The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
Explorer Paul Rose heads for the North Pennines in the latest stage of his journey along the Pennine Way. He goes white-water rafting down the River Tees and takes in one of Britain's best views at High Cup Nick. Paul also hears about a weather phenomenon unique to the Pennine Way and spends a night at a remote mountain refuge close to the highest point of the Pennine Way.
Seven miles off the coast of Scotland and cut off by the tumultuous Pentland Firth, the fastest-flowing tidal race in Europe, Orkney is often viewed as being remote. However it is one of the treasure troves of archaeology in Britain, and recent discoveries there are turning the Stone Age map of Britain upside down. Recent finds suggest an extraordinary theory - that rather than an outpost at the edge of the world, Orkney was the cultural capital of our ancient world and the origin of the stone circle cult which culminated in Stonehenge.
In the third of this three-part series, Neil Oliver, Chris Packham, Andy Torbet and Dr Shini Somara join hundreds of archaeologists from around the world who have gathered there to investigate at one of Europe's biggest digs. Andy dives below the waves in search of the inspiration for the first stone circle, Chris and Neil spend the night on an abandoned island as they hunt for clues as to why cultures change, Shini tests the technology behind a Bronze-Age sauna, and the archaeologists uncover a remarkable find.
From enormous tortoises and deep-diving lizards to fish-eating snakes and birds that hunt giant venomous centipedes, the wildlife of the world-famous Galapagos Islands is unique and bizarre. This wilderness once inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, but it is currently undergoing a human revolution, with tourism driving a population boom.
David Attenborough narrates this modern-day story of the Galapagos and reveals whether, in this ever-changing world, its animals can still thrive.
Stephanie Flanders, former BBC economics editor, has a very personal interest in the battle to beat polio. Her father, Michael Flanders, one half of the world-famous singing duo of the 50s and 60s, Flanders and Swann, was paralysed by the infection when he was 21. He used a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and died early at 53 through complications caused by the disease. Stephanie was just six.
But the desperate search for a vaccine was far from straightforward. Stephanie discovers that it is the story of decades of battling between good and bad science, celebrity scientists with giant egos, prepared to take enormous risks to be first with a vaccine, and countless innocent victims. By the end, Stephanie realises there might have been a polio vaccine years earlier, and hundreds of thousands might have been spared, including her dad.
In the first episode of this fascinating and entertaining series exploring the politics of music, Suzy Klein takes us back to the volatile years following the Russian Revolution and World War I, when music was seen as a tool to change society.
Suzy explores the gender-bending cabarets of 1920s Berlin, smashes a piano in the spirit of the Bolshevik revolution, and discovers that playing a theremin is harder than it looks. She also reveals why one orchestra decided to work without a conductor, uncovers the dark politics behind Mack the Knife and probes the satirical songs which tried to puncture the rise of the Nazis. Finally, she tells the story of the infamous Horst Wessel song, which helped bring Hitler to power.
Suzy's musical stories are richly brought to life with the help of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its Chorus, as well as wonderful solo performers. This was a golden age for music, and its jazz, popular songs, experimental symphonies and classics like Rachmaninoff all provoke debate - what kind of culture do we want? Is music for the elite or for the people? Was this a new age of liberal freedom to be relished - or were we hurtling towards the apocalypse?
With music's incredible power to bypass our brains and get straight to our hearts, it can at once invoke the very best in us and, Suzy argues, inflame the very worst. Music lovers beware!
Utopia has been imagined in a thousand different ways. Yet when people try to build utopia, they struggle and very often fail. Art historian professor Richard Clay asks whether utopian visions for living can ever reconcile the tension between the group and the individual, the rules and the desire to break free.
Travelling to America, he encounters experimental communities, searching for greater meaning in life. Richard visits a former Shaker village in New Hampshire and immerses himself for a day at the Twin Oaks eco-commune in Virginia, where residents share everything, even clothes. He looks back at the grand urban plans for the masses of the 20th-century utopian ideologies, from the New Deal housing projects of downtown Chicago to the concrete sprawl of a Soviet-era housing estate in Vilnius, Lithuania. He also meets utopian architects with a continuing faith that humanity's lot can be improved by better design. Interviewees include architect Norman Foster and designer Shoji Sadao.
The third and final programme charts the final years of the decade, looking at a society transformed by an accelerated change. Dominic argues that this change brought opportunities and anxieties that we continue to wrestle with to this day, from significant technological advances and the privatisation of national companies, to the deregulation of the stock market and the growing polarisation of rich and poor.
The late 80s saw Britain transformed beyond measure, from the economic 'Big Bang' in the City of London and the rise of the yuppie to more tangible, everyday signs of household change, such as the impact of Europe on British shopping habits - from German cars to French wine, Italian fashion and Scandinavian interior design. But alongside this transformation was a growing disconnection from the political elite, signified by the rise of rave culture and the poll tax riots. Margaret Thatcher - widely seen as the architect of so much of this change - would ultimately become its biggest victim.
THURSDAY 12 JULY 2018
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (b0b9k4qc)
Series 1
12/07/2018
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b0b9v3lf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
THU 20:00 The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain (p01xtmv7)
Episode 3
Dr Lucy Worsley's story of the first Georgian kings reaches the final years of George II's reign. With extensive access to artworks in the Royal Collection, she shows how Britain's new ruling family fought the French, the Jacobites and each other, all at the same time. But while George very publicly bickered with his troublesome son Frederick, Prince of Wales, he also led from the front on the battlefield - the last British king to do so - and helped turn his adopted nation into a global superpower.
What would have seemed an unlikely outcome when the Georges first arrived from Hanover was achieved on the back of a strong navy, a dubious slave trade and a powerful new entrepreneurial spirit that owed much to the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment.
THU 21:00 Napoleon (b0600385)
Episode 3
Historian Andrew Roberts charts the fall of Napoleon, a defining moment in global history, which saw him taken to the remote island of St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean in 1815 as a prisoner of the British.
It had taken just a year for the monarchies of Europe, the anti-Napoleonic powers of the world, to destroy him. He trusted the Tsar of Russia - but the Tsar reneged on their deal. He sought revenge by invading Russia in 1812 - but the campaign was a disaster. He sought to defend France against her enemies - but made some grave and ultimately suicidal military misjudgements.
Ever since the revolution had taken place in France in 1789, the monarchist nations of the world were out to destroy Napoleon. At the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, they were granted their ultimate opportunity.
THU 22:00 Who Were the Greeks? (b036b0yl)
Episode 1
Classicist Dr Michael Scott uncovers the strange, alien world of the ancient Greeks, exploring the lives of the people who gave us democracy, architecture, philosophy, language, literature and sport.
Travelling across Greece today, Michael visits ancient cities and battlefields, great ruins and wild countryside, all in his search to uncover how the ancient Greeks thought and lived. What he finds is that ancient Greece was a seething tornado of strange, unsettling and downright outrageous customs and beliefs, inhabited by a people who could be as brutal as they were brilliant.
THU 23:00 Britain's Whale Hunters: The Untold Story (b046w23l)
The Fall
Writer Adam Nicolson continues to explore the forgotten role that British whalers played in Antarctic whaling as late as the 1960s. Granted rare access to the ruins of the whaling stations on the island of South Georgia, he charts the boom and bust of this once multimillion-pound industry. He hears first-hand about the battle between science, politics and profit that brought whales to the brink of extermination just 50 years ago and reveals the astounding role that Britain played in the international whaling industry.
A few hundred years ago, the oceans were home to millions of whales, but then we found that they were incredibly useful: by the 1920s they were even forming an essential part of Britain's fat supply to make soap and margarine. On the remote British Antarctic island of South Georgia, the centre of the industry in the 1920s, Adam explores the incredible ruins of the world's largest whaling station. Abandoned in the 1960s, Leith Harbour is a complete, but now deserted, whaling town. To fully understand how whale populations were so drastically reduced, Adam puts our modern environmental guilt to one side and, with the help of the last of the British whalers and dramatic archive film, sees the industry through the eyes of its own time.
In the mid-1920s, up to 8,000 whales a year were being processed on South Georgia to satisfy Europe's demand for fat. The whalers describe the dangers of using industrial machinery to process whales and Adam explores the hospital that treated the unlucky ones, still stocked with 1950s medicine. Meanwhile, some scientists in Britain were aware of the threat of the industry to whale populations, and a hugely ambitious piece of marine biology - the 'Discovery Investigations' - were launched. Adam visits a legacy of this program, the new ship Discovery, and learns how the original attempted to build an argument for sustainable whaling.
The industry soon found a way to become yet more effective at hunting and processing whales through a revolutionary piece of ship design, which also allowed them to dodge British attempts at regulation. Adam explores the incredible scale of the oil being sent home: by 1933, 37 per cent of the fat in British margarine was from whales. As World War Two approached, Germany and Japan joined the industry, and catches reached a staggering 46,000 whales caught in the Antarctic in one year.
While exploring an abandoned whale-catching ship and taking a peek behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum, Adam examines the tussle between the industry and science. War-ravaged Europe was desperate for fats, and new attempts to regulate the industry proved completely inadequate to protect whale populations. It wasn't until population dynamics experts were included in the 1960s that the industry began to take action to seriously reduce catches. And by then, whale stocks were in a disastrous state, with some species near extinction.
Having discovered so much about the forgotten story of British whaling, Adam attempts to find a balanced view of the industry as a whole - one that killed over 1.6 million whales in the Antarctic. He feels a deep admiration for the great skill and courage of the whalers, but, at the same time, concludes that he hates the whaling itself.
THU 00:00 Deep Down & Dirty: The Science of Soil (b040y925)
For billions of years our planet was devoid of life, but something transformed it into a vibrant, living planet. That something was soil.
It's a much-misunderstood substance, often dismissed as 'dirt', something to be avoided. Yet the crops we eat, the animals we rely on, the very oxygen we breathe, all depend on the existence of the plant life that bursts from the soil every year.
In this film, gardening expert Chris Beardshaw explores where soil comes from, what it's made of and what makes it so essential to life. Using specialist microphotography, he reveals it as we've never seen it before - an intricate microscopic landscape, teeming with strange and wonderful life forms.
It's a world where the chaos of life meets the permanence of rock, the two interacting with each other to make a living system of staggering complexity that sustains all life on Earth.
Chris explores how man is challenging this most precious resource on our planet and how new science is seeking to preserve it.
THU 01:00 The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile (b0b9kj80)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 02:00 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09jj0k0)
Series 1
Prayer
In this final episode, Alinka explores how faith has always driven life in Mexico, and how the need for a visual image created a unique blend of Mesoamerican and Catholic faith.
Artists were kept close to the elites in Mexico's ancient civilisations to depict the deities that were the foundations of the society's structures and beliefs. Gods and goddesses were created in the mind's eye of millions, who in turn worshipped the imagery that the artists provided.
When the Spanish imposed Catholicism, the notion of venerating the divine using iconography already existed. And in some of Mexico's most spectacular art, iconography incorporating both Mesoamerican and Catholic belief can be found. This unique hybridity could only exist in Mexico, where art has long been crucial to the personal relationship between believer and the divine. Ex-votos paintings are offerings of thanks to saints and expressions of devotion. They have long been the preserve of poor and rural Mexicans, and depict very personal situations.
Today, one artist is pushing the boundaries of belief, incorporating symbols of secular culture and consumerism with religious iconography. Even as the power of the church wains in Mexico, religious imagery can still be found everywhere.
THU 03:00 The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain (p01xtmv7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRIDAY 13 JULY 2018
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b0b9k4s6)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (b0bb2ttg)
John Peel and Janice Long present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 2 January 1986. Featuring A-Ha, Paul McCartney, Level 42, Bronski Beat, Sophia George, Shakin' Stevens, Elton John, Jennifer Rush and Sting.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
1984 - Big Hits
Celebrating the big hits from a big year in British pop. The big hitters in this compilation are performed by the likes of The Smiths, Duran Duran, Sade, The Weather Girls, Wham! and Bronski Beat, to name a few.
Further stellar appearances come from the TOTP debuts of iconic Americans Madonna, Miami Sound Machine and Cyndi Lauper, who runs riot in the studio.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood celebrate their 1984 chart dominance with one of their celebrated renditions of Two Tribes, while we couldn't let you forget a little ditty from Black Lace - you'll be singing this for days... you have been warned!
FRI 21:00 Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell (b04xdrrb)
Since the release of the Bat Out of Hell album, Meat Loaf has possessed the kind of international status that few artists obtain. His larger-than-life persona and performances are fuelled by a passion for theatre and storytelling. This candid profile reveals the man and his music through his own testimony and from the accounts of those closest to him.
Meat Loaf's life story is one of epic proportions - he survived a childhood of domestic violence only to face years of record company rejection before eventually finding global fame. Along the way he experienced bankruptcy, health scares, bust-ups and one of the greatest comebacks of all time. All this and more is explored in the film, which features behind-the-scenes footage of his Las Vegas residency, plus plans for a new album featuring songs by Jim Steinman.
The film also revisits the Dallas of Meat Loaf's early years and includes insights from his high school friends, who reveal how Meat really got his famous moniker.
After his mother died, Meat Loaf fled Texas for the bright lights of LA. He sang in itinerant rock bands, but no-one would give him a recording contract. By 1969 he was broke and disillusioned. His break would take the form of a musical. He was offered a part in Hair, having been invited to audition whilst working as a parking attendant outside the theatre. Shortly afterwards he met Jim Steinman and the road to success really began. Yet the Hair gig was the beginning of an enduring love affair with theatre that is reflected in his singing persona today.
His first album, the now legendary Bat Out of Hell, was initially rejected by scores of record companies, yet went on to spend a staggering 485 weeks in the UK charts. The whole album is a masterwork of storytelling that Meat Loaf and Steinman worked on for four years and then battled to get heard. Meat Loaf and those who worked on the album - from Todd Rundgren to Ellen Foley - reflect on the songs, and celebrate the alchemy that resulted in such a blistering back catalogue.
When Bat Out Of Hell II was finally released 15 years after the first album, it defied industry expectations, with I'd Do Anything for Love reaching number one in 28 countries. It is considered one of the greatest comebacks in music history. More albums and hits were to follow across the '90s and '00s, alongside a varied and successful acting career. Mark Kermode examines some of the roles Meat Loaf made his own, in films as diverse as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fight Club.
Having traversed the peaks and troughs of a career spanning the best part of 50 years, this consummate performer finally reveals what spurs him on, in this, the inside story of a bat out of hell who continues to blaze a trail into the hearts and minds of millions.
FRI 22:00 Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland (b0bb2pyf)
Series 1
Episode 2
Two 80s icons explore the distinct sounds that came out of different parts of Britain and Ireland in one of pop's golden decades.
Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox and one of the men behind Band Aid, and Kim Appleby, who had a string of hits with her sister Mel in the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced band Mel and Kim, go on a journey back in time to the 80s to figure out why certain cities produced their own diverse tunes.
It's a fascinating tale. Emerging from the ashes of punk, British and Irish music ripped up the pop rule book in the 80s and topped the charts worldwide. But there was no definitive 'British' pop sound. Innovative chart-toppers were being produced by artists hailing from all over the UK and Ireland.
In this second episode, Midge and Kim explore the sounds that came from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. They start in Glasgow with the American influences that shaped a substantial part of Scottish music, look at the punk and folk backdrop to Irish music and, finally, delve into the Welsh merger of folk and punk.
The show features evocative archive, superb music and interviews with significant figures, like Bob Geldof, Clare Grogan from Altered Images, Pat Kane from Hue and Cry, Moya Brennan of Clannad and Mike Peters from legendary Welsh band The Alarm.
FRI 23:00 Top of the Pops (b0bb2ttg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 23:30 The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove (b04t6nm5)
In the 1970s, America was one nation under a groove as an irresistible new style of music took hold of the country - funk. The music burst out of the black community at a time of self-discovery, struggle and social change. Funk reflected all of that. It has produced some of the most famous, eccentric and best-loved acts in the world - James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, George Clinton's Funkadelic and Parliament, Kool & the Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire.
During the 1970s this fun, futuristic and freaky music changed the streets of America with its outrageous fashion, space-age vision and streetwise slang. But more than that, funk was a celebration of being black, providing a platform for a new philosophy, belief system and lifestyle that was able to unite young black Americans into taking pride in who they were.
Today, like blues and jazz, it is looked on as one of the great American musical cultures, its rhythms and hooks reverberating throughout popular music. Without it hip-hop wouldn't have happened. Dance music would have no groove. This documentary tells that story, exploring the music and artists who created a positive soundtrack at a negative time for African-Americans.
Includes interviews with George Clinton, Sly & the Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, War, Cameo, Ray Parker Jnr and trombonist Fred Wesley.
FRI 00:30 London Songs at the BBC (b01jxzfs)
A collection of performances from the BBC archives, celebrating the sights and sounds and the ups and downs of London through the words and songs through the years - from Petula Clark singing A Foggy Day in London Town in 1965 to Adele performing her love letter to the city in Hometown Glory, filmed in October 2007 on the roof of the BBC car park in Shepherd's Bush. Also featured are the likes of The Jam, Eddy Grant, Tom Paxton and Lily Allen plus many more.
FRI 01:30 Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell (b04xdrrb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:35 Top of the Pops (b08skpzg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
A History of Art in Three Colours
01:00 TUE (b01lcz2s)
Africa's Great Civilisations
22:00 TUE (b0b9tt9y)
Art of Scandinavia
23:30 SUN (b075dxdv)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 MON (b0b9k4gs)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 TUE (b0b9k4hl)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 WED (b0b9k4l6)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 THU (b0b9k4qc)
Britain in Focus: A Photographic History
01:25 MON (b08k0srb)
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
20:00 TUE (b088pnv1)
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
03:00 TUE (b088pnv1)
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
20:00 WED (b08bgfpg)
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
03:00 WED (b08bgfpg)
Britain's Whale Hunters: The Untold Story
23:00 THU (b046w23l)
David Starkey's Music and Monarchy
01:30 SUN (b03891w7)
Deep Down & Dirty: The Science of Soil
00:00 THU (b040y925)
Earth's Greatest Spectacles
19:00 SAT (b070p5yw)
Genius of the Modern World
00:25 MON (b07ht3cd)
Hidden
21:00 SAT (b0b8fnrn)
Horizon
21:00 SUN (b0761llv)
Horizon
02:30 SUN (b0761llv)
Hunting the Nazi Gold Train
22:30 SUN (b07yc9zf)
Immortal? A Horizon Guide to Ageing
00:00 TUE (b01kxxys)
Jago: A Life Underwater
20:15 SUN (b08rp0ld)
Je t'aime: The Story of French Song with Petula Clark
02:00 SAT (b05vnhz1)
London Songs at the BBC
00:30 FRI (b01jxzfs)
Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell
21:00 FRI (b04xdrrb)
Meat Loaf: In and out of Hell
01:30 FRI (b04xdrrb)
Napoleon
21:00 THU (b0600385)
Natural World
21:00 WED (b055kldq)
Nature's Miracle Orphans
20:00 MON (b0717gr8)
Patagonia: Earth's Secret Paradise
23:25 MON (b06gqsqn)
Rik Mayall: Lord of Misrule
22:00 SAT (b04w7m97)
Simon King's Shetland Adventure
20:00 SAT (b00qykcf)
Simon King's Shetland Adventure
03:00 SAT (b00qykcf)
Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland
01:00 SAT (b0b99nq0)
Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland
22:00 FRI (b0bb2pyf)
Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies
23:00 SAT (b03bm2fy)
Storyville
22:00 MON (b0b9zrhb)
Summer Night Concert from Vienna
19:00 SUN (b0b8rc43)
The 80s with Dominic Sandbrook
01:00 WED (b07pr1b5)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
00:30 SUN (b09j2vvp)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
02:00 TUE (b09hm1y8)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
02:00 WED (b09j2vvp)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
02:00 THU (b09jj0k0)
The Battle to Beat Polio
22:00 WED (b0445c5d)
The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain
20:00 THU (p01xtmv7)
The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain
03:00 THU (p01xtmv7)
The NHS: A People's History
21:00 MON (b0bb2k9h)
The NHS: A People's History
02:25 MON (b0bb2k9h)
The Pennine Way
19:30 MON (b05q1n6y)
The Pennine Way
19:30 TUE (b05qt6vr)
The Pennine Way
19:30 WED (b05rcysn)
The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile
21:00 TUE (b0b9kj80)
The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile
01:00 THU (b0b9kj80)
The Sky at Night
22:00 SUN (b0b9v3lf)
The Sky at Night
19:30 THU (b0b9v3lf)
The Story of Funk: One Nation Under a Groove
23:30 FRI (b04t6nm5)
Top of the Pops
00:00 SAT (b0b9b1xw)
Top of the Pops
19:30 FRI (b0bb2ttg)
Top of the Pops
20:00 FRI (b08skpzg)
Top of the Pops
23:00 FRI (b0bb2ttg)
Top of the Pops
02:35 FRI (b08skpzg)
Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein
23:00 WED (b097f2gv)
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
00:00 WED (b091gx74)
Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream
23:00 TUE (p046dxfw)
Who Were the Greeks?
22:00 THU (b036b0yl)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (b0b9k4s6)