The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
Archaeologist Ben Robinson explores London, the ultimate 'city of villages'. Despite many rural settlements like Hornsey and Dagenham being swallowed up by the expanding capital, Hampstead residents successfully fought to preserve their village heritage. And in recent years Londoners have created a new breed of urban villages like Crouch End and Walthamstow.
Historian Saul David explores how wars are really fought - in the backroom of military planning. He shows how generals have met the challenge of moving armies.
Andrew Marr revisits the Britain of Margaret Thatcher and comes to some surprising conclusions about the British national character.
Promising to restore order, confidence and national pride, Margaret Thatcher unleashed a dramatic and divisive transformation of British society. In a period of extreme ideological polarisation, British identity was redefined by the global market, and striking miners and sections of the Trade Union movement were demonised as the enemy within. Imperial visions stirred again as the fleet sailed for the Falklands. Having won power with the promise to restore traditional British values, the Thatcher government unleashed a whirlwind of privatisation and deregulation that amounted to a cultural, economic and political revolution. Heroic national rescue operation or final act of self-destruction?
This film explores the extent to which British people are all now the children of Margaret Thatcher.
David Dimbleby travels Britain and through 1,000 years of history to discover the buildings that have made us who we are. In Scotland he visits Stirling Castle, dramatic symbol of the birth of a new country, and the fairytale tower house of Craigevar. He travels to the crofts of the Outer Hebrides, to the castle that inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula, to the sparkling granite city of Aberdeen and to the tenements of Glasgow - home of Scotland's greatest architect, Charles Rennie Macintosh.
Sam Willis tells the story of the English ruler who left the most indelible mark on the castle - the great Plantagenet king, Edward I, who turned it into an instrument of colonisation. Edward spent vast sums to subdue Wales with a ring of iron comprised of some of the most fearsome fortresses ever built. Castles like Caernarfon and Beaumaris were used to impose England's will on the Welsh. But when Edward turned his attention to Scotland, laying siege to castles with great catapults, things didn't go so well for him.
Documentary in which Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals how the Medici family transformed Florence through sculpture, painting and architecture, and created a world where masterpieces fetch millions today.
Without the money and patronage of the Medici we might never have heard of artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo or Botticelli. Graham-Dixon examines how a family of shadowy, corrupt businessmen, driven by greed and ambition, became the financial engine behind the Italian Renaissance.
With the widowhood of Queen Victoria, the glorious life of palaces almost came to an abrupt end. There would be just one final flowering of palatial style just before the First World War, on an imperial scale - the redesign of Buckingham Palace and The Mall. The interwar period was a difficult time for many of Britain's best palaces, forced into a half-life of grace-and-favour accommodation for exiled royalty and aristocracy down on their luck. But more recent times would see restoration and conservation on a new scale and, with it, detective work to uncover palace secrets.
THURSDAY 07 FEBRUARY 2019
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m0002dx3)
Series 1
07/02/2019
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0002dx5)
Simon Bates and Peter Powell present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 19 March 1987, featuring Boy George, Erasure, Genesis and The Mission.
THU 20:00 Wonders of Life (b01r1znn)
Original Series
Home
As far as we know, there is only one place in the universe on which life has taken hold - earth - but for how much longer will this distinction remain? Astronomers are on the brink of finding other worlds the same size as earth and the same distance from their star. Professor Brian Cox considers what it is about our world that has made it a home and asks what ingredients are necessary to turn a tiny spec of rock in space into a living, vibrant planet.
To find out, Brian has come to one of earth's richest and most bio-diverse territories, Mexico. He begins by diving in search of our most essential ingredient in a beautiful azure sink hole or cenote, a characteristic feature and primary water source in southern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. He then travels aboard the spectacular Copper Canyon Railway to measure the impact that the sun has on our planet, discovering how early life had to learn to survive under its glare in ways that still survive in us all today.
At the end of the train journey, he arrives in Mexico's beautiful mountain interior, where he uncovers how the relationship life has with the sun has led to one on the most astonishing of all life's inventions: photosynthesis. By turning sunlight into energy, life has tapped a seemingly endless energy source and introduces a vital ingredient to the planet's atmosphere - oxygen.
Finally, Brian visits a remote enclave high up in the pine forests of central Mexico to witness one of nature's greatest sights, the arrival of the monarch butterflies. Each year they make one of the longest migrations of all the butterfly species, over 4,000 kilometres from northern Canada to Mexico, by tapping into one the most elusive, intangible and perhaps rarest planetary ingredients of them all.
THU 21:00 Our Classical Century (m0002dx7)
Series 1
1936 - 1953
Suzy Klein and John Simpson explore the power of classical music between the coronations of George VI and Elizabeth II, through WWII and into peacetime, to console, unite and inspire the nation.
Our Classical Century brings together the greatest moments in classical music in Britain over the last 100 years in a four-part series celebrating extraordinary pieces of music and performance, revealing how music has provided a unifying soundtrack when national identity and destiny are at stake.
In this episode presenter Suzy Klein is joined by music lover and BBC world affairs editor John Simpson to explore how classical music underscored the coronations of George VI and Elizabeth II, how it provided succour and inspiration during WWII and how it responded to social change as we emerged into peace. They explain how William Walton, creator of the radical, witty piece Facade with Edith Sitwell in the 1920s, composed Crown Imperial for George VI’s coronation, full of Elgarian pomp and circumstance. With the outbreak of war, Suzy investigates the remarkable legacy of pianist Myra Hess, her signature tune, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, and how Kenneth Clark encouraged her to create a series of morale-boosting lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery in the heart of war-torn London. An audience member remembers the moving and inspiring impact of Myra’s music on those enduring the Blitz. From the tragic destruction of Queen’s Hall, traditional home to the Proms, the episode charts the triumph of the first Prom in its new home, the Royal Albert Hall. John talks about the remarkable reception that greeted one of the pieces played at the prom, the first performance of Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, the Leningrad. Written under siege, the piece only arrived in Britain after the score was elaborately smuggled on film out of Russia via Iran to London. Paul Patrick, the BBC Philharmonic’s principal percussionist, tells how he prepares for the demanding task of recreating the sound of war in the symphony.
The war over, our presenters chart the emergence of our love of classical music in peacetime, with the unexpected success of young composer Benjamin Britten’s complex opera Peter Grimes and its hugely popular performance at Sadler's Wells. Tenor Stuart Skelton performs excerpts and reflects on why it struck such a chord. A new Labour government believed music should be part of everyone’s experience and the 1944 Butler Education Act helped put music on the school curriculum for the very first time. Our presenters explore the creation of Britten’s classic The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in 1945, and Malcolm Sargent’s film of it, unforgettably introducing classical music to generations of children. Through the Festival of Britain, which brought music to the heart of the nation, this episode arrives at the 1953 Coronation. By then two and a half million homes had TVs and, with an audience of 20 million, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II became a showcase of our best classical music for its biggest audience ever: Elgar, Holst, Vaughn Williams, Purcell, Handel’s Zadok the Priest, and the whole event crowned by William Walton’s Orb and Sceptre, a fresh youthful-sounding coronation march for a young queen.
Between the coronations of Elizabeth II and her father, the nation had undergone immense trauma, social and political change. This programme charts the role classical music played in sustaining our cultural life and responding to the challenges of a new era.
THU 22:00 Britain's Treasure Islands (b078lw8y)
Outposts of Empire
The final part of Stewart McPherson's epic journey to visit all of the UK's Overseas Territories takes him to islands that could not be more different, yet are all united by being important military or trading bases, both historically and, in some cases, still today.
This journey begins in the Caribbean, where amongst sunbathing tourists, he finds some unexpected wildlife and an active volcano. In the centre of the Atlantic, the pinprick of Ascension Island, an extinct volcano, looks like somewhere on Mars rather than a part of Britain, yet it too has rich wildlife.
St Helena is so remote it was seen as a safe prison for Napoleon Bonaparte after his defeat at Waterloo. And finally, Stewart visits the newest of the Overseas Territories, the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus, along with Gibraltar, the last home of the Neanderthals and the present home of Barbary macaques, Europe's only wild colony of monkeys.
THU 23:00 Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero (p0160p2p)
Wallace in the Spice Islands
Comedian Bill Bailey ventures to Indonesia's remote Spice Islands, in the footsteps of his hero - Victorian naturalist Alfred Wallace. Wallace was a bug collector who survived pirate attacks, boating disasters and malarial fevers to change the way we see life on earth. Independently of Charles Darwin, he came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection. But he has since been forgotten.
In the second of this two-part series, Bill encounters boggle-eyed tarsiers, monkeys with mohicans and spectacular birds of paradise on his mission to understand how Wallace cracked evolution. Ultimately Bill achieves his goal of getting Wallace the recognition he rightly deserves.
THU 00:00 Top of the Pops (m0002dx5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 00:30 One-Hit Wonders at the BBC (b05r7nxx)
Compilation of some indelible hits by artists we hardly heard from again, at least in a chart sense. Featuring Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? - a number one in 1969 and a hit he never really matched, Trio's 1982 smash Da Da Da, Phyllis Nelson's 1985 lovers rock-style classic Move Closer, and The New Radicals' 1999 hit You Get What You Give.
We travel through the years selecting some of your favourite number ones and a few others that came close, revealing what's happened to the one-off hitmakers since and exploring the unwritten laws that help make sense of the one-hit wonder phenomenon.
THU 01:30 Wonders of Life (b01r1znn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 02:30 Our Classical Century (m0002dx7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 03:30 Handmade on the Silk Road (b07blsjw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 on Monday]
FRIDAY 08 FEBRUARY 2019
FRI 19:00 World News Today (m0002dx9)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0002dxc)
Gary Davies and Janice Long present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 2 April 1987, featuring Madonna, Curiosity Killed the Cat and The Pogues & The Dubliners.
FRI 20:00 A Blackpool Big Band Boogie: Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra (b0645530)
Concert specially recorded for BBC Four on 24 June 2015 at the Empress Ballroom Blackpool, where Jools Holland and his band were joined by special guests Rumer, Marc Almond and Ruby Turner.
More than 14,000 people applied for tickets and a lucky 800 were in the audience, and by the end of the concert Jools and his orchestra had almost every one of them on their feet.
The concert celebrates the golden age of big band music from the 1930s to the 1950s and Jools presents his interpretations of standards from the greats such as Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Jools's orchestra includes some of the best musicians in the business and the concert combines the incomparable power and sophistication of the big band sound with brilliant individual performances.
Highlights include Rumer's joyful Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive, Marc Almond's stunning rendition of Edith Piaf's Hymn Le Amour and singer Ruby Turner's extraordinary vocals.
FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (b06vkg5r)
1981 - Big Hits
A bumper crop of hits from the Top of the Pops archive showcasing an exciting year on the pop charts. 1981 embraced disco and ska, new wave punk, the burgeoning New Romantic scene and the rise of synthpop, with some prog quirkiness and good old rock 'n' roll thrown in.
Performances from big-hitter soloists Phil Collins, Shakin' Stevens and Kim Wilde are featured alongside the exuberant chaos of groups like Tenpole Tudor, Adam and the Ants and The Teardrop Explodes. It's party time as Odyssey fill the dancefloor with the infectious Going Back to My Roots and Clare Grogan adopts some unorthodox shapes for Altered Images' Happy Birthday. And The Specials' 2 Tone social-commentary classic Ghost Town vies with Ultravox's Vienna and The Human League's Don't You Want Me for song of the year.
FRI 22:00 The Defiant Ones (m0002fyf)
Series 1
Episode 1
Years before they brokered one of the biggest deals in music history – the 2015 sale of Beats Electronics to Apple for $3 billion – Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine navigated very different environments towards destinies that would, ultimately and improbably, bring them together.
In this first episode, their stories are explored. Dr Dre’s began in Compton, where his fascination with dance music, DJ innovations and sound brought him into contact with Eazy-E, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren. Together, they would become the core of the 1980s gangsta-rap supergroup NWA.
A native of Red Hook, Brooklyn, Jimmy Iovine talks about gravitating to music following an indifferent academic career, always determined to avoid continuing in the family business as a longshoreman. Jimmy discusses getting a job answering phones in recording studios, and through a combination of hard work and old-fashioned luck, connecting with artists like John Lennon, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen.
FRI 22:40 The Defiant Ones (m0002fyj)
Series 1
Episode 2
In this second episode, Jimmy Lovine’s reputation as a fearless, talented and indefatigable producer is explored, along with how he reached the West Coast following a successful collaboration with Patti Smith.
He describes moving to Los Angeles to produce with Tom Petty and his secret relationship with Stevie Nicks.
Dr Dre talks about provocative songs, such as Straight Outta Compton, which were shaped by the bitter race relations in Los Angeles. NWA evolved into a force to be reckoned with, in LA and beyond. But a devastating personal loss for Dr Dre overshadowed the success.
FRI 23:25 Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business (b09mbfjx)
Series 1
Making a Star
In the first programme of the series, music agent Emma Banks looks at how the music business finds talent and creates superstars.
Over 25 years as one of the top agents in the business, Emma has worked with some of the world's most famous artists, including Katy Perry, Kanye West and Red Hot Chili Peppers. She's seen first-hand the fine line between success and failure, following the careers of hundreds of acts - from geniuses who never quite made it to megastars who conquered the world.
The secret to success and stardom is an elusive formula of luck, timing and of course talent. But as Emma explores in this film, it's also about the team behind the talent - the record execs, label bosses and A&R gurus who find, develop and make a star. From Motown's musical finishing school to Damon Dash's dogged promotion of Jay-Z, the missed potential of sixties group The Zombies to Blur's record label steering their career from one-hit wonders towards chart domination, this film offers an entertaining behind-the-scenes peek into the peaks and pitfalls of making a musical superstar.
Contributors include Motown's Martha Reeves, Blur's Alex James, record producing legend Clive Davis, Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell and Labelle's Nona Hendryx. And we follow Emma as she works with new grime star Lady Leshurr to take her career to the next level.
FRI 00:25 Top of the Pops (m0002dxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 00:55 Popular Voices at the BBC (b09gvqjc)
Series 1
Truth Tellers at the BBC
This compilation is a companion piece to the Truth Tellers episode of Gregory Porter's Popular Voices. Join us for a nostalgic look back at some of the most outspoken, thought-provoking and lyrically gifted songsters to have visited the BBC studios. From socially discerning troubadours like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, to modern-day poets Patti Smith and Gil Scott-Heron, and rap disrupters like KRS-One (performing with Boogie Down Productions), as well as more recent social observers Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave and George the Poet.
Featuring clips from The Old Grey Whistle Test, Top of the Pops, Later with Jools Holland and Britpop Now, these performers show us that you don't need fancy vocal acrobatics or sensuous murmurings if your message is powerful.
FRI 01:55 Top of the Pops (b06vkg5r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:55 Wild Boys: The Story of Duran Duran (b007bqdj)
Duran Duran came out of Birmingham and conquered the world during the 1980s. Originally a New Romantic band in full make-up and cossack pants, they rapidly became bedroom pin-ups for a generation of teenage girls.
Led by Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, Duran Duran dominated the British and American charts in the mid-1980s with classic singles such as Rio, Save a Prayer and Wild Boys. Pioneers of the MTV-style promo video - from the X-rated Girls on Film to Raiders of the Lost Ark spoof Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran were the 80s equivalent of The Beatles in America and outsold Spandau Ballet and Wham! in their pomp.
Sixty million records later, Le Bon and Rhodes are seen touring America with their Pop Trash project from the early 2000s. The documentary reflects on the heady heights of Duran Duran's career, the cracks in their make-up plus the effects of sex, drugs and fame on ordinary boys from working-class backgrounds.
Apart from the key Durannies - Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor - the programme also features celebrity interviews with Debbie Harry, Yasmin Le Bon, Duran Duran managers Paul and Michael Berrow, Claudia Schiffer, Nile Rodgers and Lou Reed.
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
A Blackpool Big Band Boogie: Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
20:00 FRI (b0645530)
A Slow Odyssey: The Great Wall of China
20:00 SUN (m0002dtj)
Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
21:00 WED (b007nn9k)
Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
03:00 WED (b007nn9k)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 MON (m0002dty)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 TUE (m0002dv7)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 WED (m0002dwy)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 THU (m0002dx3)
Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero
23:00 THU (p0160p2p)
Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities
23:00 TUE (b04fmg8j)
Britain's Treasure Islands
22:00 THU (b078lw8y)
Bullets, Boots and Bandages: How to Really Win at War
20:00 WED (b01bs9gb)
Castles: Britain's Fortified History
23:00 WED (b04tt2f9)
Coast
20:00 MON (b07x0772)
Don McCullin: Looking for England
21:00 MON (m0002dv0)
Don McCullin: Looking for England
03:00 MON (m0002dv0)
Francesco's Venice
23:00 MON (b0078sx5)
Genesis: Together and Apart
22:45 SAT (b04l3phb)
Gods and Monsters: Homer's Odyssey
23:30 SUN (b00vtwnz)
Handmade on the Silk Road
03:20 SAT (b079zyb8)
Handmade on the Silk Road
19:30 MON (b07blsjw)
Handmade on the Silk Road
03:30 THU (b07blsjw)
Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business
23:25 FRI (b09mbfjx)
How We Built Britain
22:00 WED (b007qmpw)
James May's Big Ideas
22:00 TUE (b00dtl3f)
Kate Humble: Living with Nomads
21:00 TUE (b05zqqbt)
Kate Humble: Living with Nomads
03:00 TUE (b05zqqbt)
Majesty and Mortar: Britain's Great Palaces
01:00 MON (b046w5c1)
Majesty and Mortar: Britain's Great Palaces
01:00 TUE (b047pdzg)
Majesty and Mortar: Britain's Great Palaces
01:00 WED (b0488trx)
Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest
19:00 SUN (b07m772h)
Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest
03:00 SUN (b07m772h)
Natural World
20:00 SAT (b054fn09)
Natural World
02:20 SAT (b054fn09)
One-Hit Wonders at the BBC
00:30 THU (b05r7nxx)
Our Classical Century
02:00 SUN (b0bs6xv8)
Our Classical Century
21:00 THU (m0002dx7)
Our Classical Century
02:30 THU (m0002dx7)
Ovid: The Poet and the Emperor
22:30 SUN (b09g0l2q)
Popular Voices at the BBC
00:55 FRI (b09gvqjc)
Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village
19:30 TUE (b0bsrqky)
Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village
19:30 WED (b0bsrqj7)
Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village
02:00 WED (b0bsrqky)
Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village
02:30 WED (b0bsrqj7)
Safe Harbour
21:00 SAT (m0002dsj)
Safe Harbour
21:55 SAT (m0002dsm)
The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers
00:00 MON (b09hm1y8)
The Brits Who Built the Modern World
00:00 TUE (b03vgz8d)
The Defiant Ones
22:00 FRI (m0002fyf)
The Defiant Ones
22:40 FRI (m0002fyj)
The Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China
21:30 SUN (b080396k)
The Incredible Human Journey
20:00 TUE (b00l7pmr)
The Incredible Human Journey
02:00 TUE (b00l7pmr)
The Lost Genius of British Art: William Dobson
02:00 MON (b014vy94)
The Medici: Makers of Modern Art
00:00 WED (b00fztl9)
This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting
00:30 SUN (b01173pk)
Top of the Pops
00:15 SAT (m00029m7)
Top of the Pops
00:45 SAT (m00029mk)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (m0002dx5)
Top of the Pops
00:00 THU (m0002dx5)
Top of the Pops
19:30 FRI (m0002dxc)
Top of the Pops
21:00 FRI (b06vkg5r)
Top of the Pops
00:25 FRI (m0002dxc)
Top of the Pops
01:55 FRI (b06vkg5r)
Walt Disney
22:00 MON (b0872yqs)
Wild Boys: The Story of Duran Duran
02:55 FRI (b007bqdj)
Wild Brazil
19:00 SAT (p01nplky)
Wild Brazil
01:15 SAT (p01nplky)
Wonders of Life
20:00 THU (b01r1znn)
Wonders of Life
01:30 THU (b01r1znn)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (m0002dx9)