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 07 MARCH 2009

SAT 19:00 Greg Dyke on Nye Bevan (b00dn9hl)
Greg Dyke takes a bus tour through the Welsh Valleys and the life of Labour politician Aneurin Bevan, pronouncing him 'one of the outstanding men of the 20th Century'.

In 1945, Bevan simultaneously launched the National Health Service and set about rebuilding a bomb-damaged Britain, in one of the most remarkable double acts a politician has ever been asked to achieve.

Dyke visits the coalmines where Bevan began to hew coal at the age of 13 and explores the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, which was the blueprint for the NHS.

He also reveals the close friendship between Bevan and the black American civil rights campaigner and world-renowned opera singer Paul Robeson.


SAT 20:00 Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Boy who Never Grew Up (b00859vg)
One of the 20th century's greatest photographers, Jacques Henri Lartigue worked in virtual obscurity until 1962, when a chance meeting revealed his work to the world. To coincide with the first ever British retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London, photographer Nick Danziger explores some of the staggering 250,000 images he took over nine decades.


SAT 20:30 James Ravilious: A World in Photographs (b0088zhx)
Alan Bennett narrates a documentary about James Ravilious, one of the great unknowns of British photography.

Son of the renowned water-colourist and engraver Eric Ravilious, he dedicated his art to a small area of north Devon, where over a period of two decades he took more than 80,000 photographs.

This collection has become one of the most comprehensive and poignant archives in the country, documenting an English world and way of life most people had thought long gone.


SAT 21:00 The Photographer, his Wife, her Lover (b0074s2c)
Paul Yule's film uncovers the private life of O Winston Link, a giant of contemporary photography whose images, made in the 1950s and depicting the last days of steam, have become icons of 20th century Americana. However, behind the veneer of success and recognition is a tragic story of deceit, lies and greed - together with an unexpected and sordid twist.


SAT 22:20 Storyville (b0074qjr)
Robert Capa - In Love and War

Profile of iconic war photographer Robert Capa, whose career spanned five epic conflicts across three continents before his untimely death at the age of 40. The film traces Endre Freidman's transformation from a young Jewish boy in Budapest to his becoming Robert Capa, the most famous war photographer in the world.


SAT 23:45 The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith (b0074rsh)
In 1950 the American photo-journalist W Eugene Smith came to Britain to cover the general election for Life Magazine, but his photographs were never published. Welsh writer and broadcast Professor Dai Smith goes in search of these lost pictures and discovers how the magazine's opposition to Attlee's radical Labour government caused them to suppress Smith's work.


SAT 00:25 The Thirties in Colour (b00cl57m)
A World Away

Four-part series using rare, private and commercial film and photographic archives to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s, a decade which erupted into colour as polychromatic photographic technology came of age and three important processes - Dufaycolour, Technicolor and Kodachrome - were patented and brought to the market.

This opening part looks at the work of socialite and amateur film-maker, Rosie Newman, who used her high society contacts to secure extraordinary access to the social elite. Between 1928 and her retirement in the 1960s, Newman criss-crossed the globe and shot some of the most important colour documentary footage of the period.

Some of her colour films have been seen before, but this programme features some of Newman's work that has never been broadcast and has not been seen publicly for over 70 years.


SAT 01:25 The Thirties in Colour (b00cp456)
Wright Around the World

Four-part series using rare, private and commercial film and photographic archives to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s, a decade which erupted into colour as polychromatic photographic technology came of age and three important processes - Dufaycolour, Technicolor and Kodachrome - were brought to the market.

Together with his younger brother Bolling, the American industrialist Harry Wright was wealthy enough to indulge his twin passions for travel and filmmaking. Both siblings collected and shot films that captured the world at a pivotal time in history.

They captured astonishing images acquired and filmed in the islands of the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, as well as South Africa, Morocco, Palestine, and several countries in Europe, including Britain. These destinations were visited during the golden age of ocean travel, when the well-off could escape the Great Depression and travel the world on luxury cruise ships.

The sea had become a playground but it would soon become a battleground, as the world lurched towards the bloodiest war in history.


SAT 02:25 The Thirties in Colour (b00csk9m)
Adventures in the Americas

Four-part series using rare, private and commercial colour film and photographs to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s.

One of the most prolific collectors of colour film in the period was the American industrialist Harry Wright. A self-made millionaire with a passion for film, he acquired and commissioned hundreds of films, which he screened for guests at the private cinema he had built in his home in Mexico City.

The programme examines Wright's extraordinary colour films of Africa and Central America, including his so-called Ethnographic Series of Unknown Mexican Indians, a unique visual record of the lives and customs of indigenous peoples living in the remote rural regions of Mexico.


SAT 03:25 The Thirties in Colour (b00cwgxk)
End of an Era

Last in the four part series using rare, private and commercial colour film and photographs to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s.

It was Golden Age for international travel, a decade when advanced transport systems allowed people to journey all over the world. Travellers with the means recorded their experiences by using the new colour film technologies. Often unintentionally, their home movies captured defining moments at a time when the nations of Europe were about to be plunged into the disaster that was the Second World War.

The final episode features colour films shot by travelling film-makers in Europe, including footage shot on the streets of Berlin decked in red swastikas at the time of the Olympic Games, rare pictures of the Jewish quarter in Warsaw just weeks before the Nazi invasion and, in London, tourists wearing gas masks amid fears of imminent bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe.



SUNDAY 08 MARCH 2009

SUN 19:00 Wine (b00j0g7v)
The Future

Documentary series about wine looks at the importance of the industry to South Africa's future and why, despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, it still hasn't decided what its identity should be.

Oupa Rangaka and Mark Solms are two unlikely wine producers. Six years ago, Oupa, a retired philosophy professor, didn't even drink wine, let alone make it. Today he and his family, including three-year-old grandson Kwena, are the only black people to own a vineyard in South Africa. Its survival depends on their ongoing relationship with Marks and Spencer and convincing the judges at London's International Wine Challenge that their pinotage passes muster.

Mark is a world-renowned neuroscientist who inherited the family business, and is struggling to reconcile his idealistic plans for the farm with the practical realities of post-apartheid South Africa.

Via the struggles of these two remarkable men, wine becomes a prism through which to view the current state of the Rainbow Nation.


SUN 20:00 Sissinghurst (b00j4bht)
Episode 5

Documentary series about the attempts of writer Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven to bring farming back into the heart of the estate and garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, their historic home which is owned by the National Trust and was moulded into its present form by Nicolson's grandmother Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson back in the 1930s.

Progress on the farm project is slow and Adam's impatience is causing unease among some of the National Trust's employees. Peter Weeden, head chef at the Paternoster Chophouse in London, is brought in to help head chef Steve. Sarah is frustrated as one of her key ideas - growing edible flowers on the vegetable plot - gets the thumbs down.

Adam continues to research his book and looks into his grandmother's famous liaison with the writer Virginia Woolf. He visits Virginia's grand-niece at her old home, Rodmell in Sussex. Adam questions the Trust as to why there is no reference to Vita's gay world in the Sissinghurst museum.

The springtime garden is full of Chelsea visitors and head gardener Alexis is trying to control the crowds. Relations between Adam and Sarah and staff on the ground are not good and Adam can't wait for it all to be over.


SUN 20:30 Sissinghurst (b00j6q8d)
Episode 6

Documentary series about the attempts of writer Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven to bring farming back into the heart of the estate and garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, their historic home which is owned by the National Trust and was moulded into its present form by Nicolson's grandmother Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson back in the 1930s.

It's May and Adam's quest to breathe new life into the Sissinghurst estate is gathering pace. The National Trust has appointed a farmer and there is good news from the vegetable plot as the first delivery of produce is ready for the restaurant. But Adam realises he has got to talk to the staff to try to ease rising tensions. He discovers he is not the only one to have a sense of belonging at Sissinghurst and begins to realise the impact the project will have on the staff on the ground. He changes his tune and starts to wonder whether he himself is becoming National Trust-ified.

Adam and Sarah take their bridge-building efforts a stage further as they lend a hand in the restaurant. Sarah's not sure about being sworn at by Steve the head chef, though.

Adam's research for his book takes him a step further in fathoming Vita and Harold's unusual relationship - in which both of them had numerous gay affairs and yet despite it all remained devoted to each other.

As mid-June and the glory of high summer arrives, it is time for the garden's star attraction to take centre stage: the White Garden comes into full bloom. This tiny garden area is now a design icon of international significance. Adam's sister Juliet reveals that there are now no fewer than 20 such White Gardens in Connecticut alone.


SUN 21:00 The Maharajas' Motor Car: The Story of Rolls-Royce in India (b00j4c2s)
Documentary telling the story of Rolls-Royce in India through the fortunes of India's princes.

Combining newly shot high-definition sequences, archive film and photographs, this film follows the princes from the zenith of British imperial power in the early 1900s through to their decline in the aftermath of independence in 1947.

Contributors include: HH Shriji Arvind Singh, the Maharana of Udaipur; Manvendra Barwani, Rana of Barwani; Pranlal Bhogilal, India's foremost Rolls-Royce collector, and Sharada Dwivedi, writer and cultural commentator.


SUN 22:00 Ford's Dagenham Dream (b00j0gnm)
Documentary which tells the story of a dream of happy families on wheels that the Ford Motor Company brought from Detroit to Dagenham, then sold to Britain.

From the 1950s onwards Ford revolutionised the cars we drove, producing dream cars for the average British family. In the 60s and 70s Ford sold dreams to boy racers too, but it came at a price. The mass production of motor cars required an army of assembly line workers who did jobs that were infamous for their soul-destroying monotony.

At its peak Dagenham was producing more than 3,000 cars every day and its most popular dream car, the Cortina, sold around five million in Britain alone. But the assembly line workers had a love-hate relationship with the cars they made and for some the dream became a nightmare.

Illustrated with powerful first person testimony and rare archive, this is the story of the rise and fall of Ford's Dagenham dream.


SUN 23:00 Mondovino (b0074szw)
Documentary about the wine business, focusing on American corporations that are taking over vineyards across Europe and the French wine lovers who oppose them.


SUN 01:10 Wine (b00j0g7v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SUN 02:10 Ford's Dagenham Dream (b00j0gnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


SUN 03:10 Sissinghurst (b00j4bht)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SUN 03:40 Sissinghurst (b00j6q8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]



MONDAY 09 MARCH 2009

MON 19:00 World News Today (b00j4c2q)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Legends (b00j0h7l)
The Andrews Sisters - Queens of the Music Machines

Profile of American close harmony singing trio the Andrews Sisters, one of best-selling female vocal groups in the history of popular music.

Collaborating with some of the great names of the swing era such as Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, they also enjoyed a long and successful recording partnership with Bing Crosby.

The film traces Patty, Maxene and LaVerne's journey from a poor Minneapolis background to international fame and includes archive footage of hits including Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. Mary Wilson of the Supremes and British burlesque group the Puppini Sisters are also featured.


MON 20:30 The Book Quiz (b00j6j6n)
Series 3

Episode 6

Kirsty Wark presents the literary panel game, as journalist and author James Delingpole and the Labour MP Diane Abbott fight it out against chick-lit author Jenny Colgan and Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Michael Gove MP.


MON 21:00 The Miners' Strike (b0078ntp)
Documentary which captures the extraordinary passions unleashed by the 1984 miners' strike and examines how it changed Britain forever. Mining villages were consumed by violence and hatred as pickets fought running battles with police and striking and working miners were locked in confrontation.

With powerful interviews, evocative archive and dramatic reconstructions, the film follows the lives of five young miners from one village through a torrid but exciting year.


MON 22:30 Storyville (b00j4c2v)
The Children's Ward

Documentary about two children who have been directly affected by wars in their respective countries.

Six-year-old Murtaza took a landmine home to play with and it blew up in his hand, a familiar story in Afghanistan where one child is killed or injured every day by unexploded munitions.

Fifteen-year-old Yagoub suffers from rheumatic heart disease, which if left untreated is life-threatening. Refugees from Sudan's 20 years of unrest, his family are unable to pay for treatment at the local hospital, giving him little more than six months to live.

This moving film follows the stories of these two resilient boys and the efforts of the remarkable Italian NGO Emergency to give them back their futures.


MON 23:30 Touring Britain (b00hw3yr)
The Victorian Way

Cultural historian David Heathcote uses his favourite old 1887 Baedeker Guide to explore modern-day Britain, discovering unexpected delights and hidden treasures which were popular with Victorian tourists but are rarely visited today.

Following in the footsteps of early American tourists who arrived off the boats in Liverpool, he takes the advice of the Guide and discovers 'the most fashionable of Welsh watering places'. The Guide then recommends a trip to the salt mines, popular with American visitors 100 years ago and, surprisingly, just as interesting today.

He then travels on to Manchester, recommended by Baedeker as a hotbed of music, politics and radical thinking and discovers that the spirit of what attracted the curious visitors 100 years ago lives on.

The journey ends in York where modern day tourists follow in the footsteps of their Victorian counterparts and enjoy the magnificent medieval city and cathedral.

As he travels, Heathcote explores the story behind the guide books that were so influential in creating the independent traveller as we know it today.


MON 00:30 Touring Britain (b00j0gss)
The Classic Motorist's Way

Cultural historian David Heathcote uses two of the earliest Shell Guides to explore modern-day Britain.

The Guides are works of art in their own right and embrace the best of modernism and a love of the wild and unexplored. They used cutting edge art and photography and beautiful poetry and prose to entice the townies out to explore Britain in their newly-acquired automobiles.

The 1930s Shell Guide to Dorset was compiled by Paul Nash, one of the leading contemporary surreal war artists, while the Guide to Cornwall was edited by the young, ambitious poet John Betjeman, who took on the job to pay for his wedding expenses.

Heathcote's journey takes him through Dorset, exploring the wild and the ancient sites in Cerne Abbas and Badbury Rings. He also visits the seaside town of Swanage, which Nash disliked because of its grotesque over-development.

In Cornwall, Betjeman recommends that visitors should go to Tintagel in bad weather when the car park is empty, advice which Heathcote follows with spectacular results. The Guide takes him to quiet corners of Cornwall, old fishing villages and breathtakingly beautiful landscapes.

As he travels, Heathcote explores the themes of development which the Guides raise. Betjeman declared that traffic had spoilt everything by the 1960s, but Heathcote discovers a different, more optimistic view of the changes in Cornwall and he is still able to delight in many of the treasures that the Shell Guides recommended.


MON 01:30 The Maharajas' Motor Car: The Story of Rolls-Royce in India (b00j4c2s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Sunday]


MON 02:25 Storyville (b00j4c2v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]


MON 03:25 Legends (b00j0h7l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2009

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00j4cw8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Coal House (b00f3d7z)
Coal House at War

Episode 5

Three Welsh families give up their 21st-century creature comforts and travel back in time to 1944 to face the hardships of life during the Second World War.

The weekend arrives, and with it, a welcome break from work. While the men go to football training, the women go to the hair salon. Just as they start to think they are adjusting to life in the Coal House, however, there are more arrivals..


TUE 20:00 All Our Working Lives (b00j4cwb)
Series 1

Cutting Coal

Coal had powered Britain's industrial rise, with her mills and furnaces, railways and steamships depending on it. In the peak years a million men laboured in the mines, many in poor and dangerous working conditions like those contributor Dick Martin found when he began as pit boy aged 14.

Miners and managers tell of the poor conditions, insecurity and technical backwardness that helped the case for nationalisation in 1947. But the new NCB over-estimated the future need for coal. After massive post-war modernistaion programme, too much coal was being brought up by too many miners, and with the cutbacks came more conflict.


TUE 21:00 My Strike (b00j4cwd)
Documentary looking at how going on strike became almost a rite of passage in earlier times, as the likes of Lord Tebbit, Greg Dyke, Peter Snow, Eddie Shah and Anne Scargill recall just what their strike meant to them.


TUE 22:00 Mad Men (b00j4cwg)
Series 2

The New Girl

Joan finds Don the perfect secretary, while Don finds himself in the middle of issues between TV comedian Jimmy and his wife Bobbie. Don and Peggy bond over each other's secrets and Joan gets engaged.


TUE 22:50 Party Animals (b007hzjt)
Series 1

Episode 5

Drama series based around the young political researchers and advisers in the corridors of Westminster. Danny tries to contact Jo while fending off calls from the press demanding a statement on the murder of a white prisoner by his Asian inmate. When Jo finally arrives at work, hungover from her party the night before, she lets slip that Kirsty and Scott left together. Danny is left wondering what really happened between them.


TUE 23:35 Party Animals (b007962j)
Series 1

Episode 6

Drama series based around the young political researchers and advisers in the corridors of Westminster.

Stephen tells Scott that he's been head-hunted to help the flagging Labour by-election campaign. Scott's flattered and heads up to Sedley to assess the candidate only to discover that he's unimpressive and uninterested in Scott's help.

James visits Ashika in Sedley as she prepares for her first big public debate. Against his advice she comes out in support of planning permission for a local mosque. Her decisive approach makes the Labour candidate, Sullivan, look out of touch.

Kirsty receives a threatening letter from an angry constituent who continues to stalk her. She's later distraught when the police inform her that he set fire to his wife's home, injuring the whole family. She flees to Danny and Scott's flat where the hostility between her and Scott is barely concealed.

When Danny confronts Jo about her excessive drinking she reacts angrily. She later relents but refuses to seek counsel elsewhere.


TUE 00:25 My Strike (b00j4cwd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


TUE 01:25 Partners in Art (b00j0h7j)
Debussy and Monet

Innovative audio-visual concert presentation by David Robertson, the BBC Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductor, at the Barbican in London.

Performances of three of Debussy's most evocative masterpieces - Prelude a L'apres Midi, Jeux and La Mer - are combined with images of impressionistic painting by Monet and Japanese wood engravings by Hokusai, allowing one art form to illuminate the other and giving us a new way of hearing and seeing.


TUE 02:55 My Strike (b00j4cwd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2009

WED 19:00 World News Today (b00j4d3b)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00j0gsq)
North Cornish Coast

Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of 50 years ago.

Richard struggles to get to grips with a retro VW camper van as he drives the coast road from St Ives to Land's End.

He learns of St Ives's 1950s abstract art heyday and meets a 95-year-old painter still at work in Porthmeor Studios. He discovers why DH Lawrence was expelled from the county, hears legends of Cornish mermaids and gets to know his van on a blustery clifftop campsite.


WED 20:00 The Car Show (b00j4d3d)
Documentary which explores the ways that cars have been presented on television in the motoring programmes that have tapped into our collective subconscious.

It looks at the classic motoring magazine shows of the 1960s and 70s like Wheelbase, which showcased some of the world's latest innovations and spawned the next generation of programming such as the original Top Gear with Angela Rippon and Noel Edmonds.

The film investigates how more recent motoring programmes changed to accommodate society's view of the car. The new Top Gear and shows such as Panic Mechanics and Stars in Fast Cars reflect a shift away from the traditional car review show towards a more topical, aspirational and spectacular viewing experience.


WED 21:00 Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's (b00j4d3g)
Episode 1

Three-part series exploring the Baroque tradition in many of its key locations. Starting in Italy and following the spread of the wildfire across Europe and beyond, art critic Waldemar Januszczak takes a tour of the best examples of Baroque to be found, and tells the best stories behind those works.

This first episode begins at St Peter's in Rome, and details the birth of the Baroque tradition as it burst forth in Italy. This programme features outstanding high definition footage of St Peter's Basilica, as well as other gems of the Italian Baroque.


WED 22:00 The Golden Door (b00j4d3j)
Rural Italy, early 1900s. Salvatore Mancuso and his family dream of a better life in the USA, and begin an arduous journey to reach and be accepted into the New World. On their boat they encounter Lucy, a mysterious Englishwoman with an interest in Salvatore.


WED 23:50 From A to B: Tales of Modern Motoring (b00j4d3l)
Over the Moon with the Cavalier

Series about the British and their cars paints a portrait of the company car driver. The veil is finally lifted from the hidden world of coathangers, alloy wheels, headlight washers, fog lamps and fake badges.


WED 00:40 Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's (b00j4d3g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


WED 01:40 Britain's Best Drives (b00j0gsq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 02:10 The Car Show (b00j4d3d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 03:10 Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's (b00j4d3g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 12 MARCH 2009

THU 19:00 World News Today (b00j4dfp)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:40 The New Avengers (b00j6wq0)
Series 2

Medium Rare

The paymaster to a team of informers dies under suspicious circumstances. Steed's investigation runs into difficulties... until a fake medium suddenly discovers that her powers are real.


THU 20:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00j4dfr)
Lake District

Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of 50 years ago.

Richard drives a sporty, convertible Triumph TR3A around some of the Lake District's most famous roads. He gets the lowdown on the area from author and resident Hunter Davies, takes on a notorious road, celebrates his birthday at one of Britain's highest pubs, and learns how climate change is affecting this delicate landscape.


THU 21:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00j6sjc)
Richard Wilson Learns to Drive

In preparation for a motor journey around Britain, Richard Wilson is put through his paces as he learns how to use a gear stick again, having driven only automatics for the past 30 years.

He drives classic cars, goes off-road, experiences the thrills and spills of the skidpan and gets a lesson in driving high performance cars from five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell.


THU 21:30 History of the Future: Cars (b00j4dfw)
Phill Jupitus looks at how we thought the car of the future was going to turn out and finds out why it didn't happen that way, focusing on the classic era of the 50s and 60s, a time when they hadn't quite yet worked out how to make cars fly and instead just made them look like they could.

In his quest to trace the dream car of his childhood, Phill visits the places where the future of motoring seemed to have arrived and learns about the visionaries who let their imaginations rove in the heroic days before marketing and 'sustainability' domesticated the car into the homogenous transports we see today.

The documentary is shot on location in Detroit's Henry Ford Museum and GM Heritage Centre, and the Science Museum in London, and has interviews with Jonathan Glancey and Sir Clive Sinclair.


THU 22:00 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j4dfy)
Me and My Car

Novelist and raconteur Michael Smith explores Britain's modern obsession with cars and driving, as well as seeking to understand the effects it has on our daily lives. Whilst travelling to all corners of the UK, he questions why we love them, what they say about us and whether there is a car out there that even a stubborn non-driver like him could one day fall in love with.

He almost finds true love in the passenger seat of a vintage Jag, but it breaks down and he is subjected to a hellish day at a car expo. Finally, it's time for him to learn to drive, or not as the case may be.


THU 22:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00j4dg0)
Series 1

Clive Anderson

Marcus Brigstocke hosts a chat show in which he invites someone to try five new cultural experiences, things they have always avoided, from playing bingo to reading Proust. Journalist and broadcaster Clive Anderson is Marcus's guest.


THU 23:00 The Car Show (b00j4d3d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Wednesday]


THU 00:00 History of the Future: Cars (b00j4dfw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


THU 00:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00j6sjc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


THU 01:00 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j4dfy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


THU 01:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00j4dg0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]


THU 02:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00j4dfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


THU 02:30 The Car Show (b00j4d3d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Wednesday]


THU 03:30 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j4dfy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]



FRIDAY 13 MARCH 2009

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00j4dx3)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 21st Century Bach (b0074q8h)
Series 1

Sonata VI

Organist John Scott Whiteley plays Bach's Three Movement Sonata VI at St Wenzel's Church, Naumburg in Germany. Filming techniques include cameras inside the instrument.


FRI 19:45 BBC Proms (b007y2h5)
2007

Handel at the Proms

From the Royal Albert Hall Aled Jones introduces a Prom featuring music by Handel performed by two leading period-instrument groups - Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. The Handelian feast includes the ceremonial Royal Fireworks music written in honour of George II, and arias and duets performed by two of Britain's leading singers, soprano Kate Royal and tenor Ian Bostridge.


FRI 21:00 Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade (b00j4dx5)
The Rough Trade story begins more than thirty years ago on 20th February 1976. Britain was in the grip of an IRA bombing campaign; a future prime minister was beginning to make her mark on a middle England in which punk was yet to run amok; and a young Cambridge graduate called Geoff Travis opened a new shop at 202 Kensington Park Road, just off Ladbroke Grove in west London. The Rough Trade shop sold obscure and challenging records by bands like American art-rockers Pere Ubu, offering an alternative to the middle-of-the-road rock music that dominated the music business.

In January 1977, when a record by Manchester punk band Buzzcocks appeared in the shop, Rough Trade found itself in the right place at the right time to make an impact far beyond that of a neighbourhood music store. When Spiral Scratch was released in 1977, the idea of putting out a single without the support of an established record company was incredible. But Rough Trade was to become the headquarters of a revolt against this corporate monopoly - it was stocking records by bands inspired by the idea that they could do it themselves.

But selling a few independent records over the counter was not going to change the world. Early independent labels had to hand over their distribution to the likes of EMI or CBS. But one man at Rough Trade challenged that monopoly. Richard Scott joined Rough Trade in 1977 and became the architect of a grand scheme that was nothing short of revolutionary: independent nationwide distribution.

The shop could now offer experimental musicians the chance to sell records nationwide and so it was inevitable that Rough Trade became a record label in its own right. In 1978 the Rough Trade label was born and by the end of the year it had released a dozen singles by an eclectic mix of post-punk artists and become not just an alternative ideological force, but genuine competitors in the commercial music world.


FRI 22:30 Rough Trade at the BBC (b00j4dx7)
Since 1978, indie label Rough Trade has been backing ground-breaking artists of every sensibility. From the post-punk girls who sound like they've been overheard singing to themselves at a bus stop, to the raw rock'n'roll of the Strokes and the Libertines, this compilation of BBC performances draws together some of the music that has made Rough Trade the institution it is.

Includes the Smiths, Robert Wyatt, Violent Femmes, Pulp and Antony and the Johnsons.


FRI 23:30 Mad Men (b00j4cwg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Tuesday]


FRI 00:20 The New Avengers (b00j6wq0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:40 on Thursday]


FRI 01:10 Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade (b00j4dx5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:40 Rough Trade at the BBC (b00j4dx7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]




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

21st Century Bach 19:30 FRI (b0074q8h)

All Our Working Lives 20:00 TUE (b00j4cwb)

BBC Proms 19:45 FRI (b007y2h5)

Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's 21:00 WED (b00j4d3g)

Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's 00:40 WED (b00j4d3g)

Baroque! - From St Peter's to St Paul's 03:10 WED (b00j4d3g)

Britain's Best Drives 19:30 WED (b00j0gsq)

Britain's Best Drives 01:40 WED (b00j0gsq)

Britain's Best Drives 20:30 THU (b00j4dfr)

Britain's Best Drives 21:00 THU (b00j6sjc)

Britain's Best Drives 00:30 THU (b00j6sjc)

Britain's Best Drives 02:00 THU (b00j4dfr)

Coal House 19:30 TUE (b00f3d7z)

Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade 21:00 FRI (b00j4dx5)

Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade 01:10 FRI (b00j4dx5)

Ford's Dagenham Dream 22:00 SUN (b00j0gnm)

Ford's Dagenham Dream 02:10 SUN (b00j0gnm)

From A to B: Tales of Modern Motoring 23:50 WED (b00j4d3l)

Greg Dyke on Nye Bevan 19:00 SAT (b00dn9hl)

History of the Future: Cars 21:30 THU (b00j4dfw)

History of the Future: Cars 00:00 THU (b00j4dfw)

I've Never Seen Star Wars 22:30 THU (b00j4dg0)

I've Never Seen Star Wars 01:30 THU (b00j4dg0)

Jacques Henri Lartigue: The Boy who Never Grew Up 20:00 SAT (b00859vg)

James Ravilious: A World in Photographs 20:30 SAT (b0088zhx)

Legends 19:30 MON (b00j0h7l)

Legends 03:25 MON (b00j0h7l)

Mad Men 22:00 TUE (b00j4cwg)

Mad Men 23:30 FRI (b00j4cwg)

Michael Smith's Drivetime 22:00 THU (b00j4dfy)

Michael Smith's Drivetime 01:00 THU (b00j4dfy)

Michael Smith's Drivetime 03:30 THU (b00j4dfy)

Mondovino 23:00 SUN (b0074szw)

My Strike 21:00 TUE (b00j4cwd)

My Strike 00:25 TUE (b00j4cwd)

My Strike 02:55 TUE (b00j4cwd)

Partners in Art 01:25 TUE (b00j0h7j)

Party Animals 22:50 TUE (b007hzjt)

Party Animals 23:35 TUE (b007962j)

Rough Trade at the BBC 22:30 FRI (b00j4dx7)

Rough Trade at the BBC 02:40 FRI (b00j4dx7)

Sissinghurst 20:00 SUN (b00j4bht)

Sissinghurst 20:30 SUN (b00j6q8d)

Sissinghurst 03:10 SUN (b00j4bht)

Sissinghurst 03:40 SUN (b00j6q8d)

Storyville 22:20 SAT (b0074qjr)

Storyville 22:30 MON (b00j4c2v)

Storyville 02:25 MON (b00j4c2v)

The Book Quiz 20:30 MON (b00j6j6n)

The Car Show 20:00 WED (b00j4d3d)

The Car Show 02:10 WED (b00j4d3d)

The Car Show 23:00 THU (b00j4d3d)

The Car Show 02:30 THU (b00j4d3d)

The Golden Door 22:00 WED (b00j4d3j)

The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith 23:45 SAT (b0074rsh)

The Maharajas' Motor Car: The Story of Rolls-Royce in India 21:00 SUN (b00j4c2s)

The Maharajas' Motor Car: The Story of Rolls-Royce in India 01:30 MON (b00j4c2s)

The Miners' Strike 21:00 MON (b0078ntp)

The New Avengers 19:40 THU (b00j6wq0)

The New Avengers 00:20 FRI (b00j6wq0)

The Photographer, his Wife, her Lover 21:00 SAT (b0074s2c)

The Thirties in Colour 00:25 SAT (b00cl57m)

The Thirties in Colour 01:25 SAT (b00cp456)

The Thirties in Colour 02:25 SAT (b00csk9m)

The Thirties in Colour 03:25 SAT (b00cwgxk)

Touring Britain 23:30 MON (b00hw3yr)

Touring Britain 00:30 MON (b00j0gss)

Wine 19:00 SUN (b00j0g7v)

Wine 01:10 SUN (b00j0g7v)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b00j4c2q)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b00j4cw8)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b00j4d3b)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b00j4dfp)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b00j4dx3)