SATURDAY 04 JANUARY 2020

SAT 19:00 The Heroes of Telemark (b00b6vc6)
Occupied Norway, 1942. A team of resistance fighters undertake the vital and dangerous mission to destroy the Norsk heavy water plant to prevent the Nazis producing an atomic bomb. Based on a true story.


SAT 21:05 Wisting (m000d282)
Series 1

Episode 3

Wisting’s team continue to search the bottom of wells all over town for more gruesome clues. They realise that the killer could also have been operating across the border in Sweden, potentially multiplying the number of victims.

Line’s investigation is also becoming more complex, meaning Thomas has his work cut out trying to unite the family at Christmas.


SAT 21:50 Wisting (m000d284)
Series 1

Episode 4

Maggie pursues some unpopular, and not very Norwegian, investigative methods. Meanwhile, a discovery is made in the Larvik countryside. It's the breakthrough the investigation needed but also the one they all feared.

Line continues interviewing Viggo’s old schoolmates and meets some interesting local characters along the way.


SAT 22:35 Talking Comedy (b084zxkv)
Rowan Atkinson

A look back through the archives at Rowan Atkinson's appearances on some of the BBC's best-loved talk shows.


SAT 23:05 TOTP2 (b08qgxdn)
80s Special

Mark Radcliffe presents a look back at some of the most memorable Top of the Pops performances from the 80s including Adam Ant, Kylie and Jason, Culture Club, Bucks Fizz, Yazz, Duran Duran and Wham!


SAT 00:35 Primal Scream: The Lost Memphis Tapes (b0brzps8)
The programme shows Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie's fascination with music from an early age, listening to the sounds of Elvis and Aretha Franklin before graduating to punk. He talks about his passion for music and how to keep creativity on the right track. In the early 90s the UK music scene was changing - with Oasis and Blur emerging, this alternative rock band was recording in Memphis but suddenly sounded out of step with the music scene.

As the documentary reveals, nine songs were recorded for the band's 1994 album Give Out But Don't Give Up, including Jailbird, Rocks, and Cry Myself Blind, but the album that was released, after further mixes were made to make the new album more contemporary, was not the mix Primal Scream wanted. In the film Bobby Gillespie talks candidly about how this process led him to question his own judgement and that for many years the experience left him feeling that he had failed himself and his audience.

With exclusive, previously unreleased footage of behind-the-scenes studio sessions, this is the story of how the original mixtapes of the album were rediscovered in a basement by Andrew Innes, Primal Scream's rhythm guitarist. The sessions recorded by the band in Memphis with the legendary record producer Tom Dowd, along with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section musicians Roger Hawkins, drums, and David Hood, bass, did not make the light of day, because some of the mixes were not suitable in the musical climate at the time.

Bobby and Andrew go back to Memphis 25 years later to revisit Ardent Studios, where the band first recorded the original album, and meet some of the musicians and engineers involved in the process. It gives Bobby the chance to remaster the album he had originally envisaged all those years ago. The film has new interviews with Bobby, Andrew, David and Jeff Powell, the original engineer, giving their own, unique perspectives of the events of more than 20 years ago. Plus, there are archive interviews with the Memphis Horns, George Clinton and Roger Hawkins.

With the rediscovery of the original session tapes, the band is finally able to release the beautiful music they always wanted the public to hear.


SAT 01:35 The R&B Feeling (b07w6gkw)
1971, and the Los Angeles performance art scene is flourishing. Chris Burden has just ordered a studio assistant to shoot him in the left arm with a rifle, Barbara T Smith is staging provocative interventions at F-Space, and Paul McCarthy is painting his naked body with mustard and ketchup in the name of art. And among them all, Bob Parks: an energetic young artist from the UK, living with his beautiful and interesting San Franciscan wife, Myriam Morales.

Life is perfect, for a time. But when Bob's marriage fails and Myriam leaves for Santa Fe, things fall apart. He walks the streets of Los Angeles for a year in a string bikini and sees his burgeoning art career come to pieces. Having been rescued by the parishioners of a South Central gospel church, and having spent six years worshipping and singing alongside them, Bob finally moves back to the UK to live with his parents in the New Forest.

Despite planning to stay for only six months to finish a series of paintings and gather his thoughts, Bob stays for thirty years. We meet him as he continues to develop his art practice, continues to sing in a gospel church and continues to explore what he calls 'the R&B feeling'. Against this backdrop, Bob attempts to break free of a constraining and mutually dependent relationship with his mother, Miggie, whose health is failing. As time goes on Bob's obsession with his mother - and her impending death - deepens, before reaching a terrible and tragic conclusion.


SAT 02:35 Essential Royal Ballet (m000crdc)
Katie Derham introduces highlights from the past ten years at the Royal Ballet.

Presented on location in Covent Garden at the iconic Royal Opera House, Katie weaves the history of ballet through carefully curated excerpts from the past decade of performances and goes behind the scenes to see what it takes to be a dancer in the company of the Royal Ballet as they prepare to take to the stage.

From the great classics of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker to the exciting frontiers of contemporary dance, Katie takes us on a romp through the repertory, showcasing the diversity of the UK’s biggest ballet company.

With stunning solos, passionate pas de deux and jaw-dropping numbers for the corps de ballet, it is a chance to see your favourite dancers up close, including Carlos Acosta, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae, alongside rising stars like Francesca Hayward and Matthew Ball, who will introduce their favourite ballets and share stories of their life on the stage.

The ballets featured include the classics Giselle, La Bayadere, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker while the 20th-century heritage of the Royal Ballet is explored in works by Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. The contemporary life of the company is showcased in works by Liam Scarlett, Christopher Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor.



SUNDAY 05 JANUARY 2020

SUN 19:00 The Women's Football Show (m000d27z)
2019/20

05/01/2020

Kelly Somers presents highlights of the Women’s Super League from Chelsea as they face Reading.

Also featuring are highlights of the game between Tottenham and Manchester City, plus all the goals from the rest of the WSL.


SUN 19:30 The Snow Queen (m000cy4b)
A glittering winter fairy tale from Scottish Ballet celebrating love, friendship and the festive season.

This new production, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s much-loved tale, brings life and colour to the story, transporting audiences to a place of wonder. From the bustle of a winter’s market to the shivers of a fairy-tale forest, the enthralling production breathes life into a colourful cast of characters.

Take a journey to the Snow Queen’s palace and find her surrounded by the icy fragments of an enchanted mirror. Choreographed by Christopher Hampson - the artistic director and CEO of Scottish Ballet - and designed by award-winning Lez Brotherson, The Snow Queen is a treat for the whole family.

The production was filmed live at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and celebrates the company’s 50th anniversary year.


SUN 21:00 Fake or Fortune? (b03rmbqc)
Series 3

Vuillard

Scriptwriter Keith Tutt fell in love with the work of French post-Impressionist painter Edouard Vuillard in his school art class. When a large oval picture of a Parisian café scene said to be by the artist appeared in a provincial auction house, he gambled his savings on it - even though it doesn't appear in the official record of Vuillard's works. To prove it, the team will need to convince some of the most demanding art experts in France... and they've got a tricky history with Fake or Fortune.

The quest for evidence starts in Geneva, where Philip and conservationist Aviva Burnstock compare Keith's picture with a huge Vuillard work called Le Grand Teddy, painted for a French café in 1919. Can science prove that the two pictures were painted using identical materials?

Fiona picks up the provenance trail in France and Holland, unearthing tantalising clues about the picture's past, while a meeting with a pair of British antiques hunters dramatically expands the scope of the investigation. Could there really be another missing oval?

Once the team has marshalled all their evidence, it's time to seek the approval of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris, the body who notoriously rejected a highly credible Monet in the first ever episode of Fake or Fortune. Have the team done enough to convince them that Keith's picture is genuine?


SUN 22:00 Darcey Bussell: Looking for Margot (b0868lnk)
Margot Fonteyn has inspired generations of ballerinas. She was beautiful, brilliant, talented and never put a foot wrong on stage. Her late flowering partnering with a much younger man, Rudolf Nureyev, created the most dazzling ballet partnership in history.

And yet behind the scenes, as Darcey Bussell discovers, Margot's life was marked by tragedy and disappointment. She barely knew her father and was dominated by her well-meaning, yet fiercely ambitious, mother. She couldn't find love and never had children. And when she finally did marry, to a man she loved from afar for many years, he turned out to be very different from what she expected: a hero to his people, but not always to his wife.

Darcey goes behind the scenes at the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet, and travels from London to New York and Panama looking for Margot. She finds how Margot lost out in love, got drawn into a failed foreign revolution, danced on for far too long and died alone and in poverty, miles from home. Along the way, Darcey speaks to many people who have not spoken out before about Margot. In the end, Darcey learns that by following her heart, Margot did find a kind of happiness, even though it came at a very high price.


SUN 22:55 A Timewatch Guide (b08zn5dg)
Series 4

Explorers: Conquest and Calamity

For centuries the story of exploration has been packed with incredible tales of adventure, but the last fifty years has seen a dramatic shift in our attitude towards explorers.

To find out how television has reflected this, Prof Fara Dabhoiwala delves into the BBC television archives, revealing that the pace of this change was faster than you would imagine. In the 1960s the BBC was still making programmes showing Christopher Columbus as an uncomplicated conquering hero. Barely a decade later, it made a documentary that delved into museum storerooms packed with artefacts brought back to Britain by Captain Cook, focusing on the perspective of the explored rather than the explorer.

As the story of exploration became as much about social calamity as conquest, television has been forced to find new ways to portray explorers. By the 21st century this included everything from focusing on adventurers like Ernest Shackleton, famous not for conquest but for saving the lives of his men, to using new technology to demystify exploration by making programmes from material shot by the explorers themselves.


SUN 23:55 Lucy Worsley: Elizabeth I's Battle for God's Music (b0992l4j)
Lucy Worsley investigates the story of the most remarkable creation from the tumultuous and violent era known as the Reformation - choral evensong.

Henry VIII loved religious music, but he loved power more - when he instigated his English Reformation he dramatically split from the ancient Catholic church that controlled much of his country. But in doing so set into motion changes that would fundamentally transform the religious music he loved.

Following Elizabeth I's personal story, Lucy recounts how she and her two siblings were shaped by the changes their father instigated. Elizabeth witnessed both her radically puritan brother Edward bring church music to the very brink of destruction and the terrifying reversals made by her sister Mary - which saw her thrown in the Tower of London forced to beg for her life.

When Elizabeth finally took power she was determined to find a religious compromise - she resurrected the Protestant religion of her brother, but kept the music of her beloved father - music that she too adored. And it was in the evocative service of choral evensong that her ideas about religious music found their ultimate expression.


SUN 00:55 The Many Primes of Muriel Spark (b09qlx14)
Kirsty Wark celebrates the life and work of Dame Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and one of the 20th century's most enigmatic cultural figures, on the one-hundredth anniversary of her birth.

Born in Edinburgh, Muriel's extraordinary life took her to colonial Africa, wartime London, literary New York and vibrant 1960s Rome. Her most famous novel - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - immortalised the city of her childhood but with an added darkness and acerbic wit that became her trademark style.

Kirsty retraces Muriel's footsteps from the cobbled streets of Edinburgh to the sublime beauty of Victoria Falls. Contributions from writers AL Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Ali Smith, William Boyd and Val McDermid tell of Muriel Spark's unique literary style and a life full of reinvention.

Kirsty meets with the journalist Alan Taylor, who has recently published his memoir of Muriel, and she travels to Italy for the first television interview with Penelope Jardine, Muriel's close friend of 40 years.


SUN 01:55 Rebel Women: The Great Art Fight Back (b0b6zgm0)
Out of the tumult and fervour of the late 1960s emerged a generation of artists who set out to start a revolution. As women around the world joined forces to fight for liberation, the formative art movement of the last four decades was about to explode into being. On both sides of the Atlantic, women were tearing up art history and reinventing the arena of art with experimental new mediums and provocative political statements. Questioning everything from the way women were presented in magazines to the right to equal pay, female artists aimed to radically change the way women were perceived.

Mary Kelly caused outrage in the tabloids by displaying dirty nappies at the ICA, Margaret Harrison's depiction of Hugh Hefner as a bunny girl resulted in her exhibition being shut down by the police, and in Los Angeles Judy Chicago founded the first feminist art course and told her students to only study work by women. Alongside interviews with Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid, Suzanne Lacy, Carolee Schneemann, Rose English, Laurie Simmons and Barbara Kruger, The Great Art Fight Back tells the story of these revolutionary artists and celebrates the grit, humour and determination that wrote women back into art history for good.


SUN 02:55 Darcey Bussell: Looking for Margot (b0868lnk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]



MONDAY 06 JANUARY 2020

MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m000ddyd)
Series 1

06/01/2020

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


MON 19:30 Handmade: By Royal Appointment (b07gys9d)
House of Benney

In a small workshop in a country house in Wiltshire, silversmith Simon Benney makes distinctive jewellery and exquisite household objects for the royal family and private clients. Simon is following in the footsteps of his father Gerald Benney, who revolutionised the design of British silverware in the postwar era. This film follows the making of an engraved gold and diamond pendant, featuring Simon's trademark enamel finish, using techniques his father learnt from Faberge.


MON 20:00 Caribbean with Simon Reeve (p02l5269)
Episode 1

Simon begins his journey around the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola and its two very different countries - the Dominican Republic, a tourist hotspot, and Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. He ends this first leg on Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island that is practically America's 51st state.

From flying boats to drug busts, Simon explores both the light and dark sides of the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean's most popular tourist destination. He joins the police anti-narcotics division on the front line in the war against international drug cartels in Santo Domingo before crossing the border to Haiti, where he visits the notorious tented camps of Cite Soleil. These slums remain home to many of the survivors of the worst earthquake to hit the island in two centuries. From voodoo ceremonies to dolphin watching, Simon also discovers a vibrant, colourful and thriving side to life in Haiti borne out of the country's unique history.

Finally, Simon reaches Puerto Rico, an island with close ties to the USA. He visits the tiny, paradisiacal island of Vieques, billed as the Caribbean's next major tourist destination. However, not everything here is as it seems, as Simon examines the impact six decades of bombing and weapons testing by the US Navy and Army has had on the landscape of this tiny island and on the people who live there.


MON 21:00 Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren (b05n2csc)
In Eat to Live Forever with Giles Coren, the food critic takes up three extreme diet regimes in a bid to push the very limits of life expectancy. Giles's search to find a diet which might extend his life comes after his great-grandfather lived to the grand old age of 93. His grandfather passed away aged 76 and his father Alan died aged 69. The Coren men are bucking the global trend of living longer so Giles, now in his mid-forties, wants to find out what he can do to avoid a premature death.

In this witty, entertaining and informative documentary, Giles investigates how not to die young with the help of some extreme regimes. He meets people from around the world whose pursuit of longevity is an obsession that dominates every aspect of their lives. It won't be an easy ride for Giles - as a food critic who has eaten in some of the world's finest restaurants, he'll have to make sacrifices. He meets ardent devotees of extreme food regimes, but how much suffering will be involved, and can any of these extreme regimes actually extend Giles's life?

He undertakes the calorie-restriction diet, meeting followers of this near-starvation regime, some of whom aim to live to 150. He then takes up the Palaeo diet, aka the Stone Age diet, which consists only of foods hunted, fished or gathered by our Palaeolithic ancestors. Giles ends his journey with a regime consisting of almost 100 per cent fruit, the aptly named fruitarian diet.

Throughout the process, Giles's health is monitored by his doctor, who helps Giles assess the impact these unusual regimes are having on his body.

Can Giles be persuaded to change his ways by the well-being and enthusiasm of the people he meets? Can he hack the strict self-imposed rules under which they live? Will he discover the secret to a longer life? Or will he decide that the pleasures of a short and happy life matter more to him than living to a ripe old age?


MON 22:00 The Normans (b00tcgkl)
Men from the North

In the first episode of a three-part series, Professor Robert Bartlett explores how the Normans developed from a band of marauding Vikings into the formidable warriors who conquered England in 1066. He tells how the Normans established their new province of Normandy -'land of the northmen' - in northern France. They went on to build some of the finest churches in Europe and turned into an unstoppable force of Christian knights and warriors, whose legacy is all around us to this day. Under the leadership of Duke William, the Normans expanded into the neighbouring provinces of northern France. But William's greatest achievement was the conquest of England in 1066. The Battle of Hastings marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and monarchy. The culture and politics of England would now be transformed by the Normans.


MON 23:00 Art of Scandinavia (b075dxdv)
Democratic by Design

In the final instalment of Andrew Graham-Dixon's windswept journey through the art of the Norselands, we arrive in Sweden - home of Ikea and a tradition of brilliant furniture design stretching back to the early years of the 20th century. Sweden has made its modern democratic mission one of comfort and civilised living for the masses - but has it got there?


MON 00:00 Britain in Focus: A Photographic History (b08h95jk)
Series 1

Episode 1

Series in which Eamonn McCabe celebrates Britain's greatest photographers, sees how science allowed their art to develop, and explores how they have captured our changing lives and country.

In the first of three programmes, Eamonn goes back to the 19th century to trace the astonishingly rapid rise of the photograph in British life. Eamonn explores the science behind early photography, and shows how innovative photographic techniques made possible the careers of pioneers like Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron. He sees how great figures of the age such as Queen Victoria and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were captured on camera, and revisits the Victorians' sense of wonder about the 'natural magic' of photography and the role it played in their lives.


MON 01:00 Hokusai: Old Man Crazy to Paint (b08w9lv6)
The first UK film biography of the world-renowned Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), whose print The Great Wave is as globally famous as Leonardo's Mona Lisa. With Andy Serkis reading the voice of Hokusai, the film features artists David Hockney and Maggi Hambling, and passionate scholars who study, admire and venerate this great Japanese master.

The film focuses on Hokusai's work, life and times in the great, bustling metropolis of Edo, now modern Tokyo. Using extraordinary close-ups and pioneering 8K Ultra HD video technology, Hokusai's prints and paintings are examined by world experts. In the process they reveal new interpretations of famous works and convey the full extent of Hokusai's extraordinary achievement as a great world artist.

Hokusai spent his life studying and celebrating our common humanity as well as deeply exploring the natural and spiritual worlds, using the famous volcano Mount Fuji as a protective presence and potential source of immortality. He knew much personal tragedy, was struck by lightning and lived for years in poverty, but never gave up his constant striving for perfection in his art. Hokusai influenced Monet, Van Gogh and other Impressionists, is the father of manga, and has his own Great Wave emoji.


MON 02:00 Handmade: By Royal Appointment (b07gys9d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:30 Caribbean with Simon Reeve (p02l5269)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



TUESDAY 07 JANUARY 2020

TUE 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m000dfbq)
Series 1

07/01/2020

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


TUE 19:30 Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain (b0bl1vp2)
Series 1

England

University Challenge icons and real-life best friends Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull are on a road trip with a difference. Feeding their insatiable appetite for knowledge, they visit Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales in search of hidden gems of British scientific and technological ingenuity.

Their genius guide through England showcases an assortment of remarkable inventions. It begins with a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach to experience Sir Hiram Maxim's 1904 Captive Flying Machines, the oldest amusement ride in Europe. These miniature rocket-shaped aeroplanes were designed by the eccentric inventor who created the first portable machine gun but whose ultimate goal was to achieve powered flight. A vertiginous spin on this historic ride gives Monkman the perfect opportunity to describe in detail the theory of centrifugal force.

Next, Southport, a quintessentially British seaside haven. It is also home to the only lawnmower museum of its kind in the world. Here, Monkman and Seagull celebrate an invention that has changed the landscape of Britain forever. As Seagull puts it, 'If an Englishman's home is his castle, then our grass is the field of our ambitions and hopes'. Monkman and Seagull are intrigued to discover the reason why the man who invented the lawnmower had to test his prototypes at night. They are also fascinated to discover that the museum is home to a lawnmower once owned by one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time.

Their next stop takes Monkman and Seagull off the beaten track to Emley Tower in Huddersfield, a colossal broadcasting mast that is one of the tallest freestanding structures in the UK, where they put their mathematical prowess to the test and measure its height using only a piece of string and a protractor. After a quick and very cosy pit-stop at the smallest museum in the world in West Yorkshire, they approach the culmination of this week's adventure - the giant telescopes of the mysterious Jodrell Bank Observatory near Macclesfield, where they contemplate life on other planets.


TUE 20:00 Italy's Invisible Cities (b0881gly)
Series 1

Naples

Using the latest 3D scanning technology, Alexander Armstrong and Dr Michael Scott uncover 2,500 years of hidden history in Naples, from its earliest Greek and Roman origins.

They explore how the volcano of Mount Vesuvius both nurtured the region and exacted a terrible price on the local population. They also delve into a labyrinth of fascinating underground spaces that helped build and sustain the city.


TUE 21:00 Storyville (m000d27r)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle

Episode 1

On 18 November 1978, over 900 men, women and children lost their lives at Jonestown, a remote settlement established by the People's Temple in northern Guyana. They were led to their deaths by cult leader Jim Jones, a charismatic preacher who turned into an egomaniacal demagogue. Jones had insisted his followers perform 'revolutionary suicide' by drinking poison - either voluntarily or by force.

Using unreleased recordings, photographs taken by members of the People’s Temple, previously classified FBI documents and new testimony from survivors and Jones's own family members, Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle investigates how and why this tragedy happened.

Jim Jones grew up and established the People's Temple in rural Indiana. As his racially integrated church and practices came under scrutiny, he moved his congregation to California, where its growing popularity brought Jones political power, but also a drug habit coupled with a paranoid need to control his followers. It was there that the abuse and misconduct at the heart of the People's Temple attracted the attention of the press, ruining Jones’s public image.

Fearing further repercussions, he moved his loyal followers to a remote jungle settlement in Guyana, claiming they would create a utopia there.


TUE 22:20 The Normans (b00tfdsk)
Conquest

In the second of this three-part series, Professor Robert Bartlett explores the impact of the Norman conquest of Britain and Ireland. Bartlett shows how William the Conqueror imposed a new aristocracy, savagely cut down opposition and built scores of castles and cathedrals to intimidate and control. He also commissioned the Domesday Book, the greatest national survey of England that had ever been attempted.

England adapted to its new masters and both the language and culture were transformed as the Normans and the English intermarried. Bartlett shows how the political and cultural landscape of Scotland, Wales and Ireland were also forged by the Normans and argues that the Normans created the blueprint for colonialism in the modern world.


TUE 23:20 Dan Cruickshank: At Home with the British (b07c645b)
The Cottage

We would all love to live in a cottage. It is the national fantasy - thatch on the roof, roses over the door, fire in the grate. Dan is in Stoneleigh in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside. The village has barely changed in 500 years, its cottages perfectly preserved. But even better, there is a treasure trove of documents in the local abbey which reveal centuries of daily life in extraordinary detail. Whether it is the pub owner fined for serving poor beer, the widow told to pay for her new home with her best chicken, or the first glass windows in the village, this film charts the cottage's transformation from humble medieval hovel to modern dream home.


TUE 00:20 Knights of Classic Drama at the BBC (b06nsxyn)
In the first of a two-part series, the BBC delves into its archives to discover British acting greats as they take their first tentative steps on the road to success. Long before they were knighted for their services to drama, we see early appearances from Michael Caine in a rare Shakespearean role, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.

Featuring unique behind-the-scenes footage alongside a wealth of classic British productions like War and Peace, the Mayor of Casterbridge and the Singing Detective, it reveals many career-defining moments from the first generation of acting talent to fully embrace television drama.


TUE 01:20 Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA (b0b4fz5n)
Series 1

Episode 1

Series looking at American art. The first episode is set in the Wild West and begins with the sublime art of the Hudson River School, whose 19th-century evocations of the vastness of America did so much to fuel the myth of the promised land. Another huge influence was the mysterious rock art of Native Americans, which set a stirring precedent for non-naturalistic painting. The film culminates in a celebration of Jackson Pollock, born in Cody, Wyoming, who arrived in New York wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots, and whose famous drip paintings were influenced heavily by both the moods of the American west and the example of Native American artists.


TUE 02:20 Italy's Invisible Cities (b0881gly)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 08 JANUARY 2020

WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m000dhh7)
Series 1

08/01/2020

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


WED 19:30 James May: The Reassembler (b087kbc8)
Series 2

Food Mixer

When it comes to cooking James May is not the first name that comes to mind, but when it comes to reassembling cooking appliances, James is your man.

James reassembles the 135 parts that make up a 1960s Kenwood Chef a701a Food Mixer. This literal food revolution is responsible for mixing more cake batter than Mary Berry has mixed in her entire lifetime.

On James's journey to reassembling the food mixer he comes face to face with some mind-boggling components that will all come together to work in unison in the hope of making a chocolate cake mix. From reassembling the planetary gear system and the AC electric motor James muses on the imperial measurement system and shows off his trendy new magnification head gear as he attempts some dreaded soldering.


WED 20:00 Earth's Great Rivers (b0bx73pk)
Series 1

Amazon

This episode is a pioneering exploration of the latest discoveries concerning the Amazon - by far the greatest river on Earth. It is the river of superlatives, flowing more than 4,000 miles from the Andes to the Atlantic. Its 1,100 tributaries drain the greatest river basin on the planet and along its incredible journey it collects and transports one-fifth of the world's fresh water. Its outflow into the Atlantic Ocean per second is greater than the next six rivers combined. It truly lives up to its mighty reputation.

Due to its enormous size, it still hides secrets - it truly is the mysterious river of myth and legend, and it really does have monsters living in it, like giant electric eels and botos - the world's largest species of river dolphin. For most of its length, it is impossible to see into its murky waters. However, there are a few secret springs, bubbling with water as clear as gin, providing an unparalleled window into the Amazon's rich and spectacular underwater world.

One exclusive location is the Blue Lagoon, home to an anxious young couple - a newly discovered species of cichlid. These fish take their babies out for a swim in this natural aquarium bounded by an ominous underwater curtain of dark river water. Camera traps reveal some of the infamous predators lurking within, like freshwater stingrays and Amazon barracuda. Prowling nearby are giant electric eels capable of generating more than 500 volts, who give the cameraman a run for his money.

The team scoured the entire river system for its most beautiful locations. The rocky terraces of the Cristalino River were the perfect setting to try out float cams which enabled the team to join a family of giant river otters on a fishing foray. In Peru, there is a newly mapped Amazon tributary which boils! Scientists believe it is the longest stretch of thermal river in the world, creating a snake of steam over the canopy at dawn. The show joins shaman Juan Flores as he prays to the water spirits and makes medicine from the river's sacred waters and medicinal plants he collects from the jungle nearby.

Every year the Amazon floods on an almost unbelievable scale. Stretches of the river can rise by ten metres and the weight of so much water temporarily sinks the earth's crust by three inches! GPS drone technology reveals this gigantic transformation as never before, transporting viewers through the many vistas and atmospheres of the great river, capturing swathes of rainforest steaming in the dawn, and revealing the incredible expanse of the immense river which, in some places, stretches far beyond the horizon. It creates the Amazon's legendary flooded forests, home to the hoatzin, or stinkbird, so named for its particular and pungent smell - they feed on a diet of leaves and are basically flying compost heaps.

On the shores of the river town of Alter do Chao are some of the most beautiful white sand beaches in Brazil. Known as the Caribbean of the Amazon, it hosts a dolphin-themed carnival complete with hundreds of sequined dancers, spectacular floats and colourful processions. When all this water finally reaches the sea, it creates the last and newest secret world of the giant river, the Amazon reef. Spectacular drone footage captures the spectacle of the Amazon's fresh water floating over the surface of the ocean as a vast green cloud (which can cover more than a million square kilometres).

High-tech submarines allow cameras to reveal the wonders of the Amazon algal reef, not just packed with technicolour fish but also home to 'gardens' of giant sponges, many a thousand years old and a metre across. The sponges feed on the nutrients that the Amazon has collected on it's incredible journey. No other river shapes the landscape, and even the ocean, in the way the Amazon can, and what is so fantastic is that it is still one of the few remaining healthy great rivers on Earth.


WED 21:00 Storyville (m000d28j)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle

Episode 2

On 18 November 1978, over 900 men, women and children lost their lives at Jonestown, a remote settlement established by the People’s Temple in northern Guyana. They were led to their deaths by cult leader Jim Jones, a charismatic preacher who turned into an egomaniacal demagogue. Jones had insisted his followers perform ‘revolutionary suicide’ by drinking poison - either voluntarily or by force.

Using unreleased recordings, photographs taken by members of the People’s Temple, previously classified FBI documents and new testimony from survivors and Jones’s own family members, Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle investigates how and why this tragedy happened.

Unable to support a growing number of followers, the Jonestown project quickly began to implode. Jones’s excessive drug use, irrational behaviour and the isolation of his followers raised the alarm back home.

To learn whether the rumours coming from the jungle were true, California congressman Leo Ryan travelled to Guyana. Desperate People's Temple members saw his visit as a chance to escape Jonestown and its erratic and dangerous leader. Sensing the end, Jones triggered a tragic chain of events, forcing his followers to a dark conclusion.


WED 22:20 The Normans (b00thpzb)
Normans of the South

Professor Robert Bartlett explores the impact of the Normans on southern Europe and the Middle East. The Normans spread south in the 11th century, winning control of southern Italy and the island of Sicily. There they created their most prosperous kingdom, where Christianity and Islam co-existed in relative harmony and mutual tolerance. It became a great centre of medieval culture and learning.

But events in the Middle East provoked the more aggressive side of the Norman character. In 1095, the Normans enthusiastically answered the pope's call for holy war against Islam and joined the first crusade. They lay siege to Jerusalem and eventually helped win back the holy city from the muslims. This bloody conquest left a deep rift between Christianity and Islam which is still being felt to this day.


WED 23:20 Treasures of Ancient Egypt (p01mv16n)
The Birth of Art

In a visual treat taking in Egypt's greatest historical sites, Alastair Sooke tells the story of ancient Egyptian art through 30 extraordinary masterpieces. Tracing the origins of Egypt's unique visual style, he treks across the Sahara and travels the Nile to find the rarely seen art of its earliest peoples. Exploring how this civilisation's art reflected its religion, he looks anew at the Great Pyramid, and the statuary and painting of the Old Kingdom. Sooke is amazed by the technical prowess of ancient artists whose skills confound contemporary craftsmen.


WED 00:20 Dames of Classic Drama at the BBC (b06nxrv3)
Today, they are at the centre of British cultural life and among our greatest exports - the acting dames, an exclusive club of stage and screen greats who were honoured for their services to drama. But, lurking in the BBC archives - from long before their talents were recognised by royal decree - we find the early work and some career defining moments of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren. David Tennant narrates the story of our dames of classic drama, from a golden age of British television drama.


WED 01:20 Arena (b08s3fcd)
American Epic

Blood and Soil

This episode takes a look at the stories of those early music pioneers whose names have largely been forgotten.

In the small South Carolina town of Cheraw, Elder Burch held lively church gatherings which inspired young musicians - including jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie's autobiography cites Burch and his sons as direct inspirations; it is no exaggeration to say that modern music would not look the same without Burch's early influence.

The programme takes a look at the gritty songs and musicians that came from the coal mines of Logan County, West Virginia - The Williamson Brothers, Dick Justice and Frank Hutchinson. The hellish conditions of the coal mines inspired them to find a way out, through their music.

Finally we head to the home of the blues - the Mississippi Delta, where Charley Patton captured the sounds and struggles of life in the cotton fields. Patton's significance cannot be understated; he is widely considered the most influential musician in the birth of blues, teaching some of the best blues artists that followed including Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson and Honeyboy Edwards.


WED 02:25 Earth's Great Rivers (b0bx73pk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



THURSDAY 09 JANUARY 2020

THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m000ddyj)
Series 1

09/01/2020

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


THU 19:30 Turtle, Eagle, Cheetah: A Slow Odyssey (m0001kwx)
A Turtle's Journey

Ride on board with a green sea turtle as it swims around its spectacular coral reef home of Sipidan in Malaysia. Using only natural sounds and elegant embedded graphics delivering detailed information, this is an immersive journey into the turtles’ world like no other.

The turtle embarks on its daily routine, revealing how they utilise all the different areas of the reef, from the inner shallows to the deep drop-off – introducing us to all the fish and animals that they share one of the richest and most diverse places on our planet with in a mesmerising half-hour.

The turtles were filmed for Blue Planet II and part of an ongoing study into their behaviour for the Marine Research Foundation.


THU 20:00 The Great British Year (p01db15t)
Original Series

Winter

Starting on New Year's Day, Britain is in the grip of winter. Time-lapses show a magical country shrouded in frost and mist swirling in hollows. Water becomes the enemy as it freezes, and the wildlife must cope. Red squirrels resort to subterfuge, and kites track a farmer ploughing to get at the worms beneath the frost. As winter fades, adders bask in the sun and the woodland floor erupts with snowdrops. On a lake in Wiltshire, new hope is captured in the evocative dance of the great crested grebe.


THU 21:00 Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives (b08kgv7f)
Physics professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates the amazing science of gravity. A fundamental force of nature, gravity shapes our entire universe, sculpting galaxies and warping space and time. But gravity's strange powers, discovered by Albert Einstein, also affect our daily lives in the most unexpected ways. As Jim tells the story of gravity, it challenges his own understanding of the nature of reality.

The science of gravity includes the greatest advances in physics, and Jim recreates groundbreaking experiments in gravity including when the Italian genius Galileo first worked out how to measure it.

Gravity science is still full of surprises and Jim investigates the latest breakthrough - 'gravity waves' - ripples in the vast emptiness of space. He also finds out from astronauts what it's like to live without gravity.

But gravity also directly affects all of us very personally - making a difference to our weight, height, posture and even the rate at which we age. With the help of volunteers and scientists, Jim sets out to find where in Britain gravity is weakest and so where we weigh the least. He also helps design a smartphone app that volunteers use to demonstrate how gravity affects time and makes us age at slightly different rates.

And finally, Jim discovers that despite incredible progress, gravity has many secrets.


THU 22:30 Horizon (b0761llv)
2016

The Mystery of Dark Energy

Horizon looks at dark energy - the mysterious force that is unexpectedly causing the universe's expansion to speed up.

The effects of dark energy were discovered in 1998, but physicists still don't know what it is. Worse, its very existence calls into question Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity - the cornerstone of modern physics.

The hunt for the identity of dark energy is on. Experiments on earth and in space generate data that might provide a clue, but there are also hopes that another Einstein might emerge - someone who can write a new theory explaining the mystery of the dark energy.


THU 23:30 The Joy of Winning (b0b9zsfb)
How to have a happier life and a better world all thanks to maths, in this witty, mind-expanding guide to the science of success with Hannah Fry.

Following in the footsteps of BBC Four's award-winning maths films The Joy of Stats and The Joy of Data, this latest gleefully nerdy adventure sees mathematician Dr Hannah Fry unlock the essential strategies you'll need to get what you want - to win - more of the time. From how to bag a bargain dinner to how best to stop the kids arguing on a long car journey, maths can give you a winning strategy. And the same rules apply to the world's biggest problems - whether it's avoiding nuclear annihilation or tackling climate change.

Deploying 'The Joys of...' films' trademark mix of playful animation alongside both oddball demos and contributions from the world's biggest brains, Fry shows how this field of maths - known as game theory - is the essential key to help you get your way. She reveals ways to analyse any situation, and methods of calculating the consequences of getting what you want. Expect tips on taking advantage of what your opponents do, but also pleasing proof that cooperation might get you further than conflict. Fry also hails the 20th-century scientists like John von Neumann and John Nash who worked out the science of success. They may not be household names, but they transformed economics, politics, psychology and evolutionary biology in the process - and their work, Hannah demonstrates, could even be shown to prove the existence and advantage of goodness.

Along the way the film reveals, amongst other things, what links the rapper Ludacris, a Kentucky sheriff, a Nobel Prize winner and doping in professional cycling. And there's an irresistible chance to revisit the most excruciatingly painful and the most genius scenes ever seen on a TV game show, as Hannah unpacks the maths behind the legendary show Golden Balls and hails Nick Corrigan, the contestant whose cunning gameplay managed to break the supposedly intractable 'Prisoner's Dilemma'.

Other contributors to The Joy of Winning include European number one professional female poker player Liv Boeree, Scottish ex-pro cyclist and anti-doping campaigner (banned for two years in 2004 for doping) David Millar, Israeli game theory expert Dr Haim Shapira - who shows why it is sometimes rational to be irrational - and top evolutionary game theorist Professor Karl Sigmund from the University of Vienna.


THU 00:30 Akala's Odyssey (b09sc141)
Writer and hip-hop artist Akala voyages across the Mediterranean and beyond to solve some of the mysteries behind Homer's monumental poem, the Odyssey. Travelling between spectacular ruins, such as the sacred shrine of Delphi or the Greek colonies on Sicily, Akala's journey culminates on the small island of Ithaca, where he ponders the theory that this is the destination which Homer had in mind as he composed the epic.

Along the way, he finds out what Homer's works may have sounded like to their first audiences, discovers how the rhythm of those ancient words connect to the beats of modern hip-hop and comes face to face with the characters from the masterpiece. He also investigates how this epic poem became the cornerstone of Western literature and how his own experiences as an artist have been impacted by a 3,000-year-old classic. Akala has undertaken this quest as part of his mission to compose his own response to the Odyssey - a new hip hop track called Blind Bard's Vision, which turns the tale on its head all over again. This is Akala's Odyssey.


THU 01:30 Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections (b0376y1l)
The Pioneers

Britain's country houses are home to astonishing world-class art collections full of priceless old masters and more. In this three-part series art historian Helen Rosslyn opens the doors of some of our most impressive country houses to tell the story of how so many great paintings came to Britain and of the adventurous men and women who brought them here.

In the first episode she reveals the immense influence of the 17th-century pioneer collectors such as Thomas Howard, the 'Collector' Earl of Arundel, King Charles I and his entourage known as the Whitehall Group. Rosslyn explores how this group also brought a taste for the Baroque to Britain, commissioning continental artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck and later Antonio Verrio.

Featuring Verrio's extraordinary Hell Staircase at Burghley House in Cambridgeshire, as well as highlights from the collections at Arundel Castle in Sussex and Wilton House in Wiltshire, the series offers not only a visual treat but a surprising narrative to our national treasures.


THU 02:30 Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives (b08kgv7f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 10 JANUARY 2020

FRI 19:00 World News Today (m000d26h)
The news programme for audiences who want more depth to their daily coverage. With a focus on Europe, Middle East and Africa.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m000d26k)
Mark Goodier and Andy Crane present the pop chart programme, first broadcast 5 January 1989 and featuring Erasure, Kim Wilde, a-ha, Duran Duran, Boy Meets Girl, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, Climie Fisher, Inner City, Neneh Cherry, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and The Four Tops.


FRI 20:00 Easy Listening Hits at the BBC (b011g943)
Compilation of easy listening tracks that offers the perfect soundtrack for your cocktail party. There's music to please every lounge lizard, with unique performances from the greatest easy listening artists of the 60s and 70s, including Burt Bacharach, Andy Williams, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, The Carpenters and many more.


FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m000d26m)
Sybil Ruscoe and Simon Mayo present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 12 January 1989 and featuring The Darling Buds, Will to Power, Milli Vanilli, Duran Duran, Boy Meets Girl, Marc Almond and Gene Pitney, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, Mike + The Mechanics, Roachford, Fine Young Cannibals, Roy Orbison, Freiheit, Cookie Crew, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine.


FRI 21:30 Chris Packham: Forever Punk (m000d26p)
Chris Packham, environmentalist and life-long punk, reveals how, as a teenager with undiagnosed Asperger's, punk rock may have saved his life. By giving him a purpose, he was able to harness his creativity, which led to him becoming a TV presenter with a determination to champion wildlife.

Now more than 40 years on, as Chris goes to Buckingham Palace to receive a CBE for services to the environment, he asks himself if he has, over the years, turned into the type of 'establishment figure' that his 17-year-old self would have hated?

In a highly personal and revelatory film, Chris sets out to question both himself and other former punks who, like him, rocked against racism, fought for gay rights and caused their parents untold grief, to discover if the values they all believed in still hold true today.

Chris meets some of the legends at the heart of the movement, including punk icon Jordan Mooney who was known as punk's first muse, artist Jamie Reid who designed the Sex Pistols' record covers, The Clash's first drummer and now chiropractor Terry Chimes, chart-topping vicar Rev Richard Coles and gay rights campaigner and Radio 6 DJ Tom Robinson.

He also meets Joe Talbot, lead singer of indie band Idles at the famous punk venue the 100 Club and even hooks up with his own punk band, The Titanic Survivors, who he left in 1978. They have since reformed and are still playing some of the songs that Chris wrote.

Chris concludes that the spirit of punk perhaps lives on not just in the music but in the rebellious spirit of the young and is still at the heart of many modern-day protests.


FRI 22:30 Punk at the BBC (b01k1nhx)
An archive celebration of BBC studio performances from the British bands that broke through courtesy of punk, from its pub rock roots with Dr Feelgood to its explosive heyday with The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and many more.


FRI 23:30 Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland (b0bb2pyf)
Series 1

Episode 2

Two 80s icons explore the distinct sounds that came out of different parts of Britain and Ireland in one of pop's golden decades.

Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox and one of the men behind Band Aid, and Kim Appleby, who had a string of hits with her sister Mel in the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced band Mel and Kim, go on a journey back in time to the 80s to figure out why certain cities produced their own diverse tunes.

It's a fascinating tale. Emerging from the ashes of punk, British and Irish music ripped up the pop rule book in the 80s and topped the charts worldwide. But there was no definitive 'British' pop sound. Innovative chart-toppers were being produced by artists hailing from all over the UK and Ireland.

In this second episode, Midge and Kim explore the sounds that came from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. They start in Glasgow with the American influences that shaped a substantial part of Scottish music, look at the punk and folk backdrop to Irish music and, finally, delve into the Welsh merger of folk and punk.

The show features evocative archive, superb music and interviews with significant figures, like Bob Geldof, Clare Grogan from Altered Images, Pat Kane from Hue and Cry, Moya Brennan of Clannad and Mike Peters from legendary Welsh band The Alarm.


FRI 00:30 I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock (m0005wwn)
Series 1

Episode 1

Part one of Katie Puckrik’s voyage through a halcyon period of Los Angeles studio craft when studio-based artists like The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates produced the smoothest R&B and married it to adult themes about longing, aspiration and melancholy.

In its day this music was never identified as a genre, but in the 21st century, in a nod to its finely crafted nature, it has come to be known as yacht rock. Katie’s account of yacht rock is both the soundtrack of her American teen years and a reappraisal of a critically neglected era of music, when the sophisticated smooth sounds of the West Coast were a palliative for an America in turmoil.

Starting with the forerunners of this soft sound, Katie looks at the singer-songwriters of Laurel Canyon as well as soft rock pioneers such as the band America, whose songs offered Americans an escape from economic depression at home and the enduring conflict in Vietnam abroad. Popularised by a boom in FM radio stations, this smooth, easily digestible sound found mainstream appeal. Katie argues that the pure yacht sound was born in 1976, when seasoned session musician Michael McDonald joined The Doobie Brothers. Alongside The Doobies’ mellow tracks, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates also delivered perfect studio-engineered productions that remain as escapist and indulgent a listen today as they did when they were made.

The gleaming yacht sound was in part defined by a group of session players and composers, including McDonald, who played across the range of ‘yacht’ bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. In this film, one such musician, Jay Graydon, talks about the yacht phenomenon and being part of the scene back in the day. Meanwhile John Oates reveals some of the inspirations behind his hit She’s Gone. Other contributors include producer Mark Ronson and JD Ryznar, creator of internet hit the Yacht Rock Show.


FRI 01:30 Chris Packham: Forever Punk (m000d26p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


FRI 02:30 Easy Listening Hits at the BBC (b011g943)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]