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 12 JANUARY 2013

SAT 19:00 Lost Land of the Tiger (b00ty6bd)
Episode 2

The second part of the BBC Natural History Unit's wildlife adventure series following an expedition to search for tigers in the Himalayas.

The team strikes out from base camp to track down tigers throughout Bhutan. Kayaker Steve Backshall heads to the eastern jungles and is pushed to the absolute limit when he takes on a mighty white-water river. Big cat cameraman Gordon Buchanan deploys remote cameras far and wide, and he uses a clever fingerprinting technique to identify individual tigers from their unique stripe patterns.

Meanwhile, biologist Dr George McGavin is on a mission to India, where he finally comes face to face with the king of the jungle.

We follow the expedition every emotional step of the way as they strive to find evidence that could help to bring wild tigers back from the brink of extinction and safeguard their future.


SAT 20:00 A History of Art in Three Colours (b01lcz2s)
Blue

Dr James Fox explores how, in the hands of artists, the colours gold, blue and white have stirred emotions, changed behaviour and even altered the course of history.

When, in the Middle Ages, the precious blue stone lapis lazuli arrived in Europe from the east, blue became the most exotic and mysterious of colours. And it was artists who used it to offer us tantalising glimpses of other worlds beyond our own.


SAT 21:00 Borgen (b01pznyh)
Series 2

The Last Worker

Birgitte's government prepares to present a new welfare reform package called A Common Future, which is being polished at a political seminar. But there is unrest in the Labour Party when their leader Bjorn Marrot comes under personal attack in the media. Birgitte senses a rebellion brewing. Meanwhile, the pressure grows on the home front when Phillip announces he has a new girlfriend. Katrine covers the political seminar for Express, whose editor, Laugesen, has his own agenda.

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:00 Borgen (b01pznyk)
Series 2

Battle Ready

When pirates hijack a Danish ship off the coast of Somalia, Birgitte's coalition partner Hoxenhaven diverts attention from her when she so badly needs a success story. When compromising photos of Hoxenhaven turn up at the Express, the newspaper's editor Laugesen wants to use them against Hoxenhaven, but Katrine is sceptical. Brigitte's private life hangs in tatters and she makes a mistake that threatens her career.

In Danish with English subtitles.


SAT 23:00 Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10 (b01nwfxs)
Documentary chronicling our ever-changing love affair with the British singles chart on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary. From the first NME chart in 1952, via Pick and Top of the Pops to home-taping the Radio One chart show and beyond, we have measured out our lives to a wonderful churn of pop driven, unbeknownst to us, by a clandestine world of music biz hustle. Featuring contributions by 60 years of BBC chart custodians from David Jacobs to Reggie Yates, chart fans Grace Dent and Pete Paphides and music biz veterans Jon Webster and Rob Dickins.


SAT 00:30 Ultimate Number Ones (b01nwfxv)
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UK chart, from the vaults of the BBC archive comes a selection of hits that attained the toppermost of the poppermost prize and made it to number one in the hit parade. From across the decades, we applaud the most coveted of all chart positions with smash hits and classics from The Bee Gees, T. Rex, Donna Summer, John Lennon, Culture Club, The Spice Girls, James Blunt, Rihanna, Adele and many more.


SAT 01:30 The Joy of the Single (b01nzchs)
Do you remember buying your first single? Where you bought it? What it was? The thrill of playing it for the first time? What it sounded like? How it maybe changed your life? Lots of us do. Lots of us still have that single somewhere in a dusty box in the attic, along with other treasured memorabilia of an adolescence lost in music and romance. The attic of our youth.

The Joy of the Single is a documentary packed with startling memories, vivid images and penetrating insights into the power of pop and rock's first and most abiding artefact - the seven-inch, vinyl 45-rpm record, a small, perfectly formed object that seems to miraculously contain the hopes, fears, sounds and experiences of our different generations - all within the spiralling groove etched on its shiny black surface, labelled and gift-wrapped by an industry also in its thrall.

In the confident hands of a star-studded cast, the film spins a tale of obsession, addiction, dedication and desire. The viewer is invited on a journey of celebration from the 1950s rock 'n' roll generation to the download kids of today, taking in classic singles from all manner of artists in each decade - from the smell of vinyl to the delights of the record label, from the importance of the record shop to the bittersweet brevity of the song itself, from stacking singles on a Dansette spindle to dropping the needle and thrilling to the intro.

Featuring contributions from Noddy Holder, Jack White, Richard Hawley, Suzi Quatro, Holly Johnson, Jimmy Webb, Pete Waterman, Norah Jones, Mike Batt, Graham Gouldman, Miranda Sawyer, Norman Cook, Trevor Horn, Neil Sedaka, Paul Morley, Rob Davies, Lavinia Greenlaw, Brian Wilson and Mike Love.


SAT 02:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01gymg9)
Reggae - Stir it Up

By the start of the 70s, the Windrush generation of immigrants who came to the UK from the Caribbean and West Indies were an established part of the British population and their influence and culture permeated UK society.

This second programme rejoices and revels in the reggae music exported from Jamaica and the home-grown reggae-influenced sounds that sprouted from the cities of England. Reggae's dominance of the UK charts is celebrated with performances from Ken Boothe, Dave and Ansel Collins, Steel Pulse, Althea and Donna, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Janet Kay, Susan Cadogan and The Specials.


SAT 03:00 A History of Art in Three Colours (b01lcz2s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



SUNDAY 13 JANUARY 2013

SUN 19:00 The Sky at Night (b01pzyjp)
The Outer Planets

A look back at a Sky at Night episode from 1975. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all on view. Each has its own special points of interest and Patrick Moore talks about these remote members of the Sun's family.


SUN 19:15 The Sky at Night (b01pzyjr)
The Unfolding Universe

A look back at a special programme marking the 25th anniversary of The Sky at Night. Patrick Moore reports on what is happening at great observatories all over the world.


SUN 20:00 The Sky at Night (b00p1crz)
Exploring Mars

For centuries, astronomers, writers and philosophers have speculated about life on the planet Mars, but we have learned more about our near neighbour in the last 30 years than at any time in human history. Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott explore the Red Planet.


SUN 20:30 Sir Patrick Moore: Astronomer, Broadcaster and Eccentric (b01psbjf)
A look back at the extraordinary life of Sir Patrick Moore, focusing on his work as an astronomer and broadcaster. His keen interest in the night sky inspired generations. With contributions from Brian May, Sir Tim Rice and Heather Couper.


SUN 21:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b01pz88g)
Sir Patrick Moore

Mark Lawson talks to the astronomer and English eccentric Sir Patrick Moore about his early life, career and the future of space exploration in an interview that was recorded in 2007. The late Sir Patrick presented the BBC programme The Sky at Night for over 50 years, making him the longest-running host of the same television show ever. He presented the first edition of the programme on 24th April 1957 and last appeared in an episode broadcast in late 2012.


SUN 22:00 Leaving (b0163067)
Drama in which a bourgeois housewife, planning to go back to work as a physiotherapist after having devoted 20 years to her husband and two kids, has her comfortable, elegant life turned upside down when she falls for a Spanish builder and begins a runaway affair.

In French with English subtitles.


SUN 23:20 Shirley Bassey at the BBC (b01psct4)
Forever sequinned, stylish and sassy, Dame Shirley Bassey, one of Britain's all-time great voices, turned 76 in January 2013.

She began her rise to fame as a 16-year-old singer in 1953 and 60 years on she is still going as strong as ever. Join us as we celebrate Dame Shirley's birthday and her remarkable career, taking a trip down memory lane to uncover some of her finest performances from the vaults of the BBC.

From early BBC appearances on Show of the Week, The Shirley Bassey Show, via the Royal Albert Hall, Glastonbury 2007 and right up to her recent jaw dropping show at the Electric Proms. This is a compilation of some of Dame Shirley's classic performances, taking in iconic songs such as The Performance of My Life, Goldfinger, Big Spender and Diamonds Are Forever.

Producer: Sam Bridger


SUN 00:20 imagine... (b00p36t8)
Winter 2009

Dame Shirley Bassey - The Girl from Tiger Bay

Alan Yentob gains an insight into the creative world of Dame Shirley Bassey in a programme first shown in 2009. After a triumphant Glastonbury appearance and a major illness at the age of 72, Dame Shirley tentatively re-enters the ring to confront her life in song.

Some of the best contemporary songwriters, including Gary Barlow, the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Hawley and KT Tunstall, along with James Bond composer John Barry and lyricist Don Black, have interpreted her life through song for an album produced by David Arnold.

The songs frame and explore the myth of Shirley Bassey, the girl from Tiger Bay, and the voice and the desire are not found wanting. A backstory profiling Shirley, complete with archive of her greatest performances, tells the story of what makes her the living legend that she is today.


SUN 01:20 Legends (b0074t24)
Petula Clark - Blue Lady

A revealing look at the long and remarkable career of Petula Clark, best known for her classic 1960s hit Downtown. This documentary traces her many reinventions - from child star to 50s film star, through to her later starring roles in the West End and Broadway. Arguing that there's more to her than just another 60s beat girl, the film reveals a restlessly creative artist with a tenacious capacity for reinvention, including lost masterpieces such as her unpublished country album Blue Lady.


SUN 02:20 The Sound of Petula (b01pvc6y)
Series 1

Your Kind of Music

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


SUN 02:50 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b01pz88g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



MONDAY 14 JANUARY 2013

MON 19:00 World News Today (b01pwmx1)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qbnj1)
Series 1

Truro to Penzance

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, he travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

His journey takes him along the Brunel's Great Western Railway from Swindon to Penzance. This time, Michael searches for the lost church of St Piran, explores the last working tin mine in Cornwall and harvests oysters on the Helford River.


MON 20:00 Art Deco Icons (b00npm4g)
London Transport

David Heathcote explores the dramatic 1930s London Transport HQ in St James's, London. When it was built in the1930s, it was the highest skyscraper in London. Heathcote goes behind the scenes and uncovers the story of a building so controversial that Frank Pick, who commissioned it, offered to resign from the London Underground Company, because there were so many complaints about its ambitious design.

The HQ became the nerve centre for an Art Deco transformation of the underground which remains today. David Heathcote ventures out on the Piccadilly Line to Southgate to investigate. For many, it is just the scene of a crowded journey to work, but Heathcote discovers a perfect example of a co-ordinated Deco look. The sleek tube station uses streamlined features, soft uplighting and chrome to create a glamorous overall effect. It may be lost on the commuters on their way to work, but for Heathcote it is a moment to stand back and enjoy the marvel that was Art Deco.


MON 20:30 Only Connect (b01pwtqw)
Specials

Special: Eggheads vs Davids

Victoria Coren hosts the series where, as in life itself, knowledge will only take you so far; patience and lateral thinking are also vital.

In a special edition of the show, three Eggheads take on three champion captains, all called David. They compete 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 Apollo 12, Pan Am Flight 214, Lee Trevino and York Minster.


MON 21:00 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01pwtqy)
People of the Clouds

Archaeologist Dr Jago Cooper embarks on an epic journey into the remote Peruvian Andes in search of the mysterious Chachapoya people. Once numbering half a million, they were known as the 'People of the Clouds'. Dr Cooper reveals how they developed sophisticated methods of recording stories, traded in exotic goods found hundreds of miles from their territory, and had funeral traditions that challenge assumptions about ancient human behaviour. His search for evidence takes him to astonishing cliff tombs untouched for 500 years and one of the most spectacular fortresses in South America, where the fate of the Chachapoya is revealed.


MON 22:00 Storyville (b01pzz69)
The House I Live In

Storyville: As America remains embroiled in overseas conflict, a less visible war is taking place at home, costing countless lives, destroying families and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. For over forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for all that, drugs are more available today than ever before.

Filmed in more than twenty states, this film captures a definitive and heart-wrenching portrait of individuals at all levels of America's War on Drugs. From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America's longest war, revealing its profound human rights implications.

While recognising the seriousness of drug abuse as a matter of public health, the film investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have instead treated it as a matter for law enforcement, creating a vast political and economic machine that feeds largely on America's poor, especially minority communities. Yet beyond simple misguided policy, the film investigates how political and economic corruption have fuelled the war for forty years, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic and practical failures.

Ultimately, the documentary seeks, through compassionate inquiry, to promote public awareness of the history and contemporary mechanics of this human rights crisis and to begin a national conversation about its reform.


MON 23:45 Spies of Warsaw (b01psbj3)
Episode 1

Classic tale of spying, intrigue and romance, based on the novels of Alan Furst.

A German engineer arrives in Warsaw. Tonight he will be with his Polish mistress, tomorrow at a workers' bar in the city's factory district to meet with Colonel Mercier in a backstreet cafe. Information is exchanged for money.

Mercier loathes the niceties of ambassadorial lunches, cocktail parties and banquets of a world not yet at war, but one in which the drums of war can be heard ever more insistently in the background. However, they take on an altogether more interesting dimension when he meets the enigmatic and beautiful Anna Skarbek.

While secretly observing panzer exercises in the Black Forest, Mercier sees a simple trick performed with a length of pipe strapped across a car and draws his own conclusions about exactly what it is the Germans are planning.

When the Nazis find out what he's been doing, his own life becomes their target.


MON 01:15 Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork (b01psbwz)
The Extraordinary Thomas Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale is the most famous furniture designer the world has ever produced, but what about the man behind the chairs? This episode shows how Chippendale worked his way up from humble roots to working for the nobility, but also how he was ruined by the very aristocrats he created such wonders for.


MON 02:15 Art Deco Icons (b00npm4g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:45 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01pwtqy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2013

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01pwmx6)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qgypx)
Series 1

Buxton to Matlock

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, he travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

His journey takes him from Buxton along one of the first railway routes south to the capital, London. This time, Michael visits an architectural wonder, the Duke of Devonshire's stables in Buxton, helps to repair the ancient peat landscape of the Peak District and travels on the historic steam railway to Rowsley.


TUE 20:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
Developing the Regency Brand

In this second episode, Lucy Worsley looks at Britain in the wake of Waterloo - and asks how this new, triumphant nation wanted to be seen and how it set about celebrating itself in its architecture and design. Again, the Regent led the way. As he grew fatter, barely able to climb stairs or walk about, architecture became his chief creative outlet - and nowhere more so than in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. At the start of his reign as Regent, this had been an elegant neoclassical villa, but working with the architect John Nash, George transformed it after 1815 into the most outrageous of palaces. In it, Lucy discovers more about the Regent's tastes, and finds out what he and his chef had in common.

But while the Regent was building away, what were his people doing? Lucy finds out why Waterloo Bridge became the official memorial to Britain's victory, and how it became an obsession for the painter John Constable. She also explores the powerful influence of the Elgin Marbles, purchased for the British Museum in 1816. These broken statues caused a revolution in Regency ideas and taste, and helped to spread the Greek revival in architecture across the British Isles - even if some buildings, like Edinburgh's very own Parthenon, didn't quite get finished.

So who was behind the Regency 'look'? Lucy finds out more about one of the most influential architects of the age, exploring Sir John Soane's strange architectural ideas and discovering some of his more unexpected legacies. But even if, to our eyes, Soane's ideas may be more exciting, it was his rival John Nash who really defined Regency style - and worked with the Regent himself.

At Windsor Castle, Lucy finds remnants of the Regent's lost palace, Carlton House. These were spaces where, increasingly, luxurious informality in design went hand-in-hand with racy lifestyles. In the Regent's world of gilding and pink velvet, anything went. The richest in society indulged in courtesans and soft furnishings in equal measure. And since one dance summed up this new moral climate, Lucy takes the opportunity to learn the then outrageously sexy waltz.

Not that everyone was living this way. Lucy goes in search of her heroine Jane Austen, who dedicated her novel Emma to the Prince Regent. Lucy discovers that Jane put a few political messages into her novels - particularly when it came to the relationship between architecture and upper class morals. She even wrote part of a novel on property speculation.

And for Lucy, speculation is at the heart of Regency architecture. Across Britain, it gave us the quintessential Regency look - the stucco terraces, the black ironwork and white columns. The newest spa town of the Regency - Leamington Spa - is a classic example. But for the most spectacular development of all, Lucy returns to London and the most ambitious project of the Regency - Regent Street. Backed by a Regent who thought it would 'eclipse Napoleon' and a government eager to cash in by developing farmland at Regent's Park, it is perhaps the most visible monument to Regency ambition. As Lucy walks its length, the street reveals itself to be at the heart of the Regency ideal and a telling expression of the Regent himself.


TUE 21:00 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01pwtvf)
The Golden Era

Richard E Grant explores how modern art and the Riviera grew up together when France's Cote D'Azur became the hedonistic playground and experimental studio for the great masters of 20th-century painting. With Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso resident on the coast, other artists from Jean Cocteau to Henri Lartigue, Raoul Dufy to Fernand Leger and Francis Picabia to Sergei Diaghilev were drawn to the area.

As transatlantic liners brought America's super-rich to the region, art and celebrity became integrally intertwined as cultural gurus and multimillionaires all partied on the beach. In an era of sunshine and bathing, of cinema and fast cars, of the Ballet Russes and Monte Carlo casinos, Grant discovers the extraordinary output of what became briefly the world's creative hub.


TUE 22:00 Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings (b0192nrg)
Ruling by the Book

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. She begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library's Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal family tree which is five metres long.

Janina finds out about a king who had a reputation for chasing nuns and reads a book created as a wedding gift for a ten-year-old prince. She roams from Westminster Abbey to other ancient English spiritual sites such as Winchester, St Albans and Malmesbury, and sees for herself how animal skins can be transformed into the finest vellum.


TUE 23:00 Borgen (b01pznyh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


TUE 00:00 Borgen (b01pznyk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Saturday]


TUE 01:00 Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (b014b7d2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 02:00 Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings (b0192nrg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


TUE 03:00 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01pwtvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2013

WED 19:00 World News Today (b01pwmxc)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qgyv4)
Series 1

Cromford to Burton-on-Trent

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, he travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

His journey takes him from Buxton along one of the first railway routes south to the capital, London. This time, Michael visits the oldest working factory in the world at Cromford, explores the country's first public park in Derby and finds out why Burton's beer is said to be the best.


WED 20:00 The First World War from Above (b00vyrzh)
Fergal Keane tells the story of the World War One from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that has rarely been seen before. It also features aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over 90 years - that show not only the devastation inflicted during the fighting, but also quirks and human stories visible only from above.


WED 21:00 Spies of Warsaw (b01pwvxb)
Episode 2

Classic tale of spying, intrigue and romance, based on the novels of Alan Furst.

Warsaw 1938. French military attache Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier is also a spy on a mission, one which takes him undercover to Czechoslovakia on the trail of the elusive Chaika, a man who can lead him into the heart of the Nazi war machine.

Back in Warsaw, his erstwhile mistress Anna Skarbek is devastated by news of her ex-lover and political refugee and journalist Max Mostov. Heartbroken, she flees to Spain on a League of Nations mission of mercy.

As the Nazi storm clouds gather over Europe, dashing Polish Colonel Anton Pakulski undertakes his own mission, a mission that goes to the heart of protecting the very future of Poland itself.


WED 22:30 World War Two: 1942 and Hitler's Soft Underbelly (b01ndj09)
The British fought the Second World War to defeat Hitler. This film asks why, then, did they spend so much of the conflict battling through North Africa and Italy?

Historian David Reynolds reassesses Winston Churchill's conviction that the Mediterranean was the 'soft underbelly' of Hitler's Europe. Travelling to Egypt and Italian battlefields like Cassino, scene of some of the worst carnage in western Europe, he shows how, in reality, the 'soft underbelly' became a dark and dangerous obsession for Churchill.

Reynolds reveals a prime minister very different from the jaw-jutting bulldog of Britain's 'finest hour' in 1940 - a leader who was politically vulnerable at home, desperate to shore up a crumbling British empire abroad, losing faith in his army and even ready to deceive his American allies if it might delay fighting head to head against the Germans in northern France.


WED 00:00 Fig Leaf: The Biggest Cover-Up in History (b00ydp38)
Writer and broadcaster Stephen Smith uncovers the secret history of the humble fig leaf, opening a window onto 2,000 years of western art and ethics.

He tells how the work of Michelangelo, known to his contemporaries as 'the maker of pork things', fuelled the infamous 'fig leaf campaign', the greatest cover-up in art history, how Bernini turned censorship into a new form of erotica by replacing the fig leaf with the slipping gauze, and how the ingenious machinations of Rodin brought nudity back to the public eye.

In telling this story, Smith turns many of our deepest prejudices upside down, showing how the Victorians had a far more sophisticated and mature attitude to sexuality than we do today. He ends with an impassioned plea for the widespread return of the fig leaf to redeem modern art from cheap sensation and innuendo.


WED 01:00 Guilty Pleasures: Luxury in... (b0126vdc)
Ancient Greece

Luxury isn't just a question of expensive and the beautiful objects for the rich and the powerful. It has always been much more, and much more important, than that, especially in the ancient and medieval worlds.

This first episode follows the debate about luxury which convulsed ancient Greece from the beginning of the classical era. In Athens, it explores the role of luxury in the beginnings of democracy - how certain kinds of luxury came to be forbidden, and others embraced. A simple luxury like meat could unite the democracy, and yet a taste for fish could divide it. Some luxuries were associated with effeminacy and foreigners. Others with the very idea of democracy.

Yet in Sparta there was a determined attempt to deny luxury, and the guilty contradictions of this eventually brought what had been the most powerful state in Greece to its downfall. When Sparta was replaced by the Macedon of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, the absolute luxury of his court set new standards for luxury as political propaganda. Yet the guilty anxiety of ancient Greece could not be suppressed and still affects our ideas of luxury today.


WED 02:00 The Art of Cornwall (b00wbn80)
The art colony of St Ives in Cornwall became as important as Paris or London in the history of modernism during a golden creative period between the 1920s and 1960s. The dramatic lives and works of eight artists who most made this miracle possible, from Kit Wood and Alfred Wallis to Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, are featured in a documentary which offers an alternative history of the 20th century avant-garde as well as a vivid portrayal of the history and landscapes of Cornwall itself.


WED 03:30 Art Deco Icons (b00npm4g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]



THURSDAY 17 JANUARY 2013

THU 19:00 World News Today (b01pwmxj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b01pznzn)
05/01/78

Peter Powell introduces the weekly pop chart programme featuring performances from Eddie & the Hot Rods, Terry Wogan, Long Tall Ernie, the Babys, Tonight, the Brotherhood of Man, Julie Covington, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Wings and Legs & Co.


THU 20:00 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01dc66v)
Isabella and Margaret

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.

In 1308 a 12-year-old girl, Isabella of France, became queen of England when she married the English king. A century later another young French girl, Margaret of Anjou, followed in her footsteps. Both these women were thrust into a violent and dysfunctional England and both felt driven to take control of the kingdom themselves. Isabella would be accused of murder and Margaret of destructive ambition - it was Margaret who Shakespeare named the She Wolf. But as Helen reveals, their self-assertion that would have seemed natural in a man was deemed unnatural, even monstrous in a woman.


THU 21:00 Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork (b01pyfd2)
The Glorious Grinling Gibbons

Series about great British woodworkers continues by looking at the life and work of Grinling Gibbons. He isn't a household name, but he is the greatest woodcarver the British Isles has ever produced. Working in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London, Gibbons created delightful carved masterpieces for the likes of Charles II and William of Orange. This film explores the genius of the man they called the 'Michelangelo of wood'.


THU 22:00 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01pwtqy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 23:00 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01pwtvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 00:00 Birth of the British Novel (b00ydj1p)
Author Henry Hitchings explores the lives and works of Britain's radical and pioneering 18th-century novelists who, in just 80 years, established all the literary genres we recognise today. It was a golden age of creativity led by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney and William Godwin, amongst others. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy are novels that still sparkle with audacity and innovation.

On his journey through 18th-century fiction, Hitchings reveals how the novel was more than mere entertainment, it was also a subversive hand grenade that would change British society for the better. He travels from the homes of Britain's great and good to its lowliest prisons, meeting contemporary writers like Martin Amis, Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Jenny Uglow on the way.

Although 18th-century novels are woefully neglected today compared to those of the following two centuries, Hitchings shows how the best of them can offer as much pleasure to the reader as any modern classic.


THU 01:00 Guilty Pleasures: Luxury in... (b012cnkx)
The Middle Ages

Luxury isn't just a question of expensive and the beautiful objects for the rich and the powerful. It has always been much more important than that, especially in the ancient and medieval worlds.

This second episode follows the clash between luxury and Christianity which convulsed medieval Europe. Luxury was a roadblock on the road to heaven, so the church was quick to condemn the jewellery, gorgeous weapons and pattern-welded swords of the early medieval world. Yet the church also had its own form of luxury, in the form of spectacular manuscripts designed to do the work of God through astonishment and display. And to some extent it worked, as by 1200 medieval boys' toys like warhorses and tournaments came to be suffused with Christian ideas of chivalry and gentility.

But by that time the growth of trade had brought new luxuries to Europe, condemned in turn by the church, like exotic spices from the East. Spicy food led to spicy conduct, said the preachers, and to the sin of lechery. But soon the Black Death paradoxically liberated luxury from the church by initiating a new world of relative luxury and consumerism - the luxury world we inhabit today.


THU 02:00 The Perfect Suit (b012cnww)
A witty exploration of the evolution of the gentleman's suit. Alastair Sooke only owns one suit, but he is fascinated by how the matching jacket and trousers has become a uniform for men. Over the last 100 years the suit has evolved from working man's Sunday best to the casual wear of royalty.

For many 'the suit' is synonymous with all that is dull. But tailor Charlie Allen, Top Man chief designer Gordon Richardson and Sir Paul Smith show Alastair that the suit can be a cutting-edge fashion item and 'armour' to face the world.


THU 03:00 Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork (b01pyfd2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 18 JANUARY 2013

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01pwmxp)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Angelic Voices: The Choristers of Salisbury Cathedral (b01f6tb8)
Child choristers have been singing at Salisbury for 900 years. This film - an observational portrait, history and musical immersion in one of Britain's most distinctive and beloved cultural traditions - follows Salisbury Cathedral's choristers over Easter and through the summer term of 2011.

Salisbury Cathedral's separate boy and girl choirs each contain 16 of the most musically gifted eight- to 13-year-olds in the country. Their role, now as always, is to sing some of the most sublime music ever written in one of Britain's most beautiful buildings. Indeed there are many who believe the chorister's pure, clear, treble voice is the finest instrument in all music.

The film spends four months with the choristers as they go about their day-to-day lives, discovering their own history and singing some of the most loved music from a sacred canon spanning six centuries from medieval plainsong to the present day. Under the direction of indefatigable choir master David Halls, they rehearse and perform works by Sheppard, Byrd, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Stanford, Parry, Alcock and Rutter.

Lining up in his black cloak, ten-year-old Alex says he feels like Harry Potter while Freddie, 12, admits, 'Other children think we are weird and actually we are not.' Yet few children perhaps have the poise or conviction of Susanna, 10, who explains, 'Singing for choristers is part of them. If you said to me "You're not allowed to sing anymore", it would be just like me telling you that you can't see your child anymore.' It is doubtful that Salisbury's early choristers, often so hungry they were forced to beg for bread, thought so fondly of their work. But when plainsong turned to polyphony the choristers' plight was transformed - with the top cathedrals in the late middle ages known to pay Premiership-style transfer fees for the most musically gifted boys, some of whom were even kidnapped by rival cathedrals.

Today's top trebles at Salisbury are seen competing for one of the most famed solos in a chorister's repertoire. Will Finnbar, Freddie or Noah be picked for Stanford's Mag in G?


FRI 21:00 Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy (b01pwxs8)
In 2011, Glen Campbell announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and that he would be bowing out with a final album and farewell tour across Britain and America. This documentary tells Campbell's remarkable life story, from impoverished childhood in Arkansas to huge success, first as a guitarist and then as a singer, with great records like Wichita Lineman and Rhinestone Cowboy. With comments from friends and colleagues, including songwriter Jimmy Webb and Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, it is a moving story of success, disgrace and redemption as rich as any of the storylines in Campbell's most famous songs.

The peak of Glen Campbell's career was in 1975, when he topped the charts around the world with Rhinestone Cowboy, but his musical journey to that point is fascinating. A self-taught teenage prodigy on the guitar, by his mid-twenties Campbell was one of the top session guitarists in LA, a key member of the band of session players now known as The Wrecking Crew. He played on hundreds of tracks while working for producers like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, including Daydream Believer by The Monkees, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling by The Righteous Brothers, Strangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra and Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley.

But Campbell always wanted to make it under his own name. A string of records failed to chart until, in 1967, he finally found his distinctive country pop sound with hits like Gentle on My Mind and By the Time I Get to Phoenix. The latter was written by Jimmy Webb, and together the two created a string of great records like Wichita Lineman and Galveston. Campbell pioneered country crossover and opened the way for artists like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

By the end of the 1960s, Campbell was the fastest rising star in American pop with his own television show and a starring role in the original version of True Grit. Over the following ten years, he had more success with Rhinestone Cowboy and Southern Nights, but his private life was in turmoil. Divorce, drink and drugs saw this clean-cut all-American hero fall from grace and a tempestuous relationship with country star Tanya Tucker was front-page news.

Despite a relapse in 2003, when he was arrested for drunk driving and his police mug shot was shown around the world, the last two decades have been more settled. He remarried, started a new family and renewed his Christian faith, and was musically rediscovered by a new generation. Like his friend Johnny Cash, he released acclaimed new albums with young musicians, covering songs by contemporary artists like U2 and The Foo Fighters. Therefore the diagnosis with Alzheimer's was all the more poignant, but his dignified farewell has made him the public face of the disease in the USA.

The film includes contributions by many of Campbell's friends and colleagues, including his family in Arkansas, fellow session musicians Carol Kaye and Leon Russell, long-time friend and collaborator Jimmy Webb, former Monkee Mickey Dolenz, broadcaster Bob Harris, lyricist Don Black and country music writer Robert Oermann.


FRI 22:00 An Evening with Glen Campbell (b01pyfht)
A special concert recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in 1977, where 80 musicians played new arrangements of Glen Campbell's hit songs.


FRI 23:20 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.


FRI 00:50 Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy (b01pwxs8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:50 An Evening with Glen Campbell (b01pyfht)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 03:10 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.




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

A History of Art in Three Colours 20:00 SAT (b01lcz2s)

A History of Art in Three Colours 03:00 SAT (b01lcz2s)

An Evening with Glen Campbell 22:00 FRI (b01pyfht)

An Evening with Glen Campbell 01:50 FRI (b01pyfht)

Angelic Voices: The Choristers of Salisbury Cathedral 19:30 FRI (b01f6tb8)

Art Deco Icons 20:00 MON (b00npm4g)

Art Deco Icons 02:15 MON (b00npm4g)

Art Deco Icons 03:30 WED (b00npm4g)

BBC One Sessions 03:10 FRI (b007cj5l)

Birth of the British Novel 00:00 THU (b00ydj1p)

Borgen 21:00 SAT (b01pznyh)

Borgen 22:00 SAT (b01pznyk)

Borgen 23:00 TUE (b01pznyh)

Borgen 00:00 TUE (b01pznyk)

Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork 01:15 MON (b01psbwz)

Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork 21:00 THU (b01pyfd2)

Carved with Love: The Genius of British Woodwork 03:00 THU (b01pyfd2)

Country at the BBC 23:20 FRI (b017zqwb)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 20:00 TUE (b014b7d2)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 01:00 TUE (b014b7d2)

Fig Leaf: The Biggest Cover-Up in History 00:00 WED (b00ydp38)

Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy 21:00 FRI (b01pwxs8)

Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy 00:50 FRI (b01pwxs8)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 MON (b00qbnj1)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 TUE (b00qgypx)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 WED (b00qgyv4)

Guilty Pleasures: Luxury in... 01:00 WED (b0126vdc)

Guilty Pleasures: Luxury in... 01:00 THU (b012cnkx)

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings 22:00 TUE (b0192nrg)

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings 02:00 TUE (b0192nrg)

Leaving 22:00 SUN (b0163067)

Legends 01:20 SUN (b0074t24)

Lost Kingdoms of South America 21:00 MON (b01pwtqy)

Lost Kingdoms of South America 02:45 MON (b01pwtqy)

Lost Kingdoms of South America 22:00 THU (b01pwtqy)

Lost Land of the Tiger 19:00 SAT (b00ty6bd)

Mark Lawson Talks To... 21:00 SUN (b01pz88g)

Mark Lawson Talks To... 02:50 SUN (b01pz88g)

Only Connect 20:30 MON (b01pwtqw)

Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10 23:00 SAT (b01nwfxs)

She-Wolves: England's Early Queens 20:00 THU (b01dc66v)

Shirley Bassey at the BBC 23:20 SUN (b01psct4)

Sir Patrick Moore: Astronomer, Broadcaster and Eccentric 20:30 SUN (b01psbjf)

Sounds of the 70s 2 02:30 SAT (b01gymg9)

Spies of Warsaw 23:45 MON (b01psbj3)

Spies of Warsaw 21:00 WED (b01pwvxb)

Storyville 22:00 MON (b01pzz69)

The Art of Cornwall 02:00 WED (b00wbn80)

The First World War from Above 20:00 WED (b00vyrzh)

The Joy of the Single 01:30 SAT (b01nzchs)

The Perfect Suit 02:00 THU (b012cnww)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 21:00 TUE (b01pwtvf)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 03:00 TUE (b01pwtvf)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 23:00 THU (b01pwtvf)

The Sky at Night 19:00 SUN (b01pzyjp)

The Sky at Night 19:15 SUN (b01pzyjr)

The Sky at Night 20:00 SUN (b00p1crz)

The Sound of Petula 02:20 SUN (b01pvc6y)

Top of the Pops 19:30 THU (b01pznzn)

Ultimate Number Ones 00:30 SAT (b01nwfxv)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b01pwmx1)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b01pwmx6)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b01pwmxc)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b01pwmxj)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b01pwmxp)

World War Two: 1942 and Hitler's Soft Underbelly 22:30 WED (b01ndj09)

imagine... 00:20 SUN (b00p36t8)