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 25 JULY 2020

SAT 19:00 This Farming Life (b074zmb6)
Series 1

Episode 8

Spring arrives at last for the farmers - the busiest time of year for new lambs and calves.

In the north, beyond Aberdeen, John is expecting more than 6,000 new lambs, so hires in extra staff to help.

New Zealander Emma helps a ewe give birth to triplets, but will the smallest and weakest one survive?

John rescues a lamb from its aggressive mother, and takes his son James to sell his chickens and ducks at an auction.

On the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Sandy celebrates his 61st birthday after bracing a storm to feed his two pregnant Highland cattle.

On the mainland in the east, Martin invests in some hi-tech kit to alert him when his cows are calving. He sets off to plough the fields, relying on the new system - but will it work?

As the weather warms, Sandy and Ali welcome a new Highland calf to their croft, and Ali takes her new thoroughbred horse for a run on the beach. Martin collects semen from his prize bull to sell - it's a tricky procedure.

In the west in Argyll, Sybil and George also celebrate the birth of a new calf and the start of their lambing season. And George gets a spring clean, as Sybil tackles his beard. Mel spends her birthday at a cow auction - but will she get the price she wants?


SAT 20:00 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01ps9jr)
Painting Paradise

Two-part sun-filled series in which Richard E Grant follows in the footsteps of artists who have lived, loved and painted on France's glorious Cote d'Azur.

Revealing the intertwined relationship between modern art and the development of the French Riviera as an international tourist haven, Grant explores how impressionist painters Cezanne, Monet and Renoir first discovered the region in the 19th century when the newly built railway arrived there.

Captivated by the light and colour of this undiscovered landscape, the painters immortalised its shores on canvas and in doing so advertised the savage beauty of the region. For neo-impressionists Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, the region provided a vision of utopia, while for Henri Matisse the vivid colours of the area inspired him to adopt a new palette and in doing so set modern art en route to abstraction.

With visits to L'Estaque, St Tropez and Nice, Grant maps the progress of the region from cultural backwater to bohemian hotspot.


SAT 21:00 The Last Wave (m000l9rg)
Series 1

Five Hours

As the community of Brizan gathers on the beach for its annual surf party, a strange cloud suddenly falls over the ocean. When it retreats, the surfers have disappeared. To the villagers’ astonishment, only their empty and abandoned boards are pushed back by the waves onto the shore.

Five hours later, Lena, Max, Thomas, Mathieu and the others miraculously reappear, safe and sound, but without the slightest memory of what happened to them. The next night, Lena has a terrible nightmare.

In French with English subtitles.


SAT 21:50 The Last Wave (m000l9rl)
Series 1

The Return

In Brizan, life seems to be going on again, but only on the surface. The surviving surfers discover they are endowed with strange powers.

Little Thomas's eyesight has changed completely. Mathieu, the young high school student, realises that he is able to relieve and heal his father's patients much better than his father ever did. And Max, the surfing champion, finds that he can stop his breathing without any ill effect.

The surfers seem strangely connected to the cloud – and the cloud is about to appear again.

In French with English subtitles.


SAT 22:40 imagine... (b09wwtxf)
Winter 2017/18

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over musical theatre for nearly five decades and delighted millions worldwide with hit shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love and, most recently, School of Rock the Musical.

To mark his 70th year, Lloyd Webber has written an autobiography - Unmasked, a candid and confessional account of his early life and career up to the opening of Phantom. In this imagine special, Alan Yentob talks to Andrew about the book, his bohemian childhood and the memories he has chosen to reveal.


SAT 00:10 This Farming Life (b074zmb6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


SAT 01:10 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01ps9jr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


SAT 02:10 Rome Unpacked (b09m6bmp)
Series 1

Episode 2

Andrew Graham-Dixon and Giorgio Locatelli continue their exploration of Rome off the beaten track. In search of its Papal, Renaissance and Baroque history, they discover that it is visible all around them. In Rome, everything has been kept, from broken cooking pots from the time of the empire that piled up to form one of the city's hills to the gastronomy, art and architecture created not just by successive popes and Caesars but by ordinary Romans.

As well as marvelling at the mosaics in the 12th-century Basilica di San Clemente, Andrew takes Giorgio to its deepest basement and an ancient Roman schoolteacher's classroom. Then it is on to a true architectural and civic wonder - the vast Testaccio Slaughterhouse, where workers were once paid in offal which they took home and used as the basis of delicious dishes that are still sold in Rome today. Giorgio takes Andrew to his favourite Trippa stall to sample some of the best. Travelling to the Palazzo Colonna, Andrew in turn wants to show Giorgio just one painting - the Beaneater by Carracci, a Baroque masterpiece that makes an everyday subject extraordinary. Finally, together they discover Rome's Fascist architecture, which might have been destroyed anywhere else, but here remains standing in a city that houses all of its history. To understand the truth about the past, they argue, you have to taste all its layers - just like one of Giorgio's lasagnes.



SUNDAY 26 JULY 2020

SUN 19:00 BBC Proms (m000l9rn)
2012

The John Wilson Orchestra does Broadway

Katie Derham introduces another unforgettable Prom from the BBC archive. This week Katie is joined by soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn to relive her 2012 performance when she joined John Wilson and his orchestra to celebrate the sounds of Broadway including music by George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein.

Showcasing a glittering array of highlights from this golden age of stage and screen, they were joined on the Royal Albert Hall stage by a host of star soloists including Seth MacFarlane, Anna-Jane Casey, Sierra Boggess, Julian Ovenden and Rodney-Earl Clarke.


SUN 21:05 Beethoven’s Fidelio: the Royal Opera (m000l9rq)
Antonio Pappano introduces a new production of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, from the Royal Opera House, a story of risk and triumph against a backdrop of revolution.

David Butt Philip plays the political prisoner Florestan, and Lise Davidsen his wife Leonore (disguised as Fidelio) who daringly sets out to save him from certain death. Tobias Kratzer’s new staging brings together the dark reality of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the conflicts of the modern age to illuminate Fidelio’s inspiring message of a common humanity.


SUN 23:20 Royal Opera House: The Reopening (m000kqq7)
Anita Rani, Katie Derham and Antonio Pappano introduce highlights of the Royal Opera House’s first emotional performances after lockdown.

The programme features a world premiere from choreographer Wayne MacGregor, classic opera arias and songs performed by Gerald Finley, Louise Alder, Toby Spence, David Butt Philip, Sarah Connolly and the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists as well as excerpts from ballets by Ashton, MacMillan and Wheeldon.

Antonio Pappano is joined by musicians from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the performances are filmed in line with social distancing rules against the backdrop of the beautiful Royal Opera House auditorium.


SUN 00:50 ... Sings Musicals (b019jshd)
A delve into the BBC archives for an eclectic mix of performances from musicals from the 60s to the present. Featuring the likes of Ella Fitzgerald singing Mack the Knife from the Threepenny Opera, Captain Sensible performing a classic from South Pacific, Jeff Beck going down the yellow brick road of Oz, Jay Z taking on Annie, and all points in between.


SUN 01:50 EastEnders 2008 (b00b6st2)
Pat makes a discovery about her grandson, but is it too late? Roxy and Peggy have a risky plan, and Sean finds a new enemy.


SUN 02:20 EastEnders 2008 (b00b6tx9)
Steven takes drastic action to protect his secret. Bianca and Ricky grow closer, and Clare's past catches up with her.


SUN 02:50 EastEnders 2008 (b00b6vlg)
Lucy faces a huge decision. Ricky thinks he is getting somewhere with Bianca, and Bradley is forced to act the hero.


SUN 03:20 EastEnders 2008 (b00b6w78)
Ian is relieved to have his family back together, but is all as it seems? Roxy's visit to the doctor ends with more than a prescription. Meanwhile, both Ricky and Bradley get surprising results from their endeavours.



MONDAY 27 JULY 2020

MON 19:00 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078yvw)
Secrets of the Tomb Builders

Dan visits the magnificent underground tombs in the Valley of the Kings, in search of clues about the unsung heroes of this ancient world - the mysterious community of craftsmen who spent their lives building lavish burial chambers for the pharaohs.

The tombs are wonderful feats of art and engineering and Dan finds a wealth of intriguing evidence about the lives of the supposedly anonymous people who built them. Given rare access to the most complex tomb of all - the 150-room necropolis built for the sons of Rameses II - Dan speculates on the skill of the men who designed and excavated this tomb thousands of years ago.

In the tomb of Thutmosis III, he discovers an unfinished burial chamber, where the intricate process of tomb building was stopped in its tracks, leaving detailed evidence of the techniques of artwork used by these ancient artisans. Across the dry desert hills beyond the Valley of the Kings, Dan visits the village where the tomb-builders lived, explores their homes and reveals their personal lives through unique written records that have survived for thousands of years.

Were the tomb-builders slaves, forced to use their skills to glorify the dead pharaohs? Dan pieces together the truth, and reveals an unexpectedly intimate picture of these ancient artists and craftsmen.


MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l9v5)
Series 3

Black River

Bob Ross paints a slow river winding around colourful foliage, with the final embers of sunlight ahead.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


MON 20:00 The Golden Age of Steam Railways (b01p8w38)
Small Is Beautiful

Two-part documentary telling the remarkable story of a band of visionaries who rescued some of the little narrow gauge railways that once served Britain's industries. These small railways and the steam engines that ran on them were once the driving force of Britain's mines, quarries, factories and docks. Then, as they disappeared after 1945, volunteers set to work to bring the lines and the steam engines back to life and started a movement which spread throughout the world. Their home movies tell the story of how they helped millions reconnect with a past they thought had gone forever.


MON 21:00 Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise (b087vgd6)
The Secrets of the South

Southern Thailand is the Thailand we think we all know. It is a place of both spectacular natural beauty and of wild parties, but behind this well-known image is also a place where spirituality pervades every bit of life. For the animals that live here, this is a natural wonderland.


MON 22:00 Timeshift (m000l9v7)
Series 3

Jet Set

Rich, distant and opulent, the jet set fascinated the public as they waved to us from airplane doorways before winging their way across the skies heading for yachts and exotic locations that the rest of us could only dream of. They were the aristocrats, the high fliers and high earners whose lives and loves fascinated us long before celebrity became a dirty word.

This film looks back at the glamorous heyday of the jet set from the 1950s to the 1970s. Contributors include former Formula One world champion Jackie Stewart, psychologist Dr Martyn Dyer Smith, society columnist Ross Benson, travel writer Simon Calder, Concorde pilot Christopher Orlebar and former women's magazine editor Marcelle d'Argy Smith.


MON 22:40 Games Britannia (b00pf0rr)
Monopolies and Mergers

Three-part series presented by historian Benjamin Woolley about popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age, in which he unravels how an apparently trivial pursuit is a rich and entertaining source of cultural and social history.

In part two, Woolley traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. It was the British who developed the idea of the board game as an instrument of moral instruction and exported it to America. There, it was adapted to promote the American Dream of free enterprise and economic success.

This crusading element in board games is perhaps best exemplified by the best-selling game in history - Monopoly - which celebrated wealth and avarice in the wake of the Great Depression. Ironically, this most capitalist of games was derived from a radical socialist game first published in Britain in 1913.

Woolley goes on to trace the development of board games through their post-war heyday, when together with Cluedo and Scrabble, Monopoly formed a holy trinity of British family favourites that endures to this day.

Now in the information age, board games have evolved to include fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons - an American invention. The British continue to produce niche political games like War on Terror which plays on satire, but mainstream British games designers have joined the computer games revolution.


MON 23:40 Dan Cruickshank: At Home with the British (b07d7sdp)
The Flat

If modern Britain lives in a terrace house and loves a cottage, it cannot make its mind up about the high-rise flat. Is the skyscraper a blot on the landscape, or the answer to the national housing crisis?

For Dan Cruickshank, the idea of living high above the city streets really is the future once again. 21st-century London is the site of an extraordinary building boom. Hundreds of residential high-rise towers are being built at record speed, many hugely controversial, as private developers cotton on to what social housing idealists realised 60 years ago.

Dan is in Bow in east London, charting the extraordinary history of one estate - the Lincoln. Designed in 1960 for the London County Council by a young idealistic architect, the 19-storey Lincoln was once the tallest residential building in London. Inside every flat were the latest space-age gadgets - a lift, a shower and a fitted kitchen. But the dream turned sour. The Lincoln became notorious for drugs and violence. There was even a brutal murder. It was the same all over Britain - the flat was a byword for deprivation and social exclusion. But then, just as everything looked lost, the Lincoln was saved and with, perhaps, the hopes of an entire generation for that most precious of things - a home. For Dan, as perhaps for Britain, 'the only way is up'.


MON 00:40 A History of Art in Three Colours (b01lng0m)
White

In the Age of Reason, it was the rediscovery of the white columns and marbles of antiquity that made white the most virtuous of colours. For flamboyant JJ Wickelmann and British genius Josiah Wedgwood, white embodied all the Enlightenment values of justice, equality and reason.


MON 01:40 The Joy of Painting (m000l9v5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:10 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078yvw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 02:40 Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise (b087vgd6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



TUESDAY 28 JULY 2020

TUE 19:00 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078yz1)
The Pharaoh Hunter

Dan traces the unexpected twists and mysteries in the life of Howard Carter, the great British archaeologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, and reveals the hidden legacy of Carter's work. Carter rose from humble origins to become the most famous archaeologist in the world, but despite his spectacular success in discovering Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, Carter was never honoured in this country, and received no official recognition from the British.

Dan travels through Egypt, looking for clues to this mystery as he follows the rollercoaster of Carter's career, from his first visit to Egypt as a teenager hired to copy Egyptian art, right up to the fame of his later years. On the way, Dan finds out that Carter played a crucial role in updating the science of archaeology and unearths his original artwork and his fascinating diary.


TUE 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l9tf)
Series 3

Brown Mountain

Swim in the warm water. Take a nap in the luxurious green grass. Bob Ross creates a wonderful summer mountain scene.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


TUE 20:00 The Golden Age of Steam Railways (b01pdsy6)
Branching Out

For more than 100 years steam trains ran Britain, but when steam started to disappear in the 1950s bands of volunteers got together to save some of the tracks and the steam engines that ran on them. Some of these enthusiasts filmed their exploits and the home movies they shot tell the story of how they did it, and how they helped people to reconnect to a world of steam most thought had been lost forever.


TUE 21:00 Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (b06w0gn7)
Age of Extremes

Lucy Worsley continues her journey through Russia in the footsteps of the Romanovs, the most powerful royal dynasty in modern European history.

In this episode she examines the extraordinary reign of Catherine the Great, and the traumatic conflict with Napoleonic France that provides the setting for the novel War and Peace.

Lucy begins in the 18th century, when the great palaces of the Romanovs were built. But in Romanov Russia, blood was always intermingled with the gold - these splendid interiors were the backdrop to affairs, coups and murder.

At the magnificent palace of Peterhof near St Petersburg, Lucy charts the meteoric rise of Catherine the Great, who seized the Russian throne from her husband Peter III in 1762 and became the most powerful woman in the world. Catherine was a woman of huge passions - for art, for her adopted country (she was German by birth) and for her many lovers.

Lucy visits the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, once the home of Catherine's vast art collection. Here she explores how, once Catherine had taken the throne, she compensated for her foreign origins by taking careful control of her image, using her portraits and clothes to create a brand that looked authentically Russian yet also modern and sophisticated. Lucy tells how Catherine expanded her empire through military victories overseas, while at home she encouraged education and introduced smallpox inoculation to Russia. But Catherine struggled to introduce deeper reforms, and the institution of serfdom remained largely unchanged. Lucy explains how this injustice fuelled a violent rebellion.

Nevertheless, Catherine left Russia more powerful on the world stage than ever. But all she had achieved looked set to be undone when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Lucy relives the pivotal battle of Borodino, when the Russian army finally confronted the French forces; the traumatic destruction of Moscow; and, under Catherine's grandson Alexander, the eventual victory over the French that provided the Romanov dynasty with its most glorious hour.


TUE 22:00 Russia on Four Wheels (b03skbx0)
Episode 2

Justin Rowlatt and Anita Rani continue their epic road trips across Russia, discovering two very different sides of a vast and bewildering country looking to assert itself once again on the world stage.

Having started out at Sochi, the Black Sea resort hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, Anita is in Moscow where she meets wealthy socialite Alisa Krylova, Pussy Riot protester Yekaterina 'Katia' Samutsevich and some rebellious night drag-racers and their souped-up cars. She then moves on to St Petersburg, Russia's former capital and its gateway to the west. She gets the chance to open a massive bridge and behind the tourist sites she finds a city of migrant workers and gay rights protesters.

Anita then turns north to meet entrepreneurs harvesting caviar from sturgeon stocked in the warm waters of a nuclear power plant, before reaching her final destination of Murmansk, high in the arctic and Russia's new economic frontier.

Justin continues on his journey east, from Perm and one of the last Gulag prison camps, deep into the Ural Mountains and Asia. He spends time with some very traditional bear hunters, gets close to some powerful military buyers at Russia's biggest arms fair, and drives on to Yekaterinburg, where he comes a little too close to men protecting the graves of local gangsters from the 1990s.

Finally, Justin reaches the lands of Russia's incredibly rich natural resources - a world of grim copper smelters, Cold War nuclear bomb-making plants, and a road that seems to go on forever into Siberia, looking east towards China and Japan.


TUE 23:00 The Last Wave (m000l9rg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]


TUE 23:50 The Last Wave (m000l9rl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:50 on Saturday]


TUE 00:40 There She Goes (b0bnxpzn)
Series 1

One Day in the Life of Rosie Yates

Rosie Yates is a nine-year-old girl with a severe learning disability due to an undiagnosed chromosomal disorder, living with her dad Simon, mum Emily and brother Ben. It's a typical Saturday for the family, starting with an attempt to get Rosie to the park for some fresh air. She refuses to cooperate, and afterwards she's similarly uncooperative with her dinner. As Simon and Emily are later distracted, Rosie causes carnage in the kitchen.


TUE 01:10 There She Goes (b0bpw76q)
Series 1

Bubble Chess

It's bath night for Rosie and, as usual, that means chaos as she insists on having all the bubble bath. Emily decides that she needs to form a strategy - she lays a trap for Rosie, putting the bubble bath out of reach, then leaves the bathroom and waits. Rosie falls for it, and Emily wins this round of 'bubble chess'. But the game becomes more complex as Rosie twigs what is going on. Can she outthink Emily?


TUE 01:40 The Joy of Painting (m000l9tf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:10 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078yz1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 02:40 Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley (b06w0gn7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]



WEDNESDAY 29 JULY 2020

WED 19:00 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078z27)
The Rebel Pharaoh

Dan Cruickshank travels the Nile, from magnificent Karnak to the desolate ruins of El Amarna, in search of the truth about Akhenaten, the most radical and mysterious pharaoh ever to rule Egypt, and his beautiful wife Nefertiti.

They were a golden couple, rich and all-powerful, but when Akhenaten had a personal religious conversion, it changed everything. Akhenaten decided to overturn the entire religious belief system of ancient Egypt and convert the whole nation to his own new religion. He swept aside centuries of worship of many gods and declared that there was only one god, the Sun - the 'Aten'. To the ancient Egyptians this was heresy, but as he was the pharaoh, no-one could stop him. He then built a vast new sacred city in the desert, far away from the ancient capital of Thebes, a city dedicated to the Aten, in which he and Nefertiti lived in splendour.

But, as Dan discovers, the royal couple's dreams would soon come to a tragic end. From the grand temples at Karnak, Dan traces the route of the heretic king and queen along the Nile to the site of their splendid new city at El Amarna, in Middle Egypt - now just a poignant, desolate ruin where Akhenaten and Nefertiti lived out their glorious but doomed lives.


WED 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l9v9)
Series 3

Reflections

Truly picture perfect. Bob Ross creates the illusion of a mountain on a bright day mirrored in still waters.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


WED 20:00 The Riviera: A History in Pictures (b01pwtvf)
The Golden Era

Richard E Grant explores how modern art and the Riviera grew up together when France's Cote D'Azur became the hedonistic playground and experimental studio for the great masters of 20th-century painting. With Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso resident on the coast, other artists from Jean Cocteau to Henri Lartigue, Raoul Dufy to Fernand Leger and Francis Picabia to Sergei Diaghilev were drawn to the area.

As transatlantic liners brought America's super-rich to the region, art and celebrity became integrally intertwined as cultural gurus and multimillionaires all partied on the beach. In an era of sunshine and bathing, of cinema and fast cars, of the Ballet Russes and Monte Carlo casinos, Grant discovers the extraordinary output of what became briefly the world's creative hub.


WED 21:00 What We Were Watching (m000l9vc)
Summer TV Classics

Join Grace Dent on a televisual trip of a lifetime as she explores the sights, sounds and schedules of the great British summer. Grace’s epic journey covers everything that informs our attitudes to summertime, from the travel shows of the 60s and 70s, which first brought the world’s finest resorts into our living rooms, to Del and Rodney Trotter fooling about abroad and the high jinks of Hi-de-Hi!

She explores the influence that holiday camp staples like beauty contests and talent shows had on primetime programmes like Seaside Special, which attracted stars as iconic as Abba and Grace Jones. Away from the glitz and glamour, there’s a look at the notorious Notting Hill Carnival of 1976, where a celebration of colour ended in rioting that changed Britain’s race laws forever, and a trip to Ibiza in the 80s, where young Brits were discovering new ways of getting away from it all. Also abroad are the then-young cast of EastEnders, with a young Grant Mitchell showing how to hit the clubs of Spain in epic style – and of course, sun, sea and soap means a look at the show that really burned the BBC – Eldorado.


WED 22:00 Hi-de-Hi! (b0078kj8)
Series 1

The Day of Reckoning

In the past, ex-jockey Fred Quilly took £300 from a race gang to pull a horse. He failed to stop his horse winning and is convinced the gang are out for revenge.


WED 22:30 Timeshift (m000l9vf)
Series 2

The Great British Seaside Holiday

Timeshift presents a bank holiday celebration of the British seaside holiday experience from its Victorian origins and heyday in the 1950s to its slow decline and attempts at reinvention since.

Interviewees including Jonathan Meades, Martin Parr and Bill Pertwee explain the way that the seaside has always been the place we all visit to lose our inhibitions and reveal a different side to ourselves. We look at how our different experiences of the seaside - end of the pier shows, fearsome landladies and holiday camps - have given rise to different traditions and a nostalgia, both working-class and middle-class, for a time when life's pleasures were simpler and foreign holidays were the preserve of the very rich.


WED 23:15 Andrew Marr's Great Scots: The Writers Who Shaped a Nation (b04gqttk)
Hugh MacDiarmid

Andrew Marr looks into the life of Scotland's most bothersome poet, Hugh MacDiarmid. MacDiarmid reinvented Scots as a language for serious writing, at various times called for a Scottish fascism, tried to create an independent Scottish communist utopia, and was under surveillance by MI5 for many years. During his life he was involved in plots to capture Edinburgh Castle and steal the Stone of Destiny, but he also found time for a literary life in which he would write the most powerful poetry in Scots since the days of Robert Burns and to start a Scottish renaissance that goes on to this day.


WED 00:15 Storyville (b0btc456)
Hurt Locker Hero

The heart-stopping story of 'Crazy Fakhir', a Kurdish colonel in the Iraqi army and legendary bomb disposal expert who single-handedly disarmed thousands of landmines across the country with just a pocket knife and a pair of wire clippers.

Between the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the chaos and destruction wreaked by IS ten years later, Fahkir's unwavering bravery saved thousands of lives throughout Iraq. 'Hurt Locker Hero' tells Fakhir's story through the raw and visceral amateur footage captured by his soldiers on a camcorder intended for filming family occasions. Instead, it records Fakhir endlessly snipping wires, searching family homes and digging out roadside IEDs, insisting it's too dangerous to wait hours for the highly trained American bomb disposal teams to arrive.

Whilst their father and husband becomes a hero, Fahkir's wife and eight children struggle to make ends meet and worry endlessly about his safety. Fakhir will be remembered as the man who risked his life to save others -'If I fail, only I die, but if I succeed, I can save hundreds of people.'.


WED 01:40 There She Goes (b0bqrdsr)
Series 1

What Rosie Wants

A trip to Rosie's favourite place - the swimming pool - ends in disaster when she decides she hates it. Emily begins to wonder if it's just that Rosie wanted to do something else. Simon goes off to take pictures of all the places they regularly visit to put together a booklet. Rosie types 'onetwoman', which Emily and Ben try to cross-reference with her iPad to figure out what it means. In the earlier timeline, Emily's academic nature and desire for answers is yielding much less success. At their first appointment with a genetics doctor, she finds him a like-minded soul who seems to view Rosie as a problem to be solved.


WED 02:10 There She Goes (b0brf3lk)
Series 1

The Wrong Grandad

Simon's mum and stepdad have come to stay. They want to take Ben back down to Devon for three weeks in the summer, which causes Simon and Emily to wonder why they are not willing to take Rosie.

While Simon and Emily go on a rare night out, nana and grandad look after the kids, but when they return, they sense that something has gone wrong.


WED 02:40 There She Goes (b0bs475p)
Series 1

Ben

Rosie is incredibly excited - Gandalf is finally coming because there is going to be a birthday with lots of presents! It doesn't matter to Rosie that it's Ben's birthday. The extended family set off for a birthday meal.


WED 03:10 The Joy of Painting (m000l9v9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]



THURSDAY 30 JULY 2020

THU 19:00 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078z5p)
Building for Eternity

Dan Cruickshank discovers the ingenious techniques that the ancient Egyptians used to make their pyramids, temples and mummies last forever, driven by their obsession with magic and the afterlife.

The Egyptians believed they could live forever - that death was not necessarily the end. But to enjoy the afterlife depended on preserving the important things from this life - their bodies, possessions and monuments.

Dan explores how the ancient Egyptians pioneered remarkable ways of preparing for eternity. He visits the colossal, indestructible pyramids at Saqqara and Giza as well as the massive stone temple at Dendera, and examines the mummification process that allowed the Egyptians to keep their bodies intact long after death.

The religious belief in the afterlife dominated the lives and deaths of everyone in the land, and meant that hundreds of monuments were built to survive, and can now help us understand their beliefs. Above all, thousands of mummies found all over Egypt bear witness to how they thought, more than any other culture in history, that the preservation of the human body after death played a part in the everlasting survival of the spirit.


THU 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l9rs)
Series 3

Black and White Seascape

Using a canvas painted half black and half white, Bob Ross sets the mood for a unique seascape with an approaching storm and dramatic sky.

American painter Bob Ross offers soothing words of encouragement to viewers and painting hobbyists in an enormously popular series that has captivated audiences worldwide since 1982. Ross is a cult figure, with nearly two million Facebook followers and 3,000 instructors globally. His soothing, nurturing personality is therapy for the weary, and his respect for nature and wildlife helps heighten environmental awareness.

Across the series, Ross demonstrates his unique painting technique, which eliminates the need for each layer of paint to dry. In real time, he creates tranquil scenes taken from nature, including his trademark ‘happy’ clouds, cascading waterfalls, snow-covered forests, serene lakes and distant mountain summits.

Many of Bob’s faithful viewers are not painters at all. They are relaxing and unwinding with Bob’s gentle manner and encouraging words, captivated by the magic taking place on the canvas.


THU 20:00 Emma (b00nfpsf)
Episode 3

Emma teases Mr Knightley about Jane but he remains tight-lipped. Meanwhile, Frank and Emma plan a ball, and Emma wonders whether she might be in love with him. Despite having a wonderful time at a village ball, she decides not.

With her matchmaking officially abandoned, Emma feels cooped up and bored, so Mr Knightley suggests a day trip to Box Hill for a change of scene and some temporary escape. He also tells Emma that he suspects Frank and Jane to be secretly in love. Emma rebuffs the suggestion - she can personally vouch for Frank's indifference to Jane - which leaves Knightley feeling hurt at Emma's indifference towards him.


THU 21:00 Becoming Jane (b00mjsdl)
Dramatised biography of the young Jane Austen, revealing how her feisty character affected her romance with a young Irishman and how the experience came to have an influence on her writing.

Whilst her parents hope for her to meet and settle with a wealthy husband of considerable social status, she much prefers a roguish Celt with whom she can match intellects and share repartee.


THU 22:50 Treasures of Ancient Rome (b01mmrn5)
Pomp and Perversion

Alastair Sooke follows in the footsteps of Rome's mad, bad and dangerous emperors in the second part of his celebration of Roman art. He dons a wetsuit to explore the underwater remains of the Emperor Claudius's pleasure palace and ventures into the cave where Tiberius held wild parties. He finds their taste in art chimes perfectly with their obsession with sex and violence.

The other side of the coin was the bombastic art the Romans are best remembered for - monumental arches and columns that boast about their conquests. Trajan's Column in Rome reads like the storyboard of a modern-day propaganda film.

Sooke concludes with the remarkable legacy of the Emperor Hadrian. He gave the world the magnificent Pantheon in Rome - the eternal image of his lover Antinous, the most beautiful boy in the history of art - and a villa in Tivoli where he created one of the most ambitious art collections ever created.


THU 23:50 Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection (b09q02kn)
Series 1

Palaces and Pleasuredomes

Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his exploration of the Royal Collection, the vast collection of art and decorative objects owned by the Queen. In the third episode he has reached the age of the Romantics - the flamboyant George IV who created so much of the visual look of the modern monarchy, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, for whom collecting was an integral part of their happy marriage.

As Prince of Wales, George was a famously loose cannon - a spendaholic prince whose debts ballooned in tandem with the royal waistline. But as a collector, Andrew argues, George was one of the great artistic figures of the Romantic age. His tastes were very much formed by the fallout from the French Revolution; as the great French aristocratic collections were broken up, an exodus of great art flooded into London's auction rooms - and George was there to buy them. He assembled a world-class collection of Dutch and Flemish masters, including key works by Rembrandt, Cuyp and de Hooch, as well as some of the greatest examples of French furniture ever produced, which Andrew sees in the state rooms of Buckingham Palace.

George IV was a natural showman and Andrew argues that his visit to Edinburgh in 1822 helped pioneer the modern monarchy's use of spectacle. But, like Henry VIII and Charles before him, George had the sense to partner up with an artist of genius - Sir Thomas Lawrence. The result of their collaboration is seen in a series of stirring battlefield portraits that line Windsor Castle's Waterloo Chamber.

Queen Victoria is often depicted as the uptight opposite of her louche uncle, but Andrew argues that, for her, art was just as important. This was a passion that she could share with her beloved husband, Prince Albert, who believed that learning how to make art was the best way to understand it.

Andrew visits Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, still filled with their art possessions, including marble facsimiles of the arms and legs of her infant children, commissioned by Victoria herself.

Andrew argues that Albert was a natural curator; he instilled a love for collecting in his children and compiled an early 'database' of the complete works of Raphael which he kept in his new 'print room' in Windsor Castle as a tool for art historians. But it is on the streets of South Kensington ('Albertopolis') that Andrew discovers Albert's real legacy - the museums and educational institutions here are a testimony to his vision for the area, purchased with the help of profits from the Great Exhibition.


THU 00:50 Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections (b037nhb9)
The Age of the Individual

Helen Rosslyn explores how collecting reached its maturity in the 19th century when unprecedented wealth from Britain's booming economy encouraged enlightened, philanthropic industrialists to spend their fortunes on art, and in many cases then donate their collections to the nation.

With different taste from the British aristocracy who had dominated collecting to this point, a new breed of art buyer enriched Britain's cultural story by acquiring adventurous and often avant-garde work. Helen looks at the influence of pharmaceutical magnate Thomas Holloway, the Rothschild banking dynasty and the Welsh Davies sisters.


THU 01:50 The Joy of Painting (m000l9rs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


THU 02:20 Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank (b0078z5p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


THU 02:50 Treasures of Ancient Rome (b01mmrn5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:50 today]



FRIDAY 31 JULY 2020

FRI 19:00 Gershwin's Summertime: The Song that Conquered the World (b017nf05)
An intriguing investigation into the extraordinary life of Gershwin's classic composition, Summertime. One of the most covered songs in the world, it has been recorded in almost every style of music - from jazz to opera, rock to reggae, soul to samba. Its musical adaptability is breathtaking, but Summertime also resonates on a deep emotional level. This visually and sonically engaging film explores the composition's magical properties, examining how this song has, with stealth, captured the imagination of the world.

From its complex birth in 1935 as a lullaby in Gershwin's all-black opera Porgy and Bess, this film traces the hidden history of Summertime, focusing on key recordings, including those by Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Mahalia Jackson, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. It reveals how musicians have projected their own dreams and desires onto the song, reimagining Summertime throughout the 20th century as a civil rights prayer, a hippie lullaby, an ode to seduction and a modern freedom song.

Back in the 1930s, Gershwin never dreamt of the global impact Summertime would have. But as this film shows, it has magically tapped into something deep inside us all - nostalgia and innocence, sadness and joy, and our intrinsic desire for freedom. Full of evocative archive footage as well as a myriad versions of Summertime - from the celebrated to the obscure - the film tells the surprising and illuminating tale behind this world-famous song.


FRI 20:00 Top of the Pops (m000l9th)
Review of the 80s

Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 28 December 1989 and featuring Kim Wilde, Aswad and Band Aid.


FRI 21:00 Gospel according to Mica – The Story of Gospel Music in Six Songs (m000l9tk)
British soul singer Mica Paris was brought up on gospel music and sang in church from an early age. In her teens, she became an international star, singing pop and soul and having worldwide hits. Now though, Mica is curious about the origins of the songs she sang so easily as a child, why some of her contemporaries have returned to their gospel roots as well as thinking about her own faith and her own big teenage decision to leave the church and sing secular music.

Mica revisits her childhood church in Lewisham to start exploring the meaning and origins of these famous gospel songs. She examines songs such as Amazing Grace and discovers the complex reasoning behind the words. She sings with The Kingdom Choir, made famous by the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, and travels to the cotton fields of America, where gospel was used to make the work of enslaved Africans more bearable.

She meets the choir at Fisk University in Tennessee, who formed just after slavery was abolished and sang for Queen Victoria, and finds herself overwhelmed by her emotions when she finds out how the slavery freedom fighters used gospel to communicate.

Mica also delves into the history of Sam Cooke and Thomas A Dorsey, who both encountered tragedy in and out of the church, and she sings with bluesman Jools Holland to contemporise a favourite gospel tune.

Finally, Mica comes right up to date with the music of current artists, such as Stormzy, who have no fear of church versus secular music, are open about their faith and are combining the two with great success.


FRI 22:00 The Last Pirates: Britain's Rebel DJs (b096k6g1)
In the 1980s a new generation of pirate radio stations exploded on to Britain's FM airwaves. Unlike their seafaring swinging 60s forerunners, these pirates broadcast from London's estates and tower blocks to create a platform for black music in an era when it was shut out by legal radio and ignored by the mainstream music industry.

In the ensuing game of cat and mouse which played out on the rooftops of inner-city London across a whole decade, these rebel DJs used legal loopholes and technical trickery to stay one step ahead of the DTI enforcers who were tasked with bringing them down. And as their popularity grew they spearheaded a cultural movement bringing Britain's first multicultural generation together under the banner of black music and club culture.

Presented by Rodney P, whose own career as a rapper would not have been possible without the lifeblood of pirate radio airplay, this film also presents an alternative history of Britain in the 1980s - a time of entrepreneurialism and social upheaval - with archive and music that celebrates a very different side of Thatcher's Britain.

Featuring interviews with DJs, station owners and DTI enforcers - as well as some of the engineers who were the secret weapon in the pirate arsenal - this is the untold story of how Britain's greatest generation of pirate radio broadcasters changed the soundtrack of modern Britain forever.


FRI 23:00 Classic Albums (b0bjj623)
Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

Series looking at the creation of some classic rock albums looks at Amy Winehouse's second album, 2006’s Back to Black, and how it transformed the beehived girl from north London into a global star, with hits like Rehab, the title track and Love Is a Losing Game. Back To Black helped launch a wave of soul-influenced British chanteuses including Adele and Duffy and has since sold over 20 million copies.

This film reveals Amy Winehouse the artist, focusing firmly on her lyrics, influences and vocal talents. Using unseen footage from the Miami and New York sessions and rarely seen archive of Amy in interview and performance, producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi and their respective musicians shine a light on the making of Back To Black and offer their first-hand accounts of Amy's genius and her emotional turmoil.

Featuring producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, the Dap-Kings band, Amy's colleagues and friends, Island president and A&R director Darcus Beese and Ronnie Spector.


FRI 01:35 I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock (m00062g8)
Series 1

Episode 2

Katie Puckrik concludes her voyage through a golden era of Los Angeles studio crafted sounds. In this episode she charts the progress of Yacht Rock through the 1980s, when it became the soundtrack to America in the Reagan era, and when artists like Toto, Hall & Oates and George Benson created a technicolour second wave of a super smooth sound.

In its day, this music was not identified as a genre, but in the 21st century, in a nod to its finely crafted nature, it has come to be known as Yacht Rock. In the MTV 80s, the bearded sensitivity that had defined the Yacht sound in the previous decade was out and, instead, bigger sounds with bombastic videos were in. Hall & Oates stepped up to the challenges of the video age with hits such as I Can’t Go For That and Private Eyes.

The gleaming Yacht sound was, in part, always defined by a group of LA-based session players and composers who worked across a range of Yacht bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. Yacht session supremos Jay Graydon and Steve Porcaro reveal how they worked with George Benson, making a surprising addition to the Yacht cannon with Turn Your Love Around.
Meanwhile, Porcaro joined other LA session players to form Toto whose tracks Rosanna and Africa were two mega-hits of the early 80s. Toto’s Steve Lukather and Steve Porcaro also reveal how they even brought a little Yacht magic to the biggest-selling album in history, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, when the latter wrote the song Human Nature for the album.

Meanwhile, actor and writer JD Ryznar takes credit for inventing the Yacht badge, when he penned a satirical online drama referencing the key protagonists of Yacht. This affectionate spoof contributed to a revival of interest and enthusiasm for these mainstream sounds in the digital era and Katy’s reappraisal puts the brilliance of this group of musicians firmly back in the spotlight. Other contributors include Robbie Dupree and John Oates.


FRI 02:35 The Defiant Ones (m0002k6m)
Series 1

Episode 3

Jimmy Iovine discusses how he continued to rise up the music industry ladder via successful collaborations with Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks, and Dr Dre talks about the difficulties he faced both professionally and personally.

Jimmy talks about hitting a wall and how he considered a career shift after a particularly difficult collaboration with U2, whose tireless drive in the studio rivalled his own. By 1989, Jimmy had parlayed his production expertise into a new career as co-founder of Interscope Records, committing the label to artists such as Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt.

Dr Dre discusses a series of calamities he experienced, including personal losses on the streets, run-ins with the law and a bitter contract dispute and clash over management that strained his relationship with Eazy-E. He talks about landing at a crossroads and looking to make a fresh start.

Series directed by Allen Hughes.
A Silverback 5150 production in association with Alcon Television Group for HBO.
Acquired by BBC Music for BBC Four.




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

... Sings Musicals 00:50 SUN (b019jshd)

A History of Art in Three Colours 00:40 MON (b01lng0m)

Andrew Marr's Great Scots: The Writers Who Shaped a Nation 23:15 WED (b04gqttk)

Art, Passion & Power: The Story of the Royal Collection 23:50 THU (b09q02kn)

BBC Proms 19:00 SUN (m000l9rn)

Becoming Jane 21:00 THU (b00mjsdl)

Beethoven’s Fidelio: the Royal Opera 21:05 SUN (m000l9rq)

Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections 00:50 THU (b037nhb9)

Classic Albums 23:00 FRI (b0bjj623)

Dan Cruickshank: At Home with the British 23:40 MON (b07d7sdp)

EastEnders 2008 01:50 SUN (b00b6st2)

EastEnders 2008 02:20 SUN (b00b6tx9)

EastEnders 2008 02:50 SUN (b00b6vlg)

EastEnders 2008 03:20 SUN (b00b6w78)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 19:00 MON (b0078yvw)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 02:10 MON (b0078yvw)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 19:00 TUE (b0078yz1)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 02:10 TUE (b0078yz1)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 19:00 WED (b0078z27)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 19:00 THU (b0078z5p)

Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank 02:20 THU (b0078z5p)

Emma 20:00 THU (b00nfpsf)

Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley 21:00 TUE (b06w0gn7)

Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley 02:40 TUE (b06w0gn7)

Games Britannia 22:40 MON (b00pf0rr)

Gershwin's Summertime: The Song that Conquered the World 19:00 FRI (b017nf05)

Gospel according to Mica – The Story of Gospel Music in Six Songs 21:00 FRI (m000l9tk)

Hi-de-Hi! 22:00 WED (b0078kj8)

I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock 01:35 FRI (m00062g8)

Rome Unpacked 02:10 SAT (b09m6bmp)

Royal Opera House: The Reopening 23:20 SUN (m000kqq7)

Russia on Four Wheels 22:00 TUE (b03skbx0)

Storyville 00:15 WED (b0btc456)

Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise 21:00 MON (b087vgd6)

Thailand: Earth's Tropical Paradise 02:40 MON (b087vgd6)

The Defiant Ones 02:35 FRI (m0002k6m)

The Golden Age of Steam Railways 20:00 MON (b01p8w38)

The Golden Age of Steam Railways 20:00 TUE (b01pdsy6)

The Joy of Painting 19:30 MON (m000l9v5)

The Joy of Painting 01:40 MON (m000l9v5)

The Joy of Painting 19:30 TUE (m000l9tf)

The Joy of Painting 01:40 TUE (m000l9tf)

The Joy of Painting 19:30 WED (m000l9v9)

The Joy of Painting 03:10 WED (m000l9v9)

The Joy of Painting 19:30 THU (m000l9rs)

The Joy of Painting 01:50 THU (m000l9rs)

The Last Pirates: Britain's Rebel DJs 22:00 FRI (b096k6g1)

The Last Wave 21:00 SAT (m000l9rg)

The Last Wave 21:50 SAT (m000l9rl)

The Last Wave 23:00 TUE (m000l9rg)

The Last Wave 23:50 TUE (m000l9rl)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 20:00 SAT (b01ps9jr)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 01:10 SAT (b01ps9jr)

The Riviera: A History in Pictures 20:00 WED (b01pwtvf)

There She Goes 00:40 TUE (b0bnxpzn)

There She Goes 01:10 TUE (b0bpw76q)

There She Goes 01:40 WED (b0bqrdsr)

There She Goes 02:10 WED (b0brf3lk)

There She Goes 02:40 WED (b0bs475p)

This Farming Life 19:00 SAT (b074zmb6)

This Farming Life 00:10 SAT (b074zmb6)

Timeshift 22:00 MON (m000l9v7)

Timeshift 22:30 WED (m000l9vf)

Top of the Pops 20:00 FRI (m000l9th)

Treasures of Ancient Rome 22:50 THU (b01mmrn5)

Treasures of Ancient Rome 02:50 THU (b01mmrn5)

What We Were Watching 21:00 WED (m000l9vc)

imagine... 22:40 SAT (b09wwtxf)