The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
Rob Penn's year in Strawberry Cottage Wood is nearly at an end. After ten months hard work he gets a final assessment from the local conservation expert. He attends an international cricket match to hunt down the timber he felled in the winter, and throws a party for everybody who has helped him throughout the year.
Jack Vettriano is arguably Britain's most popular artist, with his nostalgic paintings of a lost age of glamour being instantly recognisable and his most famous work, The Singing Butler, the country's best-selling image, reproduced on everything from calendars to jigsaws. But despite his popularity, the self-taught miner's son from Fife has never been fully accepted by the art establishment.
This film offers an intimate and revealing portrait of Vettriano, as he creates a painting featuring actress Kara Tointon, and sees him talk with brutal honesty about his critics and how he deals with fame.
'I don't have any grand plan, I just go where instinct takes me.' - Norman Ackroyd.
Norman Ackroyd is one of the country's most celebrated landscape artists. Born in Leeds in 1938, he attended the Royal College of Art in the 1960s. After experimenting with pop art, he gradually turned to his first love, the landscape, and over the last thirty years he has documented some of the most remote corners of Britain.
Norman tells the story of his artistic journey and gives a unique glimpse into his working life. Filmed in the converted London warehouse where he lives and works, we follow Norman as he embarks on the final stages of one of his monochrome prints. From delicate work on the copper plate, through preparation of the aquatint resin that brings shade and texture to the image and the application of the acid which etches the final picture from the copper, the film captures each stage of the process behind his craft.
At the end of the day, without knowing how the piece will turn out, Norman passes it through the printing press, revealing for the first time his latest work, capturing the atmospheric craggy cliff of Muckle Flugga in the Shetland Islands.
Professor Catharine Edwards follows the stories of four very different women across centuries which saw the Roman Empire utterly transformed. Among them are the slave turned imperial consort Caenis, the empress Julia Domna - a Syrian who was commemorated in fascinating ways as far away as York - and Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine and a force in converting the empire to Christianity.
Leslie is disappointed when two state auditors put her new park plans on hold. April celebrates her 21st birthday at the Snakehole Lounge.
Leslie is forced to take matters into her own hands when the government is shut down and the parks are closed.
Bob thinks Terry needs new friends, but inviting him to Alan and Brenda's trendy dinner party might not be such a great idea.
Keen to put the Banbury Intricate Craft Circle Politely Requests Women's Suffrage on the map, the women plan to picket the post office with placards.
Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long-hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as they are to Europeans.
THURSDAY 13 JUNE 2013
THU 19:00 World News Today (b02vzgvx)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b02xbj8s)
David 'Kid' Jensen introduces the weekly pop charts featuring performances from Black Sabbath, Heatwave, Showaddywaddy, the Brotherhood of Man, San Jose, Thin Lizzy, Bob Marley and the Wailers and a dance routine by Legs & Co.
THU 20:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b0077k1l)
Series 1
Storm in a Tea Chest
Terry helps Bob move his most treasured possessions from his old house to the new one, but Thelma refuses to have his junk in their home.
THU 20:30 Up the Women (b02w7hlx)
Series 1
Episode 3
The Banbury Intricate Craft Circle try to win approval to become an official league of the Women's Social and Political Union.
THU 21:00 Billy Elliot (b007wv29)
Coming-of-age drama about a young boy from a north east mining village who is sent for boxing lessons but joins ballet classes instead, for reasons he cannot explain to himself, let alone ones that his widower father would understand. He is encouraged by his dance teacher, but her ambition for him brings about a family crisis in the Elliot house.
THU 22:45 Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome (b02w63n7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Wednesday]
THU 23:45 Attenborough and the Giant Egg (b00z6dsg)
David Attenborough returns to the island of Madagascar on a very personal quest.
In 1960, he visited the island to film one of his first ever wildlife series - Zoo Quest. Whilst he was there, he acquired a giant egg belonging to an extinct bird known as the 'elephant bird' - the largest bird that ever lived. It has been one of his most treasured possessions ever since.
Fifty years older, he now returns to the island to find out more about this amazing creature and to see how the island has changed. Could the elephant bird's fate provide lessons that may help protect Madagascar's remaining wildlife?
Using Zoo Quest archive and specially shot location footage, this film follows David as he revisits scenes from his youth and meets people at the front line of wildlife protection. On his return, scientists at Oxford University are able to reveal for the first time how old David's egg actually is, and what that might tell us about the legendary elephant bird.
THU 00:45 Top of the Pops (b02xbj8s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:15 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b0077k1l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 01:50 Up the Women (b02w7hlx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
THU 02:20 Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes (b00vzxv9)
Eminent classical historian Robin Lane Fox embarks on a journey in search of the origins of the Greek myths. He firmly believes that these fantastical stories lie at the root of western culture, and yet little is known about where the myths of the Greek gods came from, and how they grew. Now, after 35 years of travelling, excavation and interpretation, he is confident he has uncovered answers.
From the ancient lost city of Hattusas in modern Turkey to the smouldering summit of the Sicilian volcano Mount Etna, the documentary takes the viewer on a dazzling voyage through the Mediterranean world of the 8th century BC, as we follow in the slipstream of an intrepid and mysterious group of merchants and adventurers from the Greek island of Euboea. It's in the experiences of these now forgotten people that Lane Fox is able to pinpoint the stories and encounters, the journeys and the landscapes that provided the source material for key Greek myths.
And along the way, he brings to life these exuberant tales - of castration and baby eating, the birth of human sexual love, and the titanic battles with giants and monsters from which the gods of Greek myth were to emerge victorious.
FRIDAY 14 JUNE 2013
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b02vzgw4)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Concerto at the BBC Proms (b01l2t55)
Rachmaninov Piano
Another chance to hear a live performance from the 2008 BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 4 - a composition with a distinctive jazzy quality and a theme in the second movement partially based on the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice. Russian virtuoso pianist Boris Berezovsky performs with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain under the baton of conductor Antonio Pappano.
FRI 20:00 Symphony (b017j75d)
Revolution and Rebirth
Simon Russell Beale's journey takes him into the 20th century, a time when the certainties of empire were falling away, war was looming and the world was changing faster than ever before.
Simon investigates the extraordinary symphonic world of Shostakovich, the star composer of the new Soviet Union, as well as the work of Ives and Copland who were both, in their different ways, creating a new American sound. He discovers how the development of the gramophone and broadcasting meant that more people could hear their music than ever before and how it became possible to immortalise the symphony in sound.
The symphonies are played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
FRI 21:00 What's Going On: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye (b0074rql)
Marvin Gaye is one of the great and enduring figures of soul music, but his life was one of sexual confusion, bittersweet success and ultimately death by the hand of his own father. Through Marvin's own words and intimate memories gathered from rare film and recordings, director Jeremy Marre tells the story of a 'life of outer grace and inner torment'.
Including interviews with the singer's family, friends and musical colleagues, with re-enactments and archive film of Marvin on stage, at home and in the recording studio.
FRI 22:00 Charles Bradley: Soul of America (b02x8xnn)
Documentary telling the story of late-flowering 62-year-old soul singer Charles Bradley, whose debut album No Time for Dreaming rocketed him from a hard life in the projects to Rolling Stone magazine's top 50 albums of 2011.
Abandoned by his mother as a child, Bradley faced homelessness, illiteracy, violence, the murder of his beloved brother and a nearly fatal illness. He worked odd jobs across the country and performed as a James Brown impersonator and, through it all, never gave up on his life-long dream to make it big in the music industry. Spanning the exciting, painful and uncertain months prior to the release of his debut album, the film documents one man's ultimate triumph over an impossible dream 48 years in the making.
Bradley's two albums, No Time for Dreaming and 2013's Victim of Love, are on the Brooklyn-based Daptone label which helped inspire the sound of Amy Winehouse's Back to Black and his emotionally intense, fervent old-school soul singing and retro production from collaborator and co-writer Tom Brennek have made him critically acclaimed and a live draw across the world.
FRI 23:00 Barry White at the BBC (b0074pvz)
Barry White live in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1975.
FRI 23:50 Steve Winwood: English Soul (b00srj7k)
From childhood prodigy to veteran master, Birmingham-born Steve Winwood's extraordinary career is like a map of the major changes in British rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues from the 1960s to the present. This in-depth profile traces that journey and reveals a master musician blending Ray Charles and English hymnody into a unique brand of English soul.
From the blues-boom-meets-beat-group chart hits of the Spencer Davis Group, through the psychedelic pop of early Traffic and into Berkshire as Traffic become the first band to 'get their heads together in a country cottage', then via a brief sojourn in supergroup Blind Faith and back to Traffic as a jam band who conquer the emerging American rock scene, Winwood's first ten years on the boards were extraordinary.
As the 80s dawned he reinvented himself as a solo artist and became a major star in the US with hits like Higher Love and Back in the High Life. These days he's back in arenas, touring with old friend Eric Clapton.
Paul Bernay's film blends extensive interviews with Winwood in his Gloucestershire home and film of Winwood's first return to that Berkshire cottage since 1969 with rare archive footage and contributing interviews with Eric Clapton, Paul Rodgers, Paul Jones, Paul Weller, Muff Winwood, Dave Mason and more.
FRI 00:55 What's Going On: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye (b0074rql)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 01:55 Charles Bradley: Soul of America (b02x8xnn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 02:55 Barry White at the BBC (b0074pvz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
Aristotle's Lagoon
20:00 SUN (b00q0hh2)
Aristotle's Lagoon
01:20 SUN (b00q0hh2)
Aristotle's Lagoon
22:30 TUE (b00q0hh2)
Arne Dahl
21:00 SAT (b02w523h)
Arne Dahl
02:10 TUE (b02w523h)
Attenborough and the Giant Egg
23:45 THU (b00z6dsg)
Barry White at the BBC
23:00 FRI (b0074pvz)
Barry White at the BBC
02:55 FRI (b0074pvz)
Billy Elliot
21:00 THU (b007wv29)
Bobby Womack: Across 110th Street
23:20 SUN (b022ff9g)
Britain Through a Lens: The Documentary Film Mob
21:00 SUN (b012p53d)
Britain on Film
20:00 MON (b02w63mx)
Britain on Film
02:00 MON (b02w63mx)
Charles Bradley: Soul of America
22:00 FRI (b02x8xnn)
Charles Bradley: Soul of America
01:55 FRI (b02x8xnn)
Concerto at the BBC Proms
19:30 FRI (b01l2t55)
Ford's Dagenham Dream
22:30 SAT (b00j0gnm)
Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes
02:20 THU (b00vzxv9)
Horizon
20:00 TUE (b00jgtl2)
Horizon
00:30 TUE (b00jgtl2)
Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett and Friends Live in Ghana 1971: Soul to Soul
00:20 SUN (b02qygvp)
Madness in the Desert: Paris to Dakar
00:30 SAT (b01r1cnw)
Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome
21:00 WED (b02w63n7)
Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome
02:45 WED (b02w63n7)
Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome
22:45 THU (b02w63n7)
Oceans
19:00 SAT (b00fpy59)
Oceans
02:30 SAT (b00fpy59)
Only Connect
20:30 MON (b02w63n3)
Only Connect
02:30 MON (b02w63n3)
Parks and Recreation
01:30 TUE (b022bbl4)
Parks and Recreation
01:50 TUE (b022bblb)
Parks and Recreation
22:00 WED (b02w6tc0)
Parks and Recreation
22:20 WED (b02w6tc5)
Planet Ant: Life Inside the Colony
23:30 MON (p00scslp)
Precision: The Measure of All Things
21:00 MON (b02xbj6m)
Precision: The Measure of All Things
03:00 MON (b02xbj6m)
Precision: The Measure of All Things
23:30 TUE (b02xbj6m)
Rome: A History of the Eternal City
01:00 MON (b01pdt0s)
Seven Ages of Starlight
21:00 TUE (p00yb434)
Steve Winwood: English Soul
23:50 FRI (b00srj7k)
Storyville
22:00 MON (b02x9z7g)
Symphony
20:00 FRI (b017j75d)
Tales from the Wild Wood
19:30 MON (b01nrn2c)
Tales from the Wild Wood
19:30 TUE (b01nvwr0)
Tales from the Wild Wood
19:30 WED (b01nz985)
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
19:00 SUN (b01p96fr)
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
02:20 SUN (b01p96fr)
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
23:45 WED (b01p96fr)
The Deadliest Crash: the Le Mans 1955 Disaster
23:30 SAT (b00sfptx)
The Kid with a Bike
22:00 SUN (b02xbmvv)
The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu
00:45 WED (b00hkb0z)
The Riviera: A History in Pictures
20:00 SAT (b01ps9jr)
The Riviera: A History in Pictures
01:30 SAT (b01ps9jr)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (b02xbj8s)
Top of the Pops
00:45 THU (b02xbj8s)
Up the Women
23:15 WED (b02l9j0t)
Up the Women
20:30 THU (b02w7hlx)
Up the Women
01:50 THU (b02w7hlx)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
20:00 WED (b01rr42c)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
20:30 WED (b01rd35q)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
01:45 WED (b01rr42c)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
02:15 WED (b01rd35q)
What's Going On: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye
21:00 FRI (b0074rql)
What's Going On: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye
00:55 FRI (b0074rql)
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
22:45 WED (b0077jx1)
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
20:00 THU (b0077k1l)
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
01:15 THU (b0077k1l)
World News Today
19:00 MON (b02vzgv1)
World News Today
19:00 TUE (b02vzgvc)
World News Today
19:00 WED (b02vzgvm)
World News Today
19:00 THU (b02vzgvx)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (b02vzgw4)