SATURDAY 29 OCTOBER 2016

SAT 19:00 Timeshift (b080dvyc)
Series 16

Sailors, Ships & Stevedores: The Story of British Docks

Throughout the 20th century, Britain's docks were the heartbeat of the nation - bustling, exciting and often dangerous places where exotic goods, people and influences from across the globe ebbed and flowed and connected Britain with the wider world. Thousands of men, with jobs handed down from father to son through generations, sustained these emblems of national pride, typified by London, the hub of the British Empire.

The waterside cities within cities where they lived and worked formed the frontier of the country's postwar recovery. Communities connected to the sea grew around them, some as unique as the multicultural sailortown of Tiger Bay in Cardiff, others like Liverpool primed for a new wave of world fame thanks to the music and style being brought into the country by the city's seafarers. The 1960s heralded the arrival of new forms of technological innovation in our ports, and thanks to a simple metal box, the traditional world of dockside would be radically transformed, but not without a fierce struggle to protect the dock work that many saw as their birthright.

Today, docksides are places of cultural consumption, no longer identifiable as places that once forged Britain's global standing through goods and trade. People visit waterfronts at their leisure in bars, cafes and marinas or buy a slice of waterside living in converted warehouses and buildings built on the connection to the sea. While the business of docks has moved out of sight, over 95 per cent of national trade still passes through the container yard on ever-larger ships. However, it is still possible to glimpse the vanished dockside through the archive films and first-hand stories of those who knew it best.

Narrated by Sue Johnston.


SAT 20:00 The Incredible Human Journey (b00ks641)
Europe

There are seven billion humans on Earth, spread across the whole planet. Scientific evidence suggests that most of us can trace our origins to one tiny group of people who left Africa around 70,000 years ago. In this five-part series, Dr Alice Roberts follows the archaeological and genetic footprints of our ancient ancestors to find out how their journeys transformed our species into the humans we are today, and how Homo Sapiens came to dominate the planet.

When our species first arrived in Europe, the peak of the Ice Age was approaching and the continent was already crawling with a rival: Stronger, at home in the cold and even (contrary to the popular image) brainier than us. So how did the European pioneers survive first the Neanderthals and then the deep freeze as they pushed across the continent?

Alice Roberts reconstructs the head of the 'first European' to come face to face with one of our ancestors; she discovers how art became crucial for survival in the face of Neanderthal competition; and what happened to change the skin colour of these European pioneers.

Finally, spectacular new finds on the edge of Europe suggest that the first known temples may have been a spark for a huge revolution in our ancestors' way of life - agriculture.


SAT 21:00 The Code (b081c6n6)
Series 2

Episode 3

Racing to save Papua Independence leader Remsey from false imprisonment and find Callum before it is too late, Jesse and Roth forge an unlikely alliance. Desperate for news of his missing brother, Ned reaches out to an undercover photojournalist to help locate Jesse.


SAT 22:00 The Code (b081yl0v)
Series 2

Episode 4

With extradition warrants served, Ned and Jesse have gone on the run. Harboured by a master digital criminal, Jesse must lie to Roth in order to save his own skin and that of Hani's father. With political tensions high, a rally turns ugly as Jesse works furiously to decrypt the files.


SAT 23:00 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).


SAT 00:00 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.


SAT 01:00 Top of the Pops (b080yybr)
David Jensen presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast on 8 July 1982. Includes appearances from Captain Sensible, Bananarama, Imagination, Irene Cara, Odyssey, Bucks Fizz and The Steve Miller Band.


SAT 01:35 Top of the Pops (b0813nn2)
Peter Powell presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast on 15 July 1982. Includes appearances from Hot Chocolate, Dexys Midnight Runners, Cliff Richard, David Essex, Japan, Visage and Irene Cara.


SAT 01:15 The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill (b04dzswb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]



SUNDAY 30 OCTOBER 2016

SUN 19:00 Canals: The Making of a Nation (b06829t1)
The Boat People

Presenter Liz McIvor tells the story of the people who operated the canal boats, carrying fuel and goods around the country. Conditions were tough, days were long. Victorian society began to grow suspicious of these 'outsiders' and they gained reputations for criminality, violence and drinking. But was this reputation really deserved? Liz discovers grisly canal crimes, investigates health and welfare onboard working boats, and looks at why canal children were last on the list to be offered safeguards and formal education. The Victorians eventually championed the needs of children who were forced to labour in factories and mines, but the boat children were often ignored. Liz discovers the campaigners who set out to tackle this injustice, including George Smith of Coalville, Leicestershire, and Sister Mary Ward of Stoke Bruerne.


SUN 19:30 Books That Made Britain (b0801nh5)
East Anglia: The Scene of the Crime

PD James, Nicci French and many other top crime writers have used East Anglia as a setting for their books. Martha Kearney investigates why this unique landscape has caught the imagination of so many authors.


SUN 20:00 Frankenstein from The Royal Ballet (b081c7dy)
The Royal Ballet presents a new work based on Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel, Frankenstein. The stellar cast includes Federico Bonelli who dances the role of Doctor Frankenstein, with Laura Morera as his fiancee Elizabeth.

Steven McRae stars as the Creature, at once terrifying and tortured, in this spectacular production by the Royal Ballet's Artist in Residence, choreographer Liam Scarlett, with music by Lowell Liebermann.

Presented from the Royal Opera House by Darcey Bussell and Ore Oduba.


SUN 22:15 Annabel's Nightclub: A String of Naked Lightbulbs (b06zqb0d)
Annabel's has long been the playground for the rich and famous, and now its story comes to life in this 50-year history of the most celebrated nightclub in the world. Renowned for its discretion, and as a haunt of some of our greatest celebrities, the film offers a hitherto unseen glimpse into the rarefied worlds behind the doors of 44 Berkeley Square.

As London's very first members-only nightclub, Annabel's remains the only nightclub visited by the Queen, and once courted infamy for refusing entry to the Beatles. The documentary provides a cultural biopsy of London since the Second World War, and the club's history from inception through to the present day.


SUN 23:15 BBC: The Secret Files (b06455ch)
Episode 1

Penelope Keith uncovers the secrets behind some of the BBC's greatest artists and programmes as she delves into the corporation's written archives.


SUN 00:15 Storyville (b080k2z4)
Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon

Part 1

Paolo Macchiarini is one of world's most famous surgeons. He hopes to revolutionize medicine by creating a new type of synthetic organ - a vision that could save many lives. But the Italian surgeon has also been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs as well as falsifying his science. Is he a genius - or is he behind one of medicine's biggest scandals?

This gripping investigative series gains access to Macchiarini's closed world of organ transplants, animal experiments and stem-cell research. From his base at one of the world's most prestigious medical institutions - the Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden - the series explores the fallout from his work across the world, from London to Russia. It poses a fundamental ethical question - how far can you risk a human life in the name of cutting-edge science?


SUN 01:15 Storyville (b0813msd)
Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon

Part 2

Is Paolo Macchiarini, the star surgeon of the Karolinska Institute - home of the Nobel Prize - a genius who will revolutionise science and solve one of medicine's biggest challenges? Or is he the man who has caused the biggest medical scandal in Swedish history?

The second episode of this gripping investigative series starts in the summer of 2012, with supersurgeon Macchiarini under pressure when problems start to arise. His pioneering transplant work seems at risk when he discovers faults with the new synthetic organs. Macchiarini still has faith in the procedure and plans new operations. This time it will no longer be fatally ill patients on whom he tries out his new methods, but patients whose condition is not life-threatening. Will Macchiarini succeed with his pioneering work?


SUN 02:15 Storyville (b0813n4j)
Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon

Part 3

Paolo Macchiarini, star surgeon at Sweden's prestigious Karolinska Institute, home to the Nobel Prize, seemed to be on the verge of solving one of medicine's biggest riddles - how to create artificial organs. But the final episode of this absorbing investigative series uncovers that something was seriously wrong.

By 2014, four Karolinska doctors started to question Macchiarini's transplantation of plastic tracheas and raised the alarm at Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institute. They suspected that Macchiarini had been lying in his scientific papers and that patients' lives were being put at risk by a technique which had not been properly tested or investigated beforehand. But still his employer, the Karolinska Institute, defended him and claimed nothing was amiss.

Investigative journalist Bosse Lindquist confronts Macchiarini and the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, to uncover why Macchiarini was able to continue.


SUN 03:15 Books That Made Britain (b0801nh5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



MONDAY 31 OCTOBER 2016

MON 19:00 World News Today (b08176sj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Grand Tours of Scotland (b01783jf)
Series 2

Islands of the Clyde

For generations, the Firth of Clyde was a favourite holiday destination for millions of Scots, both rich and poor. In this Grand Tour of Scotland, presenter Paul Murton explores the delights of this famous stretch of water. Here you could enjoy healthy sea breezes - take a dunk in the briny, mess about in boats, enjoy a glass or two of your favourite tipple - or, if you had the money, all of the above at the same time!


MON 20:00 Great Barrier Reef (b019xxhh)
Reef and Beyond

The Great Barrier Reef is vitally linked to the rest of the planet in many ways. Creatures travel for thousands of miles to visit in spectacular numbers, including tiger sharks, great whales, sea birds and the largest green turtle gathering on earth.

Alien creatures that are rarely seen, like nautilus, also rise out of the deep to visit the reef's warm waters. Weather systems travelling from across the Pacific also affect the whole reef, including mighty cyclones that bring destruction and chaos to the coral and the creatures that live on it. And it is weather patterns and climate change on a global scale that are likely to shape the future of the Great Barrier Reef and all its wildlife.


MON 21:00 Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers: Andrew Marr's Paperback Heroes (p040pwl2)
Spies

What is the allure of the classic espionage story? As Andrew Marr argues in the conclusion to his series about the books we (really) read, the British spy novel is much more than a cloak-and-dagger affair. Rather, these books allow readers to engage with some pretty big questions about the human condition - principally, who are you? What or who would you be willing to betray? And for what cause would you lay your life on the line?

To help him decipher the rules of the classic espionage story, Andrew travels to Berlin in the footsteps of master spy novelist John le Carre, whose experience of witnessing the Berlin Wall being erected in 1961 inspired him to write the 20th century's greatest spy novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Andrew uncovers the various conventions that have governed the genre since it began. He shows how early spy novelists created a climate of fear, how they introduced the debonair gentleman spy, and how through the works of former secret agents such as Somerset Maugham they translated the often mundane details of espionage into their stories. The tradecraft of spywriting is gleaned from writers Frederick Forsyth, William Boyd, Gerald Seymour, Charles Cumming as well as novelist (and former director general of MI5) Dame Stella Rimington. And Andrew considers the future of the fictional spy in an age when the agent on the ground is being superseded by electronic surveillance.


MON 22:00 Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time (b0817n9n)
Despite the 1960s free-love and alternative culture, many women found that their lives and expectations had barely altered. But by the 1970s, the Women's Liberation Movement was causing seismic shifts in the march of the world's events, and women's creativity and political consciousness was soon to transform everything - including the face of publishing and literature.

In 1973 a group of women got together and formed Virago Press - an imprint, they said, for 52 per cent of the population. These women were determined to make change - and they would start by giving women a voice, by giving them back their history and reclaiming women's literature.

Patronized and welcomed, criticized and praised, these women published books that showed the world how they saw it. They took out loans and invested their own money into the company, trusting and believing they could change lives through books - novels, nonfiction and polemics.

It is a story that continues today, over 40 years later, as a new generation of young feminists find their voice. This is the account of a determined group of women from 1973 to today - writers and readers who fuelled a revolution in how the world sees women and how women see themselves.


MON 23:00 Secret Knowledge (b081v7b4)
A Very British Pornographer: The Jack Kahane Story

Actor and antiquarian book dealer Neil Pearson travels to Paris to discover one of the most important - and least likely - figures in 20th century literature - Jack Kahane. A short-sighted dandy from Manchester, Kahane combined a career selling low-grade smut with publishing some of the most significant works of avant-garde literature, including books by James Joyce, DH Lawrence, Anais Nin, Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller.


MON 23:30 The First World War (b01rp9vv)
Shackled to a Corpse

The war on the Eastern Front was racial - Slav verses Teuton. It was highly mobile, fought across brutal terrain from the Urals to the Alps. It initiated many horrors of 20th-century warfare - chemical weapons, mass expulsions of civilians, the persecution of Jews. The Italian front with Austro-Hungary was perhaps the bitterest of all. Soldiers lived and fought for years in the harshest environments, enduring avalanches and frostbite as well as relentless enemy action. Mistrust and contempt increasingly threatened alliances. Germany shored up her ally Austria-Hungary, feeling herself 'shackled to a corpse', while Austria-Hungary saw Germany as her 'secret enemy'.


MON 00:20 Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture (b009vs89)
Death

Historian and writer Dan Cruickshank celebrates the creative force of architecture as he explores the world's greatest cities, buildings and monuments.

Dan travels the globe to explore how different cultures have created architecture inspired by our mortality. In the Czech Republic, he reveals the macabre tale of a chapel decorated with human bones. Even more shocking is the Yaxha Mayan pyramids in Guatemala, sites of brutal human sacrifice.

In Egypt, Dan explores how pharaohs ensured the passage of their spirit to the afterworld through elaborate mortuary temples. He visits Europe's greatest cemetery in Genoa, Staglieno, home to a spectacular collection of beautiful and erotic memorial statues. And finally, Dan comes face-to-face with death itself in Varanasi in India, a sacred Hindu town where people come to die.


MON 01:20 British Art at War: Bomberg, Sickert and Nash (b04hk9n8)
Walter Sickert and the Theatre of War

In the years preceding 1914, David Bomberg, Walter Sickert and Paul Nash set out to paint a new world, but, as the century unfolded, found themselves working in the rubble.

Walter Sickert's early career as an actor is long forgotten and he's now remembered for his art. But he never left the stage behind. Always shape-shifting between roles, Sickert's appearance never stayed still. And his art, too, was in perpetual transformation. Dazzlingly original, deeply unsettling, poised on the brink of violence. For most, proof that Sickert is the godfather of modern British art, but for a few at the fringes, evidence he's Jack the Ripper.

But Sickert was no perpetrator, just an unflinching witness, notably, to the cataclysm of World War One. Too old to fight in Flanders, Sickert painted edgy, compelling, subtle pictures of those who'd been left behind. He painted people trying to get on with lives that were being shattered by the conflict. Almost alone of his generation, Sickert truly understood that the theatre of war was not confined to the trenches.


MON 02:20 Secret Knowledge (b081v7b4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


MON 02:55 Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers: Andrew Marr's Paperback Heroes (p040pwl2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 01 NOVEMBER 2016

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b08176vv)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Grand Tours of Scotland (b017pytk)
Series 2

The Charms of Nature

Paul Murton travels by vintage bike through the spectacular scenery of the central Highlands to better appreciate the charms of nature. He starts his adventure in Glen Lyon, then heads north via Pitlochry, and ends his trip in the Cairngorms National Park.


TUE 20:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b0140vb9)
Warts and All - Portrait of a Prince

Colourful series marking the 200th anniversary of one of the most explosive and creative decades in British history. It presents a vivid portrait of an age of elegance presided over by a prince of decadence - the infamous Prince Regent himself, a man with legendary appetites for women, food and self-indulgence. Yet this was the same man who would rebuild London, carving out the great thoroughfare of Regent Street and help establish the Regency look as the epitome of British style through his extravagant patronage of art and design.

In this first episode, historian Dr Lucy Worsley chronicles the Regency's early years, which culminated in victory over Napoleon in 1815, and explores the complicated character of the Prince Regent, a man with legendary appetites for women, food, art and self-indulgence.

For Lucy, the Regency was an age of contradictions and extremes that were embodied in the person of the Prince Regent himself. She uncovers Prince George's modest childhood; bright and talented, the young George was beaten with a whip by his tutors and it was small wonder that he would later rebel, eventually embracing a scandal-ridden lifestyle that included illegal marriages and discarded mistresses.

So how did this overweight popinjay preside over an age in which art and culture mattered? A tour of his treasures in the Royal Collection shows Lucy that George was a genuine connoisseur, buying up Rembrandts and French furnishings while his excesses were at the same time inspiring satirical caricatures that mocked him as the 'Prince of Whales'. And she investigates George's collaboration with portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, who left the definitive images of Regency society and became George's flatterer-in-chief; Regency wags laughed at how his paintings magically transformed an overweight bald fifty-something into a 'well-fleshed Adonis'.

Meanwhile, the long war with France was having a huge impact on the British psyche; travel and trade with Europe were impossibly restricted. Lucy follows in the footsteps of painter JMW Turner who, unable to travel to the continent, toured the south coast in 1811 and captured startling images of a country at war.

George liked to think of himself as a man of fashion, and Lucy takes us through surviving accounts from his tailors that reveal his shopaholic ways. These were the years in which the Prince's sometime friend Beau Brummell, the famous dandy, ruled fashionable London like a dictator, and Lucy samples a bit of butch Regency style by trying on some of the fashions he popularised, as well as joining Brummell biographer Ian Kelly on a tour of London's fashionable Regency haunts. She also discovers Brummell's spectacular fall from favour, after loudly referring to the Regent as someone's 'fat friend'.

Lucy visits the battlefield of Waterloo and discovers that the site became a prototype of battlefield tourism - Turner, Byron and many others all visited in the years after the battle and Lucy handles some grisly memorabilia purchased by Lord Byron.

The episode concludes with the most spectacular royal art commission of them all - Lawrence's series of paintings in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle, paid for by George to memorialise his victory over Napoleon. Never mind that George wasn't at any of the battles - this was an age in which appearance and reality fused together to create monumental art.


TUE 21:00 Storyville (b081c8r7)
Chasing Asylum - Inside Australia's Detention Camps

Documentary which exposes the impact of Australia's offshore detention policies through the personal accounts of people seeking asylum and whistleblowers who tried to work within the system. Australia has successfully stopped hopeful asylum seekers and refugees from reaching its shores. Anyone picked up making the treacherous journey across the Indian Ocean is sent to Australian off-shore detention camps on the remote tropical islands of Manus and Nauru. Once there, men, women and children are held in indefinite detention, away from media scrutiny. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the appalling living conditions and shocking testimonies from both detainees and camp workers, Chasing Asylum exposes the impact of this policy on those seeking a safer home.


TUE 22:00 Horizon (b014kj65)
2011-2012

Are You Good or Evil?

What makes us good or evil? It's a simple but deeply unsettling question. One that scientists are now starting to answer.

Horizon meets the researchers who have studied some of the most terrifying people behind bars - psychopathic killers.

But there was a shock in store for one of these scientists, Professor Jim Fallon, when he discovered that he had the profile of a psychopath. And the reason he didn't turn out to be a killer holds important lessons for all of us.

We meet the scientist who believes he has found the 'moral molecule' and the man who is using this new understanding to rewrite our ideas of crime and punishment.


TUE 23:00 Natural World (b014hl48)
2011-2012

Animal House

Sir David Attenborough tells the stories of the world's best animal architects. There are house-proud bower birds, who only find a mate if they decorate their homes perfectly. There are hornets, who build electric central heating systems, and the star-nosed mole, whose house is designed so well that worms, his favourite meal, literally drop in for dinner. From larders to nurseries and from high-rises to subway systems, Attenborough shows that the animal architects have designed it long before humans.


TUE 00:00 Precision: The Measure of All Things (b02xgf5d)
Mass and Moles

Deep underground in a vault beneath Paris lives the most important lump of metal in the world - Le Grand K. Created in the 19th century, it's the world's master kilogramme, the weight on which every other weight is based. But there is a problem with Le Grand K - it is losing weight. Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores the history of this strange object and the astonishing modern day race to replace it.


TUE 01:00 Storyville (b081c8r7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


TUE 02:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b0140vb9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 03:00 Virago: Changing the World One Page at a Time (b0817n9n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]



WEDNESDAY 02 NOVEMBER 2016

WED 19:00 World News Today (b081770l)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Grand Tours of Scotland (b017zqmj)
Series 2

The True Spirit of Scotland

Following a network of now forgotten steamer routes, presenter Paul Murton goes in search of the true spirit of Scotland, travelling from loch to loch in Argyll and then out to Islay. As the steamers left the Scottish lochs years ago, Paul has to literally 'paddle his own canoe' - in this case, a beautiful replica of an original Rob Roy canoe from the 1890s - to follow the route.


WED 20:00 Timeshift (b00dzzdc)
Series 8

Last Days of Steam

The surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.

After the war, the largely destroyed railways of Europe were rebuilt to carry more modern diesel and electric trains. Britain, however, chose to build thousands of brand new steam locomotives. Did we stay with steam because coal was seen as the most reliable power source, or were the railways run by men who couldn't bear to let go of their beloved steam trains?

The new British locomotives were designed to stay in service well into the 1970s, but in some cases they were taken off the railways and scrapped within just five years. When Dr Richard Beeching took over British Railways in the 1960s the writing was on the wall, and in 1968 the last steam passenger train blew its whistle.

But while steam use declined, steam enthusiasm grew. As many steam engines lay rusting in scrapyards around Britain, enthusiasts raised funds to buy, restore and return them to their former glory. In 2008, the first brand new steam locomotive to be built in Britain in nearly 50 years rolled off the line, proving our enduring love of these machines.


WED 21:00 Television's Opening Night: How the Box Was Born (b0817s4g)
In a unique experiment, Dallas Campbell, Professor Danielle George and Dr Hugh Hunt join forces in an attempt to restage the very first official broadcast on British television, exactly 80 years after it made history.

The very first official broadcast came from Alexandra Palace on 2 November 1936 - but there are no surviving recordings. To find out just what went on, this 21st-century team attempts to piece back together and recreate every aspect of the show from scratch - from the variety acts to the cameras - using the original technology and filming techniques to capture the excitement of the day.

It's not going to be easy. At the dawn of TV, two rival camera technologies competed live on air to take control of the fledgling industry. The system that went first on opening night was a seven-foot tall mechanical monster built by John Logie Baird's company. It was called the 'Flying Spot' and at its heart was a huge steel disc spinning almost at the speed of sound - meaning mechanical engineer Hugh had better be careful as he attempts to resurrect it. Meanwhile, Danielle finds out how the rival and highly experimental, all-electronic camera system had problems of its own.

The team uncovers the mixed influences of high-minded radio and bawdy variety shows on early TV, at a time when it was still a science experiment and not a mass medium. They seek advice from pre-war television pioneers, including Logie Baird's former assistant, now aged 104 but still full of handy tips about how to build a mechanical camera.

Dallas learns just how much harder his job would have been 80 years ago, when the very first television announcer Leslie Mitchell was plastered in bizarre make-up and given a cue for 'action' that bordered on physical assault! Dallas also meets one of the performers in front of the camera on the original night - now in her nineties - to find out what it was like to be part of television history.

As they prepare for broadcast, the team discovers a story of cogs and gears, electron beams and dancing girls - and one mad night that, for better or worse, helped invent television as we know it.


WED 22:30 Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers: Andrew Marr's Paperback Heroes (p040pwl2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


WED 23:30 The Last Explorers (b018c57k)
Thomas Blake Glover

Neil Oliver travels to Japan to uncover the extraordinary story of Thomas Blake Glover. Blending adventure with commerce, Glover was a rogue trader who helped rebel samurai clans overthrow the shogun and lay the foundations for one of the most aggressive and powerful economies in the world.


WED 00:30 Timeshift (b00dzzdc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 01:30 Birth of the British Novel (b00ydj1p)
Author Henry Hitchings explores the lives and works of Britain's radical and pioneering 18th-century novelists who, in just 80 years, established all the literary genres we recognise today. It was a golden age of creativity led by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney and William Godwin, amongst others. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy are novels that still sparkle with audacity and innovation.

On his journey through 18th-century fiction, Hitchings reveals how the novel was more than mere entertainment, it was also a subversive hand grenade that would change British society for the better. He travels from the homes of Britain's great and good to its lowliest prisons, meeting contemporary writers like Martin Amis, Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Jenny Uglow on the way.

Although 18th-century novels are woefully neglected today compared to those of the following two centuries, Hitchings shows how the best of them can offer as much pleasure to the reader as any modern classic.


WED 02:30 Television's Opening Night: How the Box Was Born (b0817s4g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2016

THU 19:00 World News Today (b081771n)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b08200c8)
Simon Bates presents the weekly chart show, first broadcast on 22 July 1982. Includes appearances from The Belle Stars, Madness, Bananarama, The Brat, Trio, Junior, The Stranglers, Dollar and Irene Cara. Also includes a dance performance from Zoo.


THU 20:00 Railways: The Making of a Nation (b07x4fvm)
A Touch of Class

Trains reflected class divisions with separate carriages for first, second and third class passengers. Yet, seen at the time, they were also bringing people physically closer together. In the early 1800s, Britain was clearly divided between upper, middle and working classes. On the railways they shared the same stations and arrived at the destination at the same time!

The trains gradually acted as a great catalyst, mixing the country up as people were travelling to regions and places for the first time. Locations, accents, culture and fashions were all new. The nation's relationship with royalty also changed. Queen Victoria was now able to venture far and wide across her kingdom and visit more of her subjects. Over time, we developed a stronger sense of shared identity and culture.


THU 20:30 Hive Minds (b0818xvv)
Series 2

Prime v Logophiles

Fiona Bruce presents the quiz show where players not only have to know the answers, but have to find them hidden in a hive of letters. It tests players' general knowledge and mental agility, as they battle against one another and race against the clock to find the answers.

Prime take on Logophiles in this edition.


THU 21:00 Peter York's Hipster Handbook (b081v950)
Eminent social commentator Peter York seeks to understand what he sees as the modern obsession with 'the authentic'. He speaks to craftspeople and expert commentators on his journey to understand the current cultural moment. He also examines where the label of the 'hipster' has its roots and whether it is too general a term for such a broad movement. He demonstrates through his years of marketing and advertising experience that subcultures have always been absorbed and repackaged by the mainstream.

Contributors include Times deputy fashion editor Harriet Walters, the Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright, and Sir John Hegarty. Peter also travels to America to look at parallels between the UK and America.


THU 22:00 Television's Opening Night: How the Box Was Born (b0817s4g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Wednesday]


THU 23:30 The Incredible Human Journey (b00ks641)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


THU 00:30 Top of the Pops (b08200c8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:05 Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting (b03ny8wk)
A richly detailed journey through the epic history of still-life painting, featuring a range of delights from the earliest existing Xenia mural paintings discovered at Pompeii to the cubist masterpieces of Picasso.

Awash with rich imagery of fruit, flowers and humble domestic objects, this lively take on the story of still life encompasses the work of some of the genre's greatest artists from Caravaggio to Chardin and Cezanne. But it also captures the surprising contributions of the less well-known, including asparagus enthusiast Adriaen Coorte and female flower painter in the court of Louis XVI, Anne Vallayer-Coster.

With contributions from historians Bettany Hughes and Janina Ramirez, art historians Andrew Graham Dixon and Norman Bryson, and philosopher Alain de Botton amongst others, it opens up the huge social histories that lie behind the paintings and the fascinating lives of the people who made them.


THU 02:35 Peter York's Hipster Handbook (b081v950)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2016

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b08177b8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b08202lx)
Mike Read presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast on 29 July 1982. Includes appearances from Dexys Midnight Runners, Hot Chocolate, The Firm, David Essex, Yazoo, Paul McCartney, Irene Cara and Cliff Richard. Also includes a dance performance from Zoo.


FRI 20:00 The Good Old Days (b081sx4y)
Leonard Sachs presents an edition of the old-time music hall programme, first broadcast on 5 February 1976. With Roy Castle, Eartha Kitt, Barry Kent, Hinge and Bracket, The Halfwits and members of the Players Theatre, London.


FRI 20:45 Sounds of the Seventies (b01pcwhp)
Shorts

Roxy Music, Queen and Elton John

Glamour with a seventies subversive quality in this selection from the BBC's back pages. Roxy Music operate their Ladytron, Queen are Killer and Elton John is back.


FRI 20:55 Pop Go the Sixties (b00cyz26)
Series 2

Peter and Gordon

Pop moments from the BBC's sixties archive. From a 1964 edition of Crackerjack, pop folk duo Peter Asher and Gordon Waller sing A World without Love written by Paul McCartney - who was going out with Peter's sister at the time.


FRI 21:00 Country Queens at the BBC (p028vwnv)
Classic female country stars in action on a variety of BBC studio shows and featuring Bobbie Gentry, Anne Murray, Emmylou Harris, Tammy Wynette, Billie Jo Spears, Crystal Gayle, Taylor Swift, Lucinda Williams with Mary Chapin Carpenter and more. A chronological celebration of country queens at the BBC whether on Top of the Pops, OGWT, Later with Jools Holland, Parkinson or their own entertainment specials.


FRI 22:00 Sisters in Country: Dolly, Linda and Emmylou (b081sx50)
Documentary which explores how Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris's careers took off in the 1970s with very distinct takes on country before they ended up uniting as close harmony singers and eventually collaborated on 1987's four-million-selling debut album, Trio.

In the 60s country music was viewed by most of America as blue collar, and Dolly was country through and through. Linda Ronstadt's take on classic country helped make her the biggest female star in mid-70s America. Folkie Emmylou learned about country from mentor Gram Parsons and, after his death in 1973, she became a bandleader in her own right. It was Emmylou and Linda - the two west coast folk rockers - who voiced their mutual appreciation of Dolly, the mountain girl singer from Tennessee, when they became early students of her work.

The artists talk about uniting as harmony singers and eventually collaborating on their debut album, Trio. The album helped launch the mountain music revival that would peak with the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou. In 2012 Linda Ronstadt was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which left her unable to sing, but 2016 saw unreleased songs from their sessions compiled to create a third Trio album. This is the story of how their alliance made them pioneers in bringing different music worlds together and raising the game for women in the country tradition.

Contributors: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Rodney Crowell, George Lucas, Peter Asher, Chris Hillman, Laura Cantrell, Robert K Oermann, John Boylan, Phil Kaufman, David Lindley, Albert Lee, Herb Pedersen, George Massenberg and Applewood Road.


FRI 23:00 The Kacey Musgraves Country & Western Rhinestone Revue at Royal Albert Hall (b081sx52)
Kacey Musgraves performs live to a packed-out Royal Albert Hall. At just 27 and with a huge international following, Kacey sings a number of her hits and shows what a breath of fresh air she is to the modern country music scene. She wows her fans as she performs some of her biggest hits including Biscuits, Silver Lining and Merry Go Round from her albums Same Trailer Different Park and Pageant Material.


FRI 00:00 Top of the Pops (b08202lx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 00:35 Country Queens at the BBC (p028vwnv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:35 Sisters in Country: Dolly, Linda and Emmylou (b081sx50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 02:35 The Kacey Musgraves Country & Western Rhinestone Revue at Royal Albert Hall (b081sx52)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]