The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
Michael Portillo continues his railway adventure which takes him across the heart of Europe. Following in the footsteps of early 20th-century travellers, on this journey Michael uses his 1913 railway guide to explore Switzerland, whose remarkable railways helped make it a favourite with Edwardian tourists. He begins in the truly international city of Basel and travels east to visit industrial Zurich.
Cleopatra - the most famous woman in history. We know her as a great queen, a beautiful lover and a political schemer. For 2,000 years almost all evidence of her has disappeared - until now.
In one of the world's most exciting finds, archaeologists believe they have discovered the skeleton of her sister, murdered by Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
From Egypt to Turkey, Neil Oliver investigates the story of a ruthless queen who would kill her own siblings for power. This is the portrait of a killer.
In the last month of the space shuttle programme, Kevin Fong is granted extraordinary access to the astronauts and ground crew as they prepare for their final mission. He is in mission control as the astronauts go through their final launch simulation, and he flies with the last shuttle commander as he undertakes his last practice landing flight. Kevin also gains privileged access to the shuttle itself, visiting the launchpad in the company of the astronaut who will guide the final flight from mission control.
Kevin's journey takes him to the heart of Nasa when, after 30 years of shuttle missions, they finally draw the curtain. As well as meeting the final astronauts, Kevin follows the specialist teams of men and women whose job it is to make sure the shuttle and its crew are as safe as they can possibly be.
After experiencing the launch and being in mission control during the final mission, Kevin will be there on the tarmac at the Kennedy Space Centre when Atlantis returns from space for the last time, marking the end of an era in manned space flight.
In 2011, after more than 30 years of service, America's space shuttle took to the skies for the last time. Its story has been characterised by incredible triumphs, but blighted by devastating tragedies - and the BBC and Horizon have chronicled every step of its career. This unique and poignant Horizon Guide brings together coverage from three decades of programmes to present a biography of the shuttle and to ask what its legacy will be. Will it be remembered as an impressive chapter in human space exploration, or as a fatally flawed white elephant?
Professor Brian Cox reveals how something as flimsy as an envelope of gas - an atmosphere - can create some of the most wondrous sights in the solar system. He takes a ride in an English Electric Lightning and flies 18 km up to the top of earth's atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below. In the Namib desert in south-west Africa, he tells the story of Mercury. This tiny planet was stripped naked of its early atmosphere and is fully exposed to the ferocity of space.
Against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, Brian reveals his fourth wonder: Saturn's moon Titan, shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere. He reveals that below the clouds lies a magical world. Titan is the only place beyond earth where we've found liquid pooling on the surface in vast lakes, as big as the Caspian Sea, but the lakes of Titan are filled with a mysterious liquid, and are quite unlike anything on earth.
Hormones shape each and every one of us, affecting almost every aspect of our lives - our height, our weight, our appetites, how we grow and reproduce, and even how we behave and feel.
This documentary tells the wonderful and often weird story of how hormones were discovered.
Presenter John Wass, one the country's leading experts on hormones, relates some amazing stories - how as recently as the 19th century boys were castrated to keep their pure soprano voice, how juices were extracted from testicles in the hope they would rejuvenate old men and how true medical heroes like Frederick Banting discovered a way to make insulin, thus saving the lives of countless diabetes sufferers.
And hormones remain at the cutting edge of medicine as we try and deal with modern scourges like obesity.
THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2015
THU 19:00 World News Today (b05241g0)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b05279pn)
David 'Kid' Jensen presents chart hits of the week, with performances from the Revillos, Kenny Rogers, Azymuth, John Foxx, Madness, Rupert Holmes, the Ramones, Jon & Vangelis, Billy Ocean and the Specials, and a dance sequence by Legs & Co.
THU 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.
THU 21:00 Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman (b05279pq)
Michael Wood tells the extraordinary story of an ordinary woman in a time of revolution. Born during the reign of Henry VIII, Mary Arden is the daughter of a Warwickshire farmer, but she marries into a new life in the rising Tudor middle class in Stratford-upon-Avon. There she has eight children, three of whom die young. Her husband becomes mayor, but is bankrupted by his shady business dealings. Faced with financial ruin, religious persecution and power politics, the family is the glue that keeps them together until they are rescued by Mary's successful eldest son - William Shakespeare!
THU 22:00 A Timewatch Guide (b052775d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 23:00 Digging for Britain (b052775b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Tuesday]
THU 00:00 Wonders of the Solar System (b00rtg5k)
Original Series
Dead or Alive
Professor Brian Cox visits some of the most stunning locations on Earth to describe how the laws of nature have carved natural wonders across the solar system.
The worlds that surround our planet are all made of rock, but there the similarity ends. Some have a beating geological heart, others are frozen in time. Brian travels to the tallest mountain on Earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet's size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, Brian would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the solar system, an extinct volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27 km.
Yet the fifth wonder in the series isn't on a planet at all. It's on a tiny moon of Jupiter. The discoveries made on Io have been astonishing. This fragment of rock should be cold and dead, yet, with the volcanic landscape of eastern Ethiopia as a backdrop, Brian reveals why Io is home to extraordinary lakes of lava and giant volcanic plumes that erupt 500 km into the sky.
THU 01:00 Top of the Pops (b05279pn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:40 Horizon (b00vv0w8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 02:40 Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman (b05279pq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2015
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b05241g5)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Secret Knowledge (b05270hv)
In Search of Rory McEwen
Jools Holland tells the remarkable story of Rory McEwen - folk singer, blues guitarist, early TV presenter and artist. Rory was Jools's father-in-law, but the two men never met. He died in 1982, aged 50. Born into an aristocratic family in Scotland, Rory became a musician, touring the USA in the 1950s. He had a groundbreaking music show, Hullabaloo, and his Chelsea home was a hub of 1960s London music. Rory abandoned music and TV to focus on botanical art and his paintings are finally being recognised as masterpieces. With contributions from an eclectic cast including Van Morrison, David Dimbleby and Jonathan Miller.
FRI 20:00 Symphony (b01778mc)
New Nations and New Worlds
Simon Russell Beale continues his history of the symphony by taking a musical journey through the rise of nationalism in Europe into the New World. He discovers how nationalist voices such as Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Sibelius brought the symphony to wider audiences and visits Dvorak's summer house as he left it at his death in 1904, a remarkable insight into the personal life of the great composer.
Simon follows the development of the symphony outside Europe and explores how growing urbanisation led to the construction and growing popularity of some of the world's greatest concert halls, visiting the Musikverein in Vienna, the Philharmonic Hall in St Petersburg and Carnegie Hall in New York.
The symphonies are played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
FRI 21:00 Neil Sedaka: King of Song (b03v2yxt)
Neil Sedaka is one of the most successful American singer-songwriters of the last century. A classically trained musician, he won a scholarship to the Juilliard School at the age of nine and four years later he embarked on a writing career that would see him create some of the most perfect pop songs of all time. Throughout his career he wrote, recorded and sang a number of instantly recognisable and memorable tunes, as well as delivering a string of hits as a songwriter for other artists.
This documentary portrait film tells the story of Neil Sedaka's life and career, in which he had two distinct periods of success. Between 1958 and 1963 he sold over 25 million records, but then his career nose-dived after the Beatles and the British Invasion hit the USA. Leaving his homeland, he found success in the UK in the early 1970s and relaunched his career before returning to the US and achieving new stardom with songs like Solitaire and Laughter in the Rain.
Neil gives great insight into how he created catchy classics like Calendar Girl, (Is This the Way to) Amarillo, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen and Stupid Cupid, amongst many others.
FRI 22:00 Neil Sedaka Says: All You Need Is the Music (b00pwstt)
During a career which was originally designed to make him a classical pianist, the musical achievements and statistics of singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka have made him a compelling figure in contemporary music, with 600 songs written and 20 million records sold. The hits from his early rock 'n' roll days to his later, more lyrical age are all included in this special one-man show from the 1980s.
FRI 22:45 You've Got a Friend: The Carole King Story (b0461chb)
Documentary telling, in her own words, the story of Carole King's upbringing in Brooklyn and the subsequent success that she had as half of husband-and-wife songwriting team Goffin and King for Aldon Music on Broadway.
It was during this era in the early 1960s that they created a string of pop hits such as Take Good Care of My Baby for Bobby Vee, The Locomotion for Little Eva and Will You Love Me Tomorrow for the Shirelles, which became the first number one hit by a black American girl group. They also wrote the era-defining Up on the Roof for the Drifters and the magnificent Natural Woman for Aretha Franklin.
By 1970 Carole was divorced from songwriting partner Gerry Goffin and had moved to Los Angeles. It was here that she created her classic solo album Tapestry, packed with delightful tunes but also, for the first time, her own lyrics, very much sung from the heart. The album included It's Too Late, I Feel the Earth Move and You've Got a Friend and held the record for the most weeks at number one by a solo female artist for nearly 20 years. It became a trusted part of everyone's record collection and has sold over 25 million copies to date.
The film features some wonderful unseen material and home movies, and narrates her life as an acclaimed singer-songwriter. To date, more than 400 of her compositions have been recorded by over 1,000 artists, resulting in 100 hit singles.
More recently, in 2013, Carole was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress for her songwriting, whilst in 2014 Broadway production Beautiful, which tells her life story during the Goffin and King era, has received rave reviews.
Nowadays Carole King would see herself as an environmental activist as much as a songwriter, and she is to be found constantly lobbying congress in defence of the wildlife and ecosystems of her beloved Idaho.
FRI 23:45 Secret Knowledge (b05270hv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 00:15 Singer-Songwriters at the BBC (b015f5c8)
Series 2
Episode 1
The celebration of the singing songwriting troubadours of the 1960s and 70s continues with a further trawl through the BBC archives for timeless and classic performances.
Don McLean performs his huge hit American Pie from 1972 and Tim Buckley provides some sublime sounds with a rendition of his song Happy Time. Also making an appearance is the long-lamented John Martyn, folk queen Sandy Denny and, in a duet with Joe Egan as Stealers Wheel, the late Gerry Rafferty. Stealers Wheel chum and one-time collaborator Rab Noakes also makes a contribution to this compilation.
Leonard Cohen and Julie Felix present a unique collaboration and performance of Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye, and there's an unforgettable performance of Case of You by Joni Mitchell. No celebration of this genre would be complete without contributions from songwriting heavyweights such as Elton John, Paul Simon, Loudon Wainwright III and Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens.
FRI 01:15 Neil Sedaka: King of Song (b03v2yxt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:15 Neil Sedaka Says: All You Need Is the Music (b00pwstt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 03:00 You've Got a Friend: The Carole King Story (b0461chb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:45 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
A Timewatch Guide
21:00 TUE (b052775d)
A Timewatch Guide
02:55 TUE (b052775d)
A Timewatch Guide
22:00 THU (b052775d)
Asylum
21:00 MON (b0528n1j)
Asylum
02:30 MON (b0528n1j)
Asylum
01:00 WED (b0528n1j)
Bob Servant
21:30 MON (b04tmjcd)
Bob Servant
03:00 MON (b04tmjcd)
Bob Servant
01:30 WED (b04tmjcd)
Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities
20:00 SAT (b04gbdww)
Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities
02:00 SAT (b04gbdww)
Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe
22:50 SAT (b0520y52)
Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer
20:00 WED (b00jhv9g)
Digging for Britain
20:00 TUE (b052775b)
Digging for Britain
01:55 TUE (b052775b)
Digging for Britain
23:00 THU (b052775b)
Genesis: Three Sides Live
01:00 SUN (b051wmh7)
Genesis: Together and Apart
23:30 SUN (b04l3phb)
Great Continental Railway Journeys
19:30 MON (b01rbrw9)
Great Continental Railway Journeys
03:30 MON (b01rbrw9)
Great Continental Railway Journeys
19:30 TUE (b01rbrzy)
Great Continental Railway Journeys
01:25 TUE (b01rbrzy)
Great Continental Railway Journeys
19:30 WED (b01rhvj9)
Horizon
21:00 SUN (b00jgtl2)
Horizon
01:30 MON (b01llnb2)
Horizon
20:00 THU (b00vv0w8)
Horizon
01:40 THU (b00vv0w8)
Kings of 70s Romance
22:30 SUN (b007cjtw)
Mark Lawson Talks To...
20:00 SUN (b05270hx)
Neil Sedaka Says: All You Need Is the Music
22:00 FRI (b00pwstt)
Neil Sedaka Says: All You Need Is the Music
02:15 FRI (b00pwstt)
Neil Sedaka: King of Song
21:00 FRI (b03v2yxt)
Neil Sedaka: King of Song
01:15 FRI (b03v2yxt)
Queen - Days of Our Lives
23:20 SAT (b011pwd9)
Queen - Days of Our Lives
00:20 SAT (b011r4gs)
Secret Knowledge
19:30 FRI (b05270hv)
Secret Knowledge
23:45 FRI (b05270hv)
Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman
21:00 THU (b05279pq)
Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman
02:40 THU (b05279pq)
Singer-Songwriters at the BBC
00:15 FRI (b015f5c8)
Smiley's People
22:00 TUE (b007l43k)
Sounds of the 70s 2
03:00 SAT (b01j8h0b)
Space Shuttle: The Final Mission
21:00 WED (b012x69w)
Space Shuttle: The Final Mission
02:55 WED (b012x69w)
Spiral
21:00 SAT (b0524jss)
Spiral
21:55 SAT (b0524jsy)
Storyville
22:00 MON (b052790w)
Storyville
23:00 TUE (b05273fj)
Symphony
20:00 FRI (b01778mc)
TOTP2
02:25 SUN (b04lclfn)
The Fantastical World of Hormones with Professor John Wass
00:00 WED (b03wctdg)
The Great War
19:00 SUN (b0074p2d)
The Horizon Guide to Space Shuttles
22:00 WED (b0109cc7)
The Last Journey of the Magna Carta King
20:00 MON (b052hrdd)
The Last Journey of the Magna Carta King
01:55 WED (b052hrdd)
The Sky at Night
22:00 SUN (b052hpyd)
The Sky at Night
03:10 SUN (b052hpyd)
The Strange Case of the Law
23:30 MON (b01kbfd8)
Top of the Pops
01:20 SAT (b051h2xy)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (b05279pn)
Top of the Pops
01:00 THU (b05279pn)
Unnatural Histories
19:00 SAT (b011wzrc)
Wild
19:40 SUN (b00793km)
Wild
19:50 SUN (b00793nq)
Wonders of the Solar System
00:30 MON (b00rf172)
Wonders of the Solar System
00:25 TUE (b00rkksg)
Wonders of the Solar System
23:00 WED (b00rmpqh)
Wonders of the Solar System
00:00 THU (b00rtg5k)
World News Today
19:00 MON (b05241fj)
World News Today
19:00 TUE (b05241fp)
World News Today
19:00 WED (b05241fv)
World News Today
19:00 THU (b05241g0)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (b05241g5)
You've Got a Friend: The Carole King Story
22:45 FRI (b0461chb)
You've Got a Friend: The Carole King Story
03:00 FRI (b0461chb)