The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.

Radio-Lists Home Now on BBC 4 Contact

RADIO-LISTS: BBC FOUR
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/



SATURDAY 29 JANUARY 2022

SAT 19:00 Wild (b008mgft)
2007-08 Shorts

Puffin Island

Every summer, thousands of Atlantic puffins congregate on Skomer Island to breed. Over the course of a summer, we follow their adventures on this enchanting island.


SAT 19:10 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
Instruments of Invasion

Sam Willis looks at the history of the castle from its first appearance with the Normans in 1066 to the longest siege on English soil at Kenilworth Castle 200 years later. The castle arrived as an instrument of invasion but soon became a weapon with which unruly barons challenged the Crown. Tintagel Castle, the place where King Arthur is said to have been conceived, is also on the itinerary. It remains one of the most evocative of castles to this day, drawing visitors from around the world with its tales of myth and legend.


SAT 20:10 Around the World in 80 Days (b007894w)
A Close Shave

Michael Palin and the crew arrive in Bombay one week behind schedule. They move quickly through India to Madras, aiming to catch a ship heading for Singapore, but only two ships are docked - one is leaving too late, and the other is not taking passengers, so Michael signs himself on as a deckhand.


SAT 21:00 Hidden Assets (p0b9nt88)
Series 1

Episode 5

While her team follow the money trail in Ireland, Emer and Christian discover the real identity of the bombers. And a very unexpected source provides the investigation with invaluable information.

In Flemish and English with English subtitles.


SAT 21:50 Hidden Assets (p0b9ntyk)
Series 1

Episode 6

Emer and Christian face a desperate race against time to stop the final bombing and uncover who was really behind the terrorist campaign. In English and Flemish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:45 Parkinson: The Interviews (b01hr5s7)
Series 1

Orson Welles

Michael Parkinson recalls a rare interview with the brilliant film-maker and actor Orson Welles.


SAT 23:25 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.


SAT 00:20 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.


SAT 01:10 Around the World in 80 Days (b007894w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:10 today]


SAT 02:05 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 today]



SUNDAY 30 JANUARY 2022

SUN 19:00 This Cultural Life (m001429b)
Series 1

Nicole Kidman

Oscar winner Nicole Kidman talks to John Wilson about the influence on her career of working with great film-makers.

Since her breakthrough in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm, Nicole Kidman has played a hugely diverse array of roles, in arthouse films like Lars Von Trier’s Dogville and blockbusters including Paddington. She discusses her long friendship with Jane Campion, who directed her in Portrait of a Lady, and the impact of working with Stanley Kubrick, who she became close to after she and her ex-husband, Tom Cruise, starred in Eyes Wide Shut.

Kidman recalls the making of Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge and Stephen Daldry's The Hours, the film for which she won the best actress Academy Award for playing Virginia Woolf. She also discusses the excitement and fear she experienced on the London stage in the plays The Blue Room and Photograph 51.


SUN 19:30 The Sound of Petula (b01pvc6y)
Series 1

Your Kind of Music

Petula Clark presents and stars in her own show from 1973, with backing singers and dancers. Petula sings songs requested by the viewers.


SUN 20:00 BBC Proms (b00m10hz)
2009

Prom 22: A Celebration of Classic MGM Film Musicals

Live from the Royal Albert Hall Clive Anderson introduces a Prom celebrating 75 years of classic MGM film musicals. Songs from unforgettable movies including The Wizard of Oz, Gigi and Singing in the Rain are performed by conductor John Wilson and his hand-picked orchestra with singing stars from the classical and musical theatre worlds.


SUN 22:05 imagine... (b09wwtxf)
Winter 2017/18

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Memories

Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over musical theatre for nearly five decades and delighted millions worldwide with hit shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love and, most recently, School of Rock the Musical.

To mark his 70th year, Lloyd Webber has written an autobiography - Unmasked, a candid and confessional account of his early life and career up to the opening of Phantom. In this imagine special, Alan Yentob talks to Andrew about the book, his bohemian childhood and the memories he has chosen to reveal.


SUN 23:35 Fern Britton Meets... (b09hzylk)
Series 9

Barbara Dickson

Fern Britton speaks to recording artist and actress Barbara Dickson. Barbara describes how, a folk singer by heart, she was restyled as a pop star but has always been cautious about the shallowness of fame. She reveals that at the height of her success she came close to breaking point, after suffering from exhaustion and anxiety. Barbara also talks about how her conversion to Catholicism helped her overcome many obstacles and how faith is a key part of her life.


SUN 00:35 ... Sings Musicals (b019jshd)
A delve into the BBC archives for an eclectic mix of performances from musicals from the 60s to the present. Featuring the likes of Ella Fitzgerald singing Mack the Knife from the Threepenny Opera, Captain Sensible performing a classic from South Pacific, Jeff Beck going down the yellow brick road of Oz, Jay Z taking on Annie, and all points in between.


SUN 01:35 This Cultural Life (m001429b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SUN 02:05 The Sound of Petula (b01pvc6y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


SUN 02:35 India: Nature's Wonderland (p02z83jc)
Episode 1

Wildlife expert Liz Bonnin, actor Freida Pinto and mountaineer Jon Gupta reveal the hidden wonders of India's surprising natural world. This is a land where the tea comes with added elephants, gibbons sing to greet the morning, tigers dance and lions roam.



MONDAY 31 JANUARY 2022

MON 19:00 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk6x)
Series 1

Shardlow to Stoke-on-Trent

Life on board a narrowboat with Robbie Cumming. Robbie tackles a propeller problem and tricky locks on the Trent and Mersey Canal in Derbyshire.


MON 19:30 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9m)
The Age of the Carpenter

In his mission to uncover the craft and engineering skills that helped to build Britain, Fred looks to the Middle Ages and the transformation of an Englishman's castle into his home.

Carpenters were the great engineers of this time, and Fred visits Stokesey Castle, the oldest moated and fortified house in England, to scale the walls and examine the technique of 'jettying' - making the bedroom a bit bigger. Fred also discovers how massive arched timber roofs were constructed.

At Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Fred explores one of the finest examples of timber-framed architecture in England and demonstrates how carpenters of the 15th and 16th century actually constructed these chocolate-box buildings. Fred's journey ends at Harvington Hall near Kidderminster, home to some of finest priest holes in the country, devised by master carpenter Nicholas Owen during the reign of Elizabeth I.


MON 20:00 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b0133hpx)
Painting the People

Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists, focusing this time on the people they painted and in particular the subjects of Degas, Caillebotte and the often forgotten Impressionist women artists. The Impressionists are famous for painting landscape but they were just as determined to paint people.

Looking closely at one of Impressionism's finest painters, Edgar Degas, Waldemar reveals how he consistently challenged traditions and strove to record real life as it appeared in the city, from sculpting the contorted movements of horses in motion at the Longchamp race course in Paris to encapsulating extravagant 3D viewpoints of the ballet dancers at the Paris Opera.

Waldemar also uncovers the intoxicating haziness the pastel produced in Degas' work when visiting his supplier Pastels de Roche. He also reveals the unusual viewpoints and dramatic perspectives of Caillebotte's paintings from the Place de L'Europe and the rebellious and revolutionary art of Morisot, Bracquemond and Cassatt, three impressive female artists who were eagerly embraced by the progressive movement of Impressionism.


MON 21:00 Eye of the Storm (m000tsfv)
Renowned landscape painter James Morrison faces his greatest challenge. His eyesight is fading fast, and he has one more painting to complete. From his studio just outside Montrose, Morrison can hear the crashing North Sea. On the wall is a drawing of Mickey Mouse that he completed when he was eight years old, at the outset of World War II.

‘My sight has deteriorated quite badly,’ Morrison admits. ‘And the very thought of coming in here and not being able to pick up a brush and do something with it really terrifies me.’ Nevertheless he has agreed to let film-maker Anthony Baxter follow him as he picks up the brushes again at the age of 85 after being sidelined by a series of operations. And while doing so, he reflects on an extraordinary artistic life.

Eye of the Storm is a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a landscape painter. It is also the poignant and universal story of a creative mind dealing with his own mortality, and the physical frailties that catch up with all of us. The film movingly intertwines Morrison’s struggle with old age, with his lively views as a much younger painter, captured in remarkable archive filmed more than 50 years ago. Pivotal moments in Morrison’s career are also brought vividly to life by Scottish animator Catriona Black. Indeed, her own journey to understand Morrison’s artistic genius, in order to do justice to it in the film, represents a story within a story in this multi-layered and visually stunning documentary.

As Morrison begins painting again, he is particularly troubled by the fact that – on doctor’s orders – he can’t paint outside. His lifelong compulsion to paint what he sees, en plein air, has taken him around the world – from Africa to Paris to Greenland.

Morrison explains that it all started in Glasgow. Son of a shipyard pipefitter, Morrison entered the famous Glasgow School of Art in 1950. While other students embraced the overtly political and abstract art then fashionable, Morrison was attracted to the landscape painters of a different era such as Claude Lorrain, Jean-François Millet and Scotland’s own Horatio McCulloch.

Morrison’s first major subjects were the crumbling Glasgow tenements, home to thousands of working-class families soon to be relocated to the outskirts of the city. Though painted without people, Morrison’s haunting paintings are memorials to a lost way of life, and would find their place in major museums. And his concern with documenting fleeting, disappearing worlds would become a recurring feature of his work.

Morrison’s work then underwent a dramatic shift when he moved to the tiny fishing village Catterline in north east Scotland in 1959. Here, Morrison effectively established what would become a famed artists’ colony, along with painter Joan Eardley. As he views archive from the time, which he has not seen in half a century, Morrison relives his artistic and personal friendship with the woman who some consider the greatest Scottish artist of the 20th century. While Eardley became beloved for her portraits of children, Morrison never painted the human figure. Instead, he focused on the skies and landscape of Angus and the Mearns that would become a distinctive feature of his work. Morrison’s quest for meaning in the landscape took him, ultimately, to the least populated part of the planet – the high arctic reaches of Canada and Greenland.

‘I had no idea what I was getting into,’ Morrison says wryly, settling into an extraordinary tale, which includes hair-raising flights over glaciers and arctic bison, and a confrontation with a polar bear, all the result of his determination to paint the vanishing arctic wilderness.

As Morrison returns to his studio to paint, there is a sense of time running out. His memory is now failing as well, and he needs to refer to a piece of paper in his pocket to remember the director’s name.

A new solo exhibition of his work in Edinburgh – his twenty-fifth – is soon to be mounted at The Scottish Gallery. Despite his worsening sight, Morrison has promised the organisers one last work.

As he shuffles through half a dozen different pairs of glasses, he expresses his frustration at not being able to focus his eyes on the canvas properly. But as he begins painting on a pristine white board, he miraculously summons up the energy of the brash young painter he once was, his brush flashing across the canvas, leaving behind great waves of lapis lazuli.

As the film – and Morrison’s own artistic journey – draws to a close, there is a final moment of poignant triumph in Edinburgh. The first case of Covid in the UK is still a few weeks away. As the artist arrives at what will be his last solo exhibition, his wheelchair guided by his daughter Judith, as he greets his great grandson and a host of admirers, Morrison learns that one of his final paintings – Dark Landscape – has already sold. James Morrison would die, a few months later, at the age of 88.


MON 22:20 Arena (b0080tp3)
Desert Island Discs

First transmitted in 1982, Arena celebrates Roy Plomley's Desert Island Discs with the help of many celebrity castaways, including Frankie Howerd, Russell Harty, Trevor Brooking, the Lord Mayor of London, Professor JK Galbraith and Arthur Askey. The special guest for the 40th anniversary programme was Paul McCartney who was also a fan of the show: 'I love its homeliness. It conjures up the best in traditional British pleasure, like the great British breakfast. It's an honour to be asked'.


MON 23:10 This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting (b01173pk)
Four hundred years of art history in 90 minutes? This film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, including artists, critics and academics, out into the countryside to take a look at how we have depicted our landscape in art, discovering how the genre carried British painting to its highest eminence and won a place in the nation's heart.

From Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad, the paintings reveal as much about the nation's past as they do the patrons and artists who created them. Famous names sit alongside lesser-known works, covering everything from the refined sensibilities of 18th-century classicism to the abstract forms of the war-torn 20th century with a bit of love, loss, rivalry and rioting thrown in.

Contributions come from a cast as diverse as the works themselves, including film-maker Nic Roeg, historian Dan Snow and novelist Will Self, who offer a refreshingly wide range of perspectives on a genre of art which we have made very much our own.


MON 00:40 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk6x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:10 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 01:40 The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution (b0133hpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:40 India: Nature's Wonderland (b06b3klq)
Episode 2

The hidden wonders of India's spectacular natural world are revealed by wildlife expert Liz Bonnin, actress Freida Pinto and mountaineer Jon Gupta.

Experience a village of birds, masks that come alive, the world's greatest mountain range and baby turtles erupting out of the sand.

This is truly a land like no other.



TUESDAY 01 FEBRUARY 2022

TUE 19:00 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk5m)
Series 1

Froghall to Bugsworth Basin

Life on England's waterways with Robbie Cumming. A low canal tunnel in Staffordshire proves a problem, and Robbie helps out a stranded boater.


TUE 19:30 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9q)
Scottish Style

Fred Dibnah is on a mission to uncover and explain the construction skills that went into the building of Britain, and in this episode he travels to Scotland to demonstrate the engineering and design skills that shaped Scottish baronial style.

At Glamis Castle, Fred demonstrates how a simple sandstone tower house was transformed 400 years ago into a great house with more than a passing resemblance to a fairy-tale castle, with the help of stonemasons from Aberdeen and plasterers from Italy.

The House of Dun near Montrose is one of the finest country houses to be designed by William Adam, and Fred gets stuck into some ornamental plasterwork at a specialist manufacturer's. But it was Adam's son Robert who made such an impact on house building that he had an architectural style named after him, and to demonstrate his achievement Fred travels to Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast.


TUE 20:00 Keeping Up Appearances (b0077kb8)
Series 2

The Candlelight Supper

Hyacinth has arranged one of her candlelight suppers, planning to impress Emmet, the director of the local amateur operatic society, with her singing. But circumstances beyond her control soon take over the proceedings.


TUE 20:30 Yes, Prime Minister (b0074qvc)
Series 1

The Smoke Screen

The health minister wants to abolish smoking using prohibitive taxation, losing the Treasury £4bn revenue. Jim sees how he can use this to stop Treasury opposition to his plans for tax cuts.


TUE 21:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007x58q)
Falling in Love

Documentary series which celebrates the birth of motorways and hails the achievements of those behind the 'road revolution'. The first episode takes us from the excitement of the building of the first motorway in Britain, the M6 Preston By-pass, to the celebration of the most complex, Spaghetti Junction.

With amazing archive and often hilarious public information films, we take a trip back to a time when not only were motorways exciting and new, but there was also no speed limit. Interviews with the engineers who designed them, the navvies who built them and the people who drove on them bring to life and celebrate an achievement that we now take so much for granted.


TUE 22:00 India's Frontier Railways (b05mp8mt)
The Last Train in Nepal

In 1927 a British civil servant drew a line on a map to define the border between their Indian empire and the kingdom of Nepal. Today, that border line is only marked by a chain of boundary stones and pillars - it's a border that is almost invisible.

This is the story of an international railway line. It runs for 20 miles from the little-known town of Janakpur in Nepal and crosses over the border to Jaynagar junction in India.

But now the last train in Nepal is under threat of closure. Starved of funds from central government, the train and the track are in a dilapidated state. Derailments are common and the engine often breaks down. Yet it's a lifeline both for the community and the railway workers - their little train is held together with determination, invention and love.

Regina is strong, independent Nepali woman, married at 12 and pregnant at 13. Deserted by her husband, she's now a single mother of two teenage boys. She makes a living as a smuggler of small household goods. But it's illegal, so even when the train is running there's always the chance of getting caught.

Aarman is a ticket collector in Janakpur station. Married with three small children, he's the sole breadwinner for an extended family and he hasn't been paid for three months. Already deeply in debt, he wanted to send his kids to school, but if the line closes he's out of job - and no job means no money.

This is the story of the last train in Nepal and the community and railway workers who struggle every day to keep their train and their hopes alive.


TUE 23:00 India's Frontier Railways (b05nhjht)
The Samjhauta Express

Freedom came to the subcontinent in August 1947. The British hastily partitioned British India before they left. Independence was attended by a million deaths and 14 million people were displaced.

Yet despite three wars, Pakistan and Indian railways have established a cross-border train, known as the Samjhauta Express - Samjhauta meaning agreement.

Amongst the passengers on the Samjhauta Express from Lahore to Delhi are Bilal and his father Abiz. Seventeen-year-old Bilal was the victim of an accident which damaged his eye. Unable to source the right treatment in Pakistan, father and son trawled the internet and finally found a suitable clinic. But it was in India. They have never stepped outside Pakistan, so they are a little nervous. Will they be successful in getting Bilal's eye treated?

Also on the train is Rahat Khan, the hockey queen. She's a Pakistan international and a railway hockey champion. She is travelling with her Pakistan girls' hockey team to play a match in India. But not everything goes to plan.

For the Sikh community, the Punjab is home. The golden temple of Amritsar is the holy of holies. But each year, on Guru Nanak's birthday, the railway runs special trains across the border to the guru's birthplace in Pakistan, despite the security concerns.


TUE 00:00 Timeshift (b0864zn9)
Series 16

Booze, Beans and Bhajis: The Story of the Corner Shop

What is it about the British and the corner shop? The corner shop has always been there for us, it's a British institution. It was on the front line of what was happening in society from the '40s to the noughties. It saved our bacon during World War II and it has become a rite of passage for new immigrants.

Journalist Babita Sharma, the daughter of shopkeepers, explores the growing and shifting fortunes of the corner shop to discover why this unsung hero has been at the centre of ordinary lives for more than 70 years. With contributions from comedian Sanjeev Singh Kholi and actor Nitin Ganatra, the film uses the shop as a way to explore the social fabric of Britain - from economic change to immigration.

The death of the corner shop has been predicted many times - but still it soldiers on. So just how has it managed to survive?


TUE 01:00 Handmade (b05tpv83)
Glass

The first episode in the Handmade series, part of BBC Four Goes Slow, is a filmed portrait of the making of a simple glass jug.

Filmed in real time and without voiceover or music, the focus is entirely on the craft process, an absorbing, repetitive process of blowing and rolling as glass designer Michael Ruh delicately teases and manipulates the molten glass into shape.

Ruh is a designer of contemporary glass objects, but the method by which he creates them is essentially ancient.

Glass is heated in a crucible until it becomes liquid. Ruh's task, shared with his assistant, is to keep the glass hot and in constant motion as he breathes into it and gradually shapes the expanding globe into the form of a jug.


TUE 01:30 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk5m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 02:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:30 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007x58q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 02 FEBRUARY 2022

WED 19:00 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bjyw)
Series 1

Marple to Huddersfield

The reality of life afloat with Robbie Cumming. A fallen tree and a leaking lock pound hamper Robbie's journey across the Pennines.


WED 19:30 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9t)
Building the Canals

Fred Dibnah's search to discover how the work of the builders and engineers of the past helped to shape Britain brings him close to his home town of Bolton, where the mid-18th century saw the building of the first canals and the arrival of the first civil engineers. He travels to Worsley in Lancashire to see where it all started - the labyrinth of 52 miles of underground waterways that carried coal from the Duke of Bridgewater's mines to the canal. Back in his garden, he shows us how the early canal engineers actually went about digging the cut for a canal and making it watertight. He takes a canal boat on the 127-mile-long Leeds-Liverpool Canal, and demonstrates the back-breaking labour and enginering skills that went into building the tunnel that takes it under the highest point on his route.


WED 20:00 Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise (b06dpmyr)
Fire and Ice

Patagonia invites you into a rarely seen South American wilderness, home to surprising creatures who survive in environments that range from the mighty Andes Mountains to Cape Horn.

Discover the secret lives of pumas and hummingbirds. Soar with condors over glacial peaks and explore monkey puzzle forests from the time of dinosaurs. Ride with extreme kayakers over raging waterfalls, and with Patagonia's cowboys - the gauchos - as they round up wild horses.


WED 21:00 Digging for Britain (b0btx2zs)
Series 7

West

Professor Alice Robert explores this year’s most exciting archaeological finds from the west of Britain. Every new discovery was filmed by the archaeologists themselves, giving us an unprecedented view of each excavation as it happens.

In this episode, we join a team as they undertake the largest maritime investigation since the Mary Rose and reveal the extraordinary story of HMS Invincible. At Silchester, archaeologists investigate a bath house that reveals how the Romans stamped their mark on Britain. A buried military camp in Hampshire shows why German soldiers were key to our security in the 18th century, and archaeologist Raksha Dave goes behind the scenes to tell the tragic tale of individuals from a 19th-century pauper’s graveyard.


WED 22:00 Storyville (m00142bh)
Misha and the Wolves

The dramatic tale of a woman whose Holocaust memoir took the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher – who turned detective – revealed an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.

In the early 1990s, Misha Defonseca began to tell friends in the Jewish community of Massachusetts of her terrible experiences as a young girl during the Holocaust. Stripped of her identity, and ‘hidden’ in the house of a Catholic family, she decided to run away, walking east across Europe, eating earthworms and insects, befriending wolves, evading the Nazis and living by her wits in search her deported parents.

On hearing this incredible account, local publisher Jane Daniel persuaded Misha to write her story as a memoir. Before the book was even written, the buzz began. The press picked up the story, and film and translation rights were being sold around the world. By the time the book was finished, Oprah’s Book Club came calling, and their involvement guaranteed an international bestseller.

Then something strange happened. Misha grew uncooperative and refused to go on the live TV show. Thus began a three-year feud between Misha and her publisher that ended in court, accused of stealing the copyright and withholding royalties. The publisher was ordered to pay damages of USD22 million. In an effort to rebuild her reputation, Jane Daniel delved deeper into Misha’s story.

A cinematic documentary about truth and lies, about history and imagination and how and why we believe the stories we’re told.


WED 23:25 Horizon (b0bhngq7)
2018

A Week without Lying - The Honesty Experiment

Deception is an integral part of human nature and it is estimated we all lie up to nine times a day. But what if we created a world in which we couldn't lie? In a radical experiment, pioneering scientists from across Europe have come together to make this happen.

Brand new technology is allowing them to rig three British people to make it impossible for them to lie undetected. Then they will be challenged to live for a whole week without telling a single lie. It is a bold social experiment to discover the role of deception in our lives - to investigate the impact lying has on our mental state and the consequences of it for our relationships, and to ask whether the world would be a better or worse place if we couldn't lie.


WED 00:25 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bjyw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 00:55 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 01:25 Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise (b06dpmyr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:25 Digging for Britain (b0btx2zs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 03 FEBRUARY 2022

THU 19:00 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk2g)
Series 1

Sowerby Bridge to Manchester

The real side of boat life with Robbie Cumming. Robbie runs aground on the Rochdale Canal - will he make it to Manchester?


THU 19:30 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9y)
Victorian Splendour

In the final programme of the series uncovering the construction and engineering skills that went into the building of Britain, Fred Dibnah indulges his personal passion for the achievements of the builders of the 19th century.

At Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, a young architect called Robert Smirke was commissioned to build a grand house that was as big and impressive as a great medieval castle. As Fred demonstrates, steam-powered machinery made this possible in a fraction of the time - if not the cost - involved originally.

Eastnor also provides an introduction to the work of architect and designer Augustus Welby Pugin, who was inspired by medieval Gothic architecture. At St Giles in Cheadle, Staffordshire, Fred examines one of Pugin's best Gothic works, achieved thanks to one of the finest teams of craftsmen that have ever been seen in the building of Britain. The building with which Pugin is most commonly associated is the Palace of Westminster, where he worked alongside fellow architect Sir Charles Barry. Fred reveals how the two men came up with a building that matched the medieval Westminster Abbey next door, as well as demonstrating how the builders overcame the challenges posed by the riverbank location.

Fred's final stop on this epic journey sees him scaling the heights again, this time inside the Westminster clock tower - the one we call Big Ben - where he reveals what makes the country's best-known clock tick to time and how the huge bell was originally constructed.


THU 20:00 Rio Bravo (m000ng80)
Holding a killer spells trouble for Sheriff Chance in a remote Texan town. The jailed man’s brother has money and men, while Chance’s few allies include an alcoholic and a shady lady.

Characterful classic western.


THU 22:15 The Searchers (m000n7c3)
Classic John Ford western. Believing the Comanche have abducted his young niece, embittered Ethan Edwards sets out to save her, accompanied by hot-headed Martin. But their long quest takes its toll.


THU 00:10 Inside Cinema (m000pz0r)
Series 1

Guilt-Free Pleasures

What’s your favourite cinematic guilty pleasure? And why the guilt? Film critic Catherine Bray hosts a celebration of trashy films spanning Showgirls to Love Actually to Cats, with narration from comedian Mae Martin.

The programme attempts to figure out why these films are so much fun to watch but also why they end up labelled ‘guilty pleasures’. We look back at the cult films so badly made that they are a total delight to watch, from godfather of bad movies Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space to Tommy Wiseau’s infamous ‘disasterpiece’ The Room to Tom Hooper’s recent adaptation of Cats. We take a trip to the midnight movie circuit to be dazzled once more by the likes of Showgirls, The Man Who Saved the World - or Turkish Star Wars as it’s often known - and cult favourite 1990: The Bronx Warriors. We question whether a film is still a true cult film if it was made with the intention of becoming a cult film, for example, the Sharknado franchise, or whether it is more authentic when a film is accidentally awful, the direct comparison being Jaws: The Revenge.

We also look at slicker, mainstream movies - rom-coms like Sleepless in Seattle and action films like the Fast and Furious franchise. Sometimes whole genres are dismissed as guilty pleasures - slasher movies, cheesy erotic dramas and gross-out comedies, for example - but if a director adds a little social commentary to the mix, then horror, comedy and eroticism become respectable, elevated even. Is that fair? Should we have to pay for our entertainment if we are being educated at the same time? Surely, there are better ways for the idea of guilt to influence our film-viewing pleasure.

As some older films start to feel outdated in their attitudes to a range of issues, including race and gender, we look at whether guilt has a more useful role to play. And in the wake of the Me Too movement, perhaps we are experiencing a kind of collective cultural guilt about just how many of the films we enjoy are the work of reprehensible people. When set against these more serious manifestations of guilt colliding with pleasure, maybe we will find that it is time to retire the concept of the traditional guilty pleasure. Maybe we can just allow ourselves to enjoy the innocently goofy films that we like, be they rom-coms, action movie or cult treasures, without placing them in a special category that suggests that we are embarrassed by our embrace of pleasure.

After all, hasn’t cinema always been a mixture of carnival sideshow entertainment and high art? People have always enjoyed sex, horror and comedy on screen, and cinema has always been able to offer both education and entertainment at the same time - that’s one of its greatest talents and why we love it, guilt-free.


THU 01:10 Canal Boat Diaries (m000bk2g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 01:40 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:10 Horizon (b0bhngq7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:25 on Wednesday]



FRIDAY 04 FEBRUARY 2022

FRI 19:00 Sounds of the Seventies (b08nb1l6)
Shorts

Labelle, Chic and Rose Royce

It does exactly what it says on the tin. Three classic slices of BBC archive served up in one bite-size package. Labelle's Lady Marmalade, Chic's Le Freak and Rose Royce's Love Don't Live Here Any More are the songs.


FRI 19:10 The Shirley Bassey Show (b00s97c2)
Series 1

Episode 5

An edition of Shirley Bassey's variety show from 1976, with guests Bobby Goldsboro and Rod McKuen, plus the Shirley Bassey Dancers and backing singers Three's a Crowd.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m00142cl)
Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as Radio Fab FM DJs Dave Nice and Mike Smash present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 2 April 1992 and featuring W.A.S.P., Soul II Soul, Chris de Burgh and Roxette.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (m00142cn)
Femi Oke and Tony Dortie presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 9 April 1992 and featuring Praga Khan, Curtis Stigers, Altern 8, Vanessa Williams, Right Said Fred, Cher, Genesis and Shakespears Sister.


FRI 21:00 The Story Of... (m00030wt)
Series 1

Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive

Documentary series uncovering the stories behind famous songs. An in-depth look at Gloria Gaynor's disco hit and, for many, the ultimate soundtrack to breakups, I Will Survive. Participants include Gloria Gaynor herself and the song's co-composer and lyricist, Dino Fekaris.


FRI 22:00 TOTP2 (b007v15w)
Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special

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

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

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


FRI 23:30 Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business (b097f4bp)
Series 1

Episode 1

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

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

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

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

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

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


FRI 00:30 Top of the Pops (m00142cl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 01:00 Top of the Pops (m00142cn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


FRI 01:30 The Shirley Bassey Show (b00s97c2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:10 today]


FRI 02:15 The Story Of... (m00030wt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]




LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)

... Sings Musicals 00:35 SUN (b019jshd)

Africa's Great Civilisations 23:25 SAT (b0b8rg4x)

Africa's Great Civilisations 00:20 SAT (b0b9tt9y)

Arena 22:20 MON (b0080tp3)

Around the World in 80 Days 20:10 SAT (b007894w)

Around the World in 80 Days 01:10 SAT (b007894w)

BBC Proms 20:00 SUN (b00m10hz)

Canal Boat Diaries 19:00 MON (m000bk6x)

Canal Boat Diaries 00:40 MON (m000bk6x)

Canal Boat Diaries 19:00 TUE (m000bk5m)

Canal Boat Diaries 01:30 TUE (m000bk5m)

Canal Boat Diaries 19:00 WED (m000bjyw)

Canal Boat Diaries 00:25 WED (m000bjyw)

Canal Boat Diaries 19:00 THU (m000bk2g)

Canal Boat Diaries 01:10 THU (m000bk2g)

Castles: Britain's Fortified History 19:10 SAT (b04t6n19)

Castles: Britain's Fortified History 02:05 SAT (b04t6n19)

Digging for Britain 21:00 WED (b0btx2zs)

Digging for Britain 02:25 WED (b0btx2zs)

Eye of the Storm 21:00 MON (m000tsfv)

Fern Britton Meets... 23:35 SUN (b09hzylk)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 19:30 MON (b0074n9m)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 01:10 MON (b0074n9m)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 19:30 TUE (b0074n9q)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 02:00 TUE (b0074n9q)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 19:30 WED (b0074n9t)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 00:55 WED (b0074n9t)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 19:30 THU (b0074n9y)

Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain 01:40 THU (b0074n9y)

Handmade 01:00 TUE (b05tpv83)

Hidden Assets 21:00 SAT (p0b9nt88)

Hidden Assets 21:50 SAT (p0b9ntyk)

Horizon 23:25 WED (b0bhngq7)

Horizon 02:10 THU (b0bhngq7)

India's Frontier Railways 22:00 TUE (b05mp8mt)

India's Frontier Railways 23:00 TUE (b05nhjht)

India: Nature's Wonderland 02:35 SUN (p02z83jc)

India: Nature's Wonderland 02:40 MON (b06b3klq)

Inside Cinema 00:10 THU (m000pz0r)

Keeping Up Appearances 20:00 TUE (b0077kb8)

Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business 23:30 FRI (b097f4bp)

Parkinson: The Interviews 22:45 SAT (b01hr5s7)

Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise 20:00 WED (b06dpmyr)

Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise 01:25 WED (b06dpmyr)

Rio Bravo 20:00 THU (m000ng80)

Sounds of the Seventies 19:00 FRI (b08nb1l6)

Storyville 22:00 WED (m00142bh)

TOTP2 22:00 FRI (b007v15w)

The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution 20:00 MON (b0133hpx)

The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution 01:40 MON (b0133hpx)

The Searchers 22:15 THU (m000n7c3)

The Secret Life of the Motorway 21:00 TUE (b007x58q)

The Secret Life of the Motorway 02:30 TUE (b007x58q)

The Shirley Bassey Show 19:10 FRI (b00s97c2)

The Shirley Bassey Show 01:30 FRI (b00s97c2)

The Sound of Petula 19:30 SUN (b01pvc6y)

The Sound of Petula 02:05 SUN (b01pvc6y)

The Story Of... 21:00 FRI (m00030wt)

The Story Of... 02:15 FRI (m00030wt)

This Cultural Life 19:00 SUN (m001429b)

This Cultural Life 01:35 SUN (m001429b)

This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting 23:10 MON (b01173pk)

Timeshift 00:00 TUE (b0864zn9)

Top of the Pops 20:00 FRI (m00142cl)

Top of the Pops 20:30 FRI (m00142cn)

Top of the Pops 00:30 FRI (m00142cl)

Top of the Pops 01:00 FRI (m00142cn)

Wild 19:00 SAT (b008mgft)

Yes, Prime Minister 20:30 TUE (b0074qvc)

imagine... 22:05 SUN (b09wwtxf)