The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
History and travel documentary series in which three Australian brothers - Danny, Ben and Sam Wood - set out cycling on the trail of Hannibal, the Carthaginian warrior who marched from Spain to Rome at the head of an invading army accompanied by elephants.
From the Roman amphitheatre of Arles, the brothers retrace Hannibal's steps through the south of France to the foothills of the Alps. They recreate Hannibal's historic crossing of the River Rhone before cycling on to the town of Maillane, where the remains of one of Hannibal's elephants were found in the 19th century. They then race up the 2000-metre-high Mont Ventoux before setting off into the Alps.
Documentary about Rohani, an 80-year-old hunter who dives like a fish on a single breath, descending to great depths for several minutes. Set against the spectacular backdrop of the Togian Islands in Indonesia where he grew up, this award-winning film recreates events that capture the extraordinary turning points in his life, as a hunter and as a man.
Live coverage as England’s women kick off their SheBelieves Cup campaign against Brazil in Philadelphia. Phil Neville’s side were runners-up in the four-team round-robin competition last year, and will be looking to lay down a marker ahead of the World Cup in June. Presented by Eilidh Barbour, with studio guests including former England defender Alex Scott.
David Dimbleby completes his journey through Britain, discovering how the nation's history has shaped its buildings, in the south of England, exploring its dramatic transformation in the 20th century. Modern technology opened up new worlds to ordinary people, changing the way they worked, lived and played. He begins in Metroland, part of the suburban explosion of the 1920s and 1930s, with its 'Tudorbethan' houses and sumptuous cinemas like Moorish palaces, traces the arrival of the bold new modern style at a glorious public swimming pool on the south coast, and sees what effect the war had on what we built - from much-loved prefabs to high-rise blocks. And he visits the new temples of money in the City of London - breathtaking towers of steel and glass - and asks how many of them will still be there one hundred years from now.
With sumptuous palaces, exquisite artworks and stunning architecture, every great city offers a dizzying multitude of artistic highlights. In this series, art historians Dr Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke take us on three cultural citybreaks, hunting for off-the-beaten-track artistic treats - and finding new ways of enjoying some very famous sights.
In this second episode, Janina Ramirez and Alastair are on a mission to get to know one of the most popular cities in the world through its art and architecture. Although Barcelona is famous for its exuberant modernista buildings, the Gothic Quarter and artistic superstars such as Picasso, Janina and Alastair are determined to discover some less well-known cultural treats. Escaping the crowds on the Ramblas, they seek out the designs of an engineer who arguably put more of a stamp on the city than its star architect, Antoni Gaudi. Alastair marvels at the Romanesque frescoes that inspired a young Miro, while Janina discovers a surprising collection of vintage fans in the Mares, one of the city's most remarkable but rarely visited museums.
With a behind-the-scenes visit to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, a session of impromptu Catalan dance and Alastair adding the finishing touches to some Barcelona street art, it is a fast-paced and colourful tour of the city's art and artists, revealing how Barcelona developed its distinctive cultural identity and how the long-running fight for independence has shaped the artistic life of the city.
Documentary which follows historian Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin into the heart of war-torn Syria, on a dangerous mission to document the cultural destruction wrought by so-called Islamic State, and understand what it means to the people of the nation.
Their final destination is the ancient city of Palmyra, to find out what remains of the ruins. For Dan and Don, these stones represent the very soul of Syria, and for Syrians and the world, the debate about what to do with them is about to begin. For both men, it is a return journey to a place with which they have long been obsessed. But to get there, they have to travel through a country that is still in the grip of war.
Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long-hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as they are to Europeans.
THURSDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2019
THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m0002tbv)
Series 1
28/02/2019
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0002tbx)
Gary Davies presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 14 May 1987 and featuring Johnny Hates Jazz, The Cult, Europe, Labi Shffre, Wet Wet Wet, Cameo, Tom Jones, Starship and Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction.
THU 20:00 The Human Body: Secrets of Your Life Revealed (b097ryyx)
Series 1
Survive
Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken discover the everyday miracles that keep you alive. They explore the extraordinary lengths our bodies go to in order to keep our organs working at every moment of every day. They see how powerful reflexes keep us safe from danger and uncover the amazing mechanisms our bodies call on to repair damage. And for the first time ever, they see exactly how our immune systems’ killer cells go into battle against deadly infection.
THU 21:00 Wild Swimming (b00t9r28)
Alice Roberts embarks on a quest to discover what lies behind the passion for wild swimming, now becoming popular in Britain. She follows in the wake of Waterlog, the classic swimming text by journalist and author Roger Deakin.
Her journey takes in cavernous plunge pools, languid rivers and unfathomable underground lakes, as well as a skinny dip in a moorland pool. Along the way Alice becomes aware that she is not alone on her watery journey.
THU 22:00 Apples: British to the Core (b011wz53)
Horticulturalist Chris Beardshaw uncovers the British contribution to the history of our most iconic fruit. He reveals the 'golden age', when the passion and dedication of Victorian gardeners gave us more varieties than anywhere else in the world. Chris also finds out how the remarkable ingenuity of a small group of 20th-century British scientists helped create the modern mass-market apple.
THU 23:00 The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms (p030s6b3)
Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives.
Mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem-solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves.
THU 00:00 Top of the Pops (m0002tbx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 00:30 Timeshift (b08dwxhn)
Series 16
Flights of Fancy: Pigeons and the British
Timeshift ventures inside places of sporting achievement, scientific endeavour and male obsession - the lofts of pigeon fanciers - to tell the story of a remarkable bird. As racer, messenger and even beauty pageant contestant, the humble pigeon has been a steadfast part of British life for centuries.
Pigeons have served in two world wars, flown over oceans and crossed barriers of age, class and race to take their place as man's best feathered friend. Meanwhile, pigeon fanciers have contrived to make them faster and more eye-catching, using backyard genetics to breed the perfect bird.
Popular affection for pigeons has nosedived in recent decades due to a growing distaste at what they leave behind, and legislation has seen them chased out of public spaces. But as this programme shows, dedicated British pigeon fanciers are determined to keep their pastime alive. So what does the future hold for the 21st-century pigeon?
THU 01:30 Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (b07gpdbz)
A colourful character who was not only ahead of her time but helped to define it, Peggy Guggenheim was an heiress to a family fortune who became a central figure in the modern art movement. As she moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century, she collected not only art; she collected artists. Her colourful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp as well as countless others. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo.
THU 03:00 Wild Swimming (b00t9r28)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 01 MARCH 2019
FRI 19:00 World News Today (m0002tbz)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Top of the Pops (m0002tc1)
Peter Powell and Simon Bates present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 21 May 1987 and featuring Marillion, Wet Wet Wet, Cameo, Donna Allen, Johnny Logan, Bruce Springsteen, Tottenham Hotspur with Chas & Dave, Whitney Houston, Starship and Fleetwood Mac.
FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (b087lmbg)
1983 - Big Hits
Compilation of some of the biggest hits of 1983 to sit alongside 'The Story of...' documentary that explores the evolution of this great pop institution in that golden year.
Performances celebrate soul, reggae, jazz, new wave and pop. And the big hits are delivered by Wham!, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Police, Culture Club, Siouxsie and The Banshees, UB40, Duran Duran, The Beat and Bananarama amongst others. Big ballads are performed by Elton John and Bonnie Tyler, while Malcolm McLaren's Double Dutch completes the very best of '83, golden hits from 34 years ago.
FRI 21:00 Soft Cell: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (m0002tc3)
2018 marked the 40th anniversary of Soft Cell, one of the most colourful and charismatic bands in the history of popular music. To celebrate this landmark, singer Marc Almond and musician Dave Ball reunited for an emotional, sold-out, farewell concert at London’s O2 Arena that September.
With unprecedented access to Marc and Dave, this film follows the build-up to that gig and provides an intimate retrospective portrait of one of our greatest bands and most iconic singers. It shows rehearsals and preparations for the O2 show and footage from the actual concert itself, woven in with period archive and music videos.
The film covers Marc’s formative years growing up in Southport and Dave’s in nearby Blackpool and how the two met as art students at Leeds Polytechnic in the late 1970s. We filmed Marc and Dave in The Fenton pub in Leeds, where they went as students, and they perform an early Soft Cell song, A Man Could Get Lost, on Dave’s original keyboards especially for the BBC Four audience at The Warehouse Club where the band did their first-ever paid gig.
Soft Cell burned brightly between 1981 and 1984, after their gritty but stunning cover version of Tainted Love became a massive hit, the best-selling single in the UK of 1981 and a number one hit in 15 other countries, including the USA. Dave plays from the master tapes of that era-defining song for us.
But Soft Cell were always more interested in using their success to subvert the mainstream than in becoming pop stars, as they tell us in relation to Marc’s groundbreaking, androgynous debut on Top of the Pops. It was the beginning of a controversial career that deliberately defied and flouted convention. Soft Cell were influenced as much by punk as by Northern Soul and Kraftwerk, and refused to be pigeonholed by anyone, bringing a punk ethos to synth-pop while busting taboos along the way. In their heyday, even while refusing to compromise on their musical vision, the pair produced numerous top ten singles and three classic albums, selling 10 million records overall.
Soft Cell’s approach was wittier and more sophisticated than the press gave them credit for. Their first album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, saw them labelled as sleazy and perverted, when in reality it deliberately used the setting of London’s Soho to explore the social and sexual undercurrents of British society at the time. The single Bedsitter laid bare the glamour of escapism from the grim realities of Thatcher’s Britain for many, while the Soft Cell anthem, Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, was actually about a powerful man, perhaps a politician, breaking off an affair with a call-girl. The video for that album’s most controversial track, Sex Dwarf, was inspired by a real headline in the News of the World. It resulted in their management’s offices being raided by the Vice Squad and the band being criticised by the very same paper.
Soft Cell’s second album, a deliberately darker work called The Art of Falling Apart, was recorded in New York and we will see how the duo’s immersion into the underground club scene and subculture informed songs such as Heat and the single Numbers, a song that spoke about promiscuity in the gay scene and proved prophetic about the coming AIDS epidemic. Despite the prejudices of the time, it managed to reach number 25 in the UK charts.
But the pressures they felt to produce more commercial music began to take its toll on them and Marc and Dave talk candidly about how they began to drift apart and slip into the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, with both becoming addicted to a variety of drugs. By 1983, before the recording of their album, This Last Night in Sodom, the duo had already decided to go their separate ways as otherwise, as Dave puts it, ‘one of us wasn’t going to make it’.
Even at the height of their addictions and near breakdowns, Soft Cell still produced a classic album with a harder, more industrial electric sound that has been cited as hugely influential by artists such as Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
After their separation in 1984, we see how Marc Almond has gone on to become one of our greatest performers, selling an estimated 20 million records as a solo artist in a huge variety of styles, from mainstream pop to experimental ventures. The film includes sequences with Marc at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, exploring his love of Jacques Brel and French chansons, performing one of the Russian folk songs he loves – a genre in which he recorded two albums of music in the early 2000s - and with Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra with whom he has recorded an album, A Lovely Life to Live, in 2018. We also look at Dave’s solo career with successful dance duo The Grid.
The documentary ends with the duo’s rousing performance of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye at the O2.
FRI 22:00 Synth Britannia (b00n93c4)
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including The Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Voltaire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard, and they dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.
The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are 'Friends' Electric? heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound, whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.
By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.
Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.
FRI 23:30 Top of the Pops (m0002tc1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 00:00 Arena (b01nd5qd)
The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour
Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
Arena presents the greatest Beatles story never told - the making of Magical Mystery Tour - full of fabulous Beatles archive material never shown before anywhere in the world.
Songs you will never forget, the film you have never seen and a story that has never been heard. In 1967, in the wake of the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles made a film - a dreamlike story of a coach daytrip, a magical mystery tour. It was seen by a third of the nation, at
8.35pm on BBC1 on Boxing Day - an expectant public, hoping for some light entertainment for a family audience.
However, Magical Mystery Tour was greeted with outrage and derision by middle England and the establishment media.
'How dare they', they cried. 'They're not film directors. Who do they think they are?' they howled. Where were the four lovable moptops of Help! and A Hard Day's Night?
What propelled The Beatles to make this surreal, startling and - at the time - utterly misunderstood film?
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour!
FRI 01:00 Top of the Pops (b087lmbg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRI 02:00 Line of Duty (b01k9pn6)
Series 1
Episode 1
When Steve Arnott is transferred to a police anti-corruption unit, he finds his target is the city's top detective, Tony Gates. Can Gates really be as good as he appears? Arnott must engage in a cat-and-mouse struggle to uncover Gates' secret.
FRI 03:00 Line of Duty (b01klwgm)
Series 1
Episode 2
Drama series. Having been duped into covering up Jackie's crime, Gates is desperate to sever ties with her. But, as Arnott and Fleming close in on his secret, Gates is plunged into an even more dangerous situation than he first thought.
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
A Very British History
21:00 MON (b0bty2g2)
A Very British History
03:00 MON (b0bty2g2)
An Art Lovers' Guide
00:00 WED (b08ps5rd)
Anjelica Huston on James Joyce: A Shout in the Street
01:30 TUE (b09mb966)
Apples: British to the Core
22:00 THU (b011wz53)
Arena
00:00 FRI (b01nd5qd)
Art of Spain
00:30 MON (b008yw7p)
B is for Book
00:30 TUE (b07jlzb7)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 MON (m0002w6z)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 TUE (m0002w7w)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 WED (m0002w80)
Beyond 100 Days
19:00 THU (m0002tbv)
Britain's Most Fragile Treasure
00:05 SUN (b0161dgq)
Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues
19:00 SUN (b06qskdx)
Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues
02:00 SUN (b06qskdx)
British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley
20:00 TUE (b08d7y3n)
British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley
03:00 TUE (b08d7y3n)
Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities
20:00 SAT (b03lyyrc)
Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities
02:40 SAT (b03lyyrc)
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum Photos
01:05 SUN (b095vnk0)
Coast
20:00 MON (b07zcmsq)
How We Built Britain
23:00 WED (b007t297)
Jago: A Life Underwater
20:00 WED (b08rp0ld)
Line of Duty
02:00 FRI (b01k9pn6)
Line of Duty
03:00 FRI (b01klwgm)
Marguerite
22:00 SUN (m0002w74)
Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema
20:00 SUN (m0002pfq)
On Hannibal's Trail
19:30 MON (b00t4kh3)
On Hannibal's Trail
19:30 TUE (b00t6yby)
On Hannibal's Trail
19:30 WED (b00t9qv6)
Pappano's Greatest Arias
21:00 SUN (m0002w72)
Pappano's Greatest Arias
03:00 SUN (m0002w72)
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
01:30 THU (b07gpdbz)
Romancing the Stone: The Golden Ages of British Sculpture
01:30 MON (b00ydp2y)
Rome's Lost Empire
21:00 TUE (b01pc063)
Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure in Stone
23:30 TUE (b00v3y5s)
Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure in Stone
03:00 WED (b00v3y5s)
Secret Knowledge
00:50 SAT (b03z08mv)
SheBelieves Cup
20:45 WED (m0002w82)
Soft Cell: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
21:00 FRI (m0002tc3)
Storyville
22:30 TUE (m0002w7y)
Synth Britannia
22:00 FRI (b00n93c4)
The Banker's Guide to Art
23:00 MON (b07kd109)
The Birth of Empire: The East India Company
22:00 MON (b042w0xt)
The Defiant Ones
01:20 SAT (m0002pf8)
The Defiant Ones
02:00 SAT (m0002pfb)
The Human Body: Secrets of Your Life Revealed
20:00 THU (b097ryyx)
The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu
02:00 WED (b00hkb0z)
The Road to Palmyra
01:00 WED (b0b2gjpl)
The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms
23:00 THU (p030s6b3)
Timeshift
00:30 THU (b08dwxhn)
Top of the Pops
22:45 SAT (m0002pfn)
Top of the Pops
23:15 SAT (m0002pf4)
Top of the Pops
19:30 THU (m0002tbx)
Top of the Pops
00:00 THU (m0002tbx)
Top of the Pops
19:30 FRI (m0002tc1)
Top of the Pops
20:00 FRI (b087lmbg)
Top of the Pops
23:30 FRI (m0002tc1)
Top of the Pops
01:00 FRI (b087lmbg)
Trapped
21:00 SAT (m0002tb1)
Trapped
21:50 SAT (m0002tb3)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
02:30 MON (b07l57yy)
What Do Artists Do All Day?
02:30 TUE (b0bg10pw)
Wild Swimming
21:00 THU (b00t9r28)
Wild Swimming
03:00 THU (b00t9r28)
World News Today
19:00 FRI (m0002tbz)
Yellowstone: Wildest Winter to Blazing Summer
19:00 SAT (b087vhpv)
Yellowstone: Wildest Winter to Blazing Summer
23:50 SAT (b087vhpv)