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 05 OCTOBER 2019

SAT 19:00 Natural World (b08cwtdl)
2016-2017

Cheetahs: Growing Up Fast

David Attenborough narrates this astonishing story of a wild cheetah family. Known for being fast, captivating and extremely elusive, a new insight into their remarkable lives is offered by cameraman Kim Wolhuter. For nearly two years, he walked alongside a wild cheetah mother and her young family to unravel in intimate detail what it takes to turn tiny cubs into accomplished predators.


SAT 20:00 Wild China (b00bf5b0)
Heart of the Dragon

The fairy-tale hills of Guilin and the cormorant fishermen of the Li River form the heart of this exploration of the colourful rice-growing cultures and strange creatures of southern China - a land of endless hills, mysterious caverns, spectacular rock pinnacles and traditional cultures with a taste for wildlife.


SAT 21:00 The King's Choice (m00095lv)
On 9 April 1940, the German war machine arrives in the city of Oslo. The Norwegian king faces a choice that will change his country forever - whether to submit to the German invasion and install a puppet government answering to Hitler or to enter into a hopeless war of resistance that will cost many lives, as well as Norway's staunchly defended neutrality.

In Norwegian with English subtitles.


SAT 23:10 Detectorists (b06pm901)
Series 2

Episode 4

Andy suddenly has a job interview to go to, while Lance has a lot of catching up to do. The mystery of the buried bomber is the least of their problems, but a disturbing possibility emerges from an unlikely source that throws everything into doubt.


SAT 23:40 Detectorists (b06q9h8y)
Series 2

Episode 5

After recent revelations, Lance, Andy, Becky and Sophie are all trying to come to terms with an uncertain future. In fact, only one of them is going to get a good night's sleep when Terry puts his emergency plan into action.


SAT 00:10 Detectorists (b06qy9l7)
Series 2

Episode 6

Finally, it is the day of the DMDC's annual rally, and Terry is expecting a really big turnout. But for Andy and Lance, will the day bring heartbreak or triumph?


SAT 00:40 Top of the Pops (m0008zc3)
Peter Powell and Andy Crane present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 21 July 1988. Featuring Kim Wilde, Everything but the Girl and S-Express.


SAT 01:10 Top of the Pops (m0008zbx)
Gary Davies and Nicky Campbell present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 28 July 1988. Featuring Pat Benatar, Shakin' Stevens and Glenn Medeiros.


SAT 01:40 Natural World (b08cwtdl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 02:40 Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal (m0008zc5)
Series 1

Episode 1

Science journalist Angela Saini and disability rights activist Adam Pearson, reveal that eugenics - the controversial idea that was a driving force behind the Nazi death camps - originated in the upper echelons of the British scientific community.

The presenters uncover how shocking eugenic beliefs permeated the British establishment and intelligentsia; supporters included figures such as Winston Churchill and Marie Stopes. They see how eugenics influenced the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, which resulted in thousands of disabled people being locked up for decades. Eugenics shaped immigration law, education policy and even town planning. The documentary uncovers disturbing links between British universities and German race scientists in the first half of the 20th century, and investigates how eugenics fed into the racist ideologies of Nazi Germany.



SUNDAY 06 OCTOBER 2019

SUN 19:00 Natural World (b07vxlk1)
2016-2017

Jaguars: Brazil's Super Cats

Jaguars are South America's supreme predator, but they are also one of the most elusive animals on the planet. We follow a pioneering team in Brazil as they track and follow individual wild jaguars to gain amazing new insights into their lives. With jaguars increasingly under threat, every cat counts. So when two young jaguar cubs are tragically orphaned, the team needs to use all their new-found knowledge to help the cubs return to the wild.


SUN 20:00 Britain's Biggest Warship (b0b08zpp)
Series 1

Crewing Up

It is early 2016 and sailors begin to arrive at Rosyth dockyard in Scotland where HMS Queen Elizabeth is still under construction. Captain Jerry Kyd and his 700 sailors assemble to take up their posts on the biggest warship constructed for the Royal Navy. Their mission? To take the prototype warship to sea for the first time on dangerous make-or-break sea trials in the North Sea.

Before sailing, the crew have to undergo rigorous fire and flood training, but suddenly they are faced with the real thing. Has the training paid off? And how will they get the supercarrier out of the dockyard sea gate with only a few centimetres clearance either side? They will also have to sail her under the Forth road and rail bridges - no easy task when HMS Queen Elizabeth is taller than both.

With unprecedented access, this series - three years in the making - tells the behind-the-scenes story of what makes HMS Queen Elizabeth so unique and how her crew are working together to breathe life into Britain's biggest warship.


SUN 21:00 Jumbo: The Plane that Changed the World (b03wtnfv)
Documentary about the development of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The 747 was a game changer, the airliner that revolutionised mass, cheap air travel. But the first wide-bodied plane was originally intended as a stopgap to Boeing's now-abandoned supersonic jet. This is the remarkable untold story of the jumbo, a billion-dollar gamble that pushed 1960s technology to the limits to create one of the world's most recognisable planes.


SUN 22:00 Britain's Greatest Generation (b05tr94p)
Coming of Age

We meet some of the extraordinary last survivors of the generation who fought or lived through World War II. Now in their nineties and hundreds - the oldest is 110 - they come from both rich and poor backgrounds. We find out how these men and women of Britain's Greatest Generation were shaped by their childhood experiences.

For no generation of Britons in modern history has war been such a defining feature than in the lives of those born just before, during, or soon after the First World War. The euphoria of victory in 1918 had imbued many with an overwhelming sense of patriotism and pride in Britain that would remain deep-rooted for years to come.

But national unity was seriously tested in the 1920s and 30s, as Britain became a country riven with class conflict and inequality. As unemployment soared, there was widespread civil unrest.

Despite these upheavals, those growing up in the interwar years remember much that was positive about life in Britain at the time. Their stories reveal that personal qualities of courage, initiative, obedience and fairness - seeded by parents of all classes - were highly valued. Most strikingly, they shared a delight in exercising freedom and independence - attributes that would come in useful as another world war approached.

When war broke out in September 1939, the men and women of this generation had just come of age and were ready to risk their lives for their country. But the evacuation of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk was a wake-up call for those who expected a swift victory. By the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone, with the Nazis massed across the English Channel. The Battle of Britain was about to begin - and the men and women of Britain's Greatest Generation were ready to fight it.


SUN 23:00 Operation Jericho (b016n2zz)
Actor and aviator Martin Shaw takes to the skies to rediscover one of the most audacious and daring raids of World War II.

On the morning of 18th February 1944, a squadron of RAF Mosquito bombers, flying as low as three metres over occupied France, demolished the walls of Amiens Jail in what became known as Operation Jericho. The reasons behind the controversial raid remain a mystery to this day.

This dramatic documentary investigates the missing pieces of the story, with interviews from survivors and aircrew, and tries to find out why the raid was ordered and by whom.


SUN 00:00 The Sinner (b09t50b0)
Series 1

Episode 2

Cora reflects on her difficult childhood and reveals some secrets from her past.


SUN 00:45 How Quizzing Got Cool: TV's Brains of Britain (b084fs6s)
We all love a good quiz. So here's a question - when did ordinary contestants turn into the pro-quizzers of today? Giving the answers are Victoria Coren Mitchell, Judith Keppel, Chris Tarrant, Mark Labbett, Nicholas Parsons and many more. Narrated by Ben Miller.


SUN 01:45 Arena (m00059b1)
Paris Is Burning

Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag ball scene. Made over seven years, this film offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion houses, from fierce contests for trophies, to house mothers offering sustenance in a world where house members face homophobia and transphobia, racism, Aids and poverty. Paris is Burning celebrates the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community.


SUN 02:55 Britain's Biggest Warship (b0b08zpp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]



MONDAY 07 OCTOBER 2019

MON 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m00095hn)
Series 1

07/10/2019

The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


MON 19:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095hq)
Series 1

Visigothic Brooch

Shaun Greenhalgh was once a prolific forger. Based in a garden shed in his parents' house in Bolton, he fooled the experts for three decades with an impressive array of fakes. Obsessed with the techniques of the past, Shaun could make anything - from medieval church carvings to Islamic drinking vessels. But a spell in prison convinced him to cross back over to the right side of the law and he has now teamed up with Oxford historian Dr Janina Ramirez. Together, they are trying to keep alive the secrets of the ancients.

In the first episode, Janina sets Shaun the challenge of making a jewelled eagle brooch of the kind worn by Visigoth chieftains in the Dark Ages. Inspired by a live eagle he befriends in an animal sanctuary in Lancashire, Shaun is confident he can do it. But sourcing the materials proves tricky, and making the brooch is more difficult than he expected. Can he finish in time?


MON 20:00 American History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley (m00023vy)
Series 1

The American Revolution

In the first of a three-part series, Lucy Worsley explores how American history has been mythologised and manipulated by generations of politicians, writers and protesters. This episode examines the American Revolution – a David-and-Goliath battle of men with high ideals taking on the might of the British Empire. But how much of America’s founding story is based on fact?


MON 21:00 Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History (m00095hv)
Fake news is never out of today's headlines. But in his latest documentary taking the long view of a hot-button issue, Ian Hislop discovers fake news raking in cash or wreaking havoc long before our own confused, uncertain times. Ian mines history to identify what motivates fake news - from profit, power and politics to prejudice, paranoia and propaganda – as well as to try to figure out what to do about it. In America and back home, Ian meets, amongst others, someone whose fake news stories have reached millions and a victim of fakery alleged to be a mastermind of the spurious paedophile ring ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy. Viewers also get to see Ian doing something that has never been captured on film before – as he gets a taste of what it is like to be 'deepfaked'.

In 1835, New Yorkers were fooled by one of the most entertaining and successful fake news scoops of all time - a tale of flying man-bats spied on the moon through the world’s most powerful telescope. The moon hoax story ran in a cheap, new tabloid - The Sun. Within decades, a circulation war waged between two pioneering press barons - Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst - was seen by many as causing a real war, between America and Spain. Meanwhile, another American conflict, the Civil War of the 1860s, had proved that photography, which initially promised new standards of accuracy, also brought new ways of lying. Ian looks at the battlefield images of pioneering photojournalist Alexander Gardner, who achieved ends by means that would be judged unethical today. He also encounters the spooky 'spirit photography' of William Mumler.

Ian digs into one of the most pernicious conspiracy theories of all time - the protocols of the Elders of Zion. He is disturbed to find this virulently anti-Semitic tract available with one click and rave reviews on Amazon, despite comprehensive factual debunking a century ago. Ian also ponders the consequences of official British fake news-mongering. During WWI, lurid stories were spread about German factories manufacturing soap from corpses. But a consequence of such black propaganda was to undermine the currency of trust in government - rather like, Ian notes, the absence of WMDs in Iraq has more recently.

To understand more about the current crisis, Ian meets James Alefantis, owner of the Washington DC pizzeria who fell victim to the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy. He also quizzes ex-construction worker Christopher Blair, a controversial figure sometimes dubbed 'the godfather of fake news'. He discusses how frightened we should be about fake news, and what can be done about it, with Damian Collins MP who chaired the parliamentary inquiry into fake news.

Collins argues that today's tech giants – Facebook in particular - should be taking even more active steps to take down disinformation. But that path also has its perils, as Ian finds out when he resurrects the extraordinary story of Victoria Woodhull, a woman who sued the British Museum for libel in the 1890s. This pioneering American feminist - the first woman who ran to be president - was an early victim of what today would be termed 'slut-shaming'. But does combatting lies give anyone the right to censor the historical record and limit free speech?


MON 22:00 Horizon (b0bhngq7)
2018

A Week without Lying - The Honesty Experiment

Deception is an integral part of human nature and it is estimated we all lie up to nine times a day. But what if we created a world in which we couldn't lie? In a radical experiment, pioneering scientists from across Europe have come together to make this happen.

Brand new technology is allowing them to rig three British people to make it impossible for them to lie undetected. Then they will be challenged to live for a whole week without telling a single lie. It is a bold social experiment to discover the role of deception in our lives - to investigate the impact lying has on our mental state and the consequences of it for our relationships, and to ask whether the world would be a better or worse place if we couldn't lie.


MON 23:00 The Story of China (b06z8f7c)
Silk Roads and China Ships

Michael Wood tells the tale of China's first great international age under the Tang Dynasty (618-907). From the picturesque old city of Luoyang, he travels along the Silk Road to the bazaars of central Asia and into India on the track of the Chinese monk who brought Buddhism back to China. This tale is still loved by the Chinese today and is brought to life by storytellers, films and shadow puppet plays.

Then in the backstreets and markets of Xi'an, Michael meets descendants of the traders from central Asia and Persia who came into China on the Silk Road. He talks to Chinese Muslims in the Great Mosque and across town hears the amazing story of the first reception of Christianity in 635.

Moving south, Michael sees the beginnings of China as an economic giant. On the Grand Canal, a lock built in 605 still handles 800 barges every day! The film tracks the rise of the silk industry and the world's favourite drink - tea.

Michael looks too at the spread of Chinese script, language and culture across east Asia. 'China's influence on the East was as profound as Rome on the Latin West', he says, 'and still is today'.

Finally, the film tells the intense drama of the fall of the Tang. Among the eyewitnesses were China's greatest poets. In a secondary school in a dusty village, where the Chinese Shakespeare - Du Fu - is buried in the grounds, the pupils take Michael through one famous poem about loss and longing as the dynasty falls. And in that ordinary classroom, there is a sense of the amazing drama and the deep-rooted continuities of Chinese culture.


MON 00:00 The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (b00hkb0z)
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.


MON 01:00 This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting (b01173pk)
400 years of art history in 90 minutes? This film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, including artists, critics and academics, out into the countryside to take a look at how we have depicted our landscape in art, discovering how the genre carried British painting to its highest eminence and won a place in the nation's heart.

From Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad, the paintings reveal as much about the nation's past as they do the patrons and artists who created them. Famous names sit alongside lesser-known works, covering everything from the refined sensibilities of 18th-century Classicism to the abstract forms of the war-torn 20th century with a bit of love, loss, rivalry and rioting thrown in.

Contributions come from a cast as diverse as the works themselves, including filmmaker Nic Roeg, historian Dan Snow and novelist Will Self, who offer a refreshingly wide range of perspectives on a genre of art which we have made very much our own.


MON 02:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095hq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 03:00 Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History (m00095hv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 08 OCTOBER 2019

TUE 19:00 Women's Football: Internationals (m00095hy)
2019

Portugal v England

England play Portugal in a friendly in Lisbon. The sides last met at the 2017 European Championship, when goals from Toni Duggan and Nikita Parris gave England a 2-1 win.

The Lionesses have failed to win their last two away games, drawing 3-3 with Belgium in August and losing 2-1 to Norway in September. Phil Neville’s side will be keen to make amends for those results against a Portuguese side who have only qualified for one major tournament before.


TUE 21:00 Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History (m00095j0)
Series 1

Episode 5

New revelations about the Northern Ireland conflict from a leading team of investigative journalists.

Episode five traces how unionist anger grew as IRA attacks on the security forces killed members of their community. When Margaret Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, giving the Republic of Ireland political influence in the North, the anger spilled over into talk of insurrection. The programme reveals how loyalist groups rearmed and used intelligence leaks from soldiers and police to boost their campaign of killing, including new information about MI5 agents operating inside the largest loyalist group, the Ulster Defence Association.


TUE 22:00 Voyages of Discovery (b0074t5l)
The Figure of the Earth

Explorer Paul Rose tells the story of three Frenchmen who couldnt stand each other, yet set off on an eight-year scientific mission in one of the most hostile places on the planet. Their plan, to settle an international row by measuring the shape of the planet, took them to the disease-ridden rainforests and oxygen-starved peaks of the Ecuadorian Andes.

Rose follows in the footsteps of the 18th-century explorers who were complete innocents abroad and had no idea of the horrors they were letting themselves in for. Despite disease, death and some highly disastrous sexual liaisons, the men made discoveries that fundamentally changed all our lives.


TUE 23:00 The Last Explorers (b018c57k)
Thomas Blake Glover

Neil Oliver travels to Japan to uncover the extraordinary story of Thomas Blake Glover. Blending adventure with commerce, Glover was a rogue trader who helped rebel samurai clans overthrow the shogun and lay the foundations for one of the most aggressive and powerful economies in the world.


TUE 00:00 Majesty and Mortar: Britain's Great Palaces (b046w5c1)
Towards an Architecture of Majesty

Royal palaces are the most magnificent buildings in our history. Often built to extraordinary levels of luxury and excess, they express the personalities of our kings and queens since 1066.

From the Tower of London to Hampton Court Palace, Dan Cruickshank reveals an extraordinary story of buildings, often fortified, that cemented the monarch's claim to the throne. Palaces reveal our monarchs like no other buildings - their taste for luxury, their fear of the mob, even their relationship with God. Palaces have been caught up in some of the most dramatic events in history - some survive in all their magnificence like Hampton Court while others have vanished from the surface of the earth as completely as if they'd never existed.


TUE 01:00 The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers (b09j2vvp)
Series 1

Power

Alinka Echeverria reveals how artists became the authors of Mexico's official history, defining the origins of its power and wielding significant influence over millennia.

Following the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910, landscape paintings established a new style that was resolutely Mexican, and confirmed the re-established connections between Mexico's indigenous population and their land. Forces of nature and Mexico's landscape continue to be integral to the Mexican sense of artistic identity.

The relationship between art and power can be seen throughout world history. But Alinka argues that Mexico differs. Not only did indigenous artists project the power of the elites in its ancient civilisations, artists became the authors of Mexican history and the power brokers in the struggles for political dominance.

In Mexico's history, power changes hands quickly and often violently. The city state of Cholula dominated central Mesoamerica around 1,000 years ago, but fell to Spanish conquistadors in the space of a day.

Nearly 500 years later, one of the largest triumphal arches in the world was intended to express the unassailable power of Porfirio Diaz. But before the arch was completed, the Mexican Revolution swept Diaz from power. The fragile nation needed a new national story to provide unity and stability. Art was to create it.

Diego Rivera painted a spectacular sweep of Mexican history as he, and the government who commissioned him, wanted it understood. It was origin myth and propaganda rolled into one. The power of art to establish Mexican nationalism was extraordinary. Frida Kahlo used her considerable influence to make the personal political, in both gender politics and amplifying indigenous voices.

Today, nowhere is it more important to express Mexican power and identity than at its borders. In Tijuana, on the border with the United States, the creativity of individual artists and collectives is fired by matters of everyday politics and the proximity to their northern neighbour. The results underline how art and power in Mexico are inextricably linked.


TUE 02:00 The Joy of Data (b07lk6tj)
A witty and mind-expanding exploration of data, with mathematician Dr Hannah Fry. This high-tech romp reveals what data is and how it is captured, stored, shared and made sense of. Fry tells the story of the engineers of the data age, people most of us have never heard of despite the fact they brought about a technological and philosophical revolution.

For Hannah, the joy of data is all about spotting patterns. Hannah sees data as the essential bridge between two universes - the tangible, messy world that we see and the clean, ordered world of maths, where everything can be captured beautifully with equations.

The film reveals the connection between Scrabble scores and online movie streaming, explains why a herd of dairy cows are wearing pedometers, and uncovers the network map of Wikipedia. What's the mystery link between marmalade and One Direction?

The film hails the contribution of Claude Shannon, the mathematician and electrical engineer who, in an attempt to solve the problem of noisy telephone lines, devised a way to digitise all information. Shannon singlehandedly launched the 'information age'. Meanwhile, Britain's National Physical Laboratory hosts a race between its young apprentices in order to demonstrate how and why data moves quickly around modern data networks. It's all thanks to the brilliant technique first invented there in the 1960s by Welshman Donald Davies - packet switching.

But what of the future? Should we be worried by the pace of change and what our own data could be used for? Ultimately, Fry concludes, data has empowered all of us. We must have machines at our side if we're to find patterns in the modern-day data deluge. But, Fry believes, regardless of AI and machine learning, it will always take us to find the meaning in them.


TUE 03:00 American History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley (m00023vy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]



WEDNESDAY 09 OCTOBER 2019

WED 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m00095j2)
Series 1

09/10/2019

The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095j4)
Series 1

Nottingham Alabaster

In episode two, Dr Janina Ramirez sets ex-forger Shaun Greenhalgh the challenge of making an alabaster carving of the kind mass-produced in Catholic England in the centuries before the Reformation. But the mines in Nottingham that produced English alabaster were closed down long ago, and the destruction unleashed by Henry VIII has left behind precious few examples, so Shaun’s views about how the Nottingham alabasters would originally have looked shock Janina.


WED 20:00 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
Instruments of Invasion

Sam Willis looks at the history of the castle from its first appearance with the Normans in 1066 to the longest siege on English soil at Kenilworth Castle 200 years later. The castle arrived as an instrument of invasion but soon became a weapon with which unruly barons challenged the Crown. Tintagel Castle, the place where King Arthur is said to have been conceived, is also on the itinerary. It remains one of the most evocative of castles to this day, drawing visitors from around the world with its tales of myth and legend.


WED 21:00 Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis (m00095j6)
Andrew Graham-Dixon investigates the story of the 20th century’s greatest art forger, Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, who made millions during World War II selling fake Vermeers in Nazi-occupied Holland.

Following a trail of evidence across Europe, Graham-Dixon pieces together how van Meegeren fooled the art establishment - and even swindled Hermann Göring, selling him what was then one of the most expensive paintings in the world.

Looking at this tale of intrigue and double-dealing against the backdrop of Europe’s darkest hour, Graham-Dixon tries to uncover the motives of the master forger. Was he a Dutch folk hero, outwitting the Nazi occupiers? A cynical opportunist? Or even ruthless collaborator?

As Andrew Graham-Dixon discovers, this is a tale about much more than simply art forgery: a twisted, timely morality tale about the blurred lines between truth and fiction that poses uncomfortable questions about deception - and collusion. About what happens when we want to believe something a little too much, even when the evidence of fakery is before our eyes.


WED 22:30 Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited (b01skwfd)
The First Anglo-Saxons

Julian Richards returns to the excavation of two early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries to explore the mystery of the Anglo-Saxon invasions that began after the fall of the Roman Empire. In particular, the rich burial of a warrior and his horse offers up fresh clues to some of the very first pioneers.


WED 23:30 Francesco's Venice (b0078sl0)
Blood

Francesco da Mosto tells the fantastic story of the birth of the most beautiful city in the world, Venice. Of how a city of palaces, of gold and jewels, of art and unrivalled treasures arose out of the swamp of a malaria-ridden lagoon.

Of how one city came to enjoy all the glory of a royal capital yet did away with kings and queens; of how a tomb violently robbed would make an entire people rich; and of how one man - tortured and blinded by his enemies - would lead Venice to a revenge so terrible it would go down in history as one of the worst crimes ever.

Da Mosto reveals the stunning interiors of the Doge's Palace, the Basilica of St Mark, the Ca da Mosto, the Ca D'Oro and the first low-level aerial shots of the city in years. As a Venetian by birth whose family has lived there for over a thousand years, Da Mosto also reveals secret Venice - beset by violence and political intrigue and yet a place which has become the most romantic destination on earth.


WED 00:30 The Search for the Lost Manuscript: Julian of Norwich (b07l6bd0)
Medieval art historian Dr Janina Ramirez tells the incredible story of a book hidden for centuries in the shadows of history, the first book ever written in English by a woman, Julian of Norwich, in 1373.

Revelations of Divine Love dared to present an alternative vision of man's relationship with God, a theology fundamentally at odds with the church of Julian's time. The book was suppressed for 500 years. It re-emerged in the 20th century as an iconic text for the women's movement and was acknowledged as a literary masterpiece.

Janina follows the trail of the lost manuscript, travelling from Norwich to Cambrai in northern France to discover how the book survived and the brave women who championed it.


WED 01:30 Castles: Britain's Fortified History (b04t6n19)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 02:30 Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis (m00095j6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER 2019

THU 19:00 Beyond 100 Days (m00095j9)
Series 1

10/10/2019

The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


THU 19:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095jc)
Series 1

Palissy Plate

In episode three, ex-forger Shaun Greenhalgh is set the task of making a Renaissance animal plate of the type invented by the great French potter Bernard Palissy. Palissy’s plates are alive with writhing reptiles, but for Shaun, killing grass snakes in Lancashire is not an option. So how can he source some examples for his moulds? And will it mean journeying back to his dark past as a forger?


THU 20:00 Forces of Nature with Brian Cox (b07k7m4z)
The Universe in a Snowflake

Brian uncovers how the stunning diversity of shapes in the natural world are shadows of the rules that govern the universe. In Spain, he shows how an attempt by hundreds of people to build the highest human tower reveals the force that shapes our planet.

In Nepal, honey hunters seek out giant beehives that cling to cliff walls. The perfect hexagonal honeycombs made by the bees to store their honey conceal a mathematical rule.

Off the coast of Canada, Brian explains how some of the most irregular, dangerous shapes in nature - massive icebergs that surge down from Greenland and into shipping lanes of the Atlantic - emerge from a powerful yet infinitely small force of nature. Even the most delicate six-sided snowflake tells a story of the forces of nature that forged it.


THU 21:00 Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal (m00095jf)
Series 1

Episode 2

Science journalist Angela Saini and disability rights activist Adam Pearson uncover the shocking story of eugenics, the controversial idea that the human race can be improved by selective breeding. It is commonly thought that eugenics disappeared after the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, but the presenters discover how eugenic practices, such as the sterilisation of the poor, continued on a global scale for many more years. The presenters meet the victims of this ideology, including a woman who was sterilised.

Angela and Adam also ask if eugenic-style attitudes towards the poor and disabled continue to shape today’s society, and explore if breakthroughs in medicine, such as screening and gene editing, will combine with prejudice against the disabled to bring a form of eugenics back. They weigh the undoubted benefits of modern medicine with the possibility of their misuse in the name of human enhancement. They look into the story of the first attempts to edit the genomes of humans in China and explore the latest science on the issue of what’s more important—nature or nurture.


THU 22:00 World War II: 1945 and the Wheelchair President (b05vlzsn)
David Reynolds re-examines the war leadership of American president Franklin Roosevelt.

At the height of war, Roosevelt inspired millions with stirring visions of a new and better postwar world, but it was a world he probably knew he would never see. He was commander-in-chief of the greatest military power the world had known, and yet his paralysis from polio made him powerless to accomplish even the most minor physical tasks. Few Americans knew the extent of his disability.

In this intimate biography set against the epic of World War II, Reynolds reveals how Roosevelt was burdened by secrets about his failing health and strained marriage that, if exposed, could have destroyed his presidency. Enigmatic, secretive and with a complicated love life, America's wheelchair president was racing to shape the future before the past caught up with him.

Weaving together the conduct of the war in Europe and the Pacific, the high politics of Roosevelt's diplomacy with Stalin and Churchill, and the entangled stories of the women who sustained the president in his last year, Reynolds explores the impact of Roosevelt's growing frailty on the war's endgame and the tainted peace that followed.


THU 23:30 Horizon (b036ypxw)
2012-2013

The Truth About Personality

Michael Mosley explores the latest science about how our personalities are created - and whether they can be changed.

Despite appearances, Mosley is a pessimist who constantly frets about the future. He wants to worry less and become more of an optimist.

He tries out two techniques to change this aspect of his personality - with surprising results.

And he travels to the frontiers of genetics and neuroscience to find out about the forces that shape all our personalities.


THU 00:30 Handmade in Bolton (m00095j4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 on Wednesday]


THU 01:00 Handmade in Bolton (m00095jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 01:30 Forces of Nature with Brian Cox (b07k7m4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


THU 02:30 Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal (m00095jf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 2019

FRI 19:00 World News Today (m00095kq)
The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 The Live Lounge Show (m00095ks)
Series 3

With Lana Del Rey

Clara Amfo takes us behind the scenes of the world-famous Radio 1 Live Lounge, showcasing the biggest names in music. In this episode, Lana Del Rey, Jax Jones and Sam Fender.


FRI 20:00 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
Sweet Little Sixteen

In Cold War mid-1950s America, as the new suburbia was spreading fast in a country driven by racial segregation, rock 'n' roll took the country by surprise. Out of the Deep South came a rhythm-driven fusion of blues, boogie woogie and vocal harmony played by young black pioneers like Fats Domino and Little Richard that seduced young white teens and, pre-civil rights, got black and white kids reeling and rocking together.

This fledgling sound was nurtured by small independent labels and travelled up from the Mississippi corridor spawning new artists. In Memphis, Elvis began his career as a local singer with a country twang who rocked up a blues song and sounded so black he confused his white listeners. And in St Louis, black blues guitarist Chuck Berry took a country song and turned it into his first rock 'n' roll hit, Maybellene.

Movies had a big role to play thanks to 'social problem' films exploring the teenager as misfit and delinquent - The Wild One showed teens a rebellious image and a look, and Blackboard Jungle gave them a soundtrack, with the film's theme tune Rock Around the Clock becoming the first rock 'n' roll Number 1 in 1955.

Featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Don Everly, Little Richard, Tom Jones, Wanda Jackson, Pat Boone, The Spaniels, PF Sloan, Joe Boyd, Jerry Phillips, Marshall Chess, JM Van Eaton (Jerry Lee Lewis's drummer), Charles Connor (Little Richard's drummer) and Dick Richards (Bill Haley's drummer).


FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m00095kw)
Janice Long and Mark Goodier present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 4 August 1988. Featuring Kim Wilde, The Funky Worm and Fairground Attraction.


FRI 21:30 Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes (m00095ky)
The compelling story of the Chins - the Chinese-Jamaican family behind Studio 17 established above Randy’s Records at 17 North Parade in downtown Kingston.

Randy’s Records was founded in the late 1950s by Vincent Chin and his wife Pat, who began by selling used records in a tiny shop. As Jamaican independence approached in 1962, Vincent Chin had the inspired idea of producing a record to capitalise on the excitement of the time. He approached the popular Trinidadian singer Lord Creator and produced Independent Jamaica. Jamaica was in the mood for celebrating its independence, and the song was an instant hit. Creator then went on to record Kingston Town, which became a huge hit for UB40 in the 1980s. The success of Independent Jamaica enabled the Randy’s shop to expand and add a studio of its own, known as Studio 17.

Studio 17 was where Vincent Chin and later his son Clive Chin as well as many other legendary Jamaican producers would create new tracks. Throughout the 60s and 70s many of the world’s most famous reggae artists recorded there, including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, John Holt, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, Carl Malcolm, Jimmy London, Augustus Pablo, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson and many more.

Pat, who became known as Miss Pat, played the test pressings in the shop downstairs to gauge customers’ reactions, which helped her decide which tracks to release. Her instinctive decisions helped Randy’s become the major outlet for homegrown music in Jamaica.

In the late 70s, political turmoil in Jamaica prompted the Chins to leave for New York, abandoning the studio and record shop. They successfully founded VP Records, (V for Vincent, P for Pat), the world’s largest independent reggae label. Now in her 80s, Pat still lives and works in New York: an extraordinary woman who today mentors the latest risqué dancehall acts on the VP label.

When the Chin family left for New York, some 2,000 original session tapes were left behind at Studio 17. It was believed they were all lost in the flooding and looting that followed Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 that left the studio unusable.

However, as part of a major exhibition on Jamaican music at Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project in Seattle, now renamed the Museum of Pop Culture, the tapes were rediscovered and shipped to New York, where they languished for some time in a basement. Tragedy struck in 2011, when Joel Chin, son of Clive Chin and A&R for VP records, was murdered in Kingston, Jamaica. Having encouraged his father to do something with the archive for many years, Clive has finally taken on the task of carefully restoring and digitising the tapes in New York, in memory of his son.

A treasure trove of original studio tapes reveals unique and stunning recordings from the golden age of reggae, many of which were unreleased and have never been heard before. As the tapes are played, they give rise to a myriad of wonderful stories and in a highly poignant conclusion, the teenage voice of the late Dennis Brown is beautifully remixed with the vocals of rising teenage star Hollie Stephenson, who duets with the 'crown prince of reggae' to complete an unfinished Studio 17 session. Back in Jamaica, Clive Chin works with one-time Eurythmics star Dave Stewart and Hollie to create a magical blend of old and new in a contemporary production that sounds as fresh today as it did when the original was first recorded 40 years ago.

Reggae has spread to the four corners of the earth, including the UK, where it blossomed in the 1960s and went on to shape the ska movement as well as punk rockers like The Clash, all the way to pop acts like The Police and the uniquely British Lover’s Rock sound. In more recent times, experimental crews like Massive Attack have reworked the island beat in new and exciting ways, and that process continues with current UK underground sounds like drum and bass, dubstep and grime. All these musical offshoots trace their roots to the pioneering work done at Randy’s Studio 17, where Lee 'Scratch' Perry recorded his earliest albums with Bob Marley and The Wailers, and Clive Chin produced one of the world’s first dub albums with Augustus Pablo.

Shot in Jamaica, New York and London, the film includes interviews with Jimmy Cliff, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Carl Malcolm, Dave Stewart, Sly Dunbar, Ali Campbell, Ernest Ranglin, Lord Creator, Bunny Lee, King Jammy, Jimmy London, Lester Sterling, Rico Rodriguez, Clive Chin, Pat Chin and Maxi Priest.


FRI 22:55 imagine... (b061y4qk)
Summer 2015

Beware of Mr Baker

imagine... presents Beware of Mr Baker. In this award-winning documentary, Cream drummer Ginger Baker reflects on his sixty-year career. It began in the jazz clubs of Soho and led to sellout stadium concerts, via the back streets of Lagos. The film's director Jay Bulger catches up with the irascible instrumentalist at his ranch in South Africa to talk drums, drugs and everything in-between. Has the young director bitten off more than he can chew?


FRI 00:25 Reggae Fever: David Rodigan (b0brzpsb)
David Rodigan's unlikely career as a reggae broadcaster and DJ has developed in parallel with the evolution of Jamaican music in the UK. His passion and his profession have given him a privileged, insiders' view of the UK's love affair with Jamaican music that began in the 1950s. His constant championing of it has afforded him national treasure status with generations of British Jamaicans and all lovers of reggae music.

This is a film about the career of David Rodigan but it's also a window through which to see a wider human story about social change in the UK: a story of immigration and integration, and music's role within it.

The beginning of his career conjures up a forgotten era when reggae was reviled by liberal, hippyish music fans because of its association with skinheads. At one point, his fellow students agreed to share a house with him only if Rodigan agreed not to play reggae. Instead, he would haunt London's specialist record shops and sneak out to Jamaican clubs alone.

His break first came on BBC Radio London, where his knowledge and infectious enthusiasm won him the gig. Since that first break, he's had shows on Capital, Kiss and now BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Radio 2. In the 80s, his radio show became such a Sunday lunchtime fixture in London's West Indian households that it was colloquially known as 'rice 'n' peas'. Bob Marley personally chose Rodigan's show to play out the world exclusive of Could You Be Loved.

As well as being a DJ, Rodigan also began to 'soundclash' on a global stage. This musical competition where crew members from opposing sound systems pit their skills against each other involves the playing of records in turn, with the crowd ultimately deciding who has 'killed' the other crew, by playing the better chosen track. But standard versions of tracks don't cut it in a clash, where the true currency is 'dubplates' - versions of tracks recut, often by the original artist, with lyrics changed to praise the playing crew or diss the opposing one.

In Jamaica, after he began clashing live on national radio with DJ Barry G, he became so famous that his name was even adopted by a Kingston gangster. He began competing on the World Soundclash stage alongside the likes of Jamaica's Stone Love and Japan's Mighty Crown as the soundclash became a global phenomenon. David is probably the only person ever to have been awarded an MBE and the title of World Clash Champion.

In recent years, Rodigan's live DJ appearances have started attracting a far younger audience. It can be seen as a reflection of the way different forms of music from the different cultures that have arrived in Britain over the last 70 years have integrated, taken root and spawned new scenes, attitudes and tastes.

As well as appearing at student unions across the country and continuing to clash by himself, he's also now a part of clash crew Rebel Sound, first assembled for Red Bull Culture Clash in 2014. In this environment, David found himself amidst a melting pot of beats, loops and popping, infectious bass-driven riddims - playing to the kids who are discovering him and therefore reggae music through other artists.

Now in his 40th professional year, David is quite rightly celebrating, his passion for the music he loves burning as brightly as ever. This film is a testament to this most unlikely of reggae aficionados - a celebration of a man whose story is strangely intertwined with not only the evolution of music in this country but also the evolution of the culture.


FRI 01:25 Top of the Pops (m00095kw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:55 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 02:55 How to Make a Number One Record (b05r6q4r)
Great pop records are the soundtrack to our lives, and that is why number one hits hold a totemic place in our culture. This film goes in search of what it takes to get a number one hit single, uncovering how people have done it and the effect it had on their lives. As the exploration moves through the decades, the goal is to trace the various routes that lead to the top of the singles chart and discover the role played by art, science, chance and manipulation in reaching the pinnacle of pop.




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

American History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley 20:00 MON (m00023vy)

American History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley 03:00 TUE (m00023vy)

Arena 01:45 SUN (m00059b1)

Beyond 100 Days 19:00 MON (m00095hn)

Beyond 100 Days 19:00 WED (m00095j2)

Beyond 100 Days 19:00 THU (m00095j9)

Britain's Biggest Warship 20:00 SUN (b0b08zpp)

Britain's Biggest Warship 02:55 SUN (b0b08zpp)

Britain's Greatest Generation 22:00 SUN (b05tr94p)

Castles: Britain's Fortified History 20:00 WED (b04t6n19)

Castles: Britain's Fortified History 01:30 WED (b04t6n19)

Detectorists 23:10 SAT (b06pm901)

Detectorists 23:40 SAT (b06q9h8y)

Detectorists 00:10 SAT (b06qy9l7)

Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal 02:40 SAT (m0008zc5)

Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal 21:00 THU (m00095jf)

Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal 02:30 THU (m00095jf)

Forces of Nature with Brian Cox 20:00 THU (b07k7m4z)

Forces of Nature with Brian Cox 01:30 THU (b07k7m4z)

Francesco's Venice 23:30 WED (b0078sl0)

Handmade in Bolton 19:30 MON (m00095hq)

Handmade in Bolton 02:30 MON (m00095hq)

Handmade in Bolton 19:30 WED (m00095j4)

Handmade in Bolton 19:30 THU (m00095jc)

Handmade in Bolton 00:30 THU (m00095j4)

Handmade in Bolton 01:00 THU (m00095jc)

Horizon 22:00 MON (b0bhngq7)

Horizon 23:30 THU (b036ypxw)

How Quizzing Got Cool: TV's Brains of Britain 00:45 SUN (b084fs6s)

How to Make a Number One Record 02:55 FRI (b05r6q4r)

Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History 21:00 MON (m00095hv)

Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History 03:00 MON (m00095hv)

Jumbo: The Plane that Changed the World 21:00 SUN (b03wtnfv)

Majesty and Mortar: Britain's Great Palaces 00:00 TUE (b046w5c1)

Natural World 19:00 SAT (b08cwtdl)

Natural World 01:40 SAT (b08cwtdl)

Natural World 19:00 SUN (b07vxlk1)

Operation Jericho 23:00 SUN (b016n2zz)

Reggae Fever: David Rodigan 00:25 FRI (b0brzpsb)

Rock 'n' Roll America 20:00 FRI (b0615nmw)

Rock 'n' Roll America 01:55 FRI (b0615nmw)

Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History 21:00 TUE (m00095j0)

Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited 22:30 WED (b01skwfd)

Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes 21:30 FRI (m00095ky)

The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers 01:00 TUE (b09j2vvp)

The Joy of Data 02:00 TUE (b07lk6tj)

The King's Choice 21:00 SAT (m00095lv)

The Last Explorers 23:00 TUE (b018c57k)

The Live Lounge Show 19:30 FRI (m00095ks)

The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu 00:00 MON (b00hkb0z)

The Search for the Lost Manuscript: Julian of Norwich 00:30 WED (b07l6bd0)

The Sinner 00:00 SUN (b09t50b0)

The Story of China 23:00 MON (b06z8f7c)

This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting 01:00 MON (b01173pk)

Top of the Pops 00:40 SAT (m0008zc3)

Top of the Pops 01:10 SAT (m0008zbx)

Top of the Pops 21:00 FRI (m00095kw)

Top of the Pops 01:25 FRI (m00095kw)

Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis 21:00 WED (m00095j6)

Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled the Nazis 02:30 WED (m00095j6)

Voyages of Discovery 22:00 TUE (b0074t5l)

Wild China 20:00 SAT (b00bf5b0)

Women's Football: Internationals 19:00 TUE (m00095hy)

World News Today 19:00 FRI (m00095kq)

World War II: 1945 and the Wheelchair President 22:00 THU (b05vlzsn)

imagine... 22:55 FRI (b061y4qk)