MONDAY 22 MARCH 2021

MON 19:00 Yorkshire Walks (m000brwb)
Series 1

Leyburn to Bolton Castle

With the dawn chorus of bird song in the air, Yorkshire artist Shanaz Gulzar takes time out from the hustle and bustle of life to indulge in Wensleydale and its wonderful vistas. Along her ramble through the dale, Shanaz discovers evidence of an industrial past, and talks to a volunteer worker on the heritage railway line. She walks onwards to the impressive Bolton Castle, the location of Mary Queen of Scots' imprisonment in 1568.

Filming herself and everything around her on a 360-degree-selfie-style-camera Shanaz wanders through the countryside, often deep in thought and stopping only to chat, sketch and reflect.


MON 19:30 The Joy of Painting (m000l41c)
Series 3

Shades of Grey

Bundle up and endure the cold weather in this snow-filled adventure. Bob Ross paints a wintry mountain scene using only grey and white tones.


MON 20:00 Fake or Fortune? (b09606xw)
Series 7

Giacometti

Twentieth-century sculptures are hot property in the art market, with Giacometti's Pointing Man figure selling for $141m at auction in New York in 2015, making it the most expensive sculpture ever sold. Could a stark, white square of plaster that has been passed down through an English family with art world connections be one of Giacometti's earliest and most daring works?

The quest to discover the history of the sculpture, known as The Gazing Head, leads the team to the bohemian world of 1930s Paris, where artists and intellectuals rubbed shoulders in cafes and studios. Can the team find any proof that the owner's grandmother acquired the sculpture from Giacometti during the time she spent studying and modelling in the city? If it's genuine, the sculpture could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, but there's a problem - it was once knocked over by a cat and broken into several pieces. The team hope that a high-tech CT scan might reveal more about the damage it has sustained during its life and even yield clues about its origins.

The trouble is, proving the authenticity of sculptures is notoriously difficult as works are often produced in multiple editions - and can be easy to replicate. As the investigation unfolds, the team travels to Germany to find out how police broke up a forgery ring that churned out thousands of fake Giacometti pieces. The final decision lies with the Giacometti Committee in Paris - and this could be one of the most complex cases they've ever considered.


MON 21:00 Storyville (m000th7v)
Undercover OAP: The Mole Agent

A recently widowed 83-year-old goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home in a warm-hearted and surprising look at age, isolation and loneliness.

Sergio is a Chilean spy - sort of. At least, he is offered the role of one after a casting session organised by Detective Romulo, a private investigator who needs a credible mole to infiltrate a retirement home. Romulo’s client, the concerned daughter of a resident, suspects her mother is being abused and hires him to find out what is really happening.

However, Sergio is 83, not 007, and not an easy trainee when it comes to technology and spying techniques. But he is a keen student, looking for ways to distract himself after recently losing his wife. What could be a better distraction than some undercover spy action? While gathering intelligence, Sergio grows close to several residents and realises that the truth beneath the surface is not what anyone had suspected.

The film is a stylish combination of observational documentary and spy movie, resulting in a unique observation of compassion and loneliness.


MON 22:20 Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure (b08qlhl6)
Series 1

Episode 1

Timbuktu - a place so mysterious, mythical and far, far away that it has become a legendary destination. Alice Morrison, Arabist, writer, explorer and Marrakech resident, follows what was once one of the world's richest trading networks - the infamous salt roads - across north Africa from the top of Morocco to the fabled sandstone city of Timbuktu. Trekking 2,000 miles across some of the deadliest landscapes on earth, Alice journeys deep into the history, culture and civilisation of both ancient and modern north Africa.

Standing at the crossroads between north and sub-Saharan Africa, and straddling the vast Sahara Desert and the great River Niger, the legendary trading post of Timbuktu, now one of the most dangerous places on earth, was founded over a thousand years ago, and its wealth was built on two precious commodities - gold and salt. Over the centuries, caravans with thousands of camels passed regularly between Timbuktu and Morocco. They were led across the deadly trans-Saharan 'salt roads' by a desert tribe called the Tuareg, who still patrol the desert today.

Setting off from Tangier, Alice learns how gold was in high demand in north Africa, to be minted into coins and adorn palaces. Its source was the gold mines of sub-Saharan Africa, and so the routes across the desert were forged. Hitching a ride in a crowded taxi, Alice passes through the Islamic city of Fes, home to the world's oldest university, where she stays in a caravanserai, the ancient traders' version of a motel with mule and camel parking, and helps prepare the merchant's dish of the day, camel meatballs.

Next, she catches the famous hippy train, the Marrakech Express, to the other northern terminus of trans-Saharan trade, the market town of Marrakech, where she learns how to treat leather the ancient way by wading up to her waist in vats of cow hide, poison and... pigeon poo. And in the grand square, Djemaa El Fnaa, she hears tall tales of the traders of old and their travels across the Sahara.

Continuing on foot, she treks in snow and storms across the Atlas Mountains dotted with Berber villages; the Berbers, or Amazigh, are the indigenous people of Morocco. On the other side of the Atlas, Alice discovers ancient caves of salt, the commodity which gave the salt roads their name.

Further south, she travels through valleys lined with casbahs, fortresses where the traders could stay in safety along the route. In the barren, unforgiving heat of the Jebel Saghro desert, she enlists the help of Berber nomads. They still graze their animals there and live the same traditional lifestyle. They help her on her way to the ancient city of Sijilmasa, whose forgotten ruins sit on the edge of the great Sahara Desert. It's a lost city, which was once a great trading post, a sanctuary for merchants arriving after the long trek across the Sahara from Timbuktu.


MON 23:20 Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure (b08rb175)
Series 1

Episode 2

Alice Morrison takes on the vast Sahara in an epic camel trek over the dunes. At night by the campfire, she hears a shocking story of modern-day slavery from her trekking guide. The next day, her journey across the sands is halted by the closed border between Algeria and Morocco. Undeterred, Alice heads west on another trading route to Guelmim. She stops in Tamegroute, where she finds a hidden library of ancient books, including manuscripts by a 16th-century Malian scholar. It is evidence that the trans-Saharan trade routes transferred knowledge as well as gold and salt.

Guelmim was home of Africa's largest camel market centuries ago, supplying the merchants for their caravans across the desert. There is still a bustling lifestock market, but the salesmen tells Alice that now camels are mainly sold for food. Border disputes over Western Sahara bring Alice's journey along the salt roads to a complete halt. She has to fly across Africa to the capital of Mali, Bamako. Here, she gets to the source of Timbuktu's legendary wealth with a visit to a gold mine, and she rolls up her sleeves to try to unearth her own gold nugget. Flying the last leg into Timbuktu itself involves begging a seat on a UN flight. This ancient city has turned into one of the most dangerous places in the world after an incursion by Islamic extremists in 2012. It lasted a year, and now UN soldiers keep a fragile peace in the city, having pushed the insurgents just a few miles back into the desert.

When she finally reaches the City of Gold, Alice relives its glorious past with a visit to its world-famous mosques, the last surviving treasures of a bygone era. In the oldest of them, the Djinguereber mosque, she hears the tale of Mansa Musa, Mali's greatest king and the richest man in history.


MON 00:25 The Joy of Painting (m000l41c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 00:50 Yorkshire Walks (m000brwb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:20 Fake or Fortune? (b09606xw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


MON 02:20 Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure (b08qlhl6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:20 today]