SATURDAY 23 AUGUST 2014

SAT 19:00 Human Planet (b00rrd7t)
Mountains - Life in Thin Air

From lush cloud forests to bare summits that take your breath away, the higher you climb the tougher life gets on a mountain. Human Planet explores the extraordinary ways in which people survive at extreme altitudes where nature becomes utterly unforgiving.

In the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia, the vast open spaces make hunting for animals almost impossible, so the locals have forged an astonishing partnership with golden eagles which can do the hunting for them.

On the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia we join a young boy locked in a dramatic battle with fearsome gelada monkeys which are hellbent on raiding his family's meagre grain harvest.

In the Himalayan state of Nepal we witness a rarely seen ceremony - a sky burial. In a land where there is little wood to burn for cremation and where burying the dead is virtually impossible, the dead are fed to vultures in the ultimate reverence of nature.


SAT 20:00 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?


SAT 21:00 Inspector Montalbano (b01fqlql)
The Scent of the Night

Investor Emanuele Gargano has disappeared with the savings entrusted to him by the people of Montelusa. Montalbano's investigation brings him into contact with some of Gargano's staff - his obsessively loyal secretary Mariastella Cosentino and the provocative Michela Manganaro. Meanwhile, Augello is getting cold feet about the prospect of his wedding.

In Italian with English subtitles.


SAT 22:50 TOTP2 (b007v15w)
Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special

Get your dancing shoes on for a show of disco mania as Steve Wright and the TOTP2 team take you back to the dancefloor for some boogie fever. The Bee Gees are here in all their glory, along with Gloria Gaynor, Liquid Gold, Sylvester, The Village People, The Weather Girls and The Three Degrees.

There's classic dance fodder from Chic, George McCrae, Hi-Tension, Heatwave, The JALN Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Tina Charles, The Gibson Brothers and Edwin Starr, disco pop from Blondie, Yazz, Boney M and Linx, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Infernal bring the story up to date.

And then there's the Disco Duck. Sorry...


SAT 00:20 Queens of Disco (b0074thh)
Graham Norton profiles the leading ladies of the disco era, including Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, Grace Jones, Chaka Khan, Madonna and 'honorary disco queen' Sylvester. Includes contributions from the queens themselves, plus Antonio 'Huggy Bear' Fargas, choreographer Arlene Phillips, songwriters Ashford and Simpson, disco artists Verdine White from Earth, Wind and Fire, Bonnie Pointer of The Pointer Sisters and Nile Rodgers of Chic.


SAT 01:20 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jk1b8)
Soul: Keep On Keeping On

Imported American soul was big news in the UK in the 1970s. Before the Brits developed their own brand of soul, American performers were here demonstrating how it was done and being appreciated by all and sundry. The series continues with classic performances from the kings and queens of soul, including Aretha Franklin, Billy Preston, The Tams, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, The Stylistics, Gil Scott-Heron and The Jacksons.


SAT 01:50 Human Planet (b00rrd7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 02:50 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



SUNDAY 24 AUGUST 2014

SUN 19:00 BBC Proms (b04frc32)
2014

The Sunday Prom: Elgar's Cello Concerto

English weekend at the Proms continues with Elgar's autumnal, sepia-toned Cello Concerto, written after the horrors of the First World War. Norwegian virtuoso cellist Truls Mørk joins the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, visiting the Proms from Australia for the first time and conducted by a Proms favourite, Sir Andrew Davis. The concert opens with Richard Strauss's spectacular tone poem about the serial womaniser Don Juan, with romantic unrequited love at the heart of the final piece, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

Presented by Katie Derham.


SUN 21:05 Definitely Dusty (b00780bt)
Documentary looking at the life and work of soul and pop diva Dusty Springfield, singer of such classics as You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and Son of a Preacher Man, who was equally famous for her trademark panda eyes and blonde beehive.

Using archive footage and interviews shot in the UK and the US, it charts her progress from plain Catholic schoolgirl to glamorous star and ventures behind the extravagant image to reveal a complex and vulnerable character.

Featuring interviews with fellow musicians from a career spanning four decades, including Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Neil Tennant, Lulu and Martha Reeves.

Dusty's protective inner circle of friends have never spoken about her on camera before. Pat Rhodes, Dusty's personal secretary for her entire solo career, her manager Vicky Wickham, ardent fan-turned-backing singer Simon Bell and others talk about the highs and lows of the woman they knew and loved.


SUN 22:05 Cafe de Flore (b01rhg9m)
Drama which cuts between two seemingly unrelated stories.

In 1960s Paris, Jacqueline is a single mother working hard to raise her son Laurent, who has Down's syndrome. Their extremely close relationship is strained when Laurent makes a new best friend.

In modern-day Montreal, Antoine is a successful club DJ who has been through a difficult divorce from his childhood sweetheart Carole. Now he is struggling to start afresh with his new girlfriend, against some opposition from the family.

In French with English subtitles.


SUN 00:00 The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill (b04dzswb)
Documentary exploring Kate Bush's career and music, from January 1978's Wuthering Heights to her 2011 album 50 Words for Snow, through the testimony of some of her key collaborators and those she has inspired.

Contributors include the guitarist who discovered her (Pink Floyd's David Gilmour), the choreographer who taught her to dance (Lindsay Kemp) and the musician who she said 'opened her doors' (Peter Gabriel), as well as her engineer and ex-partner (Del Palmer) and several other collaborators (Elton John, Stephen Fry and Nigel Kennedy).

Also exploring their abiding fascination with Kate are fans (John Lydon, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) and musicians who have been influenced by her (St Vincent's Annie Clark, Natasha Khan (aka Bat for Lashes), Tori Amos, Outkast's Big Boi, Guy Garvey and Tricky), as well as writers and comedians who admire her (Jo Brand, Steve Coogan and Neil Gaiman).


SUN 01:00 Kate Bush at the BBC (b04f86xk)
Between 1978 and 1994, Kate Bush appeared on a variety of BBC programmes, including Saturday Night at the Mill, Ask Aspel, the Leo Sayer Show, Wogan and Top of the Pops. This compilation showcases her performances of hit songs such as Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Running up That Hill and Hounds of Love, alongside other intriguing and lesser-known material in the BBC studios.


SUN 02:00 The Joy of ABBA (b03lyzpp)
Between 1974 and 1982 ABBA plundered the Anglo-Saxon charts but divided critical opinion. This documentary explores how they raised the bar for pop music as a form and made us fall in love with the sound of Swedish melancholy. A saga about the soul of pop.


SUN 03:00 Definitely Dusty (b00780bt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:05 today]



MONDAY 25 AUGUST 2014

MON 19:00 King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons (b038rkw9)
Aethelstan: The First King of England

In this third episode, Alfred's grandson Aethelstan fulfils the family plan and creates a kingdom of all England.

Travelling from Devon to Cumbria, Scotland and Rome, Michael Wood tells the tale of Aethelstan's wars, his learning and his lawmaking, showing how he created a national coinage and tracing the origin of the English parliament to the king's new assembly politics. But there's also a dark side, with later legends that the king had his brother drowned at sea. In his last desperate struggle, Aethelstan defeated a huge invasion of Vikings and Scots in what became known as the Anglo-Saxon 'Great War'.

Wood argues that Aethelstan was one of the greatest English monarchs, and with his grandfather Alfred, his father Edward and his aunt Aethelflaed, a member of our most remarkable royal family and 'even more than the Tudors, the most gifted and influential rulers in British history'.


MON 20:00 Al Murray's Great British War Movies (b04fmfrg)
Comedian and history buff Al Murray is joined by historian Dan Snow, writer Natalie Haynes and broadcaster and film expert Matthew Sweet for a fresh look at a subject very close to his heart - the great British war movie. This roundtable discussion looks at both the films themselves, from A Bridge too Far to Zulu, and uses them as a lens on British history, cultural attitudes and our changing views on conflict over the decades.

With dozens of clips from classic films such as Where Eagles Dare, The Dam Busters, In Which We Serve, Escape to Victory and The Eagle Has Landed, nostalgic memories of Bank Holiday afternoons in front of the telly and lashings of tea, rousing speeches and stiff upper lips, Al and his guests explore why the British are so obsessed with films about war - and what this says about us.


MON 21:00 The Eagle Has Landed (b00glr88)
All-action World War II adventure. On the morning of 6 November 1943, the military authorities in Berlin receive a simple message - 'The Eagle Has Landed'. In a daring kidnap attempt, a small force of crack German paratroopers are poised to snatch Winston Churchill and return with him to Germany. If they succeed in their mission, it could alter the course of the war. Who can stop them?


MON 23:10 The Cricklewood Greats (b01bs3ww)
Peter Capaldi embarks upon a personal journey to discover the shocking history of the stars of north London's famous film studios. Including clips from rarely seen films and interviews with Marcia Warren and Terry Gilliam.


MON 23:55 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04f83xq)
Vienna 1908

Dr James Fox tells the story of Vienna in 1908, a city of amazing creativity and dangerous tension. This was the year Gustav Klimt painted his masterpiece The Kiss, Sigmund Freud revealed the Oedipus complex, Egon Schiele produced startling pictures of humanity stripped to the bare essentials, and both music and architecture took a bold step in a radical new direction. But it was also the year a struggling young artist named Adolf Hitler arrived in the city, a year that would put Vienna and Europe on the road to destruction.


MON 00:55 The Wonder of Animals (b04dzrtp)
Bears

Bears can live in practically every habitat on Earth, from tropical jungles to the Arctic Ocean. Wherever they are found, they are capable of surviving extreme conditions and extracting the highest-quality food.

Detailing the latest research, Chris Packham explores the specialised adaptations that have enabled bears to thrive, including how a polar bear's hollow fur allows it to feed throughout the gruelling Arctic winter, whilst a state of 'walking hibernation' sees it through the summer months.


MON 01:25 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04dzrtr)
Andreas Vesalius

In 1537, the 23-year-old Andreas Vesalius became the most famous anatomist in Europe. He went on to produce the first complete account of the human body and how to dissect it, his drawings setting the gold standard for anatomical art for centuries to come and earning him the title of 'the founder of modern anatomy'. Adam Rutherford tells his story.


MON 01:55 King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons (b038rkw9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 02:55 Al Murray's Great British War Movies (b04fmfrg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



TUESDAY 26 AUGUST 2014

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b04fm30b)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b03qg72p)
Series 5

London Euston to Cheddington

Michael Portillo embarks on a new journey, guided by his Bradshaw's Handbook from London's Euston station to Leeds.

In this first leg, he finds out what happened to the once proud Euston Arch andk braves the watery depths under Camden Town to see how goods were transported by rail, road and canal. Clad in his old school blazer, Michael heads north to explore the Harrow of his childhood and remembers the tragic rail disaster of 1952. At the country estate of one of the world's wealthiest banking families in Tring, he discovers an exotic collection in need of special attention before alighting at Cheddington, scene of the Great Train Robbery.


TUE 20:00 The Secret Life of Rockpools (b01rtdr4)
Paleontologist Professor Richard Fortey embarks on a quest to discover the extraordinary lives of rock pool creatures. To help explore this unusual environment he is joined by some of the UK's leading marine biologists in a dedicated laboratory at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Here and on the beach in various locations around the UK, startling behaviour is revealed and new insights are given into how these animals cope with intertidal life. Many popular rock pool species have survived hundreds of millions of years of Earth's history, but humans may be their biggest challenge yet.


TUE 21:00 Everyday Miracles: The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners (b04fmg34)
Away

Professor Mark Miodownik concludes his odyssey of the stuff of modern life. This time he looks at how materials have enabled us to indulge our curiosity about the world around us. To go further and travel faster. He looks at how the bicycle suddenly stirred our national gene pool, why we should all be grateful for exploding glass and what levitation has to do with discovering your inner self. On the road and in the lab with dramatic experiments, Mark reveals why the everyday and even the mundane is anything but.


TUE 22:00 The London Markets (b01jbb99)
The Meat Market: Inside Smithfield

The night-time market at Smithfield was once the sole supplier of meat and poultry to London and could play by its own rules.

But now the modern world of political correctness and customer service is proving a challenge for some in this closed, traditional man's world.

Smithfield has been supplying the capital with meat since the 12th century, but what does the future hold for the men of the meat market?


TUE 23:00 Human Planet (b00rrd7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


TUE 00:00 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0074lsn)
Series 2

The Wrong Empire

Simon Schama traces the steps of the empire-makers to tell the extraordinary story of how this small set of islands came to rule an empire that stretched around the globe. How did a trading enterprise based on the idea of liberty become an empire built on the enslavement of millions of Africans? How did Britain lose control of its own colony - America - yet go on to conquer India? On a journey that takes him to Barbados, North America, Canada and India, Schama reveals how Britain came to rule 'the wrong empire'.


TUE 01:00 Tales from the National Parks (b016psp6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


TUE 02:00 The Secret Life of Rockpools (b01rtdr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 03:00 Everyday Miracles: The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners (b04fmg34)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 27 AUGUST 2014

WED 19:00 World News Today (b04fm30h)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b03qg89k)
Series 5

Bletchley to Newport Pagnell

Michael Portillo continues his journey north on Robert Stephenson's first inter-city railway line from the capital. Along the line at Bletchley he meets one of the Second World War's most secret agents, discovers a poet in Olney whose words are still sung today and explores the first purpose-built railway town at Wolverton. Michael's last stop on this leg is Newport Pagnell, where he learns the ancient craft of vellum-making.


WED 20:00 The Wonder of Animals (b04fmg8d)
Big Cats

Chris Packham delves beneath the skin of the big cats to explore what makes them such good hunters, and he reveals that it is not all about brawn.

New scientific research shows how subtle adaptations in their anatomy and physiology contribute to the success of all stages of a big cat hunt: the stalk, the capture and the kill.

Leg hairs help the leopard to stalk, and intricate muscle fibres drive the snow leopard to capture its prey. For the jaguar, jaw muscles and whiskers combine to give it a precision bite that can take down a caiman, and an enlarged area of the lioness's brain gives it the edge over all their big cat cousins.


WED 20:30 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04fmg8g)
Rembrandt and Ruysch

In the 17th century in Holland, anatomy became the cutting edge of medical science, inspiring the great artists of the age like Rembrandt to produce the most beautiful anatomical paintings yet created.

Adam Rutherford travels to the Hague and Amsterdam to find out what it was that drew Rembrandt to anatomy and why dissecting bodies was thought a suitable subject for high art.


WED 21:00 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04fmg8j)
Paris 1928

Dr James Fox tells the story of Paris in 1928. It was a city that attracted people dreaming of a better world after World War I. This was the year when the surrealists Magritte, Dali and Bunuel brought their bizarre new vision to the people, and when emigre writers and musicians such as Ernest Hemingway and George Gershwin came looking for inspiration.

Paris in 1928 was where black musicians and dancers like Josephine Baker found adulation, where Cole Porter took time off from partying to write Let's Do It, and where radical architect Le Corbusier planned a modernist utopia that involved pulling down much of Paris itself.


WED 22:00 Wild China (b00c5n6g)
Land of the Panda

China's heartland is the centre of a 5,000-year-old civilization and is home to the giant panda, the golden snub-nosed monkey and the golden takin. China faces environmental problems, but the relationship the Chinese have with their environment is deep and extraordinary. We will understand what this means for the future of China.


WED 23:00 Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain (b038rj1b)
Making Connections

Using her skills to uncover long-forgotten and abandoned plans, architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner explores the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs that were never built. In this episode she looks at two of the most radical civil engineering projects proposed in the last century and explores how international politics and vested interests both drove, and derailed, plans to better connect Britain to the continent.

In the early 1900s Britain was anticipating the threat of war. As concern grew about Germany expanding its naval fleet and investing in its infrastructure, there were calls to find a way for Britain's navy to be able to react swiftly to protect our waters. The solution proposed was to create a ship canal big enough for warships to cross from the Firth of Clyde on the west of Scotland to the Firth of Forth on the east. This enormous civil engineering endeavour would have completely changed the central belt of Scotland - the favoured route was through Loch Lomond, now considered one of the most treasured wilderness areas in the country.

There was huge support for the building of the canal, not least from members of parliament who recognised the potential for creating jobs and wealth in their constituencies. The debate over whether to invest £50m of the public purse in building the canal dragged on for years in both the House of Commons and Lords, with opinion split on whether it really was a strategic imperative. In the end, technology decided the fate of the canal. By 1918, all of the naval fleet was fuelled by oil rather than coal and so instead of a canal an oil pipeline was built from the mouth of the Clyde to Grangemouth on the east, and Royal Navy destroyers never did - and never will - sail up Loch Lomond.

Fifty years later, instead of seeking to protect Britain from attacks from the continent, thoughts had turned to how to connect our island to the rest of Europe. There had been talk of building a channel tunnel between England and France for centuries. In contrast with the Mid-Scotland Canal, where strategic advantages stimulated building, it was national security concerns that cut short the first proposal for a Channel Tunnel. The idea was presented to the British by Napoleon in 1802, but was rejected over concerns that the French had covert plans to invade England.

But 170 years later, the idea was to become a reality. Britain had finally joined mainland Europe through her membership of the Common Market in 1973, and both the French and British governments agreed it made sense build a tunnel together. But in 1975, construction was again abandoned because the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, had to look for economies in a financial crisis caused by dramatically rising world oil prices. Once more, the bid to connect with the continent had failed.

The idea was resurrected yet again in the early 1980s, with several competing schemes for consideration. The boldest of these, sponsored by British Steel, was a vast structure combing a double-decker bridge and tunnel, linked to an artificial island in the middle of the English Channel. The materials for the construction of this vast project would keep the steel mills of England and Scotland busy for a decade - but the politicians chose in favour of the Eurotunnel bid and British industry lost out.

Both these grandiose schemes defined how Britain saw its relationship with Europe. In an age when the headline 'Fog in Channel - Europe Isolated' made sense, a naval ship canal that would protect our island fortress from continental rivals was considered to be in the national interest. But just 60 years later, the fog had lifted and securing Britain's national interests became dependent on a physical connection with countries previously regarded as hostile. However, both plans foundered on the conflict of politics and vested interest.


WED 00:00 Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson (b01pgrk2)
Moomintroll and the Moomin family are characters loved by children and parents worldwide who have grown up listening to Finnish writer Tove Jansson's delightful stories about a group of philosophical trolls who face a range of adventures in Moominland.

This documentary reveals the strong autobiographical slant in the Moomins series as it traces the author's own extraordinary story from living the bohemian life of an artist in war-torn Helsinki to becoming a recluse on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland.

Enjoying unprecedented access to Jansson's personal archive, the film reveals an unconventional, brave and compelling woman whose creative genius extended beyond Moominland to satire, fine art and masterful adult fiction - not least her highly regarded The Summer Book. With home movie footage shot by her long-term female lover and companion, it offers a unique glimpse of an uncompromising fun-loving woman who developed love as the central theme of her work.


WED 01:00 The Wonder of Animals (b04fmg8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 01:30 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04fmg8g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


WED 02:00 Wild China (b00c5n6g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


WED 03:00 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04fmg8j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 28 AUGUST 2014

THU 19:00 World News Today (b04fm30n)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 BBC Proms (b04fy0gz)
2014

BBC Proms Masterworks: Stravinsky and Lutoslawski

Tom Service presents as the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain return for their annual Proms performance. Ed Gardner conducts an energetic programme of 20th-century music featuring Stravinsky's vivid ballet Petrushka, Lutoslawski's colourful Concerto for Orchestra and Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto with soloist Louis Schwizgebel.


THU 21:10 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0078tr5)
Series 3

Forces of Nature

The French Revolution sent shockwaves through Britain. While some watched transfixed, others were horrified.

Simon Schama explores why the British proved immune to the siren call of liberty, equality and fraternity.


THU 22:10 Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe (b0079238)
The Land of My Mother

Francesco da Mosto visits the south and Sicily, home of his mother's family for more than 500 years. Easter celebrations in the south involve the streets running red with celebrants' blood and the locals indulging in frantic dances to ward off the threat of the tarantula.

On Sicily, the brooding majesty of Etna terrifies Francesco as he stares into the volcano, but there's beauty and art at the Villa Bagheria and an explosion of baroque decadence at Noto. Finally for Francesco, there's an emotional reunion with his family, who have come down from Venice.


THU 23:10 Everyday Miracles: The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners (b04fmg34)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 00:10 King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons (b038rkw9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


THU 01:10 Al Murray's Great British War Movies (b04fmfrg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]


THU 02:10 The Cricklewood Greats (b01bs3ww)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:10 on Monday]


THU 02:55 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0078tr5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:10 today]



FRIDAY 29 AUGUST 2014

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b04fm30t)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b04fy01d)
2014

Friday Night at the Proms: Barenboim Conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

A Proms visit from Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is always an exciting event. The international ensemble's home is Seville and the programme has a strong Spanish flavour. Razia Iqbal and organist-conductor Wayne Marshall present Mozart's sparkling overture to the Marriage of Figaro - set just outside Seville - and a series of Ravel pieces including Rapsodie espagnol, Pavane for a Dead Princess and the ultra-popular Bolero.


FRI 21:00 Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines (b04fmgkb)
Blondie's album Parallel Lines captured the spirit of 1970s New York at a time of poverty, crime and an exploding artistic life, selling 16 million copies. This is the story of that album, that time and that city, told primarily by the seven individuals who wrote, produced and performed it. It was a calculated and painstaking endeavour to produce sure-fire hits - whatever it took.

The film follows Debbie Harry and the rest of the Blondie crew as they head into the studio to record their game-changing album with producer Mike Chapman. It also features commentary from Harry herself about writing music, the media's focus on her appearance and lyrically inspirational ex-boyfriends.

In 1978 the New York band Blondie had two punk albums behind them and were establishing a name for themselves at the club CBGBs on New York's Lower East Side. Then Chrysalis Records exec Terry Ellis saw them and spent a massive $1m buying out their recording contract. He had to ensure that their next album was a hit - there was no room for error. To do this he brought in maverick Australian record producer Mike Chapman, who already had a string of hits under his belt. Mike's job was to turn this crew of New York punks into world stars - but did they have the popular songs which would appeal to a wider non-punk audience?

At a time when rich creativity, grinding poverty and drug abuse were hand in hand on the sidewalks of the Lower East Side, the music and lyrics of Parallel Lines celebrated and captured this vibrant and edgy chemistry, shooting the band to international stardom.


FRI 21:50 Glastonbury (b047zjqt)
Lorde

Blondie

A look back at the 2014 Friday lunchtime set at the festival by legendary New York group Blondie. Led by Debbie Harry, the band celebrate their official 40th anniversary this year and at Worthy Farm, in between the rain showers, work through a set that includes some of their many classic hits plus a track or two from their most recent album.


FRI 22:45 Synth Britannia (b00n93c4)
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.

In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including The Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Voltaire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard, and they dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.

The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are 'Friends' Electric? heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound, whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.

By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.

Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.


FRI 00:15 Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines (b04fmgkb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:05 Glastonbury (b047zjqt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:50 today]


FRI 02:00 Synth Britannia (b00n93c4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:45 today]