SATURDAY 18 AUGUST 2018

SAT 19:00 Wild Ireland: The Edge of the World (b08kg3cg)
Series 1

Episode 2

The odyssey continues as Colin Stafford-Johnson completes his journey along Ireland's Atlantic rim. Exploring the wildlife and mountains around his home inlet of Clew Bay, Colin then heads north for Donegal - golden eagle country - before reaching the island's northern tip and turning east along the coast of Northern Ireland.

Along the way, he features the whooper swans that fly out of the north every autumn to escape an Arctic winter, the fabulously elusive pine marten, resident here since the last Ice Age, and the great ocean wanderers that are basking sharks - the second biggest fish on the planet, which turn up every summer out of the blue. Beautiful bats and heroic salmon are some of the other characters Colin comes across as he seeks out the remotest corners of Ireland's wild west.


SAT 20:00 Natural World (b01ntt8p)
2012-2013

Attenborough's Ark

David Attenborough chooses his ten favourite animals that he would most like to save from extinction. From the weird to the wonderful, he picks fabulous and unusual creatures that he would like to put in his 'ark', including unexpected and little-known animals such as the olm, the solenodon and the quoll. He shows why they are so important and shares the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.


SAT 21:00 Cardinal (b0bgkpf6)
Series 2

Northwind

Cardinal and Delorme connect evidence from a fresh crime scene to the ritualistic murder in the cave as Terri's memories help them make connections between her brother and a likely suspect.


SAT 21:40 Cardinal (b0bgkpfq)
Series 2

El Brujo

Armed with Northwind's real identity, Cardinal and Delorme race to find him before he kills Terri and her brother. A betrayal from within the police ranks threatens not only the case, but Cardinal and Delorme's lives.


SAT 22:25 Country Kings at the BBC (p028vxj4)
Classic male country singers from the BBC vaults, journeying from The Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis to Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson, and featuring classic songs and performances by Glen Campbell, Charley Pride, George Hamilton IV, Kenny Rogers, Clint Black, Johnny Cash, Eric Church and more. This 50 years-plus compilation is a chronological look at country kings as featured on BBC studio shows as varied as In Concert, Wogan, The Late Show and Later with Jools Holland, plus early variety shows presented by the likes of Lulu, Harry Secombe and Shirley Abicair.


SAT 23:25 Top of the Pops (b0bg9f8g)
Paul Jordan and Steve Wright present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 27 February 1986. Featuring Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Talking Heads, Audrey Hall, Alexander O'Neal, Kate Bush, The Bangles, Billy Ocean and Colonel Abrams.


SAT 23:55 There's Only One Madonna (b00748kl)
Documentary charting Britain's relationship with Madonna, examining the influence Madonna has had on British music and fashion, and how she provoked a debate over sexual and gender politics - inspiring a generation of women, whilst remaining a huge gay icon. The film follows a group of fans on their journey to Barcelona for the first night of Madonna's Drowned World Tour and finds out what Madonna means to them. Contributors include backing singer Donna DeLory, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Rosanna Arquette, Mel C, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Hear'Say and Janet Street-Porter.


SAT 00:50 Acoustic at the BBC (b0141mz1)
A journey through some of the finest moments of acoustic guitar performances from the BBC archives - from Jimmy Page's television debut in 1958 to Oasis and Biffy Clyro.

Highlights include:

Neil Young - Heart of Gold
David Bowie - Starman
Oasis - Wonderwall
Donovan - Mellow Yellow
Joan Armatrading - Woncha Come on Home
Bert Jansch, Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler - The River Bank
Joni Mitchell - Chelsea Morning
Biffy Clyro - Mountains.


SAT 01:50 Wild Ireland: The Edge of the World (b08kg3cg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 02:50 Natural World (b01ntt8p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



SUNDAY 19 AUGUST 2018

SUN 19:00 Eisteddfod (b0bgfbzs)
2018 with Jason Mohammad

Highlights

It is a pop-up city within the capital city that celebrates the best of Welsh culture. The National Eisteddfod, the biggest cultural event in the Welsh year, comes to Cardiff. It is a snapshot of what is happening in Wales, showcasing everything from the classical music stars of the future to rock bands, folk music, dance, cutting-edge contemporary visual art, literature and much more.

Jason Mohammad, himself a local lad, heads down to Cardiff Bay to bring all the highlights and stories from the 'maes' - usually a field but this year an open-to-all festival - no ticket required.

The pavilion - traditionally a large tent and the heart of the official competitions - is this year the Wales Millennium Centre. Bryn Terfel stars in a show about American singer Paul Robeson, while Wales and Lions rugby player Jamie Roberts finds himself joining the 'Gorsedd'.

Jason brings us a flavour of what has been going on this year - a year like no other in the long history of the Eisteddfod.


SUN 19:30 Bute: The Scot Who Spent a Welsh Fortune (b08y60r0)
John Patrick Crichton Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, was one of the richest men in the British Empire in the late 19th century. With an annual income in excess of £150,000 - around £15 million in contemporary currency - he pursued his passion for architecture with a vengeance. Narrated by Suzanne Packer, The Scot Who Spent a Welsh Fortune delves into the extraordinary world of Lord Bute and reveals what connects the small Scottish island of Bute to modern Cardiff.

Bute was one of the most unconventional mavericks of the Victorian age, passionate about the past but also far ahead of his time - a blue-blooded aristocrat, who supported women's rights and striking miners, a Welsh-speaking intellectual Catholic who was also a ghost hunter. Above all, Bute was a fabulously rich and visionary creator of great architecture including the Gothic fantasy of Cardiff Castle, and Castell Coch - the fairy-tale castle.

The 3rd Marquess got his hands on his fortune at the age of 21, but already when he was 18, he met the outrageous and eccentric Gothic designer William Burges. It was the start of a lifetime's collaboration with artists and architects which would pour Bute's original mind into fabulous buildings in an astonishing variety of styles.

William Burges transformed Bute's medieval Cardiff Castle into a Welsh Camelot. Within fantasy towers, he created lavish interiors, rich with murals, stained glass, marble, gilding and elaborate wood carvings. Then Bute gave Burges the dream commission - to restore the 14th-century Welsh ruins of Castell Coch near Cardiff as a summer party house for the family. He recreated, from a heap of rubble, a fairy-tale castle. The interiors were elaborately decorated, with specially designed furniture. It even had its own vineyard - the first in Britain.

Bute's next target was the family ancestral seat Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, where he was born. When it was destroyed in a fire, Bute embarked on a huge new Gothic palace, driven by his own taste and design skills.

The footprint of the Bute family still looms large in Cardiff. The Bute obsession with Gothic style entered the architectural DNA of Cardiff's domestic buildings. The green lung at the city's heart - Bute Park - was the family's back garden, and Cathays Park, one of the finest civic centres in Britain, was sold to the city by Lord Bute on condition it would be used for cultural, civic and educational purposes. The Bute family names are everywhere - Bute Street, Mount Stuart Square, after the family estate in Scotland, and the now demolished Ninian Park Football Ground, after the 3rd Marquess's second son, who became MP for Cardiff and died in the First World War.

Bute died in 1900 aged only 53 after a protracted illness and was buried in a small atmospheric mausoleum in the family graveyard on the shores of the Isle of Bute. His heart was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. But his greatest memorials are his Welsh and Scottish grand designs.


SUN 20:30 BBC Proms (b0bgg0nl)
2018

Mozart and Mahler

Performances of two of the best-loved works in the repertoire. Starting with Mozart's ever-popular Clarinet Concerto, written two months before his death, Thomas Dausgaard conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, with the Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe as soloist. In the second half of the night, Mahler is the star with his Fifth Symphony and its beautiful Adagietto, arguably his most famous single piece of music.


SUN 22:30 Timeshift (b08mp2l8)
Series 17

Dial "B" for Britain: The Story of the Landline

Timeshift tells the story of how Britain's phone network was built. Incredibly, there was once a time when phones weren't pocket-sized wireless devices but bulky objects wired into our homes and workplaces. Over the course of 100 years, engineers rolled out a communications network that joined up Britain - a web of more than 70 million miles of wire. Telephones were agents of commercial and social change, connecting businesses and creating new jobs for Victorian women. Wires changed the appearance of urban skylines and the public phone box became a ubiquitous sight.

Yet despite ongoing technical innovation, the phone service often struggled to meet demand. When the mobile phone arrived, it appeared to herald the demise of the landline. Yet ironically, now we're more connected than ever, it's not the telephone that's keeping us on the landline.

In 1877, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell returned to Britain from America to showcase a revolutionary new electric device - the telephone. After impressing no less than Queen Victoria, Bell helped drive uptake of the telephone in Britain, tapping into the growth of a growing commercial phenomenon - the office. Soon, whole networks of telephone lines were being built, connected together by exchange switchboards. Female switchboard operators were preferred by telephone companies as they were cheaper and perceived as more polite, opening up new employment opportunities for women in late Victorian Britain.

At first only the wealthiest people had phones in their homes, but the public call box soon emerged, although when the GPO - the General Post Office - took over the private networks, it initially struggled to find an acceptable design for its box and met some resistance to its now iconic bright red colour.

The introduction of direct dial telephones and automatic exchanges, as well as services like the 999 emergency number and the speaking clock, helped drive private uptake of phones in the 1930s. However, with the onset of World War Two, military concerns took priority. Gene Toms, a switchboard operator, recalls her time during the war, trying to work while wearing a helmet during air raids, dealing with self-important officers and doing her best to assist servicemen phoning home.

A renewed drive to restore, modernise and expand the network after the war kept a legion of engineers busy. Former GPO engineers Jim
Coombe, Bryan Eagan and Dez Flahey share their memories of dubious safety practices and difficult customers. Despite the expansion, the network still had limited capacity relative to demand, and one cheaper solution was the "party line", shared with another household, although it created problems of privacy.

The introduction of STD - subscriber trunk dialling - in the late 1950s enabled callers to make long distance calls without the help of an operator. But STD, like the network itself, was taking a long time to roll out; and despite the introduction of stylish coloured telephones and the Trimphone in the 1960s to tempt customers, the service acquired a bad reputation among many users. Even an episode of the children's series Trumpton reflected the general frustration. Archive footage shows the then postmaster general, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, being grilled by an interviewer about the shortcomings of the phone service.

But there was an exciting new symbol of the future under construction - the Post Office Tower, part of a network of towers designed to expand the capacity of the network using a wireless, microwave system. By the 1970s telephone supply was catching up with demand. People were increasingly moving home around the country, relocating for work, and young families expected to have a phone as a standard mod con. An advertising campaign featuring a talking cartoon bird - Buzby - encouraged customers to make more calls. What was once a service had become a thriving business, and British Telecommunications was privatised in 1984.

The arrival of the mobile phone soon threatened to supersede the landline - but the internet, a technology that the founding fathers of telephony could never have dreamed of, has given the landline a new lease of life.


SUN 23:30 Ovid: The Poet and the Emperor (b09g0l2q)
Michael Wood explores the life, works and influence of one of the world's greatest storytellers who died 2,000 years ago. When an Elizabethan literary critic said that the witty soul of Ovid lived on in 'honey tongued Shakespeare', they were just stating the obvious. Ovid, everyone knew, was simply the most clever, sexy and funny poet in the western tradition. His Metamorphoses, it has often been said, is the most influential secular book in European literature.

Unique among ancient poets, Ovid left us an autobiography, full of riveting intimacy, as well as ironical and slippery self-justification. Using Ovid's own words, brought to life by one of Britain's leading actors, Simon Russell Beale, the film tells the story of the poet's fame, and his fateful falling out with the most powerful man in the world, the Roman emperor Augustus.

Born in Sulmona in central Italy, Ovid moved to Rome to study law but, seduced by 'the muse of poetry', he soon abandoned that career path. Part of Rome's postwar, young generation, Ovid rose to spectacular fame with his poems about sex - Love Affairs (Amores) and The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) - an amoral guide to seduction and adultery. Today some of his poems are seen as problematic and even carry a health warning when studied in US universities. But he is difficult to pigeonhole as he also took the female side in a powerful series of fictional letters by women heroes.

By his twenties he was a literary superstar and a thorn in the emperor's side, his poetry of sex and seduction falling foul of the emperor's new puritanism, which had even outlawed adultery. In the midst of a sensational sex scandal involving his daughter, the Emperor Augustus banished Ovid to the farthest edge of the empire - the wilds of the Black Sea coast and the marshes of the Danube delta. It's a tale full of sex, drama and scandal, but his banishment is still a mystery- as he put it, 'my downfall was all because of a poem - and a mistake- and on the latter my lips are sealed forever'.

Exile in Romania was unbelievably harsh and dangerous, but worse for Ovid was a sense of separation and loss. His poetry from the Black Sea has inspired the European literature of exile for millennia, from Dante and Petrarch to Mandelstam and Seamus Heaney. The poems, the mystery, and Ovid's immense legacy in world literature and art, are discussed with leading experts, who trace his influence on, among others, Titian, Turner and even Bob Dylan, whose Modern Times album quarries Ovid's exile poetry. His greatest and most influential work Metamorphoses, a compendium of the great tales of Greek myth, became one of the core texts of Western culture. Artistic director of the RSC, Greg Doran looks at Ovid's influence on Shakespeare and the myths in the Metamorphoses that pervade our art, music, and literature. Professor Alessandro Schiesaro discusses Ovid and the postmodern imagination; Professor Roy Gibson untangles his relations with Augustus; while Dr Jennifer Ingleheart, author of a new study on Roman sexual politics, looks at Ovid's ambition, psychology and influence. Lisa Dwan -the leading interpreter of the drama of Samuel Beckett, another exile and Ovid fan, explores the poet's use of the female voice and his poetry of exile, which has influenced western writers and artists for the last two millennia.

Following in Ovid's footsteps, Michael Wood travels from the poet's birthplace in the beautiful town of Sulmona, to the bright lights of the capital, Rome. Here we visit the Houses of Augustus and Livia, recently opened after 25 years of excavation and conservation. Inside the emperor's private rooms glow with the colour of their newly restored frescoes. Wood then follows Ovid into exile in Constanta in today's Romania, and on to the Danube delta, where dramatic footage shows the Danube and the Black Sea frozen over in winter just as Ovid described in his letters.

Throughout the film Ovid's own words reveal an engaging personality: a voice of startling modernity. 'He is funny, irreverent, focused on pleasure and obsessed with sex' says Prof Roy Gibson. But, says Greg Doran, he is also a poet of cruelty and violence, which especially fascinated Shakespeare. Ovid raises very modern questions about the fluidity of identity and gender, and the mutability of nature. He also explores the relationship between writers and power and the experience of exile, themes especially relevant in our time when, as Lisa Dwan observes, exile has become part of the human condition. But above all, says Michael Wood, Ovid is the Poet of Love, and 2,000 years after his death he is back in focus as one of the world's greatest poets: ironical, profound, and relevant.


SUN 00:30 Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City (b017znj7)
Wellspring of Holiness

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. For the Jewish faith, it is the site of the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish temple. For Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Muslims, the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest sanctuary of Islam.

In episode one, Simon delves into the past to explore how this unique city came into being, explaining how it became of such major importance to the three Abrahamic faiths, and how these faiths emerged from the Biblical tradition of the Israelites.

Starting with the Canaanites, Simon goes on a chronological journey to trace the rise of the city as a holy place and discusses the evidence for it becoming a Jewish city under King David. The programme explores the construction of the first temple by Solomon through to the life and death of Jesus Christ and the eventual expulsion of the Jews by the Romans, concluding in the 7th century AD, on the eve of the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslim caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab.


SUN 01:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01glwkz)
Arthouse Glam - Get in the Swing

Performances from The Kinks, Roxy Music, Elton John, New York Dolls, Queen, Sparks, Rod Stewart and the rediscovered David Bowie performance of The Jean Genie from January 1973.

Welcome to gender-bending, boys getting in the swing and girls who would be boys and boys who would be girls in this mixed-up, shook-up 70s world.


SUN 02:00 Arena (b08t14wf)
American Epic

Out of the Many, the One

A look at the influence of Hawaiian music and more specifically, the steel guitar, which became a central sound to a range of musical styles. When Joseph Kekuku picked up a metal bolt as he wandered down a train track, the bolt hit the strings of his guitar and the sound was born. He perfected his slide to create a new instrument that would travel the world.

The programme continues with an exploration of Cajun music, the blended music of Louisiana that reflects the winding landscape of the bayous. This appealed to the record companies as something set apart from the established genres of country, jazz and blues. Central to the scene were the Breaux family, who talk about continuing their musical heritage today.

Finally we hear the story of Mississippi John Hurt - discovered in the 1920s but soon forgotten, he represents the odyssey of American Epic in microcosm. After travelling to Memphis where his music was recorded, he returned home to Avalon, a tiny spot on the map of Mississippi. With the Depression, recording in the south came virtually to a halt and Hurt simply went back to sharecropping, his music forgotten by all but a few dedicated collectors. 35 years after those first recordings, folklorist Dick Spottswood tracked down Hurt in 1963, sparking a revival of his music. He starred at the Newport Folk Festival and became celebrated all over the world.


SUN 03:00 Bute: The Scot Who Spent a Welsh Fortune (b08y60r0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



MONDAY 20 AUGUST 2018

MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bh2j7q)
Series 1

20/08/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.


MON 19:30 Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage (b00cjs85)
Arrivederci Venezia

Architect and historian Francesco da Mosto embarks on a journey to cross the Mediterranean Sea, retracing the trade routes of his ancestors in a clipper from the 19th century.

But before he leaves his home in Venice, there is research to do for the voyage and new skills to acquire - not least gaining the respect of the crew of the White Swan, with whom he will spend the next few months in cramped quarters and sometimes dangerous situations as he visits the greatest treasures of the Mediterranean.

Before he leaves, Francesco visits the Doge's Palace for reminders of the greatest age of Venice, when the city's empire stretched across the Mediterranean, and he marks the Redentore Festival, a fantastic night of Venetian celebrations and fireworks.


MON 20:00 Art of Germany (b00wbwg2)
A Divided Land

Andrew Graham-Dixon begins his exploration of German art by looking at the rich and often neglected art of the German middle ages and Renaissance.

He visits the towering cathedral of Cologne, a place which encapsulates the varied and often contradictory character of German art. In Munich he gets to grips with the earliest paintings of the Northern Renaissance, the woodcuts of Albrecht Durer and the cosmic visions of the painter Albrecht Altdorfer. Andrew also embarks on a tour of the Bavarian countryside, discovering some of the little-known treasures of German limewood sculpture.


MON 21:00 Dwarfs in Art: A New Perspective (b0bgffgg)
This documentary explores the lives of dwarfs through centuries of representations in art and culture, revealing society's shifting attitudes towards people with dwarfism.

Presented by Richard Butchins, a disabled film-maker, artist and journalist, the film shows how people with dwarfism have been seen as royal pets, creatures from a separate race, figures of fun and freaks; and it reveals how their lives have been uniquely intertwined with mythology in the popular imagination, making it it all but impossible for dwarfs to simply get on with their everyday lives.

The film features interviews with artists, like Sir Peter Blake, who saw dwarfs in the circus as a young man and has featured them prominently in his work; academics, like Professor Tom Shakespeare, who has dwarfism himself and feels strongly about how dwarfs are represented in art; and ordinary people with dwarfism who would just like dwarfs to be seen like everybody else. It also features artists with dwarfism who offer us a glimpse of the world from their perspective, revealing the universal concerns that affect us all, regardless of stature.

Taking in relics from antiquity, garden gnomes and some the greatest masterpieces of Diego Velazquez, the film uncovers a hidden chapter in both the history of art and the history of disability.


MON 22:00 Story of Ireland (b00z9j2z)
The Age of Revolution

A five-part landmark series, written and presented by Fergal Keane.

Fergal Keane explores how the influx of Scottish Presbyterians during the 17th century Plantation of Ulster changed the make-up of the island and its subsequent history. We also see how revolution in America and France paved the way for Ireland's 1798 rebellion.


MON 23:00 Britain and the Sea (b03m3x1j)
Pleasure and Escape

Having examined the sea as a source of exploration, defence and trade, David Dimbleby explores how it emerged as a source of pleasure, Punch and Judy and sand sculpture.

Starting at Gorleston-on-Sea, David explores the creation of a seaside holiday culture that remains uniquely British to this day.

Sailing down the Suffolk and Essex coasts and into the Thames, David also shows how the sea became an irresistible subject for our most celebrated artists and architects, before finally docking in the very heart of British maritime power - Greenwich.


MON 00:00 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 01:00 Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City (b0186b56)
Invasion, Invasion, Invasion

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. For the Jewish faith, it is the site of the western wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish temple. For Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Muslims, the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest sanctuary of Islam.

In episode two, Simon discovers the impact on the holy city of a new faith - Islam. He explores Muhammad's relationship with Jerusalem, the construction of one of Islam's holiest shrines - the Dome of the Rock - and the crusaders' attempts to win it back for Christianity.

He also brings to life lesser-known characters, whose impact still resonates - Al Hakim's destructive delusions of grandeur and Queen Melisende's embellishment of crusader Jerusalem, as well as the notorious stand-off between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart.

The episode ends in the 13th century with King Frederick II, whose groundbreaking power-sharing deal prefigures the tortuous peace negotiations of our own times. Then, as now, peace did not last.


MON 02:00 Medieval Lives: Birth, Marriage, Death (b03d6c64)
A Good Marriage

Unlike birth and death, which are inescapable facts of life, marriage is rite of passage made by choice and in the Middle Ages it wasn't just a choice made by bride and groom - they were often the last pieces in a puzzle, put together by their parents, with help from their family and friends, according to rules laid down by the church.

Helen Castor reveals how in the Middle Ages marriage was actually much easier to get into than today - you could get married in a pub or even a hedgerow simply by exchanging words of consent - but from the 12th century onwards the Catholic church tried to control this conjugal free-for-all. For the church, marriage was a way to contain the troubling issue of sex, but, as the film reveals, it was not easy to impose rules on the most unpredictable human emotions of love and lust.


MON 03:00 Art of Germany (b00wbwg2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



TUESDAY 21 AUGUST 2018

TUE 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bh2j3t)
Series 1

21/08/2018

Major legal developments in the cases of two former presidential aides, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.

Microsoft takes on Moscow, shutting down sites it says were targeting the US Senate and US think tanks.

Plus, an Olympic cyclist and rower on Usain Bolt's move from athletics to football.


TUE 19:30 Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage (b00cjscm)
Istria and Split

Francesco and the crew of the Black Swan hit the open sea and head down the Croatian coast. The hard life of a working sailor is creating some problems for Francesco, but he is learning the ropes as best he can. His first challenge is to scale the heights of the main mast to hang the Venetian flag aloft. In spite of his best attempt to hide his fear, it's a terrifying ordeal.

Next stop is Pula and the extraordinary amphitheatre, where fights to the death were regular Roman entertainment, as well as the Temple of Augustus and the great Arch of the Sergians. Nearby, Francesco goes in search of the extraordinary fresco of the Dance of Death in the little village of Beram. But here, he has every traveller's nightmare - how do you find the villager who holds the key to the church?

Next up is a stopover at the isolated lighthouse of Porer, which has saved many a Venetian ship navigating these treacherous waters. And then to the beautiful city of Split, with its astonishing palace of Diocletian - the oldest inhabited palace in the world. Only it is not home to anyone rich or royal - after Diocletian moved on, it became home to the biggest collection of squatters a palace has ever seen. And now it is still packed to the rafters with people and their ramshackle conversions with some architectural oddities to show for it.

On the coast of Split, the trip ends with Francesco and the crew playing the oldest ball game of the region - the weird and wonderful game of Picigin, which is a cross between tennis and football, played in the sea. Francesco tries to understand the rules, but it's all Croatian to him.


TUE 20:00 Andrew Marr's History of the World (p00xnrqg)
Original Series

Age of Plunder

In the fifth episode of this landmark series charting the story of human civilisation, Andrew Marr tells the story of Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.

The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.

But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.


TUE 21:00 Kidnapped: A Georgian Adventure (b0135m59)
In 1728, 12-year-old James Annesley was snatched from the streets of Dublin and sold into slavery in America - the victim of a wicked uncle hell-bent on stealing his massive inheritance. Dan Cruickshank traces James's astonishing journey from the top table of 18th century society to its murky depths. The story, which helped inspire Robert Louis Stevenson's book Kidnapped, reveals some disturbing home truths that cast a shadow over the century of the Enlightenment.


TUE 22:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00l7qdh)
Episode 1

King Henry VIII had a fascinating and enlightening relationship with art. He came to the throne as the Renaissance swept across Europe, yet England's new king never lost sight of the medieval chivalry of his forefathers. In the first of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks at the palaces, tapestries, music and paintings created in Henry's name and questions whether the art he commissioned compensates for the religious treasures he would come to destroy.


TUE 23:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00lc71z)
Episode 2

In the 1530s, King Henry VIII was at a crossroads. In his desperation for a new wife and an heir he had broken with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. Isolated and vulnerable, he needed a powerful new image as head of church and state.

In the second of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks for clues in the king's art to glimpse what was going on inside his head as he faced his darkest days.


TUE 00:00 Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice (b01fkcdr)
Professor Alice Roberts reveals the natural history of the most famous of ice age animals - the woolly mammoth. Mammoths have transfixed humans since the depths of the last ice age, when their herds roamed across what is now Europe and Asia. Although these curious members of the elephant family have been extinct for thousands of years, scientists can now paint an incredibly detailed picture of their lives thanks to whole carcasses that have been beautifully preserved in the Siberian permafrost.

Alice meets the scientists who are using the latest genetic, chemical and molecular tests to reveal the adaptations that allowed mammoths to evolve from their origins in the tropics to surviving the extremes of Siberia. And in a dramatic end to the film, she helps unveil a brand new woolly mammoth carcass that may shed new light on our own ancestors' role in their extinction.


TUE 01:00 Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City (b018jlj0)
Judgement Day

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. For the Jewish faith, it is the site of the western wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish temple. For Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Muslims, the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest sanctuary of Islam.

In the final part of his series, Simon explores how this unique city rose from a crumbling ruin after the crusades to be rebuilt as a world centre of Islamic pilgrimage. He explains how Jerusalem became the object of rivalry between the Christian nations of Europe, the focus of the longing of Jews from all over the world and, ultimately, the site of one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

Starting in the Middle Ages, Simon goes on a chronological journey to trace the revival of the city under the Mamluks and its conquest by the biggest of all the Islamic empires - the Ottomans. He examines how the distinctive national identity of the Arab population evolved under centuries of Turkish Ottoman rule and how the city came to be prized by the great powers of 19th-century Europe. The programme explores the emergence of Zionism and the growing Jewish population of the city and traces the origins of today's nationalist struggle.


TUE 02:00 Kidnapped: A Georgian Adventure (b0135m59)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


TUE 03:00 Dwarfs in Art: A New Perspective (b0bgffgg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]



WEDNESDAY 22 AUGUST 2018

WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bh2n07)
Series 1

22/08/2018

The most consequential day of Mr Trump's presidency. Katty and Christian find out what the Manafort and Cohen verdicts mean for the president, both politically and legally.


WED 19:30 Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage (b00cl5zl)
Bosnia and Dubrovnik

Conditions at sea are turning rough as Francesco da Mosto continues his journey, sailing from Venice to Istanbul. The coastline is stunning, but he cannot fail to notice the scars of war that followed hard on the collapse of Yugoslavia.

His first stop is the great Mostar bridge - an ancient symbol of unity destroyed in a moment of madness in war and now rebuilt. Once again, the young men of the town take their lives in their hands and leap from the bridge to prove their manhood. Francesco then travels to the nearby town of Medugorje, where locals claim to have seen the Virgin Mary, promising a new era of peace and prosperity.

Then begins some island-hopping and reminders of Venice - the beautiful island of Hvar is like a home from home, and the crew enjoy their first night out on the town. Heading for Korcular, Francesco berates the locals for trying to claim it was birthplace to Marco Polo.

Then on to the medieval city of Dubrovnik, a great trading city-state and still one of the most beautiful cities in the world. What better place for Francesco to discover the secret of eternal youth than in the great Franciscan monastery at the heart of the old town!


WED 20:00 Sacred Wonders of Britain (b03pr5cm)
Episode 2

Neil is in search of Bronze and Iron Age sites that were sacred to ancient Britons, with water seen not just as a source of life, but also of reverence.

At Flag Fen near Peterborough he discovers a vast ancient causeway built across the fens, with sacred objects placed among its timbers. At Maiden Castle's hill fort in Dorset he unearths evidence of macabre human sacrifices to ward off evil spirits.

Neil travels to Anglesey, where swords, precious artefacts and even a slave chain were ritually deposited. It was home of the druids. Neil learns about their bizarre rituals and dark reputation and how the Romans viewed them as dangerous religious extremists.

Moving on to Bath and its sacred spring, Neil discovers an early version of the habit of throwing coins into water. Once here the Romans recognised the old gods but also brought their own too, making Bath one of the most sacred sites in Roman Britain.

Finally Neil goes to Lullingstone's Roman villa in Kent. Deep in the cellar he finds wall paintings of pagan water deities, while upstairs there are covert messages hidden in the mosaic floor, finally leading to the arrival of Christianity that swept away the old religions, changing Britain forever.


WED 21:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b0bgfwdn)
Series 3

Manchester

At the Manchester Art Gallery, Dr Bendor Grosvenor discovers a painting of a country gentleman from the 1770s which he believes has been misattributed to Nathaniel Dance. He feels sure it is in fact by the German painter Johann Zoffany, a favourite portraitist of the royal family under King George III. While the painting is restored, Bendor investigates the life of Zoffany - a chancer and adventurer who squandered his royal patronage through a series of predictable errors of judgement.

Travelling to Florence to see the location of Zoffany's greatest painting, the Tribuna of the Uffizi Gallery, Bendor also visits Parma, where Zoffany painted an extraordinary self-portrait. The artist ended his career in India, where he made a fortune, and Bendor goes to look at Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match in Tate Britain with art historian Sona Datta. They unpack the undercurrent of sexual innuendo Zoffany had filled the picture with.

Emma Dabiri investigates Manchester's support for the abolition of slavery through the history of the gallery's first purchase - a portrait of the black American actor Ira Aldridge. She discovers the story of the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition of 1857, the largest art exhibition ever held in Britain, and looks into the Manchester Gallery attacks by three suffragettes in 1913.


WED 22:00 My Asian Family - the Musical (p06f2sbp)
A joyous spectacle of song and dance, exploring one Asian family and the life they made for themselves in Leicester. In the early 1970s, the president of Uganda, Idi Amin, expelled the Ugandan Asians from the country. Ten members of the Thakrar family came to the UK and moved to Leicester, where they have since grown into a family of 90, spanning three generations. Old and young sing about the family's story, the changes between each generation and the lives they lead now.


WED 23:00 Schama on Rembrandt: Masterpieces of the Late Years (b04mhsn1)
Icarus-like, Rembrandt flew ever higher towards the sun - the most successful artist in the richest city on earth, 17th-century Amsterdam. He lived like a prince and he loved living like a prince. But when his fall came - deep into bankruptcy and scandal, poverty and unfashionability - far from destroying him, it took him to new creative heights and a sense of humanity and the human condition that speaks more directly to us today than Rembrandt in his heyday. Simon Schama celebrates the masterpieces of Rembrandt's last years.


WED 00:00 Treasures of the Indus (b069g53h)
The Other Side of the Taj Mahal

This is the story of the Indian subcontinent told through the treasures of three very different people, places and dynasties that have shaped the modern Indian world.

The Mughals created the most famous and dazzling empire that India has ever seen, from the Taj Mahal to fabulously intricate miniatures of court life.

But in the process, did they bring civilisation to India or tear it apart?

From the moment the first Mughal emperor Babur arrived from Afghanistan the debate began - were the Mughals imposing their own religion of Islam on a Hindu country, or were they open to the religion and art of the country they were conquering?

The artworks the Mughals left behind over their 200-year empire - even the very buildings which have traces of Hindu architecture as well as Muslim - clearly show how this debate played out, and Sona Datta traces how this most spectacular of all Indian civilisations also sowed the seeds of discord.


WED 01:00 Genius of the Ancient World (b065gv2m)
Socrates

Historian Bettany Hughes is in Greece, on the trail of the hugely influential maverick thinker Socrates, who was executed for his beliefs.


WED 02:00 Sacred Wonders of Britain (b03pr5cm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 03:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b0bgfwdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 23 AUGUST 2018

THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0bh2n2q)
Series 1

23/08/2018

Katty Kay in Washington and Christian Fraser in London report on the events that are shaping the world.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0bh2dnt)
Gary Davies and Dixie Peach present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 6 March 1986. Featuring Mike and the Mechanics, Kate Bush, Frank Sinatra, Tavares, Whistle, Diana Ross, and Huey Lewis and the News.


THU 20:00 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjqch)
The Age of Invention

Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.

Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments - a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution.

Just under 200 years ago scientists discovered something profound, that electricity is connected to another of nature's most fundamental forces - magnetism. In the second episode, Jim discovers how harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity would completely transform the world, allowing us to generate a seemingly limitless amount of electric power which we could utilise to drive machines, communicate across continents and light our homes. This is the story of how scientists and engineers unlocked the nature of electricity in an extraordinary century of innovation and invention.


THU 21:00 The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (b0bgpc2f)
In a unique science experiment, Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin chronicle the history of rubbish and explore how what we throw away tells us about the way we live our lives. With unprecedented access to one of the UK's largest landfill sites, the team of experts spend three days carrying out tests all over the site, revealing the secret world of rubbish. They also carry out three other 'archaeological' digs into historic landfills to chart the evolution of our throwaway society. Ultimately, their quest is to discover whether the items we throw away today have any value for tomorrow's world.


THU 22:30 Filthy Cities (b01076qv)
Medieval London

Historian Dan Snow gets down and dirty in medieval grime to discover the hard way how the London we know was forged in the filth of the 14th century.

State-of-the-art CGI reveals London's streets as they were 700 years ago, and Dan steps into the shoes of a medieval Londoner - wooden platforms designed to help him rise above the disgusting mess underfoot. He spends the night as a medieval muck-raker shifting a staggering six tonnes of excrement, and has a go at medieval butchery to find out what the authorities were up against.

He also examines the remains of a plague victim to discover how a catastrophic epidemic would help a new and cleaner London emerge from the muck of the past.


THU 23:30 A Timewatch Guide (b051h0gy)
Series 1

The Mary Rose

Historian Dan Snow explores the greatest maritime archaeology project in British history - the Mary Rose. Using 40 years of BBC archive footage Dan charts how the Mary Rose was discovered, excavated and eventually raised, and what the latest research has revealed about this iconic ship and her crew. Dan also investigates how the Mary Rose project helped create modern underwater archaeology, examining the techniques, challenges and triumphs of the divers and archaeologists involved.


THU 00:30 Top of the Pops (b0bh2dnt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:00 Planet Oil: The Treasure That Conquered the World (p02gzf9k)
Episode 1

From the moment we first drilled for oil, we opened a Pandora's box that changed the world forever. It transformed the way we lived our lives, spawned foreign wars and turned a simple natural resource into the most powerful political weapon the world has ever known. But when exactly did geology turn into such a high-stakes game?

In this series, Professor Iain Stewart visits the places that gave birth to the earth's oil riches, discovers the people who fought over its control and supply, and explores how our insatiable thirst for oil is changing the very planet on which we depend.

It's a journey that will help us answer a fundamental question - how did we become so addicted to oil in little more than one human lifetime?


THU 02:00 Kiri Te Kanawa at the BBC (b08h918x)
The charismatic New Zealand soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa looks back at her life in song through forty years of classic performances from the BBC archives, from her first TV performance on The Harry Secombe Show in 1971 to her appearances on Top of the Pops to sing the rugby anthem World in Union in 1991, plus performances from the Last Night of the Proms and Terry Wogan's chat show.

Dame Kiri's dramatic and operatic skills are captured in the Royal Opera's production of Puccini's Manon, she describes working with Leonard Bernstein, Georg Solti and on Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, and she recalls the royal wedding in 1981 at which she sang Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim to a global TV audience of 700 million.

There's documentary footage of the house where Kiri grew up in New Zealand (now a car park), she vividly evokes the East End of London, where she studied as a student when she first came to London, and we see her goofing around on the golf course with Placido Domingo.

As Dame Kiri says in her candid new interview for this programme in which she reflects on her BBC appearances, "If I look back what you have is snippets of my life, I suppose.".


THU 03:00 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjqch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



FRIDAY 24 AUGUST 2018

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b0bgb2b4)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b0bgg31h)
2018

Hungarian Gypsy Folk

Hungary's folk rhythms beat through the heart of this concert as the inimitable forces of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and founder and conductor Ivan Fischer return to the Proms with an ode to their homeland. Joining them on stage is a thrilling trio of the country's folk musicians, and together they showcase why these tunes have been such a rich source of inspiration to composers across history. The Royal Albert Hall resounds with a selection of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies and Brahms's Hungarian Dances as they have never been heard before, and concludes with Brahms's dramatic First Symphony.


FRI 21:15 TOTP2 (b03j113z)
Status Quo

TOTP2 pays homage to eternal rockers Status Quo. From their first hit, the band has had 46 years of being perhaps the hardest working band in Britain with over 128 million record sales to boot. TOTP2 has gathered some of Quo's finest Top of the Pops performances - there's 106 of them, from their first TOTP appearance in 1968 with the psychedelic Pictures of Matchstick Men, to their last in 2005 with The Party Ain't Over Yet.

The Quo has gone on to outlive Top of the Pops and this compilation charts their success with many of their greatest hits including Rockin' All Over the World, Whatever You Want, Mystery Song and Living on an Island. Don your double denim and prepare to get Down Down!


FRI 22:00 Pump Up the Bhangra: The Sound of Asian Britain (b0bgfnxv)
Pump Up the Bhangra is a celebration of the way young British Asians have found their voice and their identity through bhangra music over the past thirty years. Fronted by BBC Asian Network DJ Bobby Friction, the film tells the story of how a simple folk tradition from the wheat fields of north India was transformed in the 1980s to become a unique British club music - outselling many mainstream UK acts.

It's a story of cassette tapes, corner shops and glitter-clad musical heroes, of teenagers bunking off school to attend secret daytime gigs and of generational culture clashes - as this underground scene became as popular among Asians as Wham and Culture Club were to the mainstream.

Bobby grew up listening to bhangra - dancing in his living room to his parents' records and then himself attending daytime gigs as a teenager. His story mirrors that of thousands of other second-generation British Asians who through bhangra became comfortable with their heritage and their place in Britain.

The film traces the birth of bhangra amid the early Punjabi immigrants in the steel foundries of the West Midlands. It explores its glitzy heyday when, despite selling hundreds of thousands of records, artists remained unknown by the mainstream and failed to make it into the charts.

Tracing the growing self-confidence of second-generation Asians that came with bhangra, the film tells the story of the emergence of the so-called Asian underground scene - when Asian 'Kool' finally came of age. And it reveals how bhangra finally came to triumph and crossover to the mainstream when one Punjabi folk song was remixed with hip-hop beats by Jay-Z to become a global anthem.

Today, bhangra remains at the heart of the British Punjabi community. And even though today's young bhangra fans live in a very different world to that of the first generation of immigrants to Britain, they remain passionately committed to the music and the connection it gives them to their roots.

Part of the Big British Asian Summer Season.


FRI 23:00 TOTP2 (b0480lzx)
TOTP2 Presents the 90s

A Top of the Pops 2 special featuring music from the 90s, with archive studio performances and promo videos. Includes performances from The Spice Girls, Michael Jackson, Pulp, The Prodigy, Madonna, Blur, Take That and many more.


FRI 00:00 Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business (b097f4bp)
Series 1

Episode 1

Nile reveals the moment when, as a teenager, he first picked up a guitar, and why he has never looked back. He tells how his musical talent led him to become a highly successful session musician before following his dream to write his own music with Bernard Edwards for Chic.

Nile tells the story of how he and Bernard, young and broke, surreptitiously sneaked into a recording studio at night to record what became Chic's first hit, Everybody Dance. Nile plays this song for us and we see him and Chic in concert playing it too - along with lots of their greatest hits.

The film uncovers the source of inspiration for many of Nile's songs - being turned away from Studio 54 led him to write Le Freak, while others, including Lost in Music, have their roots in Nile's troubled and difficult childhood, and how he hears music all the time - a subject he speaks about candidly.

Top producer Mark Ronson and Duran Duran keyboard player Nick Rhodes describe Nile's use of complex chord patterns and his unique guitar-playing style. While Kathy Sledge of Sister Sledge reveals the joyous and exacting way Nile worked with them to produce their internationally successful album We Are Family and the hit single He's the Greatest Dancer.

Throughout the film Nile demonstrates, in a series of short masterclasses, how he writes and develops his music.

Nile is an astonishing storyteller and his contributions are both searingly honest and inspiring throughout the film.


FRI 01:00 Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business (b097xsp9)
Series 1

Episode 2

Nile Rodgers reveals how he became the go-to producer of the 80s, creating signature sounds for some of the world's biggest stars: Diana Ross, Carly Simon, David Bowie, Madonna and Duran Duran.

The first artist Nile worked with was Diana Ross. The album they created, Diana, became the biggest-selling studio album of her career and spawned three international hit singles. In the film, Nile explains how they came up with the songs.

Nile and Carly Simon reveal the working process that led to the song Why, which flopped in America. Nile explains why and is candid about what you do when failure comes knocking.

When Nile met David Bowie, neither could have known how much it would change both their lives. After a number of critically received albums, Bowie was looking to do something different and asked Nile for an album of hits - and that is what Nile gave him; Let's Dance became Bowie's biggest-selling album. In an intimate mini-masterclass, Nile explains how the song Let's Dance developed from Bowie's initial idea into a global hit.

The album Nile produced for Madonna was Like a Virgin. We learn about how his deal was structured with her record company, and how this gave Nile one of the biggest paydays of his career.

Duran Duran's third album contained a song they felt hadn't realised its full potential - The Reflex. Nile used a recently bought Synclavier and gave the song and the band an entirely new sound. Nile and Nick Rhodes explain how the record was made.


FRI 02:00 Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business (b0992lvw)
Series 1

Episode 3

The final part is almost entirely set in the landscape of the music world today - a world that is near unrecognisable from the one Nile started out in over 40 years ago.

Technology and digital media have revolutionised how we hear music. Digital platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and others make music instantly available to everyone. Computers and the internet have changed how music is written and composed and, via social media, artists can communicate directly with their fans - they can even release their music to them with a single tweet.

Nile shows us how he has adapted to this new world and why he wants to be a part of it. We discover how, in recent years, he has collaborated with a more diverse range of musicians on a greater variety of music than ever before.

The first collaboration we hear about is Get Lucky with Daft Punk, which became a Grammy-award-winning international hit. Later, we have contributions from singer-songwriter Laura Mvula, who won a Novello award this year for her album The Dreaming Room which Nile worked on. We hear from top country music star Keith Urban - they were both nominated last year at the Country Music Awards. And from Swedish DJ and composer Avicii, who plays to audiences of tens of thousands around the world, we discover the closeness of their musical relationship and learn about their working methods. We discover how Nile's contribution to singer John Newman's song Give Me Your Love came about.

In what is the 40th anniversary of Nile's band Chic, we see him on stage in Glasgow, and at the end of the film Nile reveals that he has just finished recording a new song. Called I Believe In Music, this at present unreleased song sums up Nile's personal philosophy toward the art form that has dominated his life. This film has exclusive access to that song.


FRI 03:00 TOTP2 (b03j113z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:15 today]