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 24 SEPTEMBER 2016

SAT 19:00 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmdw1)
Night Happens

For a second night, Keith takes over BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SAT 19:50 Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music (p0295qy9)
A rare chance to see Robert Elfstrom's 1969 classic film that captures the Man in Black at his peak, the first of many in a looming rollercoaster career. Fresh on the heels of his Folsom Prison album, Cash reveals the dark intensity and raw talent that made him a country music star and cultural icon.

Elfstrom got closer than any other film-maker to Cash, who is seen performing with his new bride June Carter Cash, in a rare duet with Bob Dylan and behind the scenes with friends, family and aspiring young musicians - painting an unforgettable portrait that endures beyond the singer's death in 2003.


SAT 20:45 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmdw4)
Comfortable Everywhere

For a second night, Keith takes over BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SAT 21:10 London: The Modern Babylon (p00smkqn)
Julien Temple's epic time-travelling voyage to the heart of his hometown. From musicians, writers and artists to dangerous thinkers, political radicals and above all ordinary people, this is the story of London's immigrants, its bohemians and how together they changed the city forever.

Reaching back to the dawn of film in London at the start of the 20th century, the story unfolds through film archive, voices of Londoners past and present and the flow of popular music across the century; a stream of urban consciousness, like the river which flows through its heart. It ends now, as London prepares to welcome the world to the 2012 Olympics.


SAT 23:15 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmdw6)
Architect of Sound

For a second night, Keith takes over BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SAT 00:30 Bicycle Thieves (b07xnlxj)
Set in an impoverished post-war Italy, this critically acclaimed neo-realist film follows an Italian worker's increasingly desperate efforts to recover the stolen bicycle upon which his livelihood depends.


SAT 01:55 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmdw8)
The Night Time Is the Right Time

For a second night, Keith takes over BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SAT 02:30 I Walked With a Zombie (b0078t0v)
A Canadian nurse, Betsy, arrives on a Caribbean island to tend an invalid woman who appears to suffer from an unexplained paralysis. The horrific truth soon emerges, however, amid the haunting rhythms of the voodoo drums.


SAT 03:35 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmdwc)
Club Dawn

For a second night, Keith takes over BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.



SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2016

SUN 19:00 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmfdb)
Music Is a Weapon

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 19:35 The Man Who Would Be King (b00j275m)
Colourful, historical epic set in the 1880s. Tired of life as disreputable con men, Dravot and Carnehan - former British Army sergeants who have remained in India - plan to venture beyond the North West Frontier into Kurfuristan. There, as the first Europeans since Alexander the Great, they aim to find fame and fortune by setting themselves up as kings. They do indeed become godlike rulers, but their success depends on sustaining the illusion that they are more than mere mortals. From a story by Rudyard Kipling.


SUN 21:40 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmfdd)
Play with Your Heartbeat

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 21:45 Lords of Little Egypt: Mai Zetterling Among the Gypsies (b07xmfdg)
Documentary first broadcast on 3 January 1961. Every year in May several thousand 'Lords of Little Egypt' meet for festivities in the Camargue. Mai Zetterling stays with the gypsies and reports on how they live their lives.


SUN 22:10 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmfdj)
Baudelaire Rolled up with a Few Other Cats

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 23:05 Pandaemonium (b0074nf4)
Ebullient drama celebrating the volatile relationship between poets Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth, played out against the background of the French Revolution. As Coleridge, Wordsworth and Lord Byron await the news of who will be Great Britain's new poet laureate in 1816, Coleridge finds himself thinking back to 1795, when he and Wordsworth were two struggling writers involved in radical politics.


SUN 01:05 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmfdl)
Skin Deep

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 01:25 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07z3xt3)
Lost and Found: The Memory Marbles of Anthony Stern

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 02:10 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07z3xt5)
Keith introduces...

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.


SUN 02:15 Build My Gallows High (b00783dj)
Classic 1940s American film noir which tells a grim, complex tale of love and betrayal. An ex-private detective turned garage owner is hired to find the girlfirend of an old gambling associate. His journey takes him down to Acapulco, where he finds himself falling in love with the dangerous lady in question.


SUN 03:45 Keith Richards' Lost Weekend (b07xmfdn)
Praise and Damnation

For one last night, Keith takes over the controls of BBC FOUR from dusk to dawn, in a pirate broadcast. Replacing the usual channel programming practice or convention we hear Keith's world views, life philosophy and survival strategies as well as all things nocturnal.



MONDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2016

MON 19:00 World News Today (b07x16by)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Brushing up on... (b03x46dv)
Series 2

British Statues

Danny Baker delves through the archives to look at statues. Featuring Winston Churchill, Emmeline Pankhurst, John Noakes and King Kong.


MON 20:00 Addicted to Sheep (b070jj99)
Set in the North Pennines, an intimate portrait of a year in the life of tenant hill farmers Tom and Kay Hutchinson as they try to breed the perfect sheep.

Through the sun, rain, sleet and snow, we watch the Hutchinsons toil away against the stark, stunning landscapes of north east England and witness the hard work it takes just to survive. Their three young children are growing up close to the land, attending the local primary school entirely comprised of farmers' children, all thoroughly immersed in their remote rural world. While the odds often seem stacked against them, the film conveys the importance of a balanced family life and the good humour that binds this tight-knit community together.

An entertaining and subtle reminder of how important farming is to the economy and the social fabric of our communities. Following your passion does have its rewards, although not always financial.

Beautifully observed, this heartwarming film provides an insight into the past, present and future of a way of life far removed from the high-tech hustle and bustle of modern life.


MON 21:00 Kew's Forgotten Queen (b07xjghp)
Within Kew Gardens stands an extraordinary gallery, celebrating the work of one of the most prolific botanical artists of the Victorian age. At a time when women barely left their parlour rooms, Marianne North's globetrotting exploits defied convention as she travelled alone at the height of the British Empire. From Borneo and Brazil to Japan, South Africa, Australia and India, she fearlessly navigated the world twice over in her pursuit of capturing every living plant on canvas.

Actress Emilia Fox tells the story of how this Victorian rebel changed the face of botanical research, propelling her to the top of a male-dominated world of science and exploration, gaining the admiration of Charles Darwin and even Queen Victoria. Retracing Marianne's footsteps and her passion for the natural world, Emilia revisits the awe-inspiring locations of some of her greatest experiences.

With exclusive access to Kew Gardens and Marianne's wealth of personal memoirs, letters and paintings, this is a tantalising tale of a visionary who rejected marriage and social convention for a pioneering life of conservation and adventure. Her artistic legacy remains as mesmerising today as it was in 1882 when her gallery opened at Kew Gardens.


MON 22:00 British Gardens in Time (b04092n6)
Great Dixter

Great Dixter lays claim to being the most innovative, spectacular and provocative garden of the 20th century. Made famous by the much-loved eccentric plantsman and writer Christopher Lloyd, who used the garden as a living laboratory and documented his experiments in a weekly column in Country Life, Great Dixter began life as a Gertrude Jekyll-inspired Arts and Crafts garden surrounding a house designed by Edwin Lutyens.

The Lloyd family created Dixter just before the outbreak of the First World War with the intention of establishing a rural idyll for Christo and his five siblings. Dixter was to be both Christo's horticultural nursery and the setting for his rebellion in late middle age as he finally threw off the shackles of his intense bond with his mother to make the garden and his life his own.


MON 23:00 Life Story (p026vhrd)
Series 1

Parenthood

In the final episode of Life Story,
animals attempt to rear their offspring. This takes extraordinary
commitment, and a parent may even need to risk its own life for its
offspring. A female turtle, returning to the island where she was born 30
years ago, hauls herself up the beach to lay her eggs in a safe place above
the tide line. But her commitment may prove her undoing. The low tide traps
her on the island behind a wall of coral. If she cannot climb over it, the
heat of the sun will kill her. A mother bonobo chimpanzee lavishes care on
her son for five years, deep in the Congo forest. Their bond will endure for
the rest of her life. She will teach him how to survive in the jungle. One
of her most important lessons is showing him a hidden forest pool where they
harvest lilies rich in minerals essential for their good health. A mother
zebra must decide where to lead her young foal across the Mara river so that
they can reach new grazing grounds. Should she cross where they will face
predators such as crocodiles? Or should she lead her foal through
treacherous rapids? Her foal's life may rest on the decision she makes. In a
touching scene, elephants delicately stroke the bones of an ancestor. We
cannot know what they are thinking, but perhaps like humans they have a
sense of a shared history? It is a communal experience that appears to draw
the family members closer together.


MON 00:00 The Epic of Everest (b050r7gx)
A remarkable film record of the legendary Everest expedition of 1924, newly restored by the BFI National Archive.

The third attempt to climb Everest culminated in the deaths of two of the finest climbers of their generation, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and sparked an ongoing debate over whether or not they did indeed reach the summit.

Filming in brutally harsh conditions, Captain John Noel captured images of breathtaking beauty and considerable historic significance, including the earliest filmed records of life in Tibet. But what resonates so deeply is Noel's ability to frame the vulnerability, isolation and courage of people persevering in one of the world's harshest landscapes.

The restoration by the BFI National Archive has transformed the quality of the surviving elements of the film and reintroduced the original coloured tints and tones. The original silent film is brought to life as never before by a haunting new soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner. Revealed by the restoration, few images in cinema are as epic - or moving - as the final shots of a blood red sunset over the Himalayas.


MON 01:25 Addicted to Sheep (b070jj99)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:25 Kew's Forgotten Queen (b07xjghp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2016

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b07x16c3)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Brushing up on... (b03xsrvs)
Series 2

British Beaches

Danny Baker plonks a deckchair on the sandy bit between the land and the sea and mulls over this mysterious, salty, golden or pebbly hinterland.


TUE 20:00 Natural World (b01ntt8p)
2012-2013

Attenborough's Ark

David Attenborough chooses his ten favourite animals that he would most like to save from extinction. From the weird to the wonderful, he picks fabulous and unusual creatures that he would like to put in his 'ark', including unexpected and little-known animals such as the olm, the solenodon and the quoll. He shows why they are so important and shares the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.


TUE 21:00 Legends of the Deep: Deep Sea Sharks (b06237md)
Groundbreaking documentary which follows a Japanese-led team of scientists as they attempt to shed light on the mysterious world of deep sea sharks.

Only 50 specimens of the newly discovered 'megamouth' have ever been sighted. Over four years, scientists and film crews voyaged in midget submarines into the depths of Suruga Bay and Sagami Bay to film them. Prehistoric 'living fossil' sharks such as bluntnose sixgill sharks, goblin sharks and frilled sharks also lurk in the depths.

As part of the investigation, a sperm whale carcass was placed at the bottom of the sea to attract these sharks, which were then studied and observed from the submersible vessels. Revealing in detail the previously unknown behaviour of deep sea sharks, the film unravels another of the intriguing mysteries of our planet's biodiversity.


TUE 21:50 Wild (b00793gb)
2006-07 Shorts

Stoats of Kedleston Hall

Kedleston Hall is a grand stately home nestled in the Derbyshire countryside. In its grounds lives one of the most elusive of British mammals, the stoat. On the estate at the end of winter, we catch a rare glimpse of a stoat in ermine. A visiting shrike, or butcher bird, is another unusual sight.

The stately stoats have resided in Kedleston for many years, and each spring an old walled garden is where they choose to raise their young. The kits give a new meaning to the word hyperactive, and their mum is kept busy catching rabbits to feed them. Eventually the stoat family start to explore their estate, where more surprises are in store.


TUE 22:00 Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines (b03ccs7k)
Pus

Infection can take over the entire human body, and if our immune systems aren't strong enough we will die - in fact, infectious disease has regularly wiped out millions of people across the planet. Dr Michael Mosley explores our earliest attempts to tackle infection and reveals the moment we began to harness the power of microbes to fight back. This is the story of how scientists, chemists and doctors helped us win the battle, from Louis Pasteur to Howard Florey, and how a small team of dedicated men and women wiped out one of mankind's deadliest diseases - smallpox.


TUE 23:00 The Grammar School: A Secret History (b019c88d)
Episode 2

This is the story of the golden age of the grammar schools in the 1950s and 60s and their sudden demise. They gave talented children from modest backgrounds, like Michael Wood, Neil Kinnock and Edwina Currie, the chance to go to the very best schools in the country. This revealing history explains how and why the grammar schools were suddenly phased out by the very people who had benefited from them.


TUE 00:00 Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen (b0555wj7)
With 2015 marking the 100th anniversary of the first British policewoman being given the power of arrest, this film takes us through the remarkable history of 100 years of Britain's female police force. It explores the individual careers and ambitions of women police officers who, through their bravery and guile, were determined to succeed in a profession that never wanted them. It's a story of class, drive and sheer guts, entwined with a darker side of sexism, snobbery, intimidation and betrayal.

Includes interviews with former policewomen who pushed boundaries in the profession such as Sislin Fay Allen, Britain's first black policewoman, Cressida Dick, Britain's highest-ever-ranking policewoman, Alison Halford, who brought a high-profile sex discrimination charge against the police, and Jackie Malton, who provided the model for Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison. These interviews are combined with fascinating facts and illuminating stories from expert historians and current serving officers who have made their careers in the specialist areas of the mounted police and firearms units.

This is a story about ingenuity and determination as well as law and order. A Fair Cop is a hidden history of our society, depicting a battle of the sexes that masked a battle for power.


TUE 01:30 Storyville (b04m3k1q)
Russia's Toughest Prison: The Condemned

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners.

In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life.

A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to.


TUE 02:50 Natural World (b01ntt8p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2016

WED 19:00 World News Today (b07x16c8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Brushing up on... (b03yg3yl)
Series 2

British Woodlands

Danny Baker throws some archive footage into his knapsack and goes for a ramble through our green realms, encountering an X-rated mushroom along the way.


WED 20:00 King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons (b038dbd5)
The Lady of the Mercians

In this second episode, Alfred's children continue the family plan to create a kingdom of all the English.

The tale begins with a savage civil war in a bleak decade of snow and famine, culminating in an epic victory over the Vikings near Wolverhampton in 910. Filmed in the Fens and Winchester, Gloucester, Oxford and Rome, the key figure in this episode is Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, the ruler of Mercia. Michael Wood recovers her story from a copy of a lost chronicle written in Mercia in her lifetime which, in the film, we hear read in Old English.

One of the great forgotten figures in British history, Aethelflaed led armies, built fortresses, campaigned against the Vikings and was a brilliant diplomat. Her fame spread across the British Isles, beloved by her warriors and her people she was known simply as 'the Lady of the Mercians'. Without her, concludes Wood, 'England might never have happened'.


WED 21:00 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b07xjsqj)
Series 1

Swansea

The Swansea museum store contains everything from a stuffed pigeon to a police car, but can Bendor and Jacky reveal a multimillion-pound lost masterpiece that will not only become a jewel of Swansea museum's collection, but also rewrite art history? Also, a rare appearance at the museum of a giant painting of local coal miners prompts Jacky to re-examine the life of the man who painted them, the renowned Polish artist Josef Herman. She tracks down those who remember him in south Wales.


WED 22:00 Rome: A History of the Eternal City (b01p96g4)
Divine Gamble

Simon Sebag Montefiore charts the rocky course of Rome's rise to become the capital of western Christendom and its impact on the lives of its citizens, elites and high priests.

Rome casts aside its pantheon of pagan gods and a radical new religion takes hold. Christianity was just a persecuted sect until Emperor Constantine took a huge leap of faith, promoting it as the religion of Empire. But would this divine gamble pay off?


WED 23:00 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.


WED 00:00 Legends of the Deep: Deep Sea Sharks (b06237md)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 00:55 The Man Who Fought the Planners: The Story of Ian Nairn (b03vrz4h)
These days, opinionated journalists are two a penny. But back in the 1950s, Ian Nairn was part of a new breed of Angry Young Men. Aged just 25 and fresh out of the RAF, he burst onto the architectural scene with Outrage, a blistering attack on the soulless destruction of Britain by shoddy post-war planners. Published in the influential Architectural Review in June 1955, it led to the formation of the Civic Trust, whose remit was to tackle the 'subtopian' eyesores Nairn had so graphically exposed.

Over the next two decades, Nairn became a tireless and passionate campaigner, both in print and on the BBC, inspiring a whole generation to take up arms against the second-rate in our towns and cities. But he himself was a deeply flawed and troubled character, who slowly drank himself to death, feeling the battle to save Britain's soul had been lost. Close colleagues and admirers, including Jonathan Meades, Gillian Darley and Jonathan Glancey, pay tribute to a remarkable man who made us look afresh at the world around us.


WED 01:55 Narnia's Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis (b03jrw5j)
CS Lewis's biographer AN Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia - best-selling children's author and famous Christian writer, but an under-appreciated Oxford academic and an aspiring poet who never achieved the same success in writing verse as he did prose.

Although his public life was spent in the all-male world of Oxford colleges, his private life was marked by secrecy and even his best friend JRR Tolkien didn't know of his marriage to an American divorcee late in life. Lewis died on the same day as the assassination of John F Kennedy and few were at his burial - his alcoholic brother was too drunk to tell people the time of the funeral. Fifty years on, his life as a writer is now being remembered alongside other national literary heroes in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.

In this personal and insightful film, Wilson paints a psychological portrait of a man who experienced fame in the public arena, but whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.


WED 02:55 Britain's Lost Masterpieces (b07xjsqj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2016

THU 19:00 World News Today (b07x16ck)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b07xjkyb)
Richard Skinner presents the weekly chart show, first broadcast on 29 April 1982. Includes appearances from Nicole, Hot Chocolate, Yazoo, Monsoon, Rocky Sharpe & the Replays, Simple Minds, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Spandau Ballet, and Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder.


THU 20:00 Railways: The Making of a Nation (b07x4fg9)
Time

Historian Liz McIvor explores how Britain's expanding rail network was the spark to a social revolution, starting in the 1800s and continuing through to modern times. A fast system of transportation shaped so many areas of our industrial nation - from what we eat to where we live, work and play. The railways generated economic activity but they also changed the nature of business itself. They even changed attitudes to time and how we set our clocks. Our railways may have reflected deep class divisions, but they also brought people together as never before, and helped forge a new sense of national identity.

This episode looks at how you organise a rail network in a country made up of separate local time zones and no recognised timetables. Before the railways, our country was divided and local time was proudly treasured. Clocks in the west of the country were several minutes behind those set in the east. The railways wanted the country to step to a new beat in a world of precise schedules and timetables that recognised Greenwich Mean Time. Not everyone was keen to step in line, and some complained about the new world of one single time zone and precise schedules.


THU 20:30 Hive Minds (b07x1w30)
Series 2

Logophiles v Variorum

Fiona Bruce presents the quiz show where players not only have to know the answers, but have to find them hidden in a hive of letters. It tests players' general knowledge and mental agility, as they battle against one another and race against the clock to find the answers.

Logophiles take on Variorum in this edition.


THU 21:00 Britain's Star Men: Heroes of Astronomy (b07xjh6z)
Four British astronomers celebrate 50 years of work and friendship by going on a road trip to revisit some of the world's greatest observatories. In California, a world leader in observational astronomy at a time when America's space programme was at its height, the astronomers spent their formative years developing friendships that would last a lifetime, and making scientific discoveries that would change the course of history.

Together they represent the most productive period astronomy has ever had. Their journey through the southwestern United States allows them to see once again the places and landscape they explored as young men. Now in their seventies, they share their reflections on a life spent looking at the universe.

Star Men celebrates the history of stargazing - the inventions and discoveries that have enabled us to learn so much about the universe, but more importantly to understand how much more we have yet to discover.


THU 22:00 Do We Really Need the Moon? (b00yb5jp)
The moon is such a familiar presence in the sky that most of us take it for granted. But what if it wasn't where it is now? How would that affect life on Earth?

Space scientist and lunar fanatic Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock explores our intimate relationship with the moon. Besides orchestrating the tides, the moon dictates the length of a day, the rhythm of the seasons and the very stability of our planet.

Yet the moon is always on the move. In the past, it was closer to the Earth and in the future it will be farther away. That it is now perfectly placed to sustain life is pure luck, a cosmic coincidence. Using computer graphics to summon up great tides and set the Earth spinning on its side, Aderin-Pocock implores us to look at the Moon afresh: to see it not as an inert rock, but as a key player in the story of our planet, past, present and future.


THU 23:00 Horizon (b06spxtc)
Beyond the Moon

A chance to look back at a classic Horizon special in which James Burke looks at space exploration and exploitation. Originally transmitted in 1984, James begins by looking at the Apollo XI moon landing, before moving on to future space plans for humankind.


THU 00:00 Life Story (p026vhrd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]


THU 01:00 Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (b00hd5mf)
David Attenborough is a passionate Darwinian, and sees evolution as the cornerstone of all the programmes and series he has ever made. Here, he shares his personal view on Darwin's controversial idea. Taking us on a journey through the last 200 years, he tracks the changes in our understanding of the natural world. Ever since Darwin, major scientific discoveries have helped to underpin and strengthen Darwin's revolutionary idea so that today, the pieces of the puzzle fit together so neatly that there can be little doubt that Darwin was right. As David says: 'Now we can trace the ancestry of all animals in the tree of life and demonstrate the truth of Darwin's basic proposition. All life is related.'

David asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?

David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. He goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s, and he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.

At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.


THU 02:00 Top of the Pops (b07xjkyb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:35 Britain's Star Men: Heroes of Astronomy (b07xjh6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2016

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b07x1wfh)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b07xjl41)
Simon Bates presents the weekly pop chart show, first broadcast on 6 May 1982. Includes appearances from the Scottish and English World Cup Squads, BA Robertson, Chas & Dave, Junior, Patrice Rushen, Tight Fit, Bananarama & Fun Boy Three, and Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder. Also includes a dance performance from Zoo.


FRI 20:00 The Good Old Days (b07xjl43)
Leonard Sachs presents an edition of the old-time music hall programme from the stage of the City Varieties Theatre, Leeds. Guests include Nick Moll, Bernard Cribbins, Valerie Masterson, Bill Pertwee, Terence Alexander, Des Lane and Ray C Davis.


FRI 20:45 Sounds of the Sixties (b07179dp)
Reversions

The Folk Revival 2

Tim Buckley and Richie Havens are the folk stars in this 1960s archive show.


FRI 20:55 Pop Go the Sixties (b00crz39)
Series 2

Herman's Hermits

Pop moments from the BBC's sixties archive. Britain's inoffensive pop conquerors of America, who anticipated the sound that the Monkees would later call their own, perform Something Is Happening on the Wednesday Show in 1968. Peter Noone leads the band on the song that made number six in the Swiss charts.


FRI 21:00 The Hip Hop World News (b07vxmxt)
Embarking on an immersive authored journey, Rodney P reveals a fascinating alternative version of reality as seen from the perspective of a culture which was created in the black and Latino ghettos of 1970s New York, and has since evolved into a world-dominating cultural powerhouse.

Whether it's chronicling life on the streets or offering a surprising twist on global events, hip-hop has given a voice to the powerless and dispossessed while also acting as a platform for ideas, opinions and sometimes controversial theories to be shared amongst its millions of followers.

Looking at big issues such as power, conspiracy, education and money, Rodney meets iconic figures like Public Enemy's Chuck D, Def Jam's Russell Simmons, who created the template for the hip-hop mogul, and New York rapper Rakim, agreed by many to be the greatest MC of all time. Rodney's journey also gets to grips with contentious issues like police brutality, extreme language and the role of women in a culture some see as misogynistic, to provide a fascinating take on what the world really looks like with a hip hop state of mind.

As Rodney explores the important issues and powerful ideas through the lens of hip-hop, he learns more about the culture he himself has been part of for almost four decades while showing those who have never quite understood (and may even have dismissed it) just how surprising and rich that culture really is.


FRI 22:30 Rubble Kings (b07vxmxw)
Documentary that tells the story of how hip-hop was vital to the truce that ended the near-apocalyptic level of gang violence in New York during the 1960s and 70s. Using interviews with hip-hop pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa (an ex-Black Spade gang leader) and Kool Herc, unseen archive footage of street gangs, and filmed over seven years, the film chronicles life during this era of gang rule, tells the story of how a few extraordinary, forgotten people did the impossible, and how their actions saved New York City and gave birth to the biggest musical genre on the planet - hip-hop.


FRI 23:30 Hip-Hop at the BBC (b017zrm5)
Hip-hop through the decades from the BBC archives, including the Sugarhill Gang in 1979, Run DMC, LL Cool J and Eric B & Rakim in the 80s, Ice-T, Monie Love, Fugees and the Roots in the 90s and concluding with Dr Dre & Eminem, Dizzee Rascal and Jay-Z.


FRI 00:30 Top of the Pops (b07xjl41)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


FRI 01:10 The Hip Hop World News (b07vxmxt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 02:40 Hip-Hop at the BBC (b017zrm5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:30 today]




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

Addicted to Sheep 20:00 MON (b070jj99)

Addicted to Sheep 01:25 MON (b070jj99)

Bicycle Thieves 00:30 SAT (b07xnlxj)

Britain's Lost Masterpieces 21:00 WED (b07xjsqj)

Britain's Lost Masterpieces 02:55 WED (b07xjsqj)

Britain's Star Men: Heroes of Astronomy 21:00 THU (b07xjh6z)

Britain's Star Men: Heroes of Astronomy 02:35 THU (b07xjh6z)

British Gardens in Time 22:00 MON (b04092n6)

Brushing up on... 19:30 MON (b03x46dv)

Brushing up on... 19:30 TUE (b03xsrvs)

Brushing up on... 19:30 WED (b03yg3yl)

Build My Gallows High 02:15 SUN (b00783dj)

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life 01:00 THU (b00hd5mf)

Do We Really Need the Moon? 22:00 THU (b00yb5jp)

Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen 00:00 TUE (b0555wj7)

Hip-Hop at the BBC 23:30 FRI (b017zrm5)

Hip-Hop at the BBC 02:40 FRI (b017zrm5)

Hive Minds 20:30 THU (b07x1w30)

Horizon 23:00 THU (b06spxtc)

I Walked With a Zombie 02:30 SAT (b0078t0v)

Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music 19:50 SAT (p0295qy9)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 19:00 SAT (b07xmdw1)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 20:45 SAT (b07xmdw4)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 23:15 SAT (b07xmdw6)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 01:55 SAT (b07xmdw8)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 03:35 SAT (b07xmdwc)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 19:00 SUN (b07xmfdb)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 21:40 SUN (b07xmfdd)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 22:10 SUN (b07xmfdj)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 01:05 SUN (b07xmfdl)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 01:25 SUN (b07z3xt3)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 02:10 SUN (b07z3xt5)

Keith Richards' Lost Weekend 03:45 SUN (b07xmfdn)

Kew's Forgotten Queen 21:00 MON (b07xjghp)

Kew's Forgotten Queen 02:25 MON (b07xjghp)

King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons 20:00 WED (b038dbd5)

Legends of the Deep: Deep Sea Sharks 21:00 TUE (b06237md)

Legends of the Deep: Deep Sea Sharks 00:00 WED (b06237md)

Life Story 23:00 MON (p026vhrd)

Life Story 00:00 THU (p026vhrd)

London: The Modern Babylon 21:10 SAT (p00smkqn)

Lords of Little Egypt: Mai Zetterling Among the Gypsies 21:45 SUN (b07xmfdg)

Lost Kingdoms of South America 23:00 WED (b01pwtqy)

Narnia's Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis 01:55 WED (b03jrw5j)

Natural World 20:00 TUE (b01ntt8p)

Natural World 02:50 TUE (b01ntt8p)

Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines 22:00 TUE (b03ccs7k)

Pandaemonium 23:05 SUN (b0074nf4)

Pop Go the Sixties 20:55 FRI (b00crz39)

Railways: The Making of a Nation 20:00 THU (b07x4fg9)

Rome: A History of the Eternal City 22:00 WED (b01p96g4)

Rubble Kings 22:30 FRI (b07vxmxw)

Sounds of the Sixties 20:45 FRI (b07179dp)

Storyville 01:30 TUE (b04m3k1q)

The Epic of Everest 00:00 MON (b050r7gx)

The Good Old Days 20:00 FRI (b07xjl43)

The Grammar School: A Secret History 23:00 TUE (b019c88d)

The Hip Hop World News 21:00 FRI (b07vxmxt)

The Hip Hop World News 01:10 FRI (b07vxmxt)

The Man Who Fought the Planners: The Story of Ian Nairn 00:55 WED (b03vrz4h)

The Man Who Would Be King 19:35 SUN (b00j275m)

Top of the Pops 19:30 THU (b07xjkyb)

Top of the Pops 02:00 THU (b07xjkyb)

Top of the Pops 19:30 FRI (b07xjl41)

Top of the Pops 00:30 FRI (b07xjl41)

Wild 21:50 TUE (b00793gb)

World News Today 19:00 MON (b07x16by)

World News Today 19:00 TUE (b07x16c3)

World News Today 19:00 WED (b07x16c8)

World News Today 19:00 THU (b07x16ck)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (b07x1wfh)