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 30 AUGUST 2014

SAT 19:00 Human Planet (b00rrd87)
Grasslands - Roots of Power

Grasslands feed the world. Over thousands of years, we humans have learned to grow grains on the grasslands and domesticate the creatures that live there. Our success has propelled our population to seven billion people.

But this episode reveals that, even today, life in the 'Garden of Eden' is not always rosy. We walk with the Dorobo people of Kenya as they bravely attempt to scare off a pride of hungry lions from their freshly caught kill. We gallop across the Steppe with extraordinary Mongolian horsemen who were 'born in the saddle'. And in a perfect partnership with nature built up over generations, Maasai children must literally talk to the birds. The honeyguide leads them to find sweet treats, but they'll have to repay the favour.


SAT 20:00 Tales from the National Parks (b01708v7)
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs

What happens when gold is discovered in the hills around a tiny Scottish village? In the final episode of the series, Richard Macer spends a year in the small remote community of Tyndrum, where gold fever has gripped the residents. The Loch Lomond Park Authority will decide whether to give permission for the gold mine, and there are lots of organisations that think Scotland's first gold mine is an abhorrent idea.

The villagers are adamant that the gold mine is the only way prosperity can be brought to their struggling community and they are determined to get the mine approved. But who wins is down to the park board members who are due to vote on the goldmine at a hearing in the village hall.


SAT 21:00 Crimes of Passion (p01zzhxn)
Death of a Loved One

Puck Ekstedt has been invited by her university tutor to celebrate midsummer at his summer house on a secluded island, together with a group of friends including Einar Bure. Puck and Einar (Eje for short) are secretly courting and he is the reason she accepts the invitation. The summer nights are seductively beautiful until Puck finds one of the female guests murdered. Einar contacts his best friend Christer Wijk, a police inspector, to investigate. In the meantime, they are trapped on the island - and someone amongst them is a killer.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:25 Timewatch (b0078wrs)
2005-2006

Britain's Lost Colosseum

The Romans loved their bloody spectacles with gladiators and wild beasts, so they built amphitheatres all over their empire. In Britain there were at least 25 and the largest was in Chester, a fortress city of huge importance. What exactly did it look like and was it built by Emperor Vespasian, the man who built the Colosseum in Rome?

Archaeologists Tony Wilmott and Dan Garner lead us through three months of hard graft and painstaking analysis to excavate the complex site. With the help of computer animation, they bring Chester's magnificent amphitheatre back to life.


SAT 23:15 Rome's Lost Empire (b01pc063)
Dan Snow uses satellite technology to reveal the secrets of the Roman Empire. Together with space archaeologist Sarah Parcak, Dan sets out to identify and then track down lost cities, amphitheatres and forts in an adventure that sees him travel through some of the most spectacular parts of the vast empire. Cutting-edge technology and traditional archaeology help build a better understanding of how Rome held such a large empire together for so long.


SAT 00:45 Boxing at the Movies: Kings of the Ring (b01r5mhb)
Danny Leigh explores the elemental drama of the boxing movie. For over 120 years, boxing and film have been entwined and the fight film has been used to address powerful themes such as redemption, race and corruption. Film writer Leigh examines how each generation's fight films have reflected their times and asks why film-makers from Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese have returned time and again to tales of the ring.

Interviewees include former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, Rocky director John G Avildsen and Thelma Schoonmaker, editor of Raging Bull.


SAT 01:45 Human Planet (b00rrd87)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 02:45 Tales from the National Parks (b01708v7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



SUNDAY 31 AUGUST 2014

SUN 19:00 BBC Proms (b04gb647)
2014

The Sunday Prom: Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra

The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra make their debut at the festival. Music inspired by the east colours the programme, with the sounds and scents of bazaars and seraglios, as well as portraits of the Queen of Sheba by both Handel and Respighi. Also, violin virtuoso Daniel Hope premieres a new concerto by the remarkable young composer Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of the great Sergei Prokofiev.

Presented by Katie Derham.


SUN 21:10 imagine... (b00t15v1)
Summer 2010

Tom Jones - What Good Am I?

As he prepares to celebrate his 70th birthday, singing legend Sir Tom Jones is still recording, performing and collaborating with some of the biggest names in pop. In this episode of Imagine, Alan Yentob examines the extraordinary story of one of Britain's most recognisable pop icons.

In a frank and revealing interview, Sir Tom describes the dizzying ascent from his humble beginnings as a miner's son in south Wales to becoming a headline act in Las Vegas and recalls many of his most cherished moments from a career that enabled him to sing alongside Elvis, establish himself as a hairy-chested sex symbol and make one of the most successful comebacks in pop history.


SUN 22:10 Miss Bala (b01s4qyw)
The 23-year-old daughter of a Tijuana clothing merchant dreams of becoming a beauty pageant queen. When she meets drug trafficker Lino, however, she becomes embroiled in Mexico's violent narcotics trade and Lino begins to use her as a decoy for his criminal activities.

In Spanish and English with subtitles.


SUN 00:00 Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines (b04fmgkb)
Blondie's album Parallel Lines captured the spirit of 1970s New York at a time of poverty, crime and an exploding artistic life, selling 16 million copies. This is the story of that album, that time and that city, told primarily by the seven individuals who wrote, produced and performed it. It was a calculated and painstaking endeavour to produce sure-fire hits - whatever it took.

The film follows Debbie Harry and the rest of the Blondie crew as they head into the studio to record their game-changing album with producer Mike Chapman. It also features commentary from Harry herself about writing music, the media's focus on her appearance and lyrically inspirational ex-boyfriends.

In 1978 the New York band Blondie had two punk albums behind them and were establishing a name for themselves at the club CBGBs on New York's Lower East Side. Then Chrysalis Records exec Terry Ellis saw them and spent a massive $1m buying out their recording contract. He had to ensure that their next album was a hit - there was no room for error. To do this he brought in maverick Australian record producer Mike Chapman, who already had a string of hits under his belt. Mike's job was to turn this crew of New York punks into world stars - but did they have the popular songs which would appeal to a wider non-punk audience?

At a time when rich creativity, grinding poverty and drug abuse were hand in hand on the sidewalks of the Lower East Side, the music and lyrics of Parallel Lines celebrated and captured this vibrant and edgy chemistry, shooting the band to international stardom.


SUN 00:50 New York Rock at the BBC (b007mwcf)
From the streets of New York City to the studios of the BBC comes the cream of the New York rock scene, including classic archive performances from The Ramones, New York Dolls, Television, Blondie, Lou Reed and many more.


SUN 01:50 Glastonbury (b047zjqt)
Lorde

Blondie

A look back at the 2014 Friday lunchtime set at the festival by legendary New York group Blondie. Led by Debbie Harry, the band celebrate their official 40th anniversary this year and at Worthy Farm, in between the rain showers, work through a set that includes some of their many classic hits plus a track or two from their most recent album.


SUN 02:45 imagine... (b00t15v1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:10 today]



MONDAY 01 SEPTEMBER 2014

MON 19:00 World News Today (b04gb66v)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b03qgbjv)
Series 5

Northampton to Nuneaton

Steered by his Bradshaw's Handbook, Michael Portillo heads north on his journey from London to Leeds, stopping in Northampton, the land of shoemakers, where Victorian 'clickers' have been making shoes for more than 130 years.

In Rugby, Michael discovers the legacy of Dr Thomas Arnold and trains with the school's 1st XV before heading to Coventry, where he finds out how the city's craftsmen learned to adapt to survive. Michael ends this leg of his journey in Nuneaton, birthplace of an author whose identity was once a closely guarded secret.


MON 20:00 Horizon (b00vv0w8)
2010-2011

Asteroids - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Famed for their ability to inflict Armageddon from outer space, asteroids are now revealing the secrets of how they are responsible for both life and death on our planet.

Armed with an array of powerful telescopes, scientists are finding up to 3,000 new asteroids every night. And some are heading our way.

But astronomers have discovered that it's not the giant rocks that are the greatest danger - it's the small asteroids that pose a more immediate threat to Earth.

Researchers have explained the photon propulsion that send these rocks across space, and have discovered that some asteroids are carrying a mysterious cargo of frost and ice across the solar system that could have helped start life on Earth.


MON 21:00 Return to Betjemanland (b04gb6nl)
In 1984, Sir John Betjeman died and was buried at St Enodoc Church, close to the village of Tribetherick in north Cornwall.

Writer, critic and biographer of Betjeman, AN Wilson, visits the real and imagined places that shaped his life to reveal the life and work of the poet and broadcaster.

Wilson explores how Betjeman came to speak to, and for, the nation in a remarkable way. As a poet Betjeman was writing popular verse for the many, not the few. With his brilliant documentaries for television, Betjeman entertained millions with infectious enthusiasm as he explained his many passions and bugbears.

As a campaigner to preserve the national heritage, Betjeman was tireless in his devotion to conservation and preservation, fighting the planners, politicians and developers - railing against their abuse of power and money.

Wilson investigates this by visiting locations in London, Oxford, Cornwall, Somerset and Berkshire. He travels through a landscape of beautiful houses and churches, beaches and seaside piers - a place that Wilson calls Betjemanland.

In doing so he also reveals the complexity and contradictions of Betjeman - how Betjeman, the snob with a love of aristocrats and their country houses, is the same person who is thrilled by the more proletarian pleasures of the Great British seaside; how the poetry of Betjeman shows us that he is haunted by childhood memory, has religious faith but also doubt and is in thrall to love and infatuation; and how the man his friends called Betjeman was full of joie de vivre, but also suffered great melancholy and guilt whilst living an agonised double life.


MON 22:00 Metroland (b00cyyqw)
An exploration of the English rural idyll with John Betjeman's 1973 meditation on the residential suburbs which grew up alongside the Metropolitan Line, the first steam underground in the world.


MON 22:50 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04fmg8j)
Paris 1928

Dr James Fox tells the story of Paris in 1928. It was a city that attracted people dreaming of a better world after World War I. This was the year when the surrealists Magritte, Dali and Bunuel brought their bizarre new vision to the people, and when emigre writers and musicians such as Ernest Hemingway and George Gershwin came looking for inspiration.

Paris in 1928 was where black musicians and dancers like Josephine Baker found adulation, where Cole Porter took time off from partying to write Let's Do It, and where radical architect Le Corbusier planned a modernist utopia that involved pulling down much of Paris itself.


MON 23:50 The Wonder of Animals (b04fmg8d)
Big Cats

Chris Packham delves beneath the skin of the big cats to explore what makes them such good hunters, and he reveals that it is not all about brawn.

New scientific research shows how subtle adaptations in their anatomy and physiology contribute to the success of all stages of a big cat hunt: the stalk, the capture and the kill.

Leg hairs help the leopard to stalk, and intricate muscle fibres drive the snow leopard to capture its prey. For the jaguar, jaw muscles and whiskers combine to give it a precision bite that can take down a caiman, and an enlarged area of the lioness's brain gives it the edge over all their big cat cousins.


MON 00:20 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04fmg8g)
Rembrandt and Ruysch

In the 17th century in Holland, anatomy became the cutting edge of medical science, inspiring the great artists of the age like Rembrandt to produce the most beautiful anatomical paintings yet created.

Adam Rutherford travels to the Hague and Amsterdam to find out what it was that drew Rembrandt to anatomy and why dissecting bodies was thought a suitable subject for high art.


MON 00:50 Timeshift (b017zqw8)
Series 11

The Golden Age of Trams: A Streetcar Named Desire

Move along the car! Timeshift takes a nostalgic trip on the tram car and explores how it liberated overcrowded cities and launched the era of the commuter. The film maps the tram's journey from early horse-drawn carriages on rails, through steam, and to electric power.

Overhead wires hung over Britain's towns and cities for nearly 50 years from the beginning of the 20th century until they were phased out everywhere except Blackpool. Manchester, the last city to lose its trams was, however, among the first to reintroduce them as the solution to modern-day traffic problems.

The film includes a specially recorded reading by Alan Bennett of his short story Leeds Trams, and contributions from Ken Dodd and Roy Hattersley.


MON 01:50 Horizon (b00vv0w8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:50 Return to Betjemanland (b04gb6nl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 2014

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b04g7y05)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b03qgdph)
Series 5

Leicester to Loughborough

Guided by his Bradshaw's Handbook, Michael Portillo continues his journey north along Robert Stephenson's London to Birmingham line. He begins this leg in Leicester, where he picks up the trail of 'the famous crook-backed King Richard III', who Bradshaw's guide informs him was buried at the Grey Priory. Michael finds out about the hunt for the king's remains and how scientists managed to prove that the skeleton found under a car park was him. From Rothley, Michael works his passage on the Great Central Railway to Loughborough, where the bells have been tolling since 1839.


TUE 20:00 World War I at Home (b04gkn55)
Royal Victoria Hospital

Shocking stories of the World War I Hampshire hospital doctors who faked footage on cures for shellshock. Author Philip Hoare examines the evidence and reveals some other real-life human tragedies at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley.


TUE 20:30 The Secret Life of Books (b04gkqk7)
Series 1

Great Expectations

Tony Jordan, chief scriptwriter on EastEnders for 15 years and creator of Life on Mars and Hustle, brings his writer's insight to a popular classic - Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.

Dickens serialised his novels and, says Jordan, his brilliant characterisation and cliffhangers make him a godfather to contemporary television writers: 'He's a populist, through and through. He wrote for a mass audience - and they adored him for it'.

Jordan investigates why Dickens decided to change the ending of Great Expectations and what this decision reveals about the writer and the man.

By examining original texts and manuscripts to piece together Dickens's troubled life at the time, Jordan discovers how the author's own personal story may have influenced whether his hero Pip would have a future with Estella.

Produced in partnership with the Open University.


TUE 21:00 Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley (b048wss8)
Today, few people's clothes attract as much attention as the royal family, but this is not a modern-day Hello magazine-inspired obsession. As Dr Lucy Worsley reveals, it has always been this way. Exploring the royal wardrobes of our kings and queens over the last 400 years, Lucy shows this isn't just a public preoccupation but our monarchs' as well.

From Elizabeth I to our present Queen, Lucy believes that the royal wardrobe's significance goes way beyond the cut and colour of the clothing and that royal fashion is, and has always been, regarded as their personal statement to their people. So most monarchs have carefully choreographed every aspect of their wardrobe and, for those who have not, there have sometimes been calamitous consequences.


TUE 22:00 The London Markets (b01jmvkw)
The Fruit and Veg Market: Inside New Spitalfields

The fruit and veg trade in England was once a closed world dominated by traditional British costermonger families. But then London changed. Successive waves of immigration have brought new people to New Spitalfields market in east London, people for whom food has a deeper meaning.


TUE 23:00 Human Planet (b00rrd87)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


TUE 00:00 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0078tr5)
Series 3

Forces of Nature

The French Revolution sent shockwaves through Britain. While some watched transfixed, others were horrified.

Simon Schama explores why the British proved immune to the siren call of liberty, equality and fraternity.


TUE 01:00 Tales from the National Parks (b01708v7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


TUE 02:00 World War I at Home (b04gkn55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 02:30 The Secret Life of Books (b04gkqk7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


TUE 03:00 Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley (b048wss8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 03 SEPTEMBER 2014

WED 19:00 World News Today (b04g7y0b)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b03qgh0r)
Series 5

Nottingham to Leeds

On the final leg of his journey along the first intercity line to be built from the capital, Michael Portillo rediscovers a once-famous poet in Nottingham. In Mansfield, he travels on a railway line resurrected by popular demand after falling victim to Beeching's cuts, then heads to Worksop, where he learns about the burrowing activities of an eccentric duke.

Michael's next stop is 'railway city' Doncaster, where in the 19th century thousands laboured to build trains and where in the 20th century rail workers shaped British political history. His last stop on this journey is Leeds, where he auditions at the Venus and Venice of Variety on the stage at Britain's oldest continuously working music hall.


WED 20:00 The Wonder of Animals (b04gbdwr)
Ants

The 100 trillion ants in the world weigh as much as all the people on earth and have colonised the planet like no other animal.

Chris Packham explores the ingenious ways in which ants have collaborated to achieve their global success - natural air-conditioning systems keep ants cool in their nests, shelters made from their own bodies protect nomadic ants from the elements and a sense of smell five times more powerful than other insects allows them to overpower animals hundreds of times larger than themselves.

Remarkably, new research reveals how ant colonies are capable of immunising themselves against diseases.


WED 20:30 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04gbdwt)
The Hunter Brothers

Dr Adam Rutherford investigates the story of the Hunter brothers, the celebrated anatomists who controversially transformed both medicine and art in 18th-century Britain.

Their belief that their students could only learn anatomy by carrying out dissections created an unprecedented demand for dead bodies and a market for the growing trade of body snatching from graveyards.


WED 21:00 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04gbdww)
New York 1951

Dr James Fox tells the story of New York in 1951, where the world we know today was born. This was the year when Jackson Pollock brought a new dynamism to American painting, when the dazzling jazz style known as bebop hit its stride and when Jack Kerouac defined the Beat Generation with his book On the Road. It was where a young Marlon Brando took cinema by storm, a dapper Brit named David Ogilvy reinvented advertising and modern television arrived with the triumphant debut of a show called I Love Lucy.


WED 22:00 Wild China (b00bybp3)
Tides of Change

Documentary series featuring pioneering images that capture the dazzling array of mysterious and wonderful creatures populating China's most beautiful landscapes.

Ancient tea-growing cultures, traditional seaweed-thatched villages, bird-filled wetlands, rare white dolphins, snake-infested islands and futuristic cities jostle along China's fertile eastern seaboard, which marks the front line in the scramble for resources and space between 700 million people and a surprising wealth of wildlife.


WED 23:00 Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain (b0394j6q)
A Revolution in the City

Using her skills to uncover long-forgotten and abandoned plans, architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner explores the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs that were never built.

Destruction, whether intentional or circumstantial, often creates a clean slate and demands a fresh outlook in which we come to think the unthinkable. This programme looks at bold, and in some cases shocking, plans to make revolutionary changes to Britain's biggest cities.

In the mid 17th century, the capital was reeling from the devastation caused by the Great Fire of London. But amid the destruction, a huge opportunity arose to completely remodel and modernise London and make it into a very different city than the one we know today.

London was effectively a blank sheet of paper and, within a week of the city being razed to the ground, architect Sir Christopher Wren presented King Charles II with a vision to create a completely new city. Wren wanted the winding streets and old courtyards that had existed almost unchanged since medieval times to be replaced by monumental Parisian-style avenues in a formal grid pattern with large piazzas. This was a unique opportunity to improve on the past but, while Wren's design for St Paul's Cathedral did become a reality, London was reconstructed on essentially the same street plan as before the fire.

Three centuries later, Glasgow was the second city of the empire and the industrial powerhouse of the nation, but was struggling to cope with overcrowding and slum housing. Many believed the only solution was to start again. The city's leading planner, Robert Bruce, proposed demolishing the entire city centre - the celebrated buildings of Mackintosh and Greek Thompson would all have been bulldozed - to create a 1940s vision of the future. The new Glasgow would have been built as a system of regular tower blocks, ringed by a motorway, built in districts according to function. Bruce's justification for these drastic proposals was the creation of a new 'healthy and beautiful city'. Although his plan was not realised in its entirety, many of his ideas were carried out, and the M8 motorway which cuts right through the city centre is probably the most visible legacy of the 'Bruce Report'.

In both plans, destruction was the driving force behind creating a new city on a fresh slate. Separated in time by 300 years, these two radical thinkers, Christopher Wren and Robert Bruce, devised colossal, transformative schemes for their respective cities in a bid to create their very personal vision of the 'perfect city'.


WED 00:00 Pavlopetri - The City Beneath the Waves (b015yh6f)
Just off the southern coast of mainland Greece lies the oldest submerged city in the world. It thrived for 2,000 years during the time that saw the birth of western civilisation.

An international team of experts uses cutting-edge technology to prise age-old secrets from the complex of streets and stone buildings that lie less than five metres below the surface of the ocean. State-of-the-art CGI helps to raise the city from the seabed, revealing for the first time in 3,500 years how Pavlopetri would once have looked and operated.

Underwater archaeologist Dr Jon Henderson leads the project in collaboration with Nic Flemming, the man whose hunch led to the discovery of Pavlopetri in 1967, and a team from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. Working alongside the archaeologists are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics.

The teams scour the ocean floor, looking for artefacts. The site is littered with thousands of fragments, each providing valuable clues about the everyday lives of the people of Pavlopetri. From the buildings to the trade goods to the everyday tableware, each artefact provides a window into a forgotten world.

Together these precious relics provide us with a window to a time when Pavlopetri would have been at its height, showing us what life was like in this distant age and revealing how this city marks the start of western civilisation.


WED 01:00 The Wonder of Animals (b04gbdwr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 01:30 The Beauty of Anatomy (b04gbdwt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


WED 02:00 Wild China (b00bybp3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


WED 03:00 Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities (b04gbdww)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2014

THU 19:00 World News Today (b04g7y0h)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 BBC Proms (b04gbfdr)
2014

BBC Proms Masterworks: Mahler and Adams

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, Tom Service presents music from multi-award-winning American composer John Adams, alongside Mahler's imaginatively ambitious 1st Symphony. Saxophonist Timothy McAllister performs the UK premiere of Adams's Saxophone Concerto and Marin Alsop conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.


THU 21:35 Pop Go the Sixties (b00cw0pf)
Series 2

Procol Harum

A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum was one of the 1960s' most popular and most-played songs. It's performed here by the group who first recorded it, on Top of the Pops in 1967.


THU 21:40 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0074n2r)
Series 3

Victoria and Her Sisters

She began the century that bears her name a princess and ended it as an empress. Queen Victoria ruled one of the most powerful empires in world history during a century of staggering change - for both good and bad. But it was Victorian women who were at the forefront of the fight against its excesses and inequalities, who campaigned for the rights for ordinary people in marriage, education, medicine and the vote.


THU 22:40 Nelson's Caribbean Hell-hole: An Eighteenth Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered (b01s6gjx)
Human bones found on an idyllic beach in Antigua trigger an investigation by naval historian Sam Willis into one of the darkest chapters of Britain's imperial past. As archaeologists excavate a mass grave of British sailors, Willis explores Antigua's ruins and discovers how the sugar islands of the Caribbean were a kind of hell in the age of Nelson.

Sun, sea, war, tropical diseases and poisoned rum.


THU 23:40 Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley (b048wss8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


THU 00:40 The Secret Life of Books (b04gkqk7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Tuesday]


THU 01:10 World War I at Home (b04gkn55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


THU 01:40 Return to Betjemanland (b04gb6nl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 02:40 A History of Britain by Simon Schama (b0074n2r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:40 today]



FRIDAY 05 SEPTEMBER 2014

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b04g7y0n)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b04gbmj0)
2014

Friday Night at the Proms: Monteverdi Choir Birthday Prom - Beethoven

Samira Ahmed presents a concert celebrating 50 years of the world-famous Monteverdi Choir, founded by conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. This Prom of Beethoven's mighty Missa Solemnis also features the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with a line-up of star soloists. The performance is introduced by a short film exploring the Monteverdi Choir's impact on the music scene over 50 groundbreaking years.


FRI 21:15 Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop (b00nq7q9)
Fleetwood Mac are one of the biggest-selling bands of all time and still on the road. Their story, told in their own words, is an epic tale of love and confrontation, of success and loss.

Few bands have undergone such radical musical and personal change. The band evolved from the 60s British blues boom to perfect a US West Coast sound that saw them sell 40 million copies of the album Rumours.

However, behind-the-scenes relationships were turbulent. The band went through multiple line-ups with six different lead guitarists. While working on Rumours, the two couples at the heart of the band separated, yet this heartache inspired the perfect pop record.


FRI 22:15 BBC Proms (b04gbmj2)
2014

Late Night Live with Paloma Faith and Guy Barker

The Royal Albert Hall shimmers with flamboyance as Paloma Faith takes to the stage in her debut Proms performance. The multi-platinum London-born singer-songwriter is reunited with conductor, composer, trumpeter and arranger Guy Barker, a 42-piece jazz orchestra and the elite Urban Voices Collective for a one-off concert featuring new arrangements of songs including Picking up the Pieces, Can't Rely on You, Only Love Can Hurt Like This and Upside Down.


FRI 23:30 Pop Go the Sixties (b00cyyqt)
Series 2

Sandie Shaw

Pop moments from the BBC's 60s archive. From a rehearsal for a Top of the Pops performance, Sandie gives an accidentally aloof ice-queen rendering of Long Live Love so the cameras can practice their positions. An otherworldly performance of her number 1 hit from 1965.


FRI 23:35 Pop Go the Sixties (b00cyz6x)
Series 2

Julie Felix

Pop moments from the BBC's sixties archive. A 1966 performance from the singing star of The Frost Report. Going to the Zoo calls for audience participation and the audience wind themselves up into a near-monochrome frenzy as they sway slightly in their seats and softly join in.


FRI 23:40 imagine... (b00t15v1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:10 on Sunday]


FRI 00:40 Classic Albums (b00x7chg)
Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes

The third album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released in 1979, has long been regarded as a classic and demonstrates the musical and songwriting virtuosity of a great frontman and his amazing backing band. A mix of rootsy American rock 'n' roll and the best of the British invasion, of jangling Byrds guitars and Stones-like rhythms, Damn the Torpedoes was the album that took Petty into the major league and redefined American rock.

This programme tells the story behind the conception and recording of the album and how it transformed the band's career. Using interviews, musical demonstration, acoustic performance, archive footage and a return to the multi-tracks with the main protagonists, it shows how Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch created their songs and sounds with the help of co-producer Jimmy Iovine and engineer Shelly Yakus. Additional comments from journalists and other producers and musicians help tell the story and put the album into its rightful place in rock history.

Recorded in secrecy at a time when the band was fighting for creative independence amidst a legal wrangle with their record company, the album is imbued with an anger and a gutsy attitude the situation had created. Many songs from the album are still played live and form an important part of Petty's body of work, including Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, Even the Losers, Shadow of a Doubt, Louisiana Rain, Century City and top ten hit Don't Do Me Like That.

Damn the Torpedoes hit number two in the US for seven weeks, initially selling over 2.5 million copies, and launched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers onto the world stage and into superstar territory, standing as one of the great records of the late 70s and early 80s.


FRI 01:35 Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop (b00nq7q9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:15 today]


FRI 02:35 Blues at the BBC (b00k36m5)
Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.

Includes the seminal slide guitar of Son House, the British R&B of The Kinks, the unmistakeable electric sound of BB King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, as well as less familiar material from the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Freddie King and Long John Baldry.




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 Britain by Simon Schama 00:00 TUE (b0078tr5)

A History of Britain by Simon Schama 21:40 THU (b0074n2r)

A History of Britain by Simon Schama 02:40 THU (b0074n2r)

BBC Proms 19:00 SUN (b04gb647)

BBC Proms 19:30 THU (b04gbfdr)

BBC Proms 19:30 FRI (b04gbmj0)

BBC Proms 22:15 FRI (b04gbmj2)

Blondie's New York... and the Making of Parallel Lines 00:00 SUN (b04fmgkb)

Blues at the BBC 02:35 FRI (b00k36m5)

Boxing at the Movies: Kings of the Ring 00:45 SAT (b01r5mhb)

Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities 22:50 MON (b04fmg8j)

Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities 21:00 WED (b04gbdww)

Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities 03:00 WED (b04gbdww)

Classic Albums 00:40 FRI (b00x7chg)

Crimes of Passion 21:00 SAT (p01zzhxn)

Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain 23:00 WED (b0394j6q)

Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop 21:15 FRI (b00nq7q9)

Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop 01:35 FRI (b00nq7q9)

Glastonbury 01:50 SUN (b047zjqt)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 MON (b03qgbjv)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 TUE (b03qgdph)

Great British Railway Journeys 19:30 WED (b03qgh0r)

Horizon 20:00 MON (b00vv0w8)

Horizon 01:50 MON (b00vv0w8)

Human Planet 19:00 SAT (b00rrd87)

Human Planet 01:45 SAT (b00rrd87)

Human Planet 23:00 TUE (b00rrd87)

Metroland 22:00 MON (b00cyyqw)

Miss Bala 22:10 SUN (b01s4qyw)

Nelson's Caribbean Hell-hole: An Eighteenth Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered 22:40 THU (b01s6gjx)

New York Rock at the BBC 00:50 SUN (b007mwcf)

Pavlopetri - The City Beneath the Waves 00:00 WED (b015yh6f)

Pop Go the Sixties 21:35 THU (b00cw0pf)

Pop Go the Sixties 23:30 FRI (b00cyyqt)

Pop Go the Sixties 23:35 FRI (b00cyz6x)

Return to Betjemanland 21:00 MON (b04gb6nl)

Return to Betjemanland 02:50 MON (b04gb6nl)

Return to Betjemanland 01:40 THU (b04gb6nl)

Rome's Lost Empire 23:15 SAT (b01pc063)

Tales from the National Parks 20:00 SAT (b01708v7)

Tales from the National Parks 02:45 SAT (b01708v7)

Tales from the National Parks 01:00 TUE (b01708v7)

Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley 21:00 TUE (b048wss8)

Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley 03:00 TUE (b048wss8)

Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley 23:40 THU (b048wss8)

The Beauty of Anatomy 00:20 MON (b04fmg8g)

The Beauty of Anatomy 20:30 WED (b04gbdwt)

The Beauty of Anatomy 01:30 WED (b04gbdwt)

The London Markets 22:00 TUE (b01jmvkw)

The Secret Life of Books 20:30 TUE (b04gkqk7)

The Secret Life of Books 02:30 TUE (b04gkqk7)

The Secret Life of Books 00:40 THU (b04gkqk7)

The Wonder of Animals 23:50 MON (b04fmg8d)

The Wonder of Animals 20:00 WED (b04gbdwr)

The Wonder of Animals 01:00 WED (b04gbdwr)

Timeshift 00:50 MON (b017zqw8)

Timewatch 22:25 SAT (b0078wrs)

Wild China 22:00 WED (b00bybp3)

Wild China 02:00 WED (b00bybp3)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b04gb66v)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b04g7y05)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b04g7y0b)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b04g7y0h)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b04g7y0n)

World War I at Home 20:00 TUE (b04gkn55)

World War I at Home 02:00 TUE (b04gkn55)

World War I at Home 01:10 THU (b04gkn55)

imagine... 21:10 SUN (b00t15v1)

imagine... 02:45 SUN (b00t15v1)

imagine... 23:40 FRI (b00t15v1)