SATURDAY 29 MARCH 2014

SAT 19:00 David Attenborough's First Life (b00w14gy)
Conquest

In fifty years of broadcasting, Sir David Attenborough has travelled the globe to document the living world in all its wonder. Now, in a landmark series, he completes his journey by going back in time to the very roots of the tree of life, in search of the very first animals.

Attenborough's journey continues in Canada's Rocky Mountains, where fossils document an explosion in animal diversity never seen before or since. Travelling from there to North Africa, the rainforests of Australia and the east coast of Scotland, Attenborough discovers how animals evolved to conquer not only the oceans but also the land and air.

These remote and fascinating creatures are brought to life as never before with the help of cutting-edge scientific technology and photorealistic visual effects. From the first large predators to the first legs on land, these were creatures that evolved the traits and tools that allow all animals, including ourselves, to survive to this day.


SAT 20:00 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03lytyp)
Civilising the Sea

Shipwrecks are the nightmare we have forgotten - the price Britain paid for ruling the waves from an island surrounded by treacherous rocks. The result is a coastline that is home to the world's highest concentration of sunken ships. But shipwrecks also changed the course of British history, helped shape our national character and drove innovations in seafaring technology, as well as gripping our imagination.

The terrible toll taken by shipwrecks was such that in the winter of 1820 some 20,000 seaman lost their lives in the North Sea alone. That's 20 jumbo jets. But in the final part of his series, maritime historian Sam Willis tells the stirring story of how the Victorians were finally driven into action, finding various ingenious solutions - from rockets that could fire rescue lines aboard stricken vessels to lifejackets, lifeboats and the Plimsoll Line, which outlawed overloading.

In Africa, he traces the legend of the Birkenhead Drill - the origin of 'women and children first'. Decorum even in disaster was the new Victorian way and it was conspicuously on hand to turn history's most iconic shipwreck - Titanic - into a tragic monument to British restraint.


SAT 21:00 Inspector De Luca (b01hw201)
Carte Blanche

In April 1945, having inadvertently been credited with 'saving Il Duce's life', De Luca becomes a reluctant hero and is promoted to a high-profile job in Bologna. He heads a murder investigation which will lead him to probe the private lives of the rich and powerful during the frantic final days of the fascist regime. The powers-that-be grant him carte blanche, just as long as he arrests the 'right' suspect.

In Italian with English subtitles.


SAT 22:50 Chas & Dave: Last Orders (b01nkdsv)
Documentary which highlights cockney duo Chas & Dave's rich, unsung pedigree in the music world and a career spanning 50 years, almost the entire history of UK pop. They played with everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to Gene Vincent, toured with The Beatles, opened for Led Zeppelin at Knebworth - and yet are known mainly just for their cheery singalongs and novelty records about snooker and Spurs.

The film also looks at the pair's place among the great musical commentators on London life - and in particular the influence of music hall on their songs and lyrics.

The film crew followed Chas & Dave on their final tour, having called it a day after the death of Dave's wife, and blends live concert footage with archive backstory, including some astonishing early performances and duets with the likes of Eric Clapton. Among the experts and zealous fans talking about their love of the duo are Pete Doherty, Jools Holland and Phill Jupitus. Narrated by Arthur Smith.


SAT 23:50 Squeeze: Take Me I'm Yours (b01n8kmq)
Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, the men behind Squeeze, have been called everything from the new Lennon and McCartney to the godfathers of Britpop. Now, 35 years after their first record, this documentary reappraises the songwriting genius of Difford and Tilbrook and shows why Squeeze hold a special place in British pop music.

Difford and Tilbrook, two working class kids from south east London, formed Squeeze in 1974 with the dream of one day appearing on Top of the Pops. In 1978, they achieved that dream when the single Take Me I'm Yours gave the band the first of a string of top 20 hits. The period from 1978 to 1982 saw the group release a run of classic singles, timeless gems such as Cool for Cats, Up the Junction, Labelled with Love, Tempted and Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) to name but a few.

Although the line-up of Squeeze would go through various changes of personnel (another founder member Jools Holland left in 1980 and then rejoined the group in 1985) it is Difford and Tilbrook's songs that have remained the constant throughout the lifetime of the band.

The duo explain how they came to write and record many of their greatest songs. Although their relationship at times has often been tenuous at best, the mutual admiration for each other's talent has produced some of the best songs of the past 40 years.

With contributions from former band members Jools Holland and Paul Carrack, together with testament from Elvis Costello, Mark Knopfler and Aimee Mann to Difford and Tilbrook's songwriting talent and why they deserve to be placed alongside such renowned songwriting partnerships as Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards and Elton John and Bernie Taupin.


SAT 00:50 Top of the Pops (b03z2bn2)
Mike Read presents another edition of the weekly pop chart show, including performances from the Three Degrees, Rocky Sharpe & the Replays, Dana, Showaddywaddy, Kandidate and Black Lace. With dance sequences by Legs & Co.


SAT 02:25 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jzy37)
Rock 'n' Roll Revisited - Get It On

A love of 50s rock 'n' roll runs through the pop of the 70s like a stripe through a stick of rock. This episode celebrates the rock 'n' roll revivalism and 50s retro leanings that characterise the decade from glam to AOR and all points in between. Revisiting the theatrical performances and fashions you'd be talking about in the playground the next day, from the likes of E.L.O, T-Rex, 10cc, Alvin Stardust, Mott the Hoople and Meatloaf's epic 1978 performance of Paradise by the Dashboard Light.


SAT 02:55 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03lytyp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 03:55 David Attenborough's First Life (b00w14gy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 30 MARCH 2014

SUN 19:00 Timeshift (b03fv7sl)
Series 13

Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes

Timeshift returns with an exploration of the British love of fast, daring and sometimes reckless motorbike riding during a period when home-grown machines were the envy of the world. From TE Lawrence in the 1920 to the 'ton-up boys' and rockers of the 1950s, motorbikes represented unparalleled style and excitement, as British riders indulged their passion for brands like Brough Superior, Norton and Triumph.

But it wasn't all thrills and spills - the motorbike played a key role during World War II and it was army surplus bikes that introduced many to the joy and freedom of motorcycling in the 50s, a period now regarded as a golden age. With its obsession with speed and the rocker lifestyle, it attracted more than its fair share of social disapproval and conflict.

Narrated by John Hannah.


SUN 20:00 The Review Show (b03zq4c8)
Martha Kearney and guests Sarah Churchwell, Sarfraz Manzoor and Paul Morley discuss Harry Hill's X Factor musical I Can't Sing; the UK premiere of the Tony Award-winning Urinetown; Richard Ayoade's film adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Double; Designs of the Year at the Design Museum; BBC One's World War One drama The Crimson Field; and Richard King's book On Offence. Plus music from Ben Watt and Bernard Butler.


SUN 21:00 The Poet who Loved the War: Ivor Gurney (b03zq4cb)
Documentary presented by writer Tim Kendall which tells the remarkable story of the First World War soldier-poet who broke all the rules. Ivor Gurney wasn't an officer but a private who bizarrely joined up in the hope that the ordered army life would help ease a mental health condition. Initially this shock therapy worked, but he was eventually shot and gassed and spent the last 15 years of his life in an asylum.

Yet the poetry he wrote there is uniquely powerful - capturing the experience of the ordinary soldier - and the film argues that it is the equal of the work of any of the more well-known soldier-poets of WWI. Gurney was also an accomplished composer and all the music used in the film is his, some of it hauntingly written on the Western Front.


SUN 22:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b03zq4cd)
Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sense of an Ending and his latest, Levels of Life is a memoir of bereavement following the loss of his wife to cancer. He talks candidly to Mark Lawson about love, death, memory and grief.


SUN 23:00 What Do Artists Do All Day? (b03y85dl)
Albert Watson

Documentary following Albert Watson over the course of a day photographing the barren, beautiful landscape of the Isle of Skye.

Edinburgh-born Albert Watson is one of the world's most successful commercial and fashion photographers. He has lived in the US for over 30 years, where he has photographed more than 100 Vogue covers and created some of the most iconic celebrity images of the 20th century, from Albert Hitchcock to Naomi Campbell.

In recent years he has turned to landscape photography, and in this film he comes back to Scotland for his latest project. Albert reflects on his past work and discusses the challenges of transferring his unique style to landscape photography.


SUN 23:30 The Pendle Witch Child (b013fj47)
Simon Armitage presents the extraordinary story of the most disturbing witch trial in British history and the key role played in it by one nine-year-old girl. Jennet Device, a beggar-girl from Pendle in Lancashire, was the star witness in the trial in 1612 of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours and, thanks to her chilling testimony, they were all hanged.

Armitage explores the lethal power and influence of one child's words - a story of fear, magic and demonic pacts retold partly with vivid and innovative hand-drawn animation. He discovers how Jennet's appearance in the witness box cast its shadow way beyond Lancashire, impressing lawyers, politicians, clerics and even King James I himself, and setting a dark precedent for child testimony in witch trials as far away as America. Finally, in a dramatic twist to the tale, he reveals how, 22 years after the original trial, Jennet's own words were very nearly the death of her - when she herself was put on trial, accused of being a witch by a 10-year-old boy.

With the help of historians Malcolm Gaskill, Diane Purkiss and Ronald Hutton, Armitage attempts to get inside Jennet's head and understand how the illegitimate and illiterate youngest child of a family of beggars could become both pawn and player in a much bigger story of 17th-century religion, power, law, science and the monarchy.

What made Jennet speak out so everyone she knew would die? And how did the courts decide to admit her evidence and allow her example to create a precedent for accepting the testimony of other child witnesses who wanted to send their neighbours to the gallows?

Although the events in this film may date back 400 years, its issues resonate today as much as ever - when to believe our children, how the police and the court system should handle child witnesses and above all how, in times of crisis, fear of evil can easily lead us to behave in ways which may corrode the very values that we most wish to protect.


SUN 00:30 Timeshift (b03fv7sl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SUN 01:30 Robert Plant: By Myself (b00vy78w)
Documentary in which Robert Plant discusses his musical journey from Stourbridge, the British blues boom, superstardom with Led Zeppelin in the 70s to 2010's Band of Joy album. He also looks at his work with the Honeydrippers and North African musicians, his reunion with Jimmy Page and his pairing with Alison Krauss.


SUN 02:30 The Genius of Bert Jansch: Folk, Blues and Beyond (b03tdd6m)
Interviews and rare archive footage weave together performances from a landmark multi-artist concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, celebrating the songs and artistry of the great folk-blues troubadour Bert Jansch.

Ralph McTell, Robert Plant, Donovan, members of Pentangle, Bernard Butler, Martin Carthy, Martin Simpson, Lisa Knapp and more pay tribute to Jansch, who died in 2011.

Robert Plant shows his vocal prowess with a powerful rendition of Go Your Way My Love, joined by Jansch collaborator Bernard Butler. Martin Simpson and Danny Thompson surprise with a version of Heartbreak Hotel, a track covered by Jansch. Ralph McTell tackles the seminal Angie and Lisa Knapp and Martin Carthy combine for Blackwaterside - Jansch's arrangement of which heavily influenced Led Zep's Black Mountain Side.

An effortlessly cool singer-songwriter and virtuoso guitarist, Bert Jansch came to prominence in the folk clubs of the mid-1960s: the concert's stage set recalls the legendary Les Cousins club in London's Soho, where he was a resident artist, and the Royal Festival Hall itself was the venue for Pentangle's first and final major gigs. Jansch galvanized a whole scene, through his solo work, as a duo with John Renbourn and with his folk-jazz supergroup Pentangle. Neil Young called him the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar, Led Zeppelin and Paul Simon were weaned on him and younger generation musicians including Beth Orton and Johnny Marr beat a path to his door. Bert Jansch's influence reached far and wide.



MONDAY 31 MARCH 2014

MON 19:00 World News Today (b03zn08f)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q05nm)
Series 4

London King's Cross to Peterborough

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with his copy of Bradshaw's Handbook, he travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to see what of Bradshaw's world remains. Michael is travelling port to port, from the centuries old naval hub of Portsmouth to the historic Grimsby docks. He discovers how derelict Victorian London is being rejuvenated, puts in a shift at a Cambridgeshire brick factory and meets the immigrant community built from it.


MON 20:00 Hidden Killers (b03l7nl8)
New Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home

Suzannah Lipscomb takes us back to the late Victorian era when cities were expanding and mass consumerism took hold. But from the food they ate to the clothes they wore and the new products that thrilled them, the Victorians were surrounding themselves with killers. What made taking a bath and drinking milk potentially so dangerous? And how did the Victorian woman turn herself into a walking fire hazard?

The domestic horrors of home life in the 19th century and the terrible consequences are laid bare, revealing how the Victorian ideal of 'safe as houses' was far from the reality.


MON 21:00 Horizon (b01llnb2)
2012-2013

Mission to Mars

Horizon goes behind the scenes at Nasa as they count down to the landing of a 2.5 billion-dollar rover on the surface of Mars. The nuclear-powered vehicle, the size of a car, will be winched down onto the surface of the red planet from a rocket-powered crane. That's if things go according to plan; Mars has become known as the Bermuda Triangle of space because so many missions there have ended in failure. The Curiosity mission is the most audacious, and expensive, attempt to answer the question of whether there is life on Mars.


MON 22:00 Storyville (b03zq89v)
Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington

Moving and deeply personal documentary about Tim Hetherington, the award-winning British war photographer and film-maker killed in 2011 during the Libyan civil war. Director Sebastian Junger gracefully weaves together footage of Hetherington at work and emotional interviews with his family and colleagues to capture his collaborator and friend's compassion and intense curiosity about the human spirit.

The film maps a career in which Hetherington searched for the humanity within wartime, as evidenced in their Oscar-nominated film Restrepo, about an American platoon in Afghanistan. Hetherington's footage of rebel army life during Liberia's civil war conveys a rare sense of intimacy in sharp contrast to the violence surrounding him. Although he spent most of his time travelling to the centre of war zones, he was seeking truths rather than adventure.

A tribute to this remarkable, talented young man, Which Way is the Frontline from Here? also addresses fundamental questions about the very nature of conflict.


MON 23:15 Fossil Wonderlands: Nature's Hidden Treasures (b03z05zz)
The Mammal Hothouse

Professor Richard Fortey investigates the remains of an ancient volcanic lake in Germany where stunningly well-preserved fossils of early mammals, giant insects and even perhaps our oldest known ancestor have been found.

Among the amazing finds are bats as advanced and sophisticated as anything living today, more than 50 million years later, dog-sized 'dawn' horses, the ancestor of the modern horse, and giant ants as large as hummingbirds.


MON 00:15 The Walshes (b03yzknj)
Limbo

The Walshes are getting ready to leave the house for a night out together at their favourite restaurant, but mobilising five people at the same time can prove tricky. No sooner are four of them ready to step outside than something has distracted the fifth. Rory becomes obsessed by a strange photograph and starts to question everything he has ever believed. Ciara and Graham's perfect 'never had a fight' record is tested, while Tony wrestles with something troubling that's been on his mind. With the early bird half-price menu deadline looming, the clock is ticking.


MON 00:45 Brushing up on... (b03z09n7)
Series 2

Street Furniture

Danny Baker strolls into the world of bollards, benches, bins and lavatories as he explores Britain's street furniture. Expect hymns to the phone box and pillar box by way of a terrifying Belisha beacon.


MON 01:15 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q05nm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 01:45 Horizon (b01llnb2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:45 Hidden Killers (b03l7nl8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



TUESDAY 01 APRIL 2014

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b03zn08l)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q05pz)
Series 4

Spalding to Grimsby

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with his copy of Bradshaw's Handbook, he travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to see what of Bradshaw's World remains. Michael is travelling port to port, from the centuries old naval hub of Portsmouth to the historic Grimsby docks. He sees how Lincolnshire farmers utilised rails to improve their harvests, visits Lincoln's most impressive cathedral and looks to the future of rail freight.


TUE 20:00 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q9xyz)
Series 4

Stirling to Invergowrie

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with his copy of Bradshaw's Victorian railway guidebook, he travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to see what of Bradshaw's world remains. Michael is exploring the stunning scenery of rural and coastal Scotland, travelling from Stirling, through the industrial east coast and dramatic Highland landscapes, to the beauty of the western lochs, finally ending his journey in John O'Groats. Michael learns about a Scottish hero, visits a Highland Games and discovers how an impressive piece of Victorian engineering ended in tragedy.


TUE 20:30 Weird Nature (b0078hny)
Peculiar Potions

Series exploring strange animal behaviour looks at how a surprising number of creatures take substances for pleasure or to cure ailments. Discover starlings that use aromatherapy, chimps that administer their own medicine, an odd amphibian that can heal itself, bee bouncers that stop drunk and disorderly bees returning to the hive, monkeys whose liking for happy hour tells us about our own drinking habits, lemurs that ingest mind-altering millipedes, hedgehogs that indulge in strange rituals, cats that get high on plants and reindeer whose fondness for magic mushrooms may have spawned the greatest legend of them all.


TUE 21:00 Building Burma's Death Railway: Moving Half the Mountain (b03z09n9)
The brutal use of British prisoners of war by the Japanese to build a railway linking Thailand to Burma in 1943 was one of the worst atrocities of the Second World War. For the first time in 70 years, British POWs and their Japanese captors, many now in their nineties, open their hearts to tell the story of what really happened on the 'Death Railway'. Alongside the extraordinary experiences and stories of survival told by the British, their Japanese guards tell of different horrors of war, some never disclosed before.

Exploring how they have survived the terrible memories, this is an often inspiring story that many of these men have waited a long time to tell. What emerges is a warm and emotional journey through the lives of men from different sides reflecting on a terrible event that still haunts them.


TUE 22:00 The First World War (b01rnq6t)
Blockade

The British expected a second Trafalgar, but within days German submarines turned the North Sea into a no-go area for Britain's great battleships. The British responded with a blockade of Europe to starve the enemy out. Germany launched submarine attacks against civilian ships, including the Lusitania with 1,200 lives lost. American acted as arsenal and banker to the warring nations, but, though targeted by spies and saboteurs, was deeply reluctant to join in. Then top secret British code-breakers deciphered the Zimmermann Telegram which revealed that Germany was encouraging Mexico to attack America. Now America joined the First World War.


TUE 22:50 Could We Survive a Mega-Tsunami? (b01s0zqv)
Starting off a kilometre high, travelling at the speed of a jet aircraft, and heading for us. It doesn't make for a good outcome. Hollywood-style graphics and real-life archive bring home an imagined near-future scenario, all based on cutting-edge science.


TUE 23:50 Timeshift (b03fv7sl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


TUE 00:50 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.


TUE 01:50 Weird Nature (b0078hny)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


TUE 02:20 Weird Nature (b0078h4b)
Marvellous Motion

Series looking at strange animal behaviour reveals nature's quirkiest movers and shakers. From dancing seaslugs to cartwheeling caterpillars this is nature at its most weird and wonderful.

In a series of magical sequences, crocodiles gallop, salamanders transform into wheels and bushbabies bounce like rubber balls. Lizards and frogs stage an extraordinary air show, the Mexican jumping bean reveals its fidgety secrets, lemurs pogo and two-legged lizards hunt like dinosaurs. Using new filming techniques and some extraordinary special FX, this is nature as never seen before.


TUE 02:50 Building Burma's Death Railway: Moving Half the Mountain (b03z09n9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 02 APRIL 2014

WED 19:00 World News Today (b03zn08r)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q9ybs)
Series 4

Dundee to Aberdeen

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with his copy of Bradshaw's Victorian railway guidebook, he travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to see what of Bradshaw's world remains. Michael is exploring the stunning scenery of rural and coastal Scotland, travelling from Stirling, through the industrial east coast and dramatic Highland landscapes, to the beauty of the western lochs, finally ending his journey in John O'Groats. Michael learns how Queen Victoria used to hide from her subjects, discovers how factory workers went deaf and goes out with a bang in Aberdeenshire.


WED 20:00 African Railway (b00s6bgw)
In a moving and often funny documentary, award-winning film-maker Sean Langan is off to east Africa to ride the rails of the Tazara railroad, whose passenger and goods trains travel through spectacular scenery and a game park teeming with wild animals.

The railway was built by the Chinese just after independence to link Zambia's copper belt to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, and once carried the region's hopes and dreams. But now it is in crisis. Every day there are derailments, trains running out of fuel and mechanical breakdowns.

Langan meets the train crews, controllers and maintenance crews who battle to keep it going - and at Tazara HQ he is on the track of Tazara's elusive Chinese railway advisors to find out why it is in such a parlous state.


WED 21:00 Versailles (b00lv83z)
The Dream of a King

Drama-documentary recreating the life and loves of France's most famous king, Louis XIV.

Dubbed the Sun King by his admiring court, Louis conquered half of Europe, conducted dozens of love affairs and dazzled his contemporaries with his lavish entertainments. But perhaps his greatest achievement - and certainly his longest lasting love - was the incredible palace he built at Versailles, one of the wonders of the world.

Filmed in the spectacular staterooms, bedrooms and gardens of Versailles itself, this beautifully photographed drama-documentary brings the reign of one of Europe's greatest and most flamboyant monarchs triumphantly to life, with the help of interviews with the world's leading experts on his reign.


WED 22:00 David Attenborough's First Life (b00w14gy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


WED 23:00 Parks and Recreation (b0401mj1)
Series 3

The Bubble

Everyone in the office is unhappy when Chris decides to make some big changes in the department, especially Tom who starts to question his career choices. Leslie is caught off guard when Ben has a meeting with her mum.


WED 23:20 Parks and Recreation (b0401mj3)
Series 3

Li'l Sebastian

Leslie and the team put together a memorial service for a dearly departed friend. Tom makes a big life decision, while Chris reacts badly to a health problem.


WED 23:40 The Walshes (b03yzknj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 00:15 on Monday]


WED 00:15 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03lytyp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


WED 01:15 Great British Railway Journeys (b01q9xyz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 01:45 African Railway (b00s6bgw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:45 Versailles (b00lv83z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 03 APRIL 2014

THU 19:00 World News Today (b03zn08x)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b03zztxw)
Tony Blackburn presents another edition of the weekly pop chart show, including performances from M, Squeeze, the Members, the Jacksons, Milk and Honey & Gali Atari and the Jam. With dance sequences by Legs & Co.


THU 20:00 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jzy37)
[Repeat of broadcast at 02:25 on Saturday]


THU 20:30 Brushing up on... (b03zqgjz)
Series 2

British Schools

Danny Baker dons the mortar board in a whistle-stop archival romp through our education system.


THU 21:00 Alexander Armstrong's Real Ripping Yarns (b03zqgk1)
Our dashing hero Alexander Armstrong explores the literature that inspired Michael Palin and Terry Jones's classic TV comedy Ripping Yarns, a loving parody of the Boys' Own books and magazines of their childhood. Featuring clips from Ripping Yarns, archive and interviews with experts, modern-day adventurers and Palin and Jones's own memories. In this affectionate and entertaining film Armstrong celebrates a long-lost slice of Britishness.


THU 22:00 Ripping Yarns (b0074s3w)
Series 1

Tomkinson's Schooldays

Offbeat comedy which celebrates the role that pointless violence in public schools has made to our splendid nation.


THU 22:30 Some People with Jokes (b03zqgk3)
Series 2

Some Irish People with Jokes

It's not just Irish eyes that are smiling when some of the Emerald Isle's finest exports tell their favourite jokes. Forget about the gift of the gab, this lot have got the gift of the gag.


THU 23:00 Building Burma's Death Railway: Moving Half the Mountain (b03z09n9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 00:00 The Poet who Loved the War: Ivor Gurney (b03zq4cb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Sunday]


THU 01:00 Top of the Pops (b03zztxw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:40 Some People with Jokes (b03zqgk3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]


THU 02:10 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jzy37)
[Repeat of broadcast at 02:25 on Saturday]


THU 02:40 Alexander Armstrong's Real Ripping Yarns (b03zqgk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 04 APRIL 2014

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b03zn092)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Transatlantic Sessions (b03fgzny)
Series 6

Episode 6

Music co-directors, Shetland fiddle virtuoso Aly Bain, dobro ace Jerry Douglas and their all-star house band, host a gathering of the cream of Nashville, Irish and Scottish talent in a spectacular location overlooking the banks of Loch Lomond.

The final programme in the series features Karen Matheson, Maura O'Connell, Aoife O'Donovan, Tim O'Brien and Andy Irvine backed by Aly, Jerry and house-band stalwarts Mike McGoldrick, Donald Shaw, Danny Thompson and James Mackintosh.


FRI 20:00 Darcey's Ballerina Heroines (b03xhbn8)
As courtesans, fashion icons, political pawns and international celebrities, the great ballerinas have played a multitude of roles both on and off the stage. They have moved from the courts of kings to stages around the globe, from the highs of public adoration to the lows of injury and scandal. But few people know the full story.

British prima ballerina Darcey Bussell spent two decades at the top, performing all the great roles in the classical repertoire and becoming one of ballet's most famous faces. She explores the changing role of the ballerina.

Journeying from 18th-century France to 1950s America, she examines the challenges that her predecessors encountered, discovers the women who broke the rules and reveals what it takes to be one of the greats.

A feast for the senses, Darcey's Ballerina Heroines is an authoritative history of the best ballets and the finest ballerinas.


FRI 21:00 Arena (b0077nxw)
The Brian Epstein Story: The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow

First in a two-part documentary examining the turbulent life and career of Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Gay when homosexuality was illegal, a gambler, shopkeeper and failed actor, he was also pop king with a Midas touch who, in the 60s, was as well known as the band he managed.


FRI 22:15 Arena (b0077nyc)
The Brian Epstein Story: Tomorrow Never Knows

Part two of the documentary on Beatles manager Brian Epstein. By the mid 60s, Epstein was lured into the world of gambling, sex and drugs and in 1967 he was found dead in his London mansion at the age of 32.


FRI 23:30 Sounds of the Sixties (b0074q9l)
Original Series

The First Steps

The rock and pop series kicks off with the very birth of the decade, when pop was consigned to Crackerjack and rebellious singers still wore cardigans. But then Beatlemania came along.

Features the fabulous Freddie and the Dreamers on Blue Peter and Pinky & Perky doing the Twist.


FRI 00:00 Sounds of the Sixties (b0074qcm)
Original Series

Hip to the Trip

Ten-part series featuring rock, pop and R&B performances from the BBC archives.

This edition features psychedelia and counter-culture, with performances by The Who, Pink Floyd, Joe Cocker and the Greaseband, The Nice and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.


FRI 00:30 ... Sings The Beatles (b00ml7p5)
Recorded for the 40th anniversary of Abbey Road, The Beatles' final album, a journey through the classic and curious covers in the BBC archives.

Featuring Sandie Shaw singing a sassy Day Tripper, Shirley Bassey belting out Something, a close-harmony Carpenters cover of Help!, Joe Cocker's chart-topping With a Little Help from My Friends, Oasis reinventing the Walrus and a little Lady Madonna from Macca himself.

Plus a few 'magical' moments from Candy Flip, The Korean Kittens and Su Pollard.


FRI 01:30 Arena (b0077nxw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:45 Arena (b0077nyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:15 today]