza Tarbuck.


SAT 01:40 Frozen Planet (b00zj35p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 02:40 Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited (b01skwfd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2013

SUN 19:00 Unnatural Histories (b0122njp)
Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is the epitome of a last great wilderness under threat from modern man. It has become an international cause celebre for environmentalists as powerful agricultural and industrial interests bent on felling trees encroach ever deeper into virgin forest. But the latest evidence suggests that the Amazon is not what it seems.

As more trees are felled, the story of a far less natural Amazon is revealed - enormous man-made structures, even cities, hidden for centuries under what was believed to be untouched forest. All the time archaeologists are discovering ancient, highly fertile soils that can only have been produced by sophisticated agriculture far and wide across the Amazon basin. This startling evidence sheds new light on long-dismissed accounts from the very first conquistadors of an Amazon teeming with people and threatens to turn our whole notion of wilderness on its head. And if even the Amazon turns out to be unnatural, what then for the future of wilderness?


SUN 20:00 The Man who Discovered Egypt (b01f13f4)
Documentary about English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, the pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology. Ancient Egypt was vandalised by tomb raiders and treasure hunters until this Victorian adventurer took them on. Most people have never heard of him, but this maverick undertook a scientific survey of the pyramids, discovered the oldest portraits in the world, unearthed Egypt's prehistoric roots - and in the process invented modern field archaeology, giving meaning to a whole civilisation.


SUN 21:00 Madness in the Desert: Paris to Dakar (b01r1cnw)
Documentary telling the story of the world's craziest race.

In 1977, French motorcyclist Thierry Sabine was in serious trouble, lost in the Libyan desert and dying from thirst. Whilst most men would weep and think back over their lives, Thierry thought about coming back - to do a rally across the Sahara Desert. The 9,000km Paris-Dakar rally was born.

The rally became a beacon for eccentric adventurers battling the terrain in customised vehicles, seduced by the romance of the desert and the extreme challenge. It soon became a victim of its own rapid success. Caught up in controversy and with over 60 deaths, in 2008 this incredible event was brought to an end in Africa by terrorism.

Featuring winners Cyril Neveu, Hubert Auriol, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Ari Vatanen, Stephane Peterhansel, Martine de Cortanze, former participant Sir Mark Thatcher and many more, this is the story of the biggest motorsport event the world has ever seen and one of the greatest challenges of human endeavour ever conceived, told by those who took part.

How the west took on a landscape of incredible beauty and scale. And lost.


SUN 22:00 Royal Television Society Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture (b03jrw5l)
Totally Shameless: How TV Portrays the Working Class

From Little Britain's Vicky Pollard to the Jeremy Kyle Show to toxic documentaries on 'feckless scroungers' - writer and broadcaster Owen Jones argues that this growing strain of malevolent British TV programming denigrates the working class. Increasingly, it seems that poor and everyday working people have become invisible onscreen as producers opt to show more extreme stereotypes instead.

The RTS Huw Wheldon Lecture commemorates one of the most inspiring programme makers and television managers of his era - Sir Huw Wheldon - and is specifically about a key aspect of contemporary programme making. Owen Jones, who frequently appears on political programmes, is the author of the bestseller Chavs - The Demonisation of the Working Class.


SUN 22:45 Nina Conti - A Ventriloquist's Story: Her Master's Voice (b01jv1yr)
Internationally acclaimed ventriloquist Nina Conti, takes the bereaved puppets of her mentor and erstwhile lover Ken Campbell on a pilgrimage to Vent Haven, the resting place for puppets of dead ventriloquists. She gets to know her latex and wooden travelling partners along the way, and with them deconstructs herself and her lost love in this ventriloquial docu-mocumentary requiem.

Ken Campbell was a hugely respected maverick of the British theatre, an eccentric genius who would snort out forgotten artforms. Nina was his prodigy in ventriloquism and has been said to have reinvented the artform. This film is truly unique in genre and style. No one has seen ventriloquism like this before.

Nina Conti's funny, highly original and poignant documentary, takes us on two journeys. A personal journey, and a professional one, through the strange, surprising and often hilarious world of ventriloquism. When Nina was just another twenty-something wannabe actress, Ken presented her with a teach-yourself ventriloquism kit. This set her on a path to becoming a sell-out act in Britain and abroad, with a clutch of major awards.

On the road, Nina brings all the puppets to life as struggles to meet the conflicting demands of her old acerbic partner Monkey, and the new characters she has been bequeathed. But one puppet remains silent. Ken's doll of himself sits mournful and judgemental in the hotel bedroom. Nina cannot find her master's voice and until she does, she will not be able to lay her old life to rest.

Never has watching someone talk to themselves been this interesting.


SUN 23:45 John Denver: Country Boy (b03j4cz2)
Documentary exploring the private life and public legacy of John Denver, America's original country boy. With exclusive accounts from those closest to him, the man behind the music is revealed in an intimate profile in his 70th birthday anniversary year.


SUN 00:45 Country at the BBC (b017zqwb)
Grab your partner by the hand - the BBC have raided their archive and brought to light glittering performances by country artists over the last four decades.

Star appearances include Tammy Wynette, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and, of course, Dolly Parton. All the greats have performed for the BBC at some point - on entertainment shows, in concert and at the BBC studios. Some of the rhinestones revealed are Charley Pride's Crystal Chandeliers from the Lulu Show, Emmylou Harris singing Together Again on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Billie Jo Spears's Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad from the Val Doonican Music Show.

We're brought up to date with modern country hits by kd lang, Garth Brooks, Alison Krauss and Taylor Swift, plus a special unbroadcasted performance from Later...with Jools Holland by Willie Nelson.


SUN 02:15 Britain by Bike (b00t9r0n)
The Isle of Wight

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, Clare goes in search of the world he described with such affection.

Her journey to the Isle of Wight explores its unique sense of otherness - a strange power which could cure Dickens's writer's block, repel the deadly attentions of the Luftwaffe and give Victorian poet laureate Tennyson a comforting sense of his own death.


SUN 02:45 The Man who Discovered Egypt (b01f13f4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2013

MON 19:00 World News Today (b03jpz9l)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b39q8)
Series 3

Lydney to Newport

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

All this week he is travelling west, from Oxford in the heart of England, through the Malvern Hills and into Wales, taking in the unique Victorian heritage of the South Wales coastline.

Today Michael discovers Britain's hidden micro-mines within the Forest of Dean, sees why the Victorians fell for the romantic ruins of Tintern Abbey and uncovers the railway engineering behind the industrial icon that is Newport Transporter Bridge.


MON 20:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b00778zg)
Series 2

Affairs and Relations

Classic sitcom. Bob takes time off from marriage to join Terry on a quiet weekend's fishing. He's racked by guilt, but he's not the guilty party.


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b03jrxhs)
Series 8

Science Editors v Board Gamers

Three science editors take on a trio of board gamers in the teams' last chance to make it the semi-finals, competing to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random.

So join Victoria Coren Mitchell if you want to know what connects: incognito, unbeknownst, misnomer and nonchalant.


MON 21:00 Light and Dark (b03jrxhv)
Dark

Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of how we went from thinking we were close to a complete understanding of the universe to realising we had seen almost none of it. Today, our best estimate is that more than 99 per cent of the cosmos is hidden in the dark, invisible to our telescopes and beyond our comprehension.

The first hints that there might be more out there than meets the eye emerged from the gloom in 1846 with the discovery of the planet Neptune. It was hard to find, because at four billion kilometres from the sun there was precious little light to illuminate it and, like 89 per cent of all the atoms in the universe, it gives off almost no light.

In the middle of the 20th century scientists discovered something even stranger - dark matter - stuff that wasn't just unseen, it was fundamentally un-seeable. In fact, to explain how galaxies are held together and how they formed in the first place, there needed to be four times as much dark matter as there was normal atomic matter.

In the late 1990s scientists trying to measure precisely how much dark matter there was in the universe discovered something even more elusive out there - dark energy, a mysterious new force driving the universe apart that is thought to make up a colossal 73 per cent of it.

Finally, Jim explores the quest to uncover the nature of dark energy and to see dark matter pull the first stars and galaxies together, a quest that involves peering into the darkest period in the cosmos's past.


MON 22:00 Secret Knowledge (b03j46q8)
Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois - Women Without Secrets

With some of Louise Bourgeois' greatest works currently on display in two new exhibitions in Edinburgh, Tracey Emin offers a uniquely personal insight into the life and work of a ground-breaking artist.

Louise Bourgeois came to prominence in the UK with her giant spider sculpture at Tate Modern. Her art was confessional and deeply personal, often exploring childhood traumas, sexual themes and her competing roles as an artist, wife and mother.

Tracey Emin became a close friend of Louise Bourgeois and in the last years of her life the two artists, separated in age by half a century, collaborated on a series of remarkable prints, completed just months before Bourgeois died in 2010, aged 98.

According to Emin: 'She could master her materials so well, whether it was a tiny piece of work on fabric, a delicate print or monumental sculptures... I think Louise was one of the greatest artists of the last two centuries.'

Taking us on a tour of Bourgeois' work at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Tracey discusses Bourgeois' art, their friendship and the experience of working with the great artist: 'I felt like I was holding the baton of time, of history, and that Louise was helping me through to the next stage of my life'.


MON 22:30 Storyville (b03j49l6)
Blackfish - The Whale that Killed

Documentary which unravels the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who - unlike any orca in the wild - has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong?

Shocking, never-before-seen footage and interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry.

This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.


MON 23:50 Johnny Kingdom and the Bears of Alaska (b01qyvnk)
Johnny Kingdom, the wild man of Exmoor, is back and going further than he's ever been before - the trip of a lifetime to Kodiak Island in Alaska in search of brown bears.

As a lad, amateur wildlife filmmaker Johnny would poach salmon from the rivers on Exmoor with his bare hands, but his lifelong ambition has been to see how the real experts - brown bears - do it, as they fish for sockeye salmon in the remote rivers of Kodiak Island off the southwest coast of Alaska.

It is also the biggest challenge he has faced as an amateur cameraman. In characteristic style, Johnny finds himself struggling to keep his camera still without a tripod and because his hands are shaking so much when faced with a 'hooge' bear less than 30 metres away.

The other challenge he faces, which he cannot control, is the weather. In the summer, although the snow has melted this part of Alaska is plagued by heavy mists and fog, which makes the journey by seaplane to the remote areas where the bears live even harder to achieve.

Fortunately Johnny is able to take advantage of being grounded and heads out on a boat into the rich waters around Kodiak Island to film humpback whales, tufted puffins and an enchantingly close encounter with sea otters.

But it's the bears he's come for and Johnny finally gets the shots he wanted - bears catching salmon. He can hardly believe it.

This is Johnny Kingdom at his best - infectiously enthusiastic, madly exuberant and never less than hugely enjoyable.


MON 00:50 Only Connect (b03jrxhs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 01:20 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b00778zg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 01:50 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b39q8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:20 Light and Dark (b03jrxhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2013

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b03jpz9r)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b39z1)
Series 3

Cardiff to Brecon

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

All this week he is travelling west, from Oxford in the heart of England, through the Malvern Hills and into Wales, taking in the unique Victorian heritage of the South Wales coastline.

Today Michael discovers the Victorian coal heritage that turned Cardiff into the city it is today, explores the 19th-century reason why Barry Island isn't an island, and takes a steam ride through the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park.


TUE 20:00 Refugees of the Lost Rainforest (b0379479)
John Nettles explores the late naturalist Gerald Durrell's legacy through the work of a small group of people trying to save endangered orangutans on two contrasting islands, Jersey and Sumatra.


TUE 20:30 Secret Knowledge (b03jryyp)
Castiglione - Rogue Genius of the Baroque

One of the most innovative artists of the 17th century, printmaker and draftsman Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione was also a violent, impetuous man, repeatedly in court for assault and even accused of murder. His turbulent life often overshadowed his artistic brilliance, and Castiglione struggled to achieve recognition in his own lifetime.

Yet his pioneering printmaking techniques would influence generations of later artists including Degas and Picasso and with the UK's first major exhibition of his work currently running at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, art historian Helen Rosslyn makes the case for Castiglione to be seen as one of the great artists of the Baroque.

Featuring exclusive access to Castiglione's original prints and drawings in the library at Windsor Castle, uncovering documents that throw new light on his troubled personality and revealing fascinating insights into his ground-breaking printmaking methods, Helen tells the story of one of the forgotten geniuses of art history.


TUE 21:00 Cathedrals (b03jryys)
Southwark

With remarkable access to the dean and clergy, Cathedrals - Southwark tells the story of a week-in-the-life of Southwark Cathedral in London, revealing how it attempts to remain relevant in a modern, diverse and largely secular city.

Cathedrals - Southwark is the final film of award-winning documentary maker Richard Alwyn's trilogy of portraits of Church of England cathedrals. After Wakefield and Wells, Alwyn turns to Southwark Cathedral in London's Bankside. As well as being mother church to its diocese, Southwark Cathedral is a parish church serving a fast-transforming neighbourhood.

For canon pastor and sub-dean, Bruce Saunders, the rapid development of the neighbourhood means the cathedral must involve itself in a range of complex planning issues; 'we're not prepared simply to stand by and watch the area sort of ethnically cleansed of its poor people. ... We want to try and make a noise about that, and to try to make it clear that that's neither right nor is it good for the community in the long run'.

Southwark Cathedral has long been described as 'radical', well-known for its 'inclusivity'. Alwyn meets a Muslim 'Welcomer' who greets visitors once a week and discusses the cathedral's reputation as London's 'Pink' Cathedral with the dean, The Very Rev Andrew Nunn, who wants his cathedral to live out its principles rather than become a soapbox.

The Dean tells Alwyn that the praise of God is the cathedral's 'core activity' and Alwyn's film constantly returns to the cathedral's prayer life, from well-attended Sunday Eucharists to barely-attended daily Morning Prayer. He films a Chapter meeting considering the cathedral's latest initiative to re-examine what is meant by God and engages both the Dean and Sub-Dean on this question.


TUE 22:00 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074th6)
Series 1

Smiley Tracks the Mole

Acclaimed adaptation of John le Carre's novel. In his search for the mole sitting at the heart of the Circus, Smiley sets out for Oxford to visit an invaluable friend.


TUE 22:50 Operation Crossbow (b011cr8f)
The heroic tales of World War II are legendary, but Operation Crossbow is a little-known story that deserves to join the hall of fame: how the Allies used 3D photos to thwart the Nazis' weapons of mass destruction before they could obliterate Britain.

This film brings together the heroic Spitfire pilots who took the photographs and the brilliant minds of RAF Medmenham that made sense of the jigsaw of clues hidden in the photos. Hitler was pumping a fortune into his new-fangled V weapons in the hope they could win him the war. But Medmenham had a secret weapon of its own, a simple stereoscope which brought to life every contour of the enemy landscape in perfect 3D.

The devil was truly in the detail. Together with extraordinary personal testimonies, the film uses modern computer graphics on the original wartime photographs to show just how the photo interpreters were able to uncover Hitler's nastiest secrets.


TUE 23:50 The First World War from Above (b00vyrzh)
Fergal Keane tells the story of the World War One from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that has rarely been seen before. It also features aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over 90 years - that show not only the devastation inflicted during the fighting, but also quirks and human stories visible only from above.


TUE 00:50 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b39z1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 01:20 Secret Knowledge (b03jryyp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


TUE 01:50 Refugees of the Lost Rainforest (b0379479)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 02:20 Cathedrals (b03jryys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2013

WED 19:00 World News Today (b03jpz9y)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b3c5h)
Series 3

Port Talbot to Milford Haven

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

All this week he is travelling west, from Oxford in the heart of England, through the Malvern Hills and into Wales, taking in the unique Victorian heritage of the South Wales coastline.

Today Michael explores the Victorian railway legacy behind the steel works of Port Talbot, follows the trail of 19th-century waterfall hunters in Neath and uncovers the fascinating whaling past of Milford Haven.


WED 20:00 Natural World (b01d8nbk)
2011-2012

Grizzlies of Alaska

A mother grizzly bear brings up her two cubs in the wilds of Alaska. She must keep them safe from prowling males, teach them to hunt and prepare them to survive the savage winter. Alaska has the highest density of grizzlies in the world, so fights and face-offs are common. Biologist Chris Morgan spends the summer in this land of bears, often getting far too close for comfort.


WED 21:00 Narnia's Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis (b03jrw5j)
CS Lewis's biographer AN Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia - best-selling children's author and famous Christian writer, but an under-appreciated Oxford academic and an aspiring poet who never achieved the same success in writing verse as he did prose.

Although his public life was spent in the all-male world of Oxford colleges, his private life was marked by secrecy and even his best friend JRR Tolkien didn't know of his marriage to an American divorcee late in life. Lewis died on the same day as the assassination of John F Kennedy and few were at his burial - his alcoholic brother was too drunk to tell people the time of the funeral. Fifty years on, his life as a writer is now being remembered alongside other national literary heroes in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.

In this personal and insightful film, Wilson paints a psychological portrait of a man who experienced fame in the public arena, but whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.


WED 22:00 Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls (b01jmt5t)
Act Three: At Work and At Play

Lucy Worsley explores the lives of some of the most remarkable women of the age, including writers, actresses, travellers and scientists.

Against a backdrop of religious and political turmoil, the rise of print culture, the rapid growth of London, the burgeoning scientific revolution and the country's flourishing trading empire, she meets a host of female mavericks who took advantage of the extraordinary changes afoot to challenge the traditional male bastions of society.

Women like Nell Gwyn, the most famous of a new generation of actresses; Aphra Behn, the first professional female writer; and Christian Davies, who disguised herself as a man to fight as a soldier - all of them gained notoriety and celebrity, challenging the inequalities of the age. As Lucy discovers, these women's attitudes, ambitions and achievements were surprisingly modern.


WED 23:00 Frozen Planet (b00zj35p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


WED 00:00 Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited (b01skwfd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


WED 01:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b01b3c5h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 01:30 Natural World (b01d8nbk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:30 Narnia's Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis (b03jrw5j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2013

THU 19:00 World News Today (b03jpzb3)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b018zv8d)
1977 - Big Hits

The celebration of Top of the Pops 1977 continues with a selection of outstanding complete archive performances from Britain's silver jubilee year. 1977 was dominated by funk and punk, with Heatwave's Boogie Nights and The Stranglers' No More Heroes in the top ten. Classic top of the charts hits included Baccara's Yes Sir, I Can Boogie and Angelo by Brotherhood of Man. Some of the enduring heroes to take to the stage that year were David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Queen and Elvis Costello, with rare studio performances from The Jacksons and Bob Marley & The Wailers.


THU 20:30 The Flying Archaeologist (b01s1ll4)
Stonehenge

Archaeologist Ben Robinson flies over Wiltshire to uncover new discoveries in the Stone Age landscape. Sites found from the air have led to exciting new evidence about Stonehenge. The discoveries help to explain why the monument is where it is, and reveal how long ago it was occupied by people.


THU 21:00 4,000-Year-Old Cold Case: The Body in the Bog (b03js0gf)
A 4,000-year-old body is found preserved in an Irish peat bog, in Cashel, in Ireland's midlands. To scientists and historians, it could offer brand new clues to solve an ancient mystery - the hundreds of bodies found mummified in the boglands of northern Europe.

An international team of experts assemble to investigate this new find, led by Ned Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland. Ned is a veteran archaeologist, and has previously investigated some of Ireland's most famous bog bodies.

Will 'Cashel Man' help prove his theory these Irish victims were ancient kings? And what clues can the bog bodies of Europe offer to explain our ancestors' most macabre tradition, ritual murder?

Meanwhile, that question could be answered by the bog itself. New science has found clues to suggest these deaths may be explained by prehistoric climate change.


THU 22:00 Light and Dark (b03jrxhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 23:00 Horizon (b00vv0w8)
2010-2011

Asteroids - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Famed for their ability to inflict Armageddon from outer space, asteroids are now revealing the secrets of how they are responsible for both life and death on our planet.

Armed with an array of powerful telescopes, scientists are finding up to 3,000 new asteroids every night. And some are heading our way.

But astronomers have discovered that it's not the giant rocks that are the greatest danger - it's the small asteroids that pose a more immediate threat to Earth.

Researchers have explained the photon propulsion that send these rocks across space, and have discovered that some asteroids are carrying a mysterious cargo of frost and ice across the solar system that could have helped start life on Earth.


THU 00:00 Cathedrals (b03jryys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 01:00 The Flying Archaeologist (b01s1ll4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


THU 01:30 Top of the Pops (b018zv8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:30 4,000-Year-Old Cold Case: The Body in the Bog (b03js0gf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2013

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b03jpzb8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Concerto at the BBC Proms (b01k031g)
Mendelssohn Violin

Another chance to hear a live performance from the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall of one of the most popular and frequently performed violin concertos of all time, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, recorded at the first night of the BBC Proms in 2005. Exciting and versatile violin soloist Janine Jansen performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor, Sir Roger Norrington.


FRI 20:00 BBC Four Sessions (b01mtrwf)
Tom Jones

Sir Tom Jones in a unique session of folk, blues and beyond from the beautiful LSO St Lukes in the City.

Jones and a special band put together by Ethan Johns, the producer of his last two albums Praise & Blame and Spirit in the Room, deliver songs of guilt, redemption and judgement drawn from those records and also collaborates with special guests Seasick Steve on Mississippi Fred McDowell's You Gotta Move, with 84 year-old American folk legend Tom Paley on the Mississippi Sheiks' Sitting on Top of the World and young Londoner Josh Osho on Big Bill Broonzy's Black Brown and White Blues.

Filmed more like a rehearsal in the round than a concert with Ethan Johns on guitar, Richard Causon on keys, Dave Bronze on bass, Jeremy Stacey on drums and The Staves - three young sisters from Watford - on backing vocals, this BBC FOUR Session finds Jones The Voice in masterful yet genial form, exploring his roots in the songs and styles of the American South in the 50s and 60s - early rock n roll, country, gospel, folk, blues and beyond.


FRI 21:00 Blues America (p01kc7bh)
Woke up This Morning

Blues is usually described as the sound of racial suffering and feeling sad, but this documentary argues that the blues began as a form of black pop music. First appearing in the southern states of the USA around 1900, blues created by the poorest people in the richest nation on earth took America by storm. The film looks at the early years of the blues to discover how Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton used the latest media to bring their music to the public. With contributions from Keith Richards, Taj Mahal and Chuck D.


FRI 22:00 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.

Includes the seminal slide guitar of Son House, the British R&B of The Kinks, the unmistakeable electric sound of BB King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, as well as less familiar material from the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Freddie King and Long John Baldry.


FRI 23:00 Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home (b00gvk8x)
Documentary which joins former hobo and festival favourite bluesman Seasick Steve on a trip back to his old stomping grounds in America's Deep South. Filmed in Mississippi and Tennessee, the programme follows the musician into his natural habitat of run-down juke joints, roadside diners and freight-train yards, as he reflects on his past life and recent rise to fame.

In addition to Steve's raw, stomping tunes, the soundtrack features Mississippi Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, RL Burnside and BB King.


FRI 23:30 Glastonbury (b03695jm)
2013

Seasick Steve

Mark Radcliffe introduces a performance from the West Holts Stage by US bluesman Steven Gene Wold aka Seasick Steve with his unique take on blues, mostly involving his own customised guitars.


FRI 00:30 Blues America (p01kc7bh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:30 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 02:30 Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home (b00gvk8x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


FRI 03:00 Glastonbury (b03695jm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:30 today]