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 25 AUGUST 2012

SAT 19:00 Natural World (b007847t)
2000-2001

Hippo Beach

Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about hippos, the most dangerous animals in Africa and also some of the most bizarre. They spend most of their life in water, but cannot swim. They eat mainly grass, but are not afraid to challenge a lion for its share of a kill. And a three-tonne bull can charge at 30 kph. Armed with foot-long tusks, hippo bulls spend most of their time defending their stretch of river and beach against other rampaging bulls. The results are titanic, action-packed battles. But hippo lives are also full of tenderness and even comedy.


SAT 19:50 Natural Neighbours (b00794w0)
Series 1

The Bears are Back in Town

One of the most popular ski resorts in the world hides a secret. Whistler in Canada is not just a magnet to thrill seekers, it is also home to black bears - the highest concentration in the world. The question is, what happens when bears and skiers collide?


SAT 20:00 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01bgpm7)
Matilda and Eleanor

In the medieval and Tudor world there was no question in people's minds about the order of God's creation - men ruled and women didn't. A king was a warrior who literally fought to win power then battled to keep it. Yet despite everything that stood in their way, a handful of extraordinary women did attempt to rule medieval and Tudor England. In this series, historian Dr Helen Castor explores seven queens who challenged male power, the fierce reactions they provoked and whether the term 'she wolves' was deserved.

Eight hundred years ago, Matilda came within a hair's breadth of being the first woman to be crowned queen of England in her own right. Castor explores how Matilda reached this point and why her bid for the throne ultimately failed. Her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine was an equally formidable woman. Despite being remembered as the queen of courtly love, in reality during her long life she divorced one king and married another, only to lead a rebellion against him. She only finally achieved the power she craved in her seventies.


SAT 21:00 Inspector Montalbano (p00x1ngz)
Turning Point

One of Montalbano's most difficult cases begins during one of his habitual morning swims, when he finds a decomposed body floating in the water. The investigation leads him to uncover the unsavoury realities of international child trafficking. In Italian with English subtitles.


SAT 22:40 The Eiger: Wall of Death (b00tlwj3)
A history of one of the world's most challenging mountains, the Eiger, and its infamous north face. The film gets to the heart of one of Europe's most notorious peaks, exploring its character and its impact on the people who climb it and live in its awesome shadow.


SAT 23:40 Horizon (b0080pj7)
Everest: Doctors in the Death Zone

Part 1

This two-part special, Horizon documentary follows an extraordinary team of climbing doctors on an expedition like no other to make scientific history and experience the ultimate in mountaineering. From their tented laboratories pitched beside ice falls in minus 25-degree temperatures, this team of doctors are the guinea pigs, experimenting on themselves.
In this hostile environment they are putting their own lives at risk in an attempt to rewrite our understanding of the human body and revolutionise the treatment of patients in intensive care. But near the summit of Everest they quickly realise that in the death zone the greatest challenge is just staying alive.


SAT 00:40 Top of the Pops (b01m43qm)
21/07/77

Dave Lee Travis looks at the weekly pop chart from 1977 and introduces John Miles, the Bay City Rollers, the Jam, Barry Biggs, Smokie, Danny Williams, the Brotherhood of Man, Alessi, the Rah Band, Queen and a Legs & Co dance sequence.


SAT 01:15 The Genius of David Bowie (b01k0y0q)
A selection of some of David Bowie's best performances from the BBC archives, which also features artists who Bowie helped along the way, such as Mott the Hoople, Lulu, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.


SAT 02:15 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01bgpm7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 03:15 Natural World (b007847t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



SUNDAY 26 AUGUST 2012

SUN 19:00 Himalaya with Michael Palin (b0074qrs)
Leaping Tigers, Naked Nagas

Michael Palin continues his Himalayan trek.

Following the Yangtze along Tiger Leaping Gorge into Yunnan in China, Palin reaches the easternmost end of the Himalayas.

He gets a medical check-up before exploring medieval Lijiang with the director of the local orchestra. Heading across Myanmar to Nagaland in India he rides the steam train to Tipong Coalmine.

In Assam he rides an elephant and then stays in a strange monastery.


SUN 20:00 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.


SUN 21:00 Brideshead Revisited (b014f32p)
Film adaptation of the novel by Evelyn Waugh. In the early spring of 1944 Charles Ryder, a disillusioned army Captain, arrives at Brideshead Castle, the new Brigade Headquarters. It is a place he knows well and he is transported back in time to 1922 and his first meeting with Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of Lord Marchmain. Charles Ryder proceeds to tell in flashback the story of his association with the castle and the doomed aristocratic Flyte family.


SUN 23:05 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
Congo

The first Europeans to penetrate the vast forests of central Africa encountered an exuberance of animals, plants and minerals. Their accounts created a sensation back in their own countries, none more so than that of the gorilla, yet has this abundance of wildlife and resources been at the expense of the region's indigenous populations?


SUN 00:05 The Joy of Country (b018jmrs)
This celebration of the history and aesthetic of country music tracks the evolution of the genre from the 1920s to the present, exploring country as both folk and pop music - a 20th century soundtrack to the lives of working-class Americans in the South, forever torn between their rural roots and a mostly urban future, between authenticity and showbiz.

Exploring many of the great stars of country from Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, director Andy Humphries's meditation on the power and pull of country blends brilliant archive and contributions from a broad cast that includes Dolly Parton, the Handsome Family, Laura Cantrell, Hank Williams III, kd lang and many more.

If you have ever wondered about the sound of a train in the distance, the keening of a pedal steel guitar, the lure of rhinestone or the blue Kentucky hills, and if you want to know why twang matters, this is the documentary for you.


SUN 01:10 Country at the BBC (b017zqwb)
Grab your partner by the hand - the BBC have raided their archive and brought to light glittering performances by country artists over the last four decades.

Star appearances include Tammy Wynette, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and, of course, Dolly Parton. All the greats have performed for the BBC at some point - on entertainment shows, in concert and at the BBC studios. Some of the rhinestones revealed are Charley Pride's Crystal Chandeliers from the Lulu Show, Emmylou Harris singing Together Again on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Billie Jo Spears's Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad from the Val Doonican Music Show.

We're brought up to date with modern country hits by kd lang, Garth Brooks, Alison Krauss and Taylor Swift, plus a special unbroadcasted performance from Later...with Jools Holland by Willie Nelson.


SUN 02:40 Himalaya with Michael Palin (b0074qrs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



MONDAY 27 AUGUST 2012

MON 19:00 The History of Safari with Richard E Grant (b00s6b8q)
Episode 1

For almost 100 years, big game hunters - from Theodore Roosevelt to the British Royal Family - came to British East Africa to bag the 'big five'. Now, luxury 'eco safaris' continue to drive its economy. It has been both East Africa's damnation and its salvation that wildlife is the greatest natural resource it possesses.

Richard E Grant - who grew up in Swaziland - examines the controversial history of the safari. Exploring the world of the big game hunters and the luxury of today's safaris, he goes on a personal journey to experience how the beauty of the bush made Africa the white man's playground.

Plotting the major landmarks in the development of the safari, Grant uncovers a world of danger, glamour and gung-ho. He reveals how the safari was continually reinvented as explorers and ivory hunters were replaced by white settlers, guns gave way to cameras and direct British rule to independence.

He discovers how safari became one of the central constructs through which British rule over East Africa was imposed, provided the social touchstone for the white settlers and was eventually transformed by the glamour of Hollywood, the power of the dollar and the traveller's desire for an 'authentic African experience'.

As someone born and raised in the privileged world of the ex-pats, Grant takes an insider's perspective on the scandals and adventures of the elite class of Brits who ran the show. He meets their descendents and delves into the rich material archives of their family homes, discovering that for the remaining whites in the region this history is still very much alive.

As the trophy hunt became an icon of high society, everyone from Ernest Hemingway to British nobility and Hollywood stars were soon clamouring for a piece of the action. And as hunters decimated Africa's wildlife, they also surprisingly introduced the first conservation laws, if only to protect the supply of animals to shoot.

Embarking on safari himself, Grant experiences the beauty and the danger of being up close to the big game animals and accompanies modern hunters on safaris, where animals are still killed and the patrons still argue that hunting equals conservation.

The film is full of frontier colonial characters whose lives, exploits and attitudes describe a very particular time in Britain's relationship to Africa and its wildlife, when the continent was part Wild West, part idyll and part colonial experiment - where life could be lived between the crack of rifles at dawn and the setting of the sun at cocktail hour, largely oblivious to the indigenous Africans themselves.

Through creative use of film and photographic archive, as well as actuality with those involved in big game hunting and luxury safaris today, the documentary evokes the spirit of decadence, exploration and adventure of the safari. Ultimately, it reveals how safari has been and continues to be a barometer of our attitudes to travel, our colonial inheritance and Africa itself.


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b01m9ty9)
Series 6

Joinees v Draughtsmen

Quiz show presented by Victoria Coren in which knowledge will only take you so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital.

Three members of Danny Wallace's Join Me campaign pit their wits against three beer lovers. They compete to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random.

Connections include:

Family planning, Nazi badge for political prisoners, England's oldest trademark and youth hostel.


MON 21:00 Growing Children (b01m9tyc)
Dyslexia

Laverne Antrobus looks into one of the most common problems for children, dyslexia, and uncovers some incredible developments in neuroscience that are showing how the dyslexic brain works. As many as one in ten are now thought to be affected by this condition. Laverne discovers that when dyslexia is combined with that crucial period of children's lives when they are first starting to learn, it can be disastrous and lead to poor self-esteem, high stress and low achievement. Laverne also learns that dyslexia is not just something that affects children when they are learning to read - it is a lifelong incurable condition that can affect many aspects of someone's life. How can someone with dyslexia cope as they start the process of entering the working world?

We live in a world of words. Almost everything we do involves reading - instructions, computers, phones, newspapers. It's a skill that is fundamental to functioning properly in today's society, and with the internet it has become ever more crucial. It has now been estimated that we see or hear over 100,000 words every day. Laverne meets Lettie, a ten-year-old girl who faces a daily battle with reading. Through an insightful interview, Laverne learns just how challenging this can make things for her. In a fascinating experiment, Laverne also uses computer animations to make her favourite book - Jane Eyre - difficult for her to read. Through this we begin to see the different way in which a dyslexic views the world.

Laverne also meets Alyce, who has just completed her GCSEs and is thinking about her future. How can dyslexia affect someone's working life? Laverne follows her through her child care course and sees how she struggles with reading to the children, but also her determination to follow her chosen career despite her dyslexia. She also accompanies her in a very emotional sequence where she is reassessed to reveal the extent of her dyslexia.

Laverne then investigates how children in the UK are taught to read and write and the reasons why dyslexics can struggle with this. Dyslexics have no problems with their eyes - so the issue with learning must lie elsewhere. Laverne visits the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge where an exciting new scan experiment is taking place. They are trying to mimic the process when children learn to read for the first time, but under laboratory conditions - to study how their brains process visual information. Here we actually see which pathways in the brain are associated with reading and which pathway causes problems for dyslexics.


MON 22:00 If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home (b0109gmn)
The Living Room

Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, looks at the room that has had more names and been through more changes than any other in the house. She tries out the communal medieval great hall, holds a candlelit tea party in a Georgian drawing room, explores the development of taste in a grand country house, discovers the wonders that gas and electric lighting brought to the Victorian parlour, and experiences leisure 1950s style. Includes interviews with historian Amanda Vickery and writer Adrian Tinniswood.


MON 23:00 The Shock of the New (b0074qfl)
Mechanical Paradise

Series on the development of modern art from 1880 to the present, presented by Robert Hughes. The first episode shows how the development of technology influenced art between 1880 and end of WWI.

Hughes discusses Cubism, a movement started by Pablo Picasso and developed by Georges Braque, in which multiple viewpoints of a subject were compressed into a single view. Hughes details how African carvings and Spanish culture had a key influence on works such as Picasso's Demoiselles D'Avignon.


MON 00:00 A Century of Fatherhood (b00szwgg)
The New Father

Three-part series which tells the story of the revolution in modern fatherhood in Britain during the last hundred years. Using intimate testimony, rare archive and the latest historical research it reveals the very important, and often misunderstood, role played by fathers.

The final episode reveals how the experience of being a father was transformed between the 1960s and the present day and looks at the lives of a fascinating cross-section of fathers from all walks of life over the past fifty years.

The modern hands-on father has a more intimate relationship with his children than the past, but the sexual revolution and feminism has also made fathers more insecure than ever before. Modern divorce laws have excluded fathers from family life and from the access they want to their children. The anguish felt by many dads was expressed in the Fathers 4 Justice protest movement.


MON 01:00 Only Connect (b01m9ty9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


MON 01:30 Growing Children (b01m9tyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


MON 02:30 The History of Safari with Richard E Grant (b00s6b8q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]



TUESDAY 28 AUGUST 2012

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01m9p8c)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00xxr3w)
Series 2

York to Saltaire

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. He travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains, as his journey follows some of the earliest railways in the country from Newcastle to Melton Mowbray.

Michael takes a Turkish bath in the famous spa town of Harrogate, explores the exemplary Victorian village of Saltaire, and rubs noses with some friendly alpacas, whose fleeces made fortunes in Bradshaw's day.


TUE 20:00 The Last Explorers (b017zqnn)
John Muir

Neil Oliver follows in the footsteps of four Scottish explorers who planted ideas rather than flags - ideas that shaped the modern world we know today.

Set in the spectacular Yosemite Valley in California, this is the story of the father of the modern conservation movement and one of the founders of America's National Park movement. John Muir was a 19th-century adventurer who explored the natural world and devoted his life and work to persuade others to see the sacred beauty of his discoveries.


TUE 21:00 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01bs7jq)
Frozen in Time

It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct and there have been times when life's hold on Earth has been so precarious it seems it hangs on by a thread.

This series focuses on the survivors - the old-timers - whose biographies stretch back millions of years and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of its neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not forever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies? Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events.

In episode three, Fortey looks at the ice age. 2.8 million years ago - triggered by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and shifts in its ocean currents - the world began to cool. Within a few thousand years much of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloak of ice that would come and go until only 10,000 years ago. We call this age of ice - the Pleistocene Age - and it transformed the hierarchy of nature. This is the story of how a few specialist species that evolved to live in the biting cold survived into the present day.


TUE 22:00 The Horizon Guide to Mars (b00p1crx)
The intriguing possibility of life on Mars has fuelled man's quest to visit the Red Planet. Drawing on 45 years of Horizon archive, space expert Dr Kevin Fong presents a documentary on Earth's near neighbour.

Man's extraordinary attempts to reach Mars have pushed technological boundaries past their limit and raised the tantalising prospect of establishing human colonies beyond our own planet.

While the moon lies 240,000 miles away, Mars is at a distance of 50 million miles. Reaching the moon takes three days, but to land on Mars would take nearly eight months, and only two thirds of the missions to Mars have made it. The BBC has been analysing the highs and lows throughout - including the ill-fated British attempt, the Beagle.

Horizon has explored how scientists believe the only way to truly understand Mars is to send people there. If and when we do, it will be the most challenging trip humanity has ever undertaken.


TUE 23:00 Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies (b01m81f5)
Military Marvels

In the heady postwar years of the 1950s and 60s, British flying was at its zenith and its aircraft industry flourished in a dazzling display of ingenuity and design brilliance. Having invented the jet engine, Britain was now set to lead the world into the jet age with a new generation of fighters and bombers. The daring test pilots who flew them were as well known as the football stars of today, while their futuristic-looking aircraft, including the Meteor, Canberra, Valiant, Vulcan and the English Electric Lightning, were the military marvels of the age.


TUE 00:00 Inspector Montalbano (p00x1ngz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


TUE 01:40 Great British Railway Journeys (b00xxr3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:10 The Last Explorers (b017zqnn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 03:10 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01bs7jq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 29 AUGUST 2012

WED 19:00 World News Today (b01m9p8l)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Top of the Pops (b01mfhr1)
28/07/77

Noel Edmonds looks at the weekly pop chart from 1977 and introduces Steve Gibbons Band, Showaddywaddy, Dana, Thin Lizzy, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Boney M, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rita Coolidge and a Legs & Co dance sequence.


WED 20:00 Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields (b007qjfb)
20th Century Battlefields

1942 Stalingrad

Peter and Dan Snow describe battles that transformed the 20th century, here telling the story of one of the most epic battles of World War II. With cutting-edge graphics, Peter describes how the tactics of Hitler and Stalin resulted in tragedy on both sides. Whilst Soviet citizens held on for life in the shattered city, Hitler's army froze to death in the countryside.

They film inside the infamous tractor factory, where Dan recounts one of the vicious clashes that flared up in the battle. And on a training exercise, experts from the British Army teach them how snipers would have operated around the city.


WED 21:00 Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies (b01m9vjl)
The Shape of Things to Come

In the heady years following World War II, Britain was a nation in love with aviation. Having developed the jet engine in wartime, British engineers were now harnessing its power to propel the world's first passenger jets. By 1960 the UK's passenger airline industry was the largest in the world, with routes stretching to the furthest-flung remnants of Empire.

And the aircraft carrying these New Elizabethans around the globe were also British - the Vickers Viscount, the Bristol Britannia and the world's first pure jet-liner, the sleek, silver De Havilland Comet, which could fly twice as high and twice as fast as its American competitors. It seemed the entire nation was reaching for the skies to create the shape of things to come for air travel worldwide. But would their reach exceed their grasp?


WED 22:00 Bomb Squad Men: The Long Walk (b01fcnh7)
Three former bomb disposal officers who served at the height of the Northern Ireland conflict, return for the first time in 30 years
to revisit the defining moments of their careers, and the moments when they almost lost their lives.


WED 23:00 Natural World (b007847t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


WED 23:50 100 Years of Wildlife Films (b007xnvt)
From the most memorable wildlife films and rare cinematic gems, to amateur footage and the poignant last shots of vanished animals, Bill Oddie explores 100 years of wildlife filming. The documentary looks at how societal attitudes towards wildlife have shaped film-making - from hunting and safaris in the 1930s to a fresh-faced David Attenborough leaping on to animals to catch them for zoos in the 1950s.


WED 01:50 Growing Children (b01m9tyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


WED 02:50 Top of the Pops (b01mfhr1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 03:20 Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies (b01m9vjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 30 AUGUST 2012

THU 19:00 World News Today (b01m9p8r)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 BBC Proms (b01mfhs8)
2012

Wagner and Strauss

One of the great youth orchestras returns to the Proms, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra conducted by Daniele Gatti. The concert opens with a prelude from Wagner's Parsifal and is followed by a trailblazing concerto from 20th-century Vienna, Alban Berg's Violin Concerto with soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann. Vienna is the setting for a bittersweet tale of young love and middle aged melancholy in the Rosenkavalier Suite by Richard Strauss and the concert concludes with French composer Maurice Ravel's take on the Viennese waltz in his explosive La valse. Introduced by Samira Ahmed.


THU 21:20 Pugin: God's Own Architect (b01b1z45)
Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin is far from being a household name, yet he designed the iconic clock tower of Big Ben as well as much of the Palace of Westminster. The 19th-century Gothic revival that Pugin inspired, with its medieval influences and soaring church spires, established an image of Britain which still defines the nation. Richard Taylor charts Pugin's extraordinary life story and discovers how his work continues to influence Britain today.


THU 22:20 Modern Times (b0077dzt)
The Shrine

First transmitted in 1997, this documentary traces how the shrine dedicated to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, came to be erected in the middle of Kensington Palace Gardens during the aftermath of her death. It explores how the shrine became a central symbolic hub to facilitate an outpouring of national grief and follows members of the British public who have made pilgrimage visits to the site as a way of expressing their grief and paying homage to the late princess.


THU 23:35 Only Connect (b01m9ty9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


THU 00:05 The History of Safari with Richard E Grant (b00s6b8q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


THU 01:35 Pugin: God's Own Architect (b01b1z45)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:20 today]


THU 02:35 Modern Times (b0077dzt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:20 today]



FRIDAY 31 AUGUST 2012

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01m9p8z)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b01mf8br)
2012

Elgar's First Symphony

From the Royal Albert Hall, Samira Ahmed introduces an English symphonic masterpiece and a hauntingly beautiful choral work. Herbert Howells's Hymnus Paradisi is a personal memorial, written after the tragic death of his nine-year-old son. Following this intensely emotional work comes a proms favourite, Edward Elgar's First Symphony, the composition that heralded his arrival as a great British symphonist. Performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Martyn Brabbins.


FRI 21:30 imagine... (b01kkn74)
Summer 2012

Paul Simon's Graceland - Under African Skies

Paul Simon's Graceland album is one of his greatest achievements - a brilliant fusion of African rhythms and western pop which became a global phenomenon. It also proved hugely controversial, as Simon broke the UN-backed cultural boycott of a country still under the grip of apartheid.

Joe Berlinger's film captures Simon's return to South Africa 25 years on and contrasts the value of individual artistic expression versus collective political action as instruments of change. Did Paul Simon's unique collaboration with South Africa's township musicians set back the clock of South African liberation or drive it forward?


FRI 23:00 Paul Simon - Live from Webster Hall, New York (b01b35ks)
In June 2011, Paul Simon ended his So Beautiful or So What tour of small clubs and theatres in the United States by playing Webster Hall, a historic 1,400-person club in New York.

The set list was drawn from his legendary career and includes several songs that have not been performed live in many years. Kodachrome, Mother and Child Reunion, Gone at Last and The Obvious Child are just some of the highlights, along with songs from Simon's latest album So Beautiful or So What including Dazzling Blue, Rewrite, The Afterlife and the album's propulsive title track.

Joining Simon on stage are Vincent Nguini (guitar), Jim Oblon (guitar, drums), Mick Rossi (piano), Andrew Snitzer (saxophone, keyboard), Bakithi Kumalo (bass), Mark Stewart (guitar), Jamey Hadad (percussion) and Tony Cedras (multi-instrumentalist).


FRI 00:00 BBC One Sessions (b007cj5l)
Paul Simon

The legendary American singer-songwriter with his six-piece band in an intimate concert from LSO St Luke's in London's Shoreditch. Simon plays songs from throughout his solo career and his 60s heyday with Simon and Garfunkel including You Can Call Me Al, The Only Living Boy in New York, The Boxer and Still Crazy After All These Years, alongside songs from his gold-selling album, Surprise. The band sing jawdropping harmonies, play everything from penny whistle to baritone sax and accordion while Simon sings, plays guitar and conducts the band in front of 250 fans.


FRI 00:50 imagine... (b01kkn74)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:30 today]


FRI 02:20 Paul Simon - Live from Webster Hall, New York (b01b35ks)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 today]


FRI 03:25 BBC One Sessions (b007cj5l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 00:00 today]




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

100 Years of Wildlife Films 23:50 WED (b007xnvt)

A Century of Fatherhood 00:00 MON (b00szwgg)

BBC One Sessions 00:00 FRI (b007cj5l)

BBC One Sessions 03:25 FRI (b007cj5l)

BBC Proms 19:30 THU (b01mfhs8)

BBC Proms 19:30 FRI (b01mf8br)

Bomb Squad Men: The Long Walk 22:00 WED (b01fcnh7)

Brideshead Revisited 21:00 SUN (b014f32p)

Country at the BBC 01:10 SUN (b017zqwb)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 TUE (b00xxr3w)

Great British Railway Journeys 01:40 TUE (b00xxr3w)

Growing Children 21:00 MON (b01m9tyc)

Growing Children 01:30 MON (b01m9tyc)

Growing Children 01:50 WED (b01m9tyc)

Himalaya with Michael Palin 19:00 SUN (b0074qrs)

Himalaya with Michael Palin 02:40 SUN (b0074qrs)

Horizon 23:40 SAT (b0080pj7)

If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home 22:00 MON (b0109gmn)

Inspector Montalbano 21:00 SAT (p00x1ngz)

Inspector Montalbano 00:00 TUE (p00x1ngz)

Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies 23:00 TUE (b01m81f5)

Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies 21:00 WED (b01m9vjl)

Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies 03:20 WED (b01m9vjl)

Modern Times 22:20 THU (b0077dzt)

Modern Times 02:35 THU (b0077dzt)

Natural Neighbours 19:50 SAT (b00794w0)

Natural World 19:00 SAT (b007847t)

Natural World 03:15 SAT (b007847t)

Natural World 23:00 WED (b007847t)

Only Connect 20:30 MON (b01m9ty9)

Only Connect 01:00 MON (b01m9ty9)

Only Connect 23:35 THU (b01m9ty9)

Paul Simon - Live from Webster Hall, New York 23:00 FRI (b01b35ks)

Paul Simon - Live from Webster Hall, New York 02:20 FRI (b01b35ks)

Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields 20:00 WED (b007qjfb)

Pugin: God's Own Architect 21:20 THU (b01b1z45)

Pugin: God's Own Architect 01:35 THU (b01b1z45)

She-Wolves: England's Early Queens 20:00 SAT (b01bgpm7)

She-Wolves: England's Early Queens 02:15 SAT (b01bgpm7)

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures 21:00 TUE (b01bs7jq)

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures 03:10 TUE (b01bs7jq)

The Eiger: Wall of Death 22:40 SAT (b00tlwj3)

The Genius of David Bowie 01:15 SAT (b01k0y0q)

The History of Safari with Richard E Grant 19:00 MON (b00s6b8q)

The History of Safari with Richard E Grant 02:30 MON (b00s6b8q)

The History of Safari with Richard E Grant 00:05 THU (b00s6b8q)

The Horizon Guide to Mars 22:00 TUE (b00p1crx)

The Joy of Country 00:05 SUN (b018jmrs)

The Last Explorers 20:00 TUE (b017zqnn)

The Last Explorers 02:10 TUE (b017zqnn)

The Shock of the New 23:00 MON (b0074qfl)

The Thirties in Colour 20:00 SUN (b00cl57m)

Top of the Pops 00:40 SAT (b01m43qm)

Top of the Pops 19:30 WED (b01mfhr1)

Top of the Pops 02:50 WED (b01mfhr1)

Wilderness Explored 23:05 SUN (b00f3p40)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b01m9p8c)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b01m9p8l)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b01m9p8r)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b01m9p8z)

imagine... 21:30 FRI (b01kkn74)

imagine... 00:50 FRI (b01kkn74)