B4

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

SATURDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2012

SAT 19:00 Human Planet (b00rrd7y)
Cities - Surviving the Urban Jungle

A look at the one environment that's been made by us for us - the city. Over half of the world's population now lives in the urban jungle. The city is built to keep untamed nature out - but nature can't be pushed away. From bed bugs sucking our blood at night to rats in our restaurants, many animals have adapted to a life with us.

But not all urban animals are seen as pests. In the ancient city of Fez in Morocco, the leather tanneries depend on wild pigeon droppings for their business. Even futuristic Dubai would falter without falcons. In the suburbs of Jaipur, a Bishnoi woman breastfeeds an orphaned fawn. People are starting to realise that nature is key to our continued survival. On Manhattan's rooftops there is a community of beekeepers. In Masdar, Abu Dhabi, British architect Norman Foster is creating a carbon-neutral waste-free future city. Is this the future? The human planet is starting to realise that we'll only survive if we protect nature.

SAT 20:00 Horizon (b0148vph)
2011-2012

The Core

For centuries we have dreamt of reaching the centre of the Earth. Now scientists are uncovering a bizarre and alien world that lies 4,000 miles beneath our feet, unlike anything we know on the surface. It is a planet buried within the planet we know, where storms rage within a sea of white-hot metal and a giant forest of crystals make up a metal core the size of the moon.

Horizon follows scientists who are conducting experiments to recreate this core within their own laboratories, with surprising results.

SAT 21:00 Inspector Montalbano (b01nrkwc)
The Potter's Field

As torrential rain pours down on Vigata, a plastic bag containing a body cut into pieces is found in a clay field. All the signs point to an old-fashioned Mafia killing. But why is Montalbano's trusted colleague and friend Mimi Augello suddenly irritable and short-tempered, and why is he insisting that the investigation be assigned to him? Could Mimi somehow be involved in the case?

In Italian with English subtitles.

SAT 22:50 Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss (b01nmsw7)
Actor and writer Mark Gatiss embarks on a chilling voyage through European horror cinema. From the silent nightmares of German Expressionism in the wake of World War I to lesbian vampires in 1970s Belgium, from the black-gloved killers of Italy's bloody giallo thrillers to the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, Mark reveals how Europe's turbulent 20th century forged its ground-breaking horror tradition. On a journey that spans the continent from Ostend to Slovakia, Mark explores classic filming locations and talks to the genre's leading talents, including directors Dario Argento and Guillermo del Toro.

SAT 00:20 How the Devil Got His Horns: A Diabolical Tale (b01nmt3q)
Art historian and critic Alastair Sooke reveals how the Devil's image was created by artists of the Middle Ages. He explores how, in the centuries between the birth of Christ and the Renaissance, visual interpretations of the Devil evolved, with the embodiment of evil appearing in different guises - tempter, tyrant, and rebellious angel. Alastair shows how artists used their imaginations to give form to Satan, whose description is absent from the Bible.

Exploring some of the most remarkable art in Europe, he tells the stories behind that art and examines the religious texts and thinking which inspired and influenced the artists. The result is a rich and unique picture of how art and religion have combined to define images of good and evil.

SAT 01:20 Top of the Pops (b01nmt90)
06/10/77

Noel Edmonds looks at the weekly pop chart from 1977 and introduces Smokie, Danny Mirror, Deniece Williams, Steve Gibbons Band, the Emotions, the Stranglers, Baccara, Yes, David Soul and a Legs & Co dance sequence.

SAT 01:50 Horizon (b0148vph)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SAT 02:50 Human Planet (b00rrd7y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SUNDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2012

SUN 19:00 The Golden Age of Canals (b01173hf)
Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.

Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.

Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, with help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatman Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.

There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beecheys in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.

There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.

All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.

SUN 20:00 Michael Wood: The Story of India (b007ymb0)
Spice Routes and Silk Roads

Michael Wood traces India in the days of the Roman Empire. In Kerala the spice trade opened India to the world, whilst gold and silk bazaars in the ancient city of Madurai were a delight for visiting Greek traders. From the deserts of Turkmenistan, Michael travels down the Khyber Pass to Pakistan to discover a forgotten Indian Empire that opened up the Silk Road and at Peshawar built a lost Wonder of the World.

SUN 21:00 Storyville (b01nsyzf)
JFK's Road to the White House: Primary 1960

Storyville: 'A new kind of reporting, a new form of history', Robert Drew promised John F Kennedy. He was proposing a revolutionary, small camera filming live with Kennedy day and night for nearly a week during the climax of his 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary run against Hubert Humphrey. Capturing JFK's rock-star presence, this documentary grants viewers unprecedented access into the world of a young politician and his glamorous wife as they campaigned across the Wisconsin landscape, building dramatic tension as the candidates await the ballot.

SUN 21:55 The Devil's Backbone (b0074qjn)
A young boy arrives in an isolated orphanage in Spain during the civil war of the 1930s and learns the story of Santi, a boy who has disappeared but is believed to haunt the orphanage.

In Spanish with English subtitles.

SUN 23:35 Michael Wood: The Story of India (b007ymb0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SUN 00:35 Weller at the BBC (b01nj61v)
Compilation of performances from the BBC archive spanning 35 years of Paul Weller, from the Jam to the Style Council to his solo career.

From the heady days of mod-punk trio the Jam there's In The City on TOTP, The Eton Rifles on teen pop culture show Something Else and more, up to their final single Beat Surrender.

Jazz-funk-soul collective the Style Council take over with first single Speak Like a Child on Sight & Sound and a storming Walls Come Tumbling Down on the Whistle Test.

Weller's persistently successful solo career is chronicled on Later with Jools Holland - where he's the most frequently featured artist in the show's history - with Sunflower to the Attic (from 2012's Sonik Kicks album), plus an acoustic rendition of the Jam classic That's Entertainment with Noel Gallagher.

Amongst other treats are a rarely-seen performance from the Electric Proms of Etta James's Don't Go to Strangers, where the changingman is joined onstage at the Roundhouse by Amy Winehouse.

SUN 01:35 BBC Four Sessions (b00fh55j)
Paul Weller

In an exclusive BBC4 session filmed at BBC Television Centre, Paul Weller performs numbers from his album 22 Dreams, solo hits including From the Floorboards Up and Peacock Suit, and a couple of classics from The Jam's back catalogue.

Weller performs with his regular five-piece band and is joined on some numbers by the Wired Strings and a brass section. He also has special guests, including Oasis guitarist Gem Archer on Echoes Round the Sun, fiddle player Eliza Carthy on Wild Wood and Where'er You Go and Blur guitarist Graham Coxon on Black River.

SUN 02:35 Storyville (b01nsyzf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

MONDAY 05 NOVEMBER 2012

MON 19:00 World News Today (b01nrbcr)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

MON 19:30 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b013rknf)
The Bit in the Middle

Sea adventurers Timothy Spall and his wife Shane take their barge to three different countries and the Isle of Man. From Whitehaven, where Spall learns about the pirate John Paul Jones, they steam over to Douglas to visit his son, actor Rafe Spall, who is there to work on BBC Two's The Shadow Line. Next they visit a city Tim loves dearly, Belfast, and a special pub he says is 'the finest drinking establishment in the English-speaking world'. Finally, it's across to Portpatrick and Scotland, as they clock up some serious nautical mileage in their circumnavigation of the British Isles.

MON 20:00 Nature's Microworlds (b01l2s60)
Galapagos

A visit to arguably the most famous archipelago on earth, the Galapagos. It's home to a myriad of bizarre and unique creatures endemic to these islands - but how did they get here and what is the key to these extraordinary islands that allows them to thrive? The programme reveals that this key holds not just the secret to life here, but also to how Darwin was able to leave with the ideas that would revolutionise biology.

MON 20:30 Only Connect (b01nrltn)
Series 6

Teachers vs Scribes

Three teachers encounter a trio of writers in the third of the quarter-finals, competing to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random. So join Victoria Coren if you want to know what connects Sara Lee, Brita, Wendy's and Lily O'Brien's.

MON 21:00 Nigel Slater: Life Is Sweets (p00y4hd1)
Chocolate limes, buttered brazils, sherbert dib-dabs and marshmallows. Food writer Nigel Slater charts the origins of British sweets and chocolates from medicinal, medieval boiled sweets to the chocolate bars that line the supermarket shelves today.

With adverts of the sweets everyone remembers and loves, this nostalgic, emotional and heartwarming journey transports Nigel back to his childhood by the powerful resonance of the sweets he used to buy with his pocket money. Nigel recalls the curiously small toffee that inspired him to write his memoir, the marshmallow, which he associates with his mother, and the travel sweet, which conjures up memories of his father. He marvels at the power of something as incidental as a sweet to reveal emotions, character and the past.

MON 22:00 Toast (b00wylpf)
An adaptation of Nigel Slater's bestselling memoir, Toast is the ultimate nostalgic trip through everything edible in 1960's Britain.

Nigel's mother was always a poor cook, but her chronic asthma and addiction to all things canned does not help. Nigel, on the other hand, laps up cookbooks, spending all his time gazing longingly at the delights on offer in Percy Salt's grocers. As his mother's illness worsens, so does Nigel's relationship with his father. The bolognaise he cooks is far too exotic; the uncooked Fray Bentos pie simply must be finished; and his father's rage as Nigel insists on picking every last bit of jelly off the tinned ham at the annual picnic hits an all-time high.

Just before Christmas, Nigel's mother dies, leaving Nigel and his father heartbroken. His father begins to spend his evenings at the Masonic lodge, until a new cleaner, Mrs Potter, arrives on the scene. Mrs Potter's figure, charms and lemon meringue pies quickly bewitch Nigel's father and, much to Nigel's horror, the three soon embark on a move to the country. The one silver lining in the cloud of a new school is domestic science class, through which Nigel can finally shine, and cooking soon becomes the key weapon in the battle for his dad's affections.

Ironically, the main casualty of these culinary skirmishes is Nigel's father, as his waistline grows and grows as Mrs Potter's cooking turns obsessive. When Nigel lands a job in the kitchen of his local pub, his eyes are opened to a world of opportunity, both culinarily and sexually. He soon becomes smitten with both the new owner's cooking and with her son.

When his father dies, Nigel's mind is set as he packs a bag for London and arrives at the door of The Savoy Hotel.

MON 23:30 The Late Show (b01nv852)
Special: Eric Hobsbawm - Age of Extremes

From 1994, celebrated historian Professor Eric Hobsbawm talks to Michael Ignatieff about his book Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century.

MON 00:10 Too Much, Too Young: Children of the Middle Ages (b013rknh)
Medievalist Dr Stephen Baxter takes a fresh look at the Middle Ages through the eyes of children. At a time when half the population was under eighteen he argues that, although they had to grow up quickly and take on adult responsibility early, the experience of childhood could also be richly rewarding. Focusing on the three pillars of medieval society - religion, war and work - Baxter reveals how children played a vital role in creating the medieval world.

MON 01:10 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b013rknf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

MON 01:40 Nature's Microworlds (b01l2s60)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

MON 02:10 Only Connect (b01nrltn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

MON 02:40 Nigel Slater: Life Is Sweets (p00y4hd1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2012

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01nrbcz)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

TUE 19:30 Unnatural Histories (b0122njp)
Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is the epitome of a last great wilderness under threat from modern man. It has become an international cause celebre for environmentalists as powerful agricultural and industrial interests bent on felling trees encroach ever deeper into virgin forest. But the latest evidence suggests that the Amazon is not what it seems.

As more trees are felled, the story of a far less natural Amazon is revealed - enormous man-made structures, even cities, hidden for centuries under what was believed to be untouched forest. All the time archaeologists are discovering ancient, highly fertile soils that can only have been produced by sophisticated agriculture far and wide across the Amazon basin. This startling evidence sheds new light on long-dismissed accounts from the very first conquistadors of an Amazon teeming with people and threatens to turn our whole notion of wilderness on its head. And if even the Amazon turns out to be unnatural, what then for the future of wilderness?

TUE 20:30 Britain on Film (b01nrmwp)
Series 1

A Woman's Place

In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture.

Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade in modern British history. The opening episode reveals how Look at Life reflected the radical shifts in the position of women in British society, and shows how the country adapted to the new demands and expectations of women at home and in the workplace and at play.

TUE 21:00 Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley (p00ystp0)
As part of the Food, Glorious Food season, historian Lucy Worsley journeys across England and Wales in search of Dorothy Hartley, the long-forgotten writer of what is today considered to be one of the masterpieces of food writing, Food in England, published in 1954.

Hartley, these days a lost figure and forgotten author, spent her life between the two world wars travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of a rapidly vanishing rural Britain. She had the imagination to document and record, to photograph and illustrate (she was an accomplished artist and photographer as well as writer) the ways of life and the craft skills of farmers, labourers, village craftspeople, and itinerant workers. She recorded the way they worked, the tools they used, the techniques they adopted and the food they produced and prepared.

Most of Hartley's writing is out of print and only half-remembered, but one of her published works, her magnum opus Food in England, was first published in 1954 and these days is considered to be a masterpiece on the subject of the history of what we ate.

Lucy Worsley traces the life of Dorothy Hartley (Dee to her friends) to try to discover something about the woman behind the book, what she was like, why she wrote in the way she did about the British rural landscape between the wars and why Food in England has had such a growing reputation amongst the hundreds of books published about food in Britain each year.

TUE 22:00 Timeshift (b00rm508)
Series 9

Bread: A Loaf Affair

The aptly-named Tom Baker narrates a tale of aspiration, industrialisation and plain old-fashioned snobbery in a documentary which unwraps the story of the rise of the popular loaf and how it has shaped the way we eat.

Historically, to know the colour of one's bread was to know one's place in life. For centuries, ordinary people ate brown bread that was about as easy on the teeth as a brick. Softer, refined white bread was so expensive to make that it became the preserve of the rich. Affordable white bread was the baker's holy grail - but almost as soon as it became possible to achieve, dietary experts began to trumpet the virtues of brown. Not surprisingly, the British public proved reluctant to give up their white loaves, and even a war couldn't change their eating habits.

TUE 23:00 Timeshift (b01n8hdj)
Series 12

Klezmer

Michael Grade narrates the story of klezmer, the 'original party music'. From its origins in Jewish folk music performed at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, klezmer has now gone global, played from Amsterdam to Australia to audiences who find its spirit and energy hard to resist. Timeshift explores the sounds, influences and shifting fortunes of this infectious music and shows that beneath its joyful strains lies an emotional appeal that you don't need to be Jewish to respond to.

TUE 00:00 Inspector Montalbano (b01nrkwc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]

TUE 01:50 Britain on Film (b01nrmwp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

TUE 02:20 Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley (p00ystp0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 07 NOVEMBER 2012

WED 19:00 World News Today (b01nrbd6)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

WED 19:30 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b0140vqb)
Scotch Mist

As summer comes to a close, Timothy Spall's trip around the coast of his beloved Britain reaches the halfway mark. He encounters several Scottish ports and islands, but mostly in the famous Scottish misty drizzle. Before the weather worsens he winds his way through the Scottish western islands and takes his barge Princess Matilda back to her roots by venturing up the Caledonian Canal, a short cut from the west of Scotland to the east which sets up next year's trip down the east coast and back home to London. This year Timothy and his wife Shane have travelled further than in any other of their previous six years at sea. All they need is somewhere to moor up for winter.

WED 20:00 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.

WED 20:30 Tales from the Wild Wood (b01nrn2c)
Episode 4

Spring arrives in Strawberry Cottage Wood. New life emerges and Rob Penn can shape the future of his forest. A visit to a secret woodland gives him a glimpse of how tomorrow's trees might look, whilst his own planting scheme catches the eye of the local squirrel population. He must do battle with these animals or facing losing all his saplings.

WED 21:00 Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner (p00y89tp)
Breakfast

Clarissa Dickson Wright's latest culinary adventure reveals the origins and development of our three daily meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a nation, we take them for granted, assuming that they have always existed as they are now. But unpick each of these eating rituals, trace their lineage back through a thousand years of British history and you find fascinating and surprising stories of social upheaval and shifting class structures, of technological developments and gastronomic revolutions.

The origins of breakfast are the most mysterious of all. We all understand what we mean by a 'proper breakfast', but the particulars of our first meal of the day have changed dramatically over the centuries. From the earliest records of choirboys at St Paul's breaking their night's fast with bread and ale, through the heavily-laden morning tables of Jane Austen's era and the Edwardian age to today's mass-produced packet cereals, our breakfasts have been profoundly influenced by religious strictures, ideas of social status and, of course, the opinions of those self-appointed experts who claim to know what is best for us.

Some of our historic breakfast specialities, like plover's eggs in aspic, deep fried Dover sole or, Edward VII's favourite, a hollowed-out onion filled with chicken livers, cream and brandy, are now long-forgotten. Other present-day staples were accidental inventions. The combination of bacon and eggs came into being as an unintended consequence of the medieval Church's rules on fasting during Lent. Centuries later, Dr Kellogg discovered the secret to making cornflakes only after he mistakenly left his recipe to go mouldy - and Clarissa joins in on a recreation of the original experiment that produced the very first breakfast flake.

As she charts the evolution of our morning meal across the centuries and the origins of our best-known breakfast ingredients, Clarissa uncovers a story of lost traditions, culinary discoveries and extraordinary excess.

WED 22:00 Getting On (b01nrn2h)
Series 3

Episode 4

A tough day on the ward. Kim has given up smoking and is feeling the effects, Den has a secret she's trying to hide, Pippa has a moment or two, and Hilary is out on the prowl looking for cuts. Matters come to a head with the arrival of a private patient and the search for a side ward, with Dr Kersley applying the pressure. With accommodation on the agenda Den finds herself homeless courtesy of overcrowding at Kim's, and a hapless attempt to bully a solution results in Kim having no mentor and Pippa in a rage. With a coma patient to shift and a makeshift office to dismantle, the walls are closing in on Sister Flixter. Shift ended and Kim dispatched, it's time to call in a favour from an unlikely source.

WED 22:30 The Unseen Alistair Cooke (b00cl5v2)
Marking the 2008 centenary of Alistair Cooke's birth, this documentary is a revealing portrait of one of the most celebrated broadcasters of the 20th Century, whose Radio 4 programme Letter from America spanned 58 years.

Seen for the first time are extraordinary 8mm home movies shot by Cooke from 1933 onwards, charting his discovery of America, his passions and his friendships. This is a chance to see America as Cooke first saw it - the raw material for a lifetime of journalism. Some of the most fascinating of these films were made during his close friendship with Charlie Chaplin. Thought lost for years, they show Chaplin at leisure on his yacht with Paulette Goddard and Cooke, and are among the most candid footage ever shot of the star.

Cooke's story is told in his own voice and in interviews with family and close friends. Both first wife Ruth Emerson Cooke and Jane Cooke - his wife from 1946 - share their memories, and actress Lauren Bacall also recalls their friendship.

WED 23:30 Human Planet (b00rrd7y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

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

WED 01:00 Tales from the Wild Wood (b01nrn2c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

WED 01:30 Getting On (b01nrn2h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]

WED 02:00 Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner (p00y89tp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 08 NOVEMBER 2012

THU 19:00 World News Today (b01nrbdc)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b08tg3qf)
The Story of Stuff

Sir Patrick Moore, Dr Chris Lintott and Dr Chris North find out what the universe is made of, from the 'dark matter' that shapes our galaxies to the infinitesimally small particles that make up atoms. Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel show how to use a planisphere as a guide to the night sky and what objects can be ticked off on the 'Moore Winter Marathon'.

THU 20:00 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjq6h)
Spark

Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.

Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments - a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution.

Episode one tells the story of the very first 'natural philosophers' who started to unlock the mysteries of electricity. They studied its curious link to life, built strange and powerful instruments to create it and even tamed lightning itself. It was these men who truly laid the foundations of the modern world. Electricity was without doubt a fantastical wonder. This is the story about what happened when the first real concerted effort was made to understand electricity - how we learned to create and store it, before finally creating something that enabled us to make it at will - the battery.

THU 21:00 The Year the Town Hall Shrank (b01nrnh3)
Power

Documentary series telling the story of how the city of Stoke-on-Trent struggles to cope with the impact of the largest funding cuts to local government ever imposed by central government.

The depth of the cuts forces not just the council to reconsider what they do and how they do it, but the people of Stoke to ask themselves what they expect their local authority to do for them. This is not just the story of Stoke, it is the story of us all as it goes behind the rhetoric of whether we are all in it together in this age of austerity, or whether it is right to take tough choices because we have become over-dependent on services that we can simply no longer afford.

With in-depth access to the council and its decision makers and following the human consequences of decisions taken in the town hall and Whitehall, this is a gripping and moving tale of power, competing priorities and the intimate human costs of cuts recorded over the course of a year.

With 700 jobs and £36m in spending slashed by their Stoke City Council, the cuts are beginning to bite - swimming pools, public toilets, libraries and the city farm are all being closed. But now the politicians have to answer for the decisions they have made.

The May local elections are looming. It's judgement time. Who will voters blame? Council leader Mohammed Pervez or the government who ordered the cuts? Are they about to turn their back on conventional politics and look to a new voice - the BNP? The BNP gained a foothold in Stoke in the previous local elections and are now defending more seats there than on any other council in the UK.

33-year-old unemployed dad Mickey White is new to the party and standing for the first time. His outspoken party leader is Councillor Michael Coleman, ostracised by his family for joining the far right. He claims Islam is the most immediate threat to the people of Stoke.

Stoke is the key battleground for the BNP and they choose to launch their national campaign manifesto in the city. They have to fight off a grass roots offensive from anti-fascist groups who unite to try and see off the BNP for good.

As politicians try to win heads or hearts, the human cost of the cuts plays out alongside the election.

After 30 years, Heathside House care home is closing. To make a saving of £500,000 a year, the 30 residents are to be moved out. Most of them suffer from dementia and staff worry that the distress caused by closing the home could seriously damage their health.

Their carers - along with hundreds of other council workers - don't know themselves whether they will have a job in a month's time.

THU 22:00 Nazis: A Warning from History (b0074kr5)
Fighting to the End

After the Battle of Stalingrad in the autumn of 1942 and the winter of 1943, the German people experienced nothing but disaster. So why, when the war seemed lost, did the Nazis fight on?

This programme examines why Germany had to suffer so much, and in her suffering inflict destruction on countless others. Between July 1944 and May 1945 more Germans would perish than in the previous four years of the war put together.

The film shows how fear and hatred of Bolshevism drove many Germans to fight to the bitter end. The extent to which Germany had also become a dramatically racist country also played a part. A former member of the Hitler Youth reveals why he approved of the brutal treatment of Polish forced workers in Geramny, and a former slave worker at the IG Farben concentration camp at Auschwitz tells his dramatic story.

Germans who lived in the former Eastern bloc also talk openly about the whirlwind of death and destruction unleashed by the collapse of the Nazi regime. Their stories include a dramatic eye-witness account of when more than 900 inhabitants of a German village committed suicide by drowning rather than risk facing the occupying Soviet army.

THU 22:50 Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley (p00ystp0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]

THU 23:50 Tales from the Wild Wood (b01nrn2c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Wednesday]

THU 00:20 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjq6h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

THU 01:20 The Sky at Night (b08tg3qf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THU 01:50 The Year the Town Hall Shrank (b01nrnh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRIDAY 09 NOVEMBER 2012

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01nrbdj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

FRI 19:30 Concerto at the BBC Proms (b01k83bg)
Mozart Piano

Another chance to hear a live performance from the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 23, one of his most exuberant piano works, recorded in 2006. The American pianist Richard Goode, one of today's leading interpreters of classical and Romantic music, performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Jirí Behlohlávek.

FRI 20:00 Maestro or Mephisto: The Real Georg Solti (b01nrp47)
Georg Solti was one of the most charismatic and controversial conductors of the twentieth century, one who dominated classical music for nearly fifty years through a winning, if not always endearing, combination of ambition, technique, sheer bloody-mindedness and genius. This film marks the centenary of his birth and re-examines the Solti legend and legacy, using rare archive footage and contemporary interviews with some of the biggest names in classical music.

FRI 21:00 Queens of British Pop (b00jnjfm)
Episode 1

Queens of British Pop and narrator Liza Tarbuck offer a celebration of six female pop stars, singers and icons that lit us up from the early 60s to the late 70s.

Programme one tells the story of Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Suzi Quatro, Siouxsie Sioux and Kate Bush - some of the female artists that emerged alongside some of Britain's defining musical movements, from the swinging sixties through to glam rock and punk.

The programme gives an insight into the lives of these top female artists, offering first-hand or eyewitness accounts of the highs, the lows and the obstacles they had to overcome. The selected artists have pushed boundaries, played around with gender roles and had their private lives overshadow their success, but it is their experiences that have helped change the face of British pop as we know it today.

Includes new interviews with Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Suzi Quatro, Siouxsie Sioux and contributions from Tom Jones, Lulu, Burt Bacharach, John Lydon, Martha Reeves, Nancy Sinatra, Mark Radcliffe, Henry Winkler, Marc Almond, Peter Gabriel, Claire Grogan, Jarvis Cocker, Kiki Dee, Nigel Havers, Lily Allen and Adele, to name but a few.

FRI 22:05 Songs of Sandy Denny at the Barbican (b01nrp49)
Filmed at the Barbican in London, this tribute concert to the singer-songwriter Sandy Denny spans her career with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay and as a solo artist. Her most famous song, Who Knows Where the Time Goes, has been covered by everyone from Judy Collins to Nina Simone, but when she died in 1978 aged 31, Sandy left behind a rich songbook and here an eclectic cast from the folk world and beyond set out to explore and reinterpret it.

English folk queen and Sandy contemporary Maddy Prior performs the menacing John the Gun and the courtly Fotheringay. Veteran Sandy cohorts are represented by Fotheringay and Fairport guitarist Jerry Donahue and fiddler extraordinaire Dave Swarbrick. Fine young troubadours Sam Carter and Blair Dunlop - son of Fairport's Ashley Hutchings - show the tradition is in safe hands.

With a house band featuring members of Bellowhead, the line-up also includes former Scritti Politti singer Green Gartside, Joan Wasser aka Joan as Policewoman (with a heartbreaking No More Sad Refrains), Trembling Bells singer Lavinia Blackwall and American soul singer PP Arnold (with a roof-raising Take Me Away), plus Thea Gilmore, who was asked by Sandy's estate to put some of her unset lyrics to music.

The performances on stage are interspersed with interviews and behind-the-scenes footage that shed light on how the concert came together, plus rare archive of Sandy herself. The show is evidence that, even without the magic of her singing voice, the songs still shine.

FRI 23:35 Fairport Convention: Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (b01mmw5v)
Documentary following English folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention as they celebrate their 45th anniversary in 2012. Fairport's iconic 1969 album Liege and Lief featured some of folk music's biggest names - including singer Sandy Denny, guitarist Richard Thompson and fiddler Dave Swarbrick - and was voted by Radio 2 listeners as the most influential folk album of all time. Today, having struggled for years with numerous line-up changes (26 members to date) and shifting musical fashions, these ageing folk-rockers host their annual festival in Cropredy, Oxfordshire in front of a passionate 20,000 crowd. Comedian Frank Skinner, who played the ukulele on Fairport's 2010 album Festival Bell, narrates this tale of the rise and fall - and rise again - of the original English folk-rockers.

FRI 00:35 Queens of British Pop (b00jnjfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRI 01:40 Songs of Sandy Denny at the Barbican (b01nrp49)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:05 today]

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

BBC Four Sessions 01:35 SUN (b00fh55j)

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner 21:00 WED (p00y89tp)

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner 02:00 WED (p00y89tp)

Britain on Film 20:30 TUE (b01nrmwp)

Britain on Film 01:50 TUE (b01nrmwp)

Britain's Best Drives 20:00 WED (b00j4dfr)

Britain's Best Drives 00:30 WED (b00j4dfr)

Concerto at the BBC Proms 19:30 FRI (b01k83bg)

Fairport Convention: Who Knows Where the Time Goes? 23:35 FRI (b01mmw5v)

Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley 21:00 TUE (p00ystp0)

Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley 02:20 TUE (p00ystp0)

Food in England: The Lost World of Dorothy Hartley 22:50 THU (p00ystp0)

Getting On 22:00 WED (b01nrn2h)

Getting On 01:30 WED (b01nrn2h)

Horizon 20:00 SAT (b0148vph)

Horizon 01:50 SAT (b0148vph)

Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss 22:50 SAT (b01nmsw7)

How the Devil Got His Horns: A Diabolical Tale 00:20 SAT (b01nmt3q)

Human Planet 19:00 SAT (b00rrd7y)

Human Planet 02:50 SAT (b00rrd7y)

Human Planet 23:30 WED (b00rrd7y)

Inspector Montalbano 21:00 SAT (b01nrkwc)

Inspector Montalbano 00:00 TUE (b01nrkwc)

Maestro or Mephisto: The Real Georg Solti 20:00 FRI (b01nrp47)

Michael Wood: The Story of India 20:00 SUN (b007ymb0)

Michael Wood: The Story of India 23:35 SUN (b007ymb0)

Nature's Microworlds 20:00 MON (b01l2s60)

Nature's Microworlds 01:40 MON (b01l2s60)

Nazis: A Warning from History 22:00 THU (b0074kr5)

Nigel Slater: Life Is Sweets 21:00 MON (p00y4hd1)

Nigel Slater: Life Is Sweets 02:40 MON (p00y4hd1)

Only Connect 20:30 MON (b01nrltn)

Only Connect 02:10 MON (b01nrltn)

Queens of British Pop 21:00 FRI (b00jnjfm)

Queens of British Pop 00:35 FRI (b00jnjfm)

Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity 20:00 THU (p00kjq6h)

Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity 00:20 THU (p00kjq6h)

Songs of Sandy Denny at the Barbican 22:05 FRI (b01nrp49)

Songs of Sandy Denny at the Barbican 01:40 FRI (b01nrp49)

Storyville 21:00 SUN (b01nsyzf)

Storyville 02:35 SUN (b01nsyzf)

Tales from the Wild Wood 20:30 WED (b01nrn2c)

Tales from the Wild Wood 01:00 WED (b01nrn2c)

Tales from the Wild Wood 23:50 THU (b01nrn2c)

The Devil's Backbone 21:55 SUN (b0074qjn)

The Golden Age of Canals 19:00 SUN (b01173hf)

The Late Show 23:30 MON (b01nv852)

The Sky at Night 19:30 THU (b08tg3qf)

The Sky at Night 01:20 THU (b08tg3qf)

The Unseen Alistair Cooke 22:30 WED (b00cl5v2)

The Year the Town Hall Shrank 21:00 THU (b01nrnh3)

The Year the Town Hall Shrank 01:50 THU (b01nrnh3)

Timeshift 22:00 TUE (b00rm508)

Timeshift 23:00 TUE (b01n8hdj)

Timothy Spall: Back at Sea 19:30 MON (b013rknf)

Timothy Spall: Back at Sea 01:10 MON (b013rknf)

Timothy Spall: Back at Sea 19:30 WED (b0140vqb)

Toast 22:00 MON (b00wylpf)

Too Much, Too Young: Children of the Middle Ages 00:10 MON (b013rknh)

Top of the Pops 01:20 SAT (b01nmt90)

Unnatural Histories 19:30 TUE (b0122njp)

Weller at the BBC 00:35 SUN (b01nj61v)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b01nrbcr)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b01nrbcz)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b01nrbd6)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b01nrbdc)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b01nrbdj)