SATURDAY 29 AUGUST 2020

SAT 19:00 This Farming Life (b075lwbn)
Series 1

Episode 10

In Argyll, Sybil prepares for George's 50th birthday and the arrival of her sister and niece from England. Sybil and George are also looking after a desperately ill cow. Julia K had a traumatic caesarean and is too weak to stand up on her own, so they decide to lift her to her feet twice a day using a sling and a forklift truck to help build her muscles up.

East of Inverness, persistent rain means Martin's cattle and young calves are yet to be turned out of their winter sheds into the fields. Sybil's sister and niece arrive and there's tension over the question of who will take on the family farm in the future.

In central Scotland near Loch Lomond, Bobby and Anne hold an open day to educate the public about farming. North of Aberdeen, John has to urgently call the vet when one of his heifers gets into difficulty calving. The vet decides on a caesarean but it's a major operation and there's no guarantee she, or her huge calf, will survive.


SAT 20:00 Pole to Pole (p02j8knz)
Russian Steps

Michael experiences life in the latter days of the Soviet Union as he travels from Leningrad to the port of Odessa, mere days before the 1991 coup in Moscow.


SAT 21:00 The Bridge (b01j0nkg)
Series 1

Episode 9

Gradually all the pieces to the complicated puzzle are put in place. The clues and evidence in the investigation have led the police to a man who could be the murderer. Now they wait tensely for his next move.

In Swedish and Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:00 The Bridge (b039s9lc)
Series 1

Episode 10

It now dawns on the police that the final step in the murderer's evil plan has a new direction. Saga does all she can to crack the case and catch the killer - will she succeed before it's too late?

In Swedish and Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 23:00 The Bridge (b03bncr5)
Series 2

Episode 1

A coastal tanker leaves the Oresund waterway and is headed straight for the Oresund Bridge. When the coastguard board the ship they discover there is no crew and three Swedish and two Danish youths are chained below deck. Saga Noren of Malmo County Police is put in charge of the case and contacts Martin Rohde, who is still haunted by the death of his son. Together they embark on investigating the case.

In Danish and Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 00:00 The Bridge (b03bx7kw)
Series 2

Episode 2

While Saga and Martin are quarantined, someone posts a video online where four individuals wearing masks use signs to claim responsibility for the plague. This coincides with several reported deaths as a result of eating, among other things, poisoned apples. Saga and Martin are quick to connect the two cases. And they realise this is just the beginning.

In Danish and Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 01:00 Top of the Pops (b00zwrn5)
1964 to 1975 - Big Hits

1964 saw the birth of a very British institution. Spanning over four decades, Top of the Pops has produced many classic moments in pop culture.

Digging deep within the darkest depths of the BBC's archive, this compilation offers some memorable performances from 1964 through to 1975 from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Status Quo, Procol Harum, Stevie Wonder, Queen and The Kinks, and opens the vintage vaults to rare performances from Stealers Wheel, Julie Driscoll, Peter Sarstedt and The Seekers.

So sit back and witness once again where music met television.


SAT 02:30 This Farming Life (b075lwbn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 30 AUGUST 2020

SUN 19:00 James May's Cars of the People (b06z98lc)
Series 2

Episode 1

James reveals the cars that turned postwar Germany and Japan into motoring powerhouses at the expense of Britain and the US.

On his travels he encounters classic E-Types, Mustangs and the German and Japanese upstarts that were to conquer the world.

He also has an unfortunate encounter with an Austin Allegro - the car that helped destroy the British car industry.


SUN 20:00 BBC Proms (m000m7hr)
2020

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra with a programme packed with unmissable music, featuring star pianist Mitsuko Uchida playing Beethoven, works by much-loved British composers Elgar and Vaughan Williams, and a new composition by Thomas Adès. Join Suzy Klein for this hotly anticipated return of live music to the Royal Albert Hall.


SUN 21:40 Coast (b07mhw25)
Series 8 Reversions

Joy of the Coast 1

To discover the pure pleasure of seaside leisure, the team seek out the ideal locations to enjoy their personal passions and experience the joy of the coast.

Nick Crane heads to his beloved Western Isles in Scotland to attempt a daunting, long-coveted mountaineering challenge on the Isle of Skye. For years, Nick has dreamed of climbing the fearsome Cioch. This singular and impressive spear of rock, the scene for a spectacular sword fight in the film Highlander, was only conquered for the first time in 1906. The men who originally attempted the hazardous route to its summit were an unlikely pair - John Mackenzie, a Scottish mountain guide, and Norman Collie, an English professor of chemistry - but their joint endeavour would bind them into a 30-year friendship. Nick uses Victorian mountaineering gear as he attempts to follow in the footsteps of Mackenzie and Collie and climb the Cioch for himself. Along the way, he learns something of the triumph and tragedy of their lives, but Nick's reward at the climax of the hazardous ascent comes with the discovery of a new favourite view - an incredible seascape framed by Britain's most glorious coastal peaks.


SUN 22:00 Van Morrison - Up on Cyprus Avenue (b068fvks)
Recorded on his birthday, highlights of Van Morrison's unique live performance on the Belfast avenue he made famous through the iconic album Astral Weeks.


SUN 23:00 Van Morrison at the BBC (m00038lz)
Spend an hour in the company of musical innovator Van Morrison in this vintage compilation of his most memorable BBC performances.


SUN 00:00 When Bob Marley Came to Britain (m000m7ht)
In the 1970s, Bob Marley rose from humble beginnings to become a global superstar. It was a journey that took place not just in his homeland of Jamaica but also in Britain - the place he came to regard as his second home.

Featuring rarely seen archive and interviews with people who met him, this documentary examines Marley’s special relationship with Britain and reveals how his presence influenced British politics, culture and identity during a time of massive social and civil unrest in the UK - and how his universal message of one love and unity helped inspire a generation of black British youth.

This documentary also takes a revealing look at how Marley spent his time while he was in Britain – from the houses he lived in to football kickabouts in Battersea Park (Marley is revealed to have been a Tottenham Hotspur fan) and visits to the UK’s growing Rastafarian community, including secret gigs in the north of England.

It was in Britain that Marley established himself as an international artist, recorded some of his most successful albums and performed some of his most memorable concerts.

The film features interviews with people who met and worked with Bob Marley in the UK - and whose lives were changed by meeting him – including photographer Dennis Morris (who accompanied Marley on tour), Aswad star Brinsley Forde, Locksley Gishie from The Cimarons and film-maker Don Letts. Also interviewed is reggae legend Marcia Griffiths of Bob Marley’s vocal group The I-Threes.

There are also memories of the most important gigs he played in Britain as told by those who were there to see it happen, including early Wailers gigs in small pubs and clubs when the band were still largely unknown, a now legendary acoustic performance in the school gym of a Peckham high school and a triumphant show at London’s Lyceum Theatre that helped propel Marley to global fame.


SUN 01:00 Classic Albums (b07ycbrb)
The Wailers: Catch a Fire

This edition looks at the making of the 1973 Wailers album, Catch a Fire, the album that brought international recognition to Bob Marley.

Already big names in their native Jamaica, it took until this release for Marley and Co to finally go global. It features interviews with key musicians and engineers who helped make the album, as well as record label boss Chris Blackwell, who talks about how the band had song-writing and performing skills in abundance but needed to be put through the equivalent of a "rock blender" to make them palatable to a wider audience. Through first-hand accounts, this programme tells how they did just that.

The programme takes a track-by-track look at the making of the record. In London, the producer Chris Blackwell and original engineer Tony Platt lead viewers through the original multi-tracks of Slave Driver, Concrete Jungle, Stir it Up, Rock It Baby and others. Rabbit Brundrick (keyboards) and Wayne Perkins (electric guitar) tell how they were brought back in to add the rock and roll parts to the songs. It is illustrated with archive footage from the Wailers in concert, early interviews with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, plus television performances and rare home movies - all of which provide a unique insight into the process behind the recording of this landmark album.


SUN 02:00 EastEnders 2008 (b00c13t9)
May becomes frustrated playing the long game with Jase. Denise battles with Lucas while Shirley finds herself at the helm of the Vic.


SUN 02:30 EastEnders 2008 (b00c147p)
May eagerly prepares for a visit from Summer. Shirley is determined to make a success of the Vic. Charlie receives a surprise guest.


SUN 03:00 EastEnders 2008 (b00cbhdd)
May returns to Albert Square to bid farewell to Summer. Charlie gets to the bottom of Brenda's secret, while Stacey attempts to sabotage Jean's budding love life.



MONDAY 31 AUGUST 2020

MON 19:00 Handmade in Africa (m000m7j4)
Series 1

Maasai Wedding Necklace

For the Maasai people of the Great Rift Valley, beaded jewellery is of great ceremonial significance. The Maasai are a semi-nomadic tribal group who inhabit much of Kenya and Tanzania. Many Maasai people continue to live traditional, pastoral lives. While the men tend to their cattle, Maasai women care for children, maintain the village buildings, and craft intricate, colourful beaded items. Necklaces, bracelets and headpieces are used in Maasai weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies, but they are also enormously popular with non-Maasai Kenyans and tourists. Over the past few decades, tourist interest in Maasai beads has allowed Maasai women to earn their own money for the first time.

This episode follows Jane Semanto, a master bead maker, as she crafts a traditional Maasai wedding necklace. Like many Maasai, Jane lives a modern life in Nairobi but retains a deep knowledge and reverence for her tribal heritage. The Maasai use beads to signify social and marital status. Colours also hold special importance, signifying elements of the Rift Valley landscape, as well as valued Maasai character traits such as bravery and friendship. During the film, Jane leaves her Nairobi studio to visit her Maasai friends who live a more traditional rural existence. We discover how, for them, bead making not only gives them an income and independence from their husbands, it also fosters a sense of female solidarity


MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000m7j6)
Series 3

Campfire

In this one-of-a-kind masterpiece, Bob Ross paints a vibrant golden red glow, complete with cowboy resting awhile by the crackling flames.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


MON 20:00 Africa with Ade Adepitan (m0002p4d)
Series 1

Episode 3

The third leg of Ade Adepitan’s epic four-part journey around Africa, a continent undergoing huge change. This leg takes him to the east of the continent, from Tanzania, through Ethiopia and on to war-torn Somalia.

Ade begins in Tanzania, in Selous Game Reserve – a game park the size of Switzerland. He is on the lookout for elephants. But the numbers in this park have fallen by 90 per cent over the last few decades. As well as poaching, one of the big problems is that elephants trample and eat crops – so the locals don’t like them. But a new collaring programme is helping numbers to recover.

Ade’s next stop is Ethiopia’s far north. He travels to the hottest place on the planet where he spends a night with some of the toughest people on earth - the Afar. He joins them doing what their ancestors have done for centuries – hacking blocks of salt from a dried-up salt lake and loading them onto camels. But change is finally coming to this place – thanks to another of its resources, the fertilizer potash. It is a sign of Ethiopia’s development, which Ade sees more of in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Having grown up with images of starving children in the famine-plagued 80s, Addis is nothing like Ade expected. The city is booming. And it is driving Ethiopia’s economy - now one of the fastest-growing in the world. Ade gets a guided tour from perhaps the world’s greatest-ever long distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie. Haile is now a businessman, with investments in coffee and construction
.
The real fuel in Ethiopia’s boom is manufacturing. Asia is still the workshop of the world, but with wages there on the rise, Chinese companies are increasingly looking to countries like Ethiopia to set up factories – as Ade discovers on a visit to a shoe factory.

Leaving Addis, Ade travels on Ethiopia’s new high-speed Chinese built train, which whisks him all the way to neighbouring Djibouti, a vital port for Ethiopia’s export-led economy.

The final stop on this leg of Ade’s trip is war-torn Somalia. He joins the African Union troops on a mission out of Mogadishu and discovers a country in ruins, thanks to decades of conflict with Islamist group al-Shabab. Even in areas ruled by the government conservative Islam dominates and women face restriction on their freedom. Back in Mogadishu, Ade shoots some hoops with a group of women defying the odds by playing basketball. His final encounter is with a female doctor who worked for the NHS for 30 years, and has now returned to Somalia to rebuild her country. She is prepared to give her life, if necessary, in her efforts to provide quality maternity care for new mothers.


MON 21:00 African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power (m000m7j8)
Series 1

When Art Meets Power - Kenya

In Kenya, a state created barely a century ago, Afua Hirsch explores how the British spun an idealised stereotype while carving out a brutal empire. Afua reveals the extremes of life today, the urban sprawl and untouched outback, and a young population still pushing away the lingering darkness of the British imperial past.

In an epic narrative that takes in railway building, Karen Blixen, President Jomo Kenyatta and the brutal British suppression of the 1950s Mau Mau Uprising, she charts how artists have responded to history happening around them. She meets acclaimed Kenyan painters Dennis Muraguri and Michael Soi and discusses the after-effects of the British colonial period and China’s growing influence as a new power in East Africa.


MON 22:00 Africa's Great Civilisations (b0b8rg4x)
Series 1

The Atlantic Age

The award-winning film-maker and academic Henry Louis Gates Jr travels the length and breadth of Africa to explore the continent's epic history.

The Atlantic Age examines the tremendous changes that took place in Africa between the 15th and 18th centuries - including the seismic transformation as West African kingdoms encountered European mariners travelling farther and farther south along Africa's Atlantic coast, and the impact of European colonisation of the New World. Across the continent, kingdoms and empires rose and fell, with some 12.5 million Africans suffering enslavement in the crossfire.


MON 22:55 Africa's Great Civilisations (b0b9tt9y)
Series 1

Clash of Civilisations

The award-winning film-maker and academic Henry Louis Gates Jr travels the length and breadth of Africa to explore the continent's epic history.

In the final part of Africa's Great Civilisations, Henry Louis Gates Jr reviews the 19th century, when a fierce competition for resources and trade stimulated ingenuity but also enticed European powers, triggering the 'scramble for Africa' and inciting conflicts that threatened the stability and wellbeing of the continent.


MON 23:45 Britain in Focus: A Photographic History (b08hznbb)
Series 1

Episode 2

Eamonn McCabe explores how British photographers responded to the most important events of the first half of the 20th century and traces the emergence of a new genre of photography - photojournalism. His journey begins at the Daily Mirror's press plant in Watford, which broke new ground with its dynamic coverage of the siege of Sidney Street in 1911, before tracing the footsteps of pioneering female photojournalist Christina Broom and discovering how cheaper cameras enabled British soldiers to become citizen journalists during the First World War.

Eamonn is joined by Mahtab Hussain to discuss the work of Bill Brandt, who in 1937 travelled to the north of England to record landscapes and portraits of working class communities during the Great Depression. Brandt would go on to work for Picture Post, Britain's most popular news magazine, which was launched in 1938. Armed with a period roll film Leica, Eamonn goes on assignment to the fairground to recreate a famous shoot by the magazine that documented almost every aspect of mid-century life in Britain.

He also sees how photographers captured the Second World War, from the Blitz to shocking images of concentration camps; celebrates photographers who pursued the medium as an art form in its own right; learns about the printing techniques of celebrity portrait photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn; and reflects on Cecil Beaton's glamorous work for Vogue magazine.


MON 00:45 Jigs and Wigs: The Extreme World of Irish Dancing (b06ynswh)
Series 2

Dress Wars

Big Fat Gypsy Wedding dressmaker Thelma Madine takes on the world of the feis with a unique range of Irish dance dresses.


MON 01:15 Jigs and Wigs: The Extreme World of Irish Dancing (b06zdqwd)
Series 2

Tradition with a Twist

After stepping out in style on Britain's Got Talent in 2014, the Innova dance troupe are brought down to earth, and back to the beautiful coastline beaches of Portstewart.


MON 01:45 The Joy of Painting (m000m7j6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:15 African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power (m000m7j8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 01 SEPTEMBER 2020

TUE 19:00 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b0079459)
Series 1

Close Encounters

Gravedigger and amateur cameraman Johnny Kingdom films the wildlife of the moors and woodlands of Exmoor. It's early summer and Johnny is determined to film red deer calves and fox cubs but he's got to find them first. He's soon on the foxes' trail but the deer search leads to a close encounter with an animal that no-one realised was living wild on Exmoor. It's also Revel Week in his home village, Bishops Nympton, and a chance to join in old customs and celebrate a new landlord at the local pub.


TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000m7j0)
Series 3

Rustic Barn

A beautiful fall scene -- Bob Ross uses the colours of nature to settle an old worn-down farm building into soft golden grassy bushes and trees.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


TUE 20:00 Trips Money Can't Buy with Ewan McGregor (p031d346)
Survival expert Ray Mears takes Ewan McGregor the chance to go on a trek of a lifetime. They go deep into the Honduran jungle in search of a lost civilisation.


TUE 21:00 The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story (m0003m0l)
Series 1

Episode 3

Documentary series exploring the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. In this final episode, Liza Williams charts the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe in January 1981, his subsequent trial and conviction, and the legacy for the relatives of his victims and the survivors of his attacks.

Speaking to one of Sutcliffe’s defence team, as well as a leading barrister from the prosecution and journalists who covered the trial, Liza traces the story from the moment of arrest. Witnesses were offered money for exclusives, potentially jeopardising the trial, and once it began long queues formed for the public gallery and front row seats in court were given to VIPs.

Peter Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility because of his mental state. The prosecution, however, argued that he should be found guilty of murder. Sutcliffe had confessed to all 13 murders and seven attacks, so there was no doubt who was to blame. However, looking back at court transcripts, Liza discovers that the women Sutcliffe attacked were once more classed as either prostitutes or ‘innocent’ victims. Meeting a woman who led a demonstration outside the Old Bailey, Liza finds out about the outrage they felt when the humanity of the murdered women was ignored.

On 22 May 1981, the Yorkshire Ripper trial reached its conclusion. Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum term of 30 years. But as Liza discovers, that is not the end of the case. After Sutcliffe’s conviction, the failures of the police investigation start to be made public as a wide-ranging government report details mistake after mistake. Liza learns just how many clues and witnesses were ignored. But also, more powerfully, she discovers that the failings all link back to the police’s original theory about a ‘prostitute killer’ that took them in the wrong direction right from the start and led them to disregard vital evidence.

Going back to the survivors and relatives of Sutcliffe’s victims, at the end of the final episode and the conclusion of the series, Liza explores the legacy left behind by his crimes and what it has been like to live as the child of a Ripper murder victim.


TUE 22:00 Julius Caesar Revealed (b09s0mxj)
Julius Caesar is the most famous Roman of them all: brutal conqueror, dictator and victim of a gruesome assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC. 2,000 years on, he still shapes the world. He has given us some political slogans we still use today (Crossing the Rubicon), his name lives on in the month of July, and there is nothing new about Vladmir Putin's carefully cultivated military image, and no real novelty in Donald Trump's tweets and slogans.

Mary Beard is on a mission to uncover the real Caesar, and to challenge public perception. She seeks the answers to some big questions. How did he become a one-man ruler of Rome? How did he use spin and PR on his way to the top? Why was he killed? And she asks some equally intriguing little questions. How did he conceal his bald patch? Did he really die, as William Shakespeare put it, with the words Et tu, Brute on his lips? Above all, Mary explores his surprising legacy right up to the present day. Like it or not, Caesar is still present in our everyday lives, our language, and our politics. Many dictators since, not to mention some other less autocratic leaders, have learned the tricks of their trade from Julius Caesar.


TUE 23:00 The Stolen Maharajah: Britain's Indian Royal (b0bfnldw)
Documentary about the last Maharajah of the Punjab, Duleep Singh, who was wrenched from his mother's arms as a child in the 1840s and put into the care of an official of the British Empire. Growing up in a colonial enclave in India, the boy king abandoned his Sikh religion and signed away his ancient kingdom to the British - decisions he would come to bitterly regret. He moved as a teenager to Britain, where Queen Victoria became his godmother. The Maharajah Duleep Singh lived most of his adult life here as a supremely wealthy English country gentleman, part of the British social elite. But, in time, his relationship with Britain turned sour.

This documentary retraces the journeys of Duleep Singh and his family: from the royal palaces of the Punjab to royal palaces in Britain, to his own English country estate, Elveden in Suffolk, to bohemian Paris. The programme uses recently rediscovered letters by Singh, letters and diaries written by those whose knew him, extraordinary photographs and surviving artefacts. We interview historians to get at the motives and inner life of the Maharajah Duleep Singh as he set out to recover his Sikh heritage and turn his back on his colonial past. This is a story from the age of Empire about someone whose life was defined by those historic forces.


TUE 00:00 Art on the BBC (m000f1jy)
Series 1

The Many Faces of Picasso

Picasso is known as the godfather of modern art. In this programme, art historian David Dibosa explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of him.

David reveals how film-makers have portrayed two different Picassos - the child genius who drew like a master and the adult who rejected his conventional talent in a quest to reflect the world, in ways that shattered all the rules.

He also finds that film-makers have long been fascinated by Picasso’s private life. A notorious womaniser, Picasso used his lovers as muses and left behind a trail of broken relationships.


TUE 01:00 How to Get Ahead (b03z08mx)
At Versailles

Stephen Smith explores the flamboyant Baroque court of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Louis created the Palace of Versailles so he could surround himself with aristocrats, artists, interior designers, gardeners, wigmakers, chefs and musicians. Hordes of ambitious courtiers scrambled to get close to the king, but unseemly goings-on in the royal bedchamber reflected the quickest path to power.


TUE 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000m7j0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:30 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b0079459)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 03:00 The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story (m0003m0l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 2020

WED 19:00 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b0079495)
Series 1

Strange Sights

Gravedigger and amateur cameraman Johnny Kingdom films the wildlife of the moors and woodlands of Exmoor. Johnny's back on the trail of the red deer calves and is determined not to give up until he finds a newborn one. But he keeps being distracted by strange sights - a red-legged partridge herding her brood of tiny chicks, a sparrow killing a privet moth and a family of stoats near his friend's kitchen. He also pays a visit to the Exmoor Pony Centre to get on a horse for the first time.


WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000m7h6)
Series 3

Hidden Lake

Beneath a soft purple mountain range, lots of trees and bushes surround a secret little lake, as only Bob Ross can create on canvas.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


WED 20:00 Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands (p02n9vgl)
Hokkaido

Hokkaido is Japan's northernmost - and wildest - island, a place totally unlike the rest of the country. Every year, it swings from a bitter Siberian winter into the warmth of a Mediterranean-like summer, when the thaw reveals a landscape changed beyond all recognition. It takes tough animals and tough people with real ingenuity to survive, and even thrive, in this ever-changing place.


WED 21:00 Hitler's Children (b01j10j3)
Their family name alone evokes horror: Himmler, Frank, Goering, Hoess. This film looks at the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime: men and women who were left a legacy that indelibly associates them with one of the greatest abominations in history. What is it like to have grown up with a name that immediately raises images of genocide? How do they live with the weight of their ancestors' crimes? Is it possible to move on from the crimes of their ancestors?


WED 22:00 Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany (m000crdf)
Series 1

Episode 1

Recently discovered home movie footage from 1936 offers a unique and novel insight into what people in Germany were thinking and experiencing. In these prewar days, Germany was on a high and the Hitler Youth seemed like fun and games, but Nazi control was soon to become an all-pervading force, militarising the nation. The rise of anti-Semitism is explicit and grotesque, shocking even though we now have the knowledge of what happens next.

The film follows an infantry division during the invasion of France, fighting their way to Dunkirk, and reveals a new perspective on what the evacuation meant for the average German soldier. On the Eastern Front, a far darker and more visceral journey across the endless Russian steppe and the almost unimaginable horrors unleashed during Operation Barbarossa is captured by a soldier.

As well as amateur movie footage, the film charts the progress of the war through the diaries of ordinary Germans, some dizzy with excitement at what Hitler had achieved, others horrified by the effect it was having on their friends and families.


WED 23:00 Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany (m000crf9)
Series 1

Episode 2

Christmas in Germany 1941 is an unsettling time. Food is scarce, the weather is freezing and news from the front line in Russia is causing Germans to realise the war is a very long way from over. The stage is set for the second half of the conflict.

Through the home movies and diaries of ordinary Germans, this film charts Hitler’s dreams crumbling and the moral reckoning the German people must now face. It reveals the stories of people battling to save their families from deportation to the death camps, while others endure the horrors of ever more deadly bombing raids, all set against a backdrop of propaganda and false hope pouring forth from Nazi high command.

In Russia we meet a doctor who throws himself into the firing line at every opportunity, not to win glory but to save his wife and three young children from deportation to the death camps in the east, while in Dresden a Jewish diary writer struggles to deal with ever-mounting restrictions and deportations.

We also meet some of those forced to live under German rule, including extraordinary footage of a group of Jews living in hiding just a mile from Anne Frank, and a family in Normandy enjoying a bucolic summer before they find themselves on the front line when the Allies take on the German troops on the Atlantic Wall.

The film then moves to the endgame of the war, the choices faced as the net tightened and the crazy efforts to fight to the bitter end even as all hope is gone.


WED 00:00 Art of Scandinavia (b073mp87)
Dark Night of the Soul

Scandinavia - a land of extremes, on the edge of Europe. Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the extraordinary art to come out of the dark Norwegian soul, most famous for producing The Scream by Edvard Munch.


WED 01:00 People's Palaces: The Golden Age of Civic Architecture (b00tr1q1)
The Gothic Revival

Architectural historian Dr Jonathan Foyle visits some of the best neo-gothic Victorian civic buildings in the north of England. Pointed arches, spires and clustered columns proliferate on churches and cathedrals, town halls and libraries, as gothic moves from the sacred to the secular through the 19th century and becomes the north's civic style of choice.

Two men are primarily responsible for this medieval style's adoption by the Victorians. Augustus Pugin associated gothic with godliness and harmony and believed that architecture could influence morality. John Ruskin's influential book The Stones of Venice looked at the gothic architecture of the Italian renaissance mercantile republics and associated it with freedom. When Ruskin untethered gothic architecture from ecclesiastical building it went on to flourish in the hands of a generation of young, idealistic architects seeking to assert the cultural credentials of the north and exert an improving influence over the citizens of the burgeoning industrial towns.

Featuring contributions from Rosemary Hill, author of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain; Dr Katy Layton-Jones, lecturer in urban history; and Dr Terry Wyke, lecturer in history and economic history.

Jonathan Foyle visits the Temple of Liberty at Stowe; Pugin and Charles Barry's Palace of Westminster; Robert Chantrell's St Peter's Church in Leeds; William Crossland's Rochdale Town Hall; Alfred Waterhouse's Manchester Town Hall; Basil Champneys' Rylands Library in Manchester; Edward Mountford's Sheffield Town Hall; the Victoria Baths at Chorlton on Medlock; and Giles Gilbert Scott's Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, the biggest gothic church in Britain, built with more than 2.5 million pounds of the public's money.


WED 02:00 The Joy of Painting (m000m7h6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 02:30 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b0079495)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 03:00 Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands (p02n9vgl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



THURSDAY 03 SEPTEMBER 2020

THU 19:00 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b00794dr)
Series 1

Farewell Old Friend

Gravedigger and amateur cameraman Johnny Kingdom films the wildlife of the moors and woodlands of Exmoor. It's summer and Johnny has great news - he has managed to buy the land that his badger hide is on. But his excitement is overshadowed by worries about Bambi, his three-legged pet deer, whose leg is getting worse. As he tries to come to terms with this, the village ask him to open their biggest annual event, the Bishops Nympton Flower Show - a great honour, but also a daunting prospect.


THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000m7jt)
Series 3

Purple Splendour

Bob Ross will fascinate you with this crimson winter scene, where cabin and snow are virtually undisturbed and the evergreens are full.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


THU 20:00 BBC Proms (m000m7jw)
2020

Nicola Benedetti and Alina Ibragimova

Violin superstars Nicola Benedetti and Alina Ibragimova lead a high-energy evening of baroque music by Vivaldi, Handel, Bach and little-known English composer Charles Avison. If three double violin concertos weren’t enough, there is also a double oboe concerto!

Join presenter Danielle de Niese and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, led by Jonathan Cohen, for what promises to be an evening of musical exuberance.


THU 21:35 Coast (b07lxh9q)
Series 7 Reversions

The Secret Life of Beaches - 2

Coast explores the glorious diversity and endless delights offered by our beaches. The British Isles' stunning range of sand, shingle and rock formations creates some wonderful, unique havens for wildlife and opens up surprising possibilities for human endeavour and outright pleasure. Now the Coast team can reveal these in The Secret Life of Beaches.

In Scotland, zoologist and ex-soldier Andy Torbet braves one of the most dangerous beaches in Britain. Andy investigates how a RAF bombing range on the sands manages to double as a secret retreat for a colony of seals, who seem to thrive while basking within earshot of the bomb blasts.

On the sands of Aberlady Bay in Scotland, military historian Nick Hewitt unearths the steel skeletons of two top-secret midget submarines, part of the family of specialist craft which played a pivotal role in sinking The Tirpitz, one of Hitler's mightiest battleships. These midget subs, abandoned on the beach since the Second World War, were dubbed the X-Craft, and Nick meets a daredevil veteran submariner, Bill Morrison, who fought in them and survived to tell the tale. Bill still holds the world record for the deepest death-defying escape from a submarine, when his own X-Craft was stranded on the seabed 200ft below the waves.

Finally, Nick Crane digs deep to discover what it's like to live on Britain's most unusual beach, the eerily beautiful, vast shingle spit at Dungeness in Kent. He meets an artist who has taken up residence in a first-class railway carriage, abandoned on the beach. Together Nick and the painter explore what makes this vast ocean of pebbles such an oddly inspiring location.


THU 22:00 The Damned United (b00t61gx)
The story of Brian Clough's 44-day stint as manager of Leeds United FC in 1974. When Don Revie quit Leeds to become the England boss, the outspoken Clough took charge. Determined to impose his own style upon Revie's tough-tackling team, Clough soon alienated his players and the board.

Based on the book by David Peace.


THU 23:30 African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power (m000m7j8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 00:30 Handmade in Africa (m000m7j4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


THU 01:00 The Joy of Painting (m000m7jt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:30 Johnny Kingdom: A Year on Exmoor (b00794dr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:00 The Beauty of Maps (b00s64f4)
Atlas Maps - Thinking Big

Documentary series charting the visual appeal and historical meaning of maps.

The Dutch Golden Age saw map-making reach a fever pitch of creative and commercial ambition. This was the era of the first ever atlases - elaborate, lavish and beautiful. This was the great age of discovery and marked an unprecedented opportunity for mapmakers, who sought to record and categorise the newly acquired knowledge of the world. Rising above the many mapmakers in this period was Gerard Mercator, inventor of the Mercator projection, who changed mapmaking forever when he published his collection of world maps in 1598 and coined the term 'atlas'.

The programme looks at some of the largest and most elaborate maps ever produced, from the vast maps on the floor of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, to the 24-volume atlas covering just the Netherlands, to the largest atlas in the world, The Klencke Atlas. It was made for Charles II to mark his restoration in 1660. But whilst being one of the British Library's most important items, it is also one of its most fragile, so hardly ever opened. This is a unique opportunity to see inside this enormous and lavish work, and see the world through the eyes of a king.


THU 02:30 Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany (m000crdf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Wednesday]



FRIDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2020

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (b018zv8d)
1977 - Big Hits

The celebration of Top of the Pops 1977 continues with a selection of outstanding complete archive performances from Britain's silver jubilee year. 1977 was dominated by funk and punk, with Heatwave's Boogie Nights and The Stranglers' No More Heroes in the top ten. Classic top of the charts hits included Baccara's Yes Sir, I Can Boogie and Angelo by Brotherhood of Man. Some of the enduring heroes to take to the stage that year were David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Queen and Elvis Costello, with rare studio performances from The Jacksons and Bob Marley & The Wailers.


FRI 20:00 BBC Proms (m000m7gz)
2020

Anoushka Shankar and Gold Panda

Sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar takes to the stage in an evening dedicated to her father and musical guru, Ravi, in what would have been his centenary year.

Anoushka is joined in the first half by electronic music producer and performer Gold Panda for a new imagining of Ravi’s music. In the second half, Jules Buckley, the Britten Sinfonia and soloist Manu Delago accompany Anoushka in a selection of her music.

Josie d’Arby presents this unique evening from the Royal Albert Hall.


FRI 21:30 Soul America (m000m7h1)
Series 1

Amazing Grace

Carleen Anderson narrates a three-part series telling the story of how soul music emerged from the world of gospel in the early 1960s to deliver an assertive, integrated vision of black America during the civil rights era, presided over by its own king and queen, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.

Episode One travels through the south from Muscle Shoals in Alabama (Aretha, Clarence Carter, Mavis Staples) to Stax in Memphis (Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding), taking a detour north to Detroit, to argue that Motown’s most soulful achievement was to show the whole world a successful, sophisticated image of black people at a time when Motown musicians themselves were subject to the same treatment as any black American.

With contributions from Mavis Staples, Candi Staton, Duke Fakir, Martha Reeves, Mary Wilson, Otis Williams, The Holland Brothers, Clarence Carter, Al Bell, Steve Cropper and Spooner Oldham. Expert analysis from Mark Anthony Neal, Nelson George and Emily J Lordi.


FRI 22:30 Kings of Soul (b05n2bx6)
Celebrating the men whose vocal stylings have carried the torch for soul across six decades. It showcases the rarely seen but infectious Brenton Wood's Gimme Little Sign and offers the velvet voice of Curtis Mayfield singing Keep On Keeping On. There are groundbreaking artists from the '60s to the noughties, with performances from Billy Preston, Bill Withers, Billy Ocean, Alexander O'Neal, Barry White, Bobby Womack and many more.


FRI 23:25 Electric Proms (b00nkpx9)
2009

Smokey Robinson

The last night of the Electric Proms stars American soul legend Smokey Robinson in a very special celebration of 50 years of Motown.

Presented from London's Roundhouse by Trevor Nelson and Edith Bowman, Smokey and his band are joined on stage by the BBC Concert Orchestra for a unique performance of arrangements specially commissioned by the BBC.

The set includes classic soul and Motown songs from Smokey's career like Tears of a Clown, Tracks of My Tears and My Girl, alongside new material from his forthcoming album Time Flies When You're Having Fun.


FRI 00:25 TOTP2 (b00v2jvx)
School Days

Mark Radcliffe takes us back through the Top of the Pops archives to get us in the mood for going back to school. Featuring music from The Jackson 5, Alice Cooper, Busted, the cast of Grange Hill and the St Winifred's School Choir.


FRI 01:25 Gregory Porter's Popular Voices (p05d3p0d)
Series 1

Showstoppers

Gregory Porter explores 100 years of voices on the brink, those that go one note higher, turn it up to eleven and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

Starting with the world's first pop star, the legendary Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, Gregory explores the sound and work of his favourite vocal showstoppers - the genius of Ella Fitzgerald, the soul of Mahalia Jackson, the power and stagecraft of Freddie Mercury, the artistry and extravagance of Prince, and the modern melisma of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. With Dave Grohl, Beck, Adam Lambert, Wendy & Lisa.


FRI 02:25 Soul America (m000m7h1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]