SATURDAY 11 OCTOBER 2025

SAT 19:00 The Flying Gardener (m0024rq1)
Series 1 Shorts

Scotland

Chris Beardshaw heads for west Scotland to help an oyster fisherman deal with an overgrown garden and finds out why Scots design the best shady gardens.


SAT 19:20 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d05f)
Series 5

The Jackpot

James wears his shorts to a visit and is challenged to a race, while champion sheepdog Jock delights in chasing cars.


SAT 20:10 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d05m)
Series 5

Two of a Kind

Siegfried buys a television set, and James has to deal with a man who has cancer.


SAT 21:00 The Intruder (m002kjb3)
Series 1

Episode 1

Having come to the end of her maternity leave, Paula prepares to return to a demanding job at a start-up company. She and her husband, Jerome, have decided to hire an au pair for the first time to look after their baby, Orso. They recruit Tess, a polished and personable young woman, who gets on wonderfully with the baby and their two teenagers.

Tess moves in, settling into her new household, and everybody seems to love her. But Paula, who is struggling to re-adjust at work, experiences increasing feelings of unease at home. Strange domestic incidents start to multiply around the house, casting her in the light of a bad mother.

In French with English subtitles.


SAT 21:55 The Intruder (m002kjb7)
Series 1

Episode 2

Paula's psychiatrist suggests that she is suffering from postpartum depression and that she should take a leave of absence, but she struggles to stay on course. Paula discovers that the nanny they were supposed to interview just before Tess has been assaulted, and her suspicions only grow. Jerome doesn't share her doubts, and the couple is torn apart, rekindling older rifts.

In French with English subtitles.


SAT 22:50 Wogan (m002kx65)
Wogan with Dickie Bird

Terry Wogan's guests include Margaret Baird, Betty Astell, Dickie Bird and Anthony Sher. With music from Aztec Camera and Elio Pace.


SAT 23:35 Dickie Bird: A Rare Species (m002kx67)
A profile of legendary cricket umpire Dickie Bird, first broadcast in 1996, looking at his life on and off the field and featuring quotes from many well-known faces.


SAT 00:20 The Good Life (p02r6zlw)
Series 4

The Weaver's Tale

When Margo buys a spinning wheel at an antique shop, Tom buys a loom so he and Barbara can make their own woollen clothes.


SAT 00:50 Yes, Prime Minister (b03bx1vh)
Series 1

The Grand Design

Jim Hacker considers cancelling the Trident programme after discovering some interesting facts about the UK's defence system.


SAT 01:20 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d05f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:20 today]


SAT 02:10 All Creatures Great and Small (p031d05m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:10 today]

SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER 2025

SUN 19:00 Around the World in 80 Gardens (b0091tl6)
USA

Monty Don continues his extraordinary journey to see the world through 80 of its most inspiring gardens with a visit to the United States of America.

His plan is to see how America expresses its vast wealth and incredible energy through its gardens. And at a time when the USA is grappling to define its environmental goals, Monty inevitably hopes to find a powerful movement towards sustainable gardening. Beginning in New York, where garden guerrillas are creating community gardens from derelict land, he then travels south to Virginia to visit a garden that reflects the birth of the nation's relationship with the land. Finally, he travels west to California to see if gardens there reflect more than the glitz of the movie industry.


SUN 20:00 Pavarotti Masterclass (p031g4xk)
Italian superstar Luciano Pavarotti plays coach to four young singers, giving them a short masterclass in the skills he has learned from a life in opera.


SUN 21:15 Strauss: The Waltz King (m002kx5y)
The original 'dirty dancing' became a century-long craze, but behind it was a bitter tale of father and son rivalry. Lesley Garrett narrates this drama documentary, steps onto the dance floor - and even tries on the period underwear. The compelling story is illustrated with the music of the time, played by the Wiener Akademie orchestra in Vienna's sumptuous Hofburg Palace.


SUN 22:15 Reputations (m002kx60)
Martin Luther King: Days of Hope

Dr Martin Luther King has been immortalised as one of the great champions of civil rights and non-violent protest. But in the years since his assassination, a more complex picture of his personality has emerged.

Drawing on interviews with the people he knew, this film reveals that King was never comfortable with the praises he received and was often tormented by self-doubt.


SUN 23:15 Face to Face (p00lgzyl)
Original

Martin Luther King

First transmitted in 1961, Martin Luther King talks to John Freeman about his childhood experiences and the incidents that led to the Montgomery bus boycott. These events shaped King's life and led to him becoming a national figurehead and civil rights leader.


SUN 23:45 Timeshift (b0803m60)
Series 16

Bridging the Gap: How the Severn Bridge Was Built

2016 saw the 50th anniversary of the Severn Bridge, which completed the motorway link between England and Wales. Timeshift tells the inside story of the design and construction of 'the most perfect suspension bridge in the world', and how its unique slimline structure arose by accident.


SUN 00:45 Munro: Mountain Man (b00mwgyq)
Little more than 100 years ago, Scottish mountains standing at more than 3,000 feet were virtually unknown. Today they are familiar terrain to many thousands of climbers, thanks to Victorian adventurer Hugh Munro's determination to list the high peaks which now define the highlands and islands of Scotland.

This documentary tells the story of the magnificent peaks that bear his name and the people who have been possessed by them.

The birth of this obsession - now known as Munrobagging - is a twisting tale of intrigue, which presenter Nicholas Crane unravels high on the ridges and pinnacles of some of Scotland's most spectacular mountains.


SUN 01:45 Strauss: The Waltz King (m002kx5y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:15 today]


SUN 02:45 Around the World in 80 Gardens (b0091tl6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

MONDAY 13 OCTOBER 2025

MON 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9m)
The Age of the Carpenter

In his mission to uncover the craft and engineering skills that helped to build Britain, Fred looks to the Middle Ages and the transformation of an Englishman's castle into his home.

Carpenters were the great engineers of this time, and Fred visits Stokesey Castle, the oldest moated and fortified house in England, to scale the walls and examine the technique of 'jettying' - making the bedroom a bit bigger. Fred also discovers how massive arched timber roofs were constructed.

At Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Fred explores one of the finest examples of timber-framed architecture in England and demonstrates how carpenters of the 15th and 16th century actually constructed these chocolate-box buildings. Fred's journey ends at Harvington Hall near Kidderminster, home to some of the finest priest holes in the country, devised by master carpenter Nicholas Owen during the reign of Elizabeth I.


MON 19:30 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m00080yb)
Series 1

Going with the Flow

The Eurotunnel teams at both ends of the tunnel are on a mission to keep everything on track: getting dog owners home after Crufts, keeping trucks moving despite strikes at French customs and making sure the trains keep circulating, no matter what, on the world’s busiest and biggest train set.

We see inside Eurotunnel’s mission control centre, a lair any Bond villain would be proud of. And we meet the appropriately named Tash Speed, one of the company’s newest train drivers, who has already earned the nickname Two Stop Tash for her daily habit of stopping the train just a little too soon.

Meanwhile, fan refurbishments, which happen once every seven years, are under way at both ends of the tunnel. Without airflow through the service tunnel, no trains would run. We find out why high-pressure air has to keep pumping and how the giant fans, at Sangatte in France and Samphire Hoe in England, get overhauled. We also discover why, on the English side, the workers need a good head for heights.


MON 20:00 An Art Lovers' Guide (b08ps5rd)
Series 1

Barcelona

With sumptuous palaces, exquisite artworks and stunning architecture, every great city offers a dizzying multitude of artistic highlights. In this series, art historians Dr Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke take us on three cultural citybreaks, hunting for off-the-beaten-track artistic treats - and finding new ways of enjoying some very famous sights.

In this second episode, Janina Ramirez and Alastair are on a mission to get to know one of the most popular cities in the world through its art and architecture. Although Barcelona is famous for its exuberant modernista buildings, the Gothic Quarter and artistic superstars such as Picasso, Janina and Alastair are determined to discover some less well-known cultural treats. Escaping the crowds on the Ramblas, they seek out the designs of an engineer who arguably put more of a stamp on the city than its star architect, Antoni Gaudi. Alastair marvels at the Romanesque frescoes that inspired a young Miro, while Janina discovers a surprising collection of vintage fans in the Mares, one of the city's most remarkable but rarely visited museums.

With a behind-the-scenes visit to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, a session of impromptu Catalan dance and Alastair adding the finishing touches to some Barcelona street art, it is a fast-paced and colourful tour of the city's art and artists, revealing how Barcelona developed its distinctive cultural identity and how the long-running fight for independence has shaped the artistic life of the city.


MON 21:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00lc71z)
Episode 2

In the 1530s, King Henry VIII was at a crossroads. In his desperation for a new wife and an heir, he had broken with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. Isolated and vulnerable, he needed a powerful new image as head of church and state.

In the second of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks for clues in the king's art to glimpse what was going on inside his head as he faced his darkest days.


MON 22:00 The Sky at Night (m002kx5k)
Brits in Space

Three, two, one, lift off! This edition launches into the extraordinary - and extraterrestrial - world of astronaut training, discovering what it truly takes to become a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut.

As Europe looks to play a more prominent role in space exploration, we shine a spotlight on the candidates who are pushing boundaries and preparing to represent Great Britain and Northern Ireland amongst the stars.

But first, the programme is honoured to welcome back Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut. Chris Lintott is with Helen at the Science Museum, London, celebrating the opening of the brand new space gallery. Chris finds out what it was like to go to space and how Helen became an astronaut, from the selection process to learning the essential skills needed for life beyond Earth. While exploring the treasures of the exhibition, including Helen’s own space suit from her voyage in 1991, Tim Peake’s Soyuz descent module and a three-billion-year-old chunk of the moon, Chris and Helen contemplate the rise of commercial missions and the future of international collaboration in space.

In France, guest presenter and astrophysicist Jen Gupta joins space scientist Rosemary Coogan, one of the UK’s latest ESA astronaut recruits, as she works toward her private pilot’s licence. Recounting her journey from academia to astronaut selection, we find out if Rosemary’s background in space science might come in handy amongst the stars.

Meanwhile in Germany, Maggie Aderin-Pocock dives into the deep end with British-Australian materials chemist Meganne Christian as she prepares for her first underwater ‘spacewalk’. In ESA’s XR lab, Meganne demonstrates to Maggie how virtual reality is used to train astronauts by immersing them in a simulated ISS environment - without ever leaving Earth.

Maggie also follows up a story from last year, checking in with bronze medal-winning Paralympian John McFall as he continues his historic journey as the world’s first astronaut with a physical disability. Selected for ESA’s feasibility study on making space travel more inclusive, John is undergoing a bespoke training programme designed to assess how physical disabilities can be accommodated during space missions. As he adapts to his prosthetic ‘space leg’, he continues to prove that space can - and should - be accessible to all.


MON 22:30 Remembers... (m002kx5m)
Professor Angie Hobbs Remembers... The Great Philosophers

Professor Angie Hobbs gives a modern view on Bryan Magee’s highly influential series The Great Philosophers. She examines its approach, ideas and thinking and explains how it inspired her and many others to explore philosophy when it was first broadcast back in 1987.


MON 22:45 The Great Philosophers (m002kx5p)
Series 1

Plato

Myles Burnyeat looks at Plato, the first western philosopher whose written works have survived.


MON 23:30 The Great Philosophers (m002kx5t)
Series 1

Aristotle

Martha Nussbaum presents a programme about Aristotle, Plato's star pupil and tutor to the young Alexander the Great. His philosophy dominated western thought for many hundreds of years and is still studied at every university.


MON 00:15 The Great Philosophers (m002kx5w)
Series 1

Medieval Philosophy

Bryan Magee and guest Anthony Kenny discuss the work of the medieval philosophers and the contribution of figures such as St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.


MON 01:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


MON 01:30 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m00080yb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


MON 02:00 An Art Lovers' Guide (b08ps5rd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER 2025

TUE 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9q)
Scottish Style

Fred Dibnah travels to Scotland to demonstrate the engineering and design skills that shaped Scottish baronial style.

At Glamis Castle, Fred shows how a simple sandstone tower house was transformed 400 years ago into a great house with more than a passing resemblance to a fairy-tale castle, with the help of stonemasons from Aberdeen and plasterers from Italy.

The House of Dun, near Montrose, is one of the finest country houses to be designed by William Adam, and Fred gets stuck into some ornamental plasterwork at a specialist manufacturer's. But it was Adam's son Robert who made such an impact on house building that he had an architectural style named after him, and to demonstrate his achievement, Fred travels to Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast.


TUE 19:30 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m00086zf)
Series 1

At the Double

With up to 400 trains a day running on its 62 miles of track, the channel tunnel is the busiest railway system in the world. And doing things at the double is key to its success. Two countries built it. There are two terminals. And there is duplication at both ends. This programme shows how teams of two work on both sides of the channel to keep tourists and truckers moving. But how will preparations for Brexit affect such a well-oiled system of twinning and duplication, finely tuned over 25 years? How will the freight teams cope when car drivers end up in the wrong lanes? How do French cakes keep English teams in shape for handling the kind of chaos that ensues when trucks collide with trains? And is it true that no one chocks better than a channel tunnel chocker?

This episode also explores why two tunnels are better than one. And, although water and electricity are not a good combination, the film follows the catenary team every step of the way as they fix the overhead cables in the 'wet area' of the tunnel. There is also a driver’s eye view of the giant crossover doors that link one tunnel to another in the biggest undersea cave ever built. And the team meet Maurice, the charismatic tunnel travelling bulldog.


TUE 20:00 The Good Life (p02r6zrl)
Series 4

Suit Yourself

The Goods find new ways to put their loom to good use, while Margo and Jerry are preparing for an important dinner party at which Jerry's boss will announce his retirement.


TUE 20:30 Yes, Prime Minister (b03sblbn)
Series 1

The Ministerial Broadcast

Hacker prepares to make his first broadcast as prime minister, announcing his grand new defence policy, but he finds it is not so easy to speak on camera.


TUE 21:00 Call My Bluff (m002kx28)
Robert Robinson hosts a game of word definitions and deceptions. Captains Frank Muir and Patrick Campbell are joined by Tom Baker, Alan Coren, Gabrielle Drake and Miriam Stoppard.


TUE 21:30 Face the Music (m002kx2b)
Joseph Cooper invites viewers to match their musical wits against Judith Jackson, Robin Ray and Patrick Moore. With guest musician Louis Kentner.


TUE 22:00 Storyville (m002kx2d)
Mr Nobody Against Putin

When Russia invades Ukraine, a quiet schoolteacher in a small industrial town picks up his camera and becomes an unlikely dissident. Pavel Talankin isn't a journalist or activist. He organises school events, makes quirky videos and is loved by his students. But when patriotic lessons and military drills begin replacing regular classes, Pavel starts filming. What emerges is a chilling portrait of how propaganda seeps into everyday life and how even children are drawn into the machinery of war.

As new laws silence dissent and fellow activists are jailed, Pavel's quiet resistance becomes increasingly dangerous. Filmed covertly over two years, the documentary is a gripping, courageous expose of a regime tightening its grip and one man's brave attempt to push back from the inside.

A powerful story of quiet defiance, captured at enormous personal risk.


TUE 23:30 Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore (b06s5x0t)
Reconquest

Simon uncovers the truth about Spain's hero El Cid. He also investigates the horror of the Spanish Inquisition and in the process discovers an unsettling story about one of his own ancestors.


TUE 00:30 Timeshift (b00ff170)
How to Write a Mills and Boon

What happens when a literary novelist tries to write popular romantic fiction? To mark 100 years of romance publishers Mills and Boon, literary novelist Stella Duffy takes on the challenge of writing for them.

Romantic fiction is a global phenomenon, and Mills and Boon are among the biggest names in the business. The company welcomes submissions from new authors, but as Duffy soon finds out, writing a Mills and Boon is harder than it looks.

Help is at hand from the publishers themselves, a prolific Mills and Boon author and some avid romance fans, as Duffy's quest to create the perfect romantic novel takes her from London to Italy on a journey that is both an insight into the art of romantic fiction and the joy and frustration of writing itself.


TUE 01:30 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


TUE 02:00 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m00086zf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 02:30 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00lc71z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]

WEDNESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2025

WED 19:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9t)
Building the Canals

Fred Dibnah's search to discover how the work of the builders and engineers of the past helped to shape Britain brings him close to his home town of Bolton, where the mid-18th century saw the building of the first canals and the arrival of the first civil engineers. Fred travels to Worsley in Lancashire to see where it all started - the labyrinth of 52 miles of underground waterways that carried coal from the Duke of Bridgewater's mines to the canal.

Back in his garden, Fred shows us how the early canal engineers actually went about digging the cut for a canal and making it watertight. He takes a canal boat on the 127-mile-long Leeds-Liverpool Canal and demonstrates the back-breaking labour and engineering skills that went into building the tunnel that takes it under the highest point on his route.


WED 19:30 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m0008dpr)
Series 1

The Initial Idea

Eurotunnel teams have a quarter of a century’s worth of experience in getting cars and lorries onto trains. It all hinges on a finely tuned system using letters to send the right vehicles to the right trains. But when pre-Brexit passport checks cause slow coaches, how will the allocation team in Folkestone keep the endless stream of half-term holiday traffic flowing?

Meanwhile, with the 25th anniversary well under way, there is some extreme painting going on at both ends of the tunnel: two giant murals that will somehow link to each other across the sea. But how will the
painters work around the tunnel entrance when the trains never stop running? Inside the tunnel, those high-speed trains are being slowed down by the air they push in front of them. And the only way to relieve the pressure is with tubes connecting one tunnel to another. So how do those tubes work, and what happens when they need to be repaired? Plus we take a trip on the catenary team’s revolutionary new camera van that will transform the way they look for faults, and we meet the Tottenham and Liverpool fans heading to Madrid for the Champion’s League final.


WED 20:00 Archaeology: A Secret History (p0109jny)
In the Beginning

Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He begins by going back 2,000 years to explore how archaeology began by trying to prove a biblical truth - a quest that soon got archaeologists into dangerous waters.


WED 21:00 Thatcher: A Very British Revolution (m0005pt1)
Series 1

Enemies

The third episode sees Mrs Thatcher plunged into dramatic conflicts with determined enemies that will define her premiership and her legacy.

Against a backdrop of economic downturn, Mrs Thatcher is struggling in the opinion polls and is labelled the 'least popular prime minister since polling began', but her public image is transformed by a totally unexpected turn of events in the South Atlantic. When Argentine forces occupy the British Falkland Islands, Mrs Thatcher finds herself a war leader. She wins the respect of the public by remaining resolute in her belief that the islands should be recovered. She wins respect in cabinet and the military by remaining calm and clear through the short conflict in the Falklands, despite the serious political jeopardy she faces and the emotional toll of sending men into war. The triumph of the British forces transforms Mrs Thatcher’s reputation in the country and in the world.

Following her victory in the 1983 general election, Mrs Thatcher begins to assert herself in global politics, beginning an engagement with Mikhail Gorbachev, a rising star of the Soviet Communist party. At home, she faces another challenge to her leadership from the left-wing leadership of the National Union of Miners.

The controversial decision to call a national strike puts Mrs Thatcher into a conflict she had long anticipated. Having watched the miners destabilise the Conservative government of Edward Heath in the 1970s, Mrs Thatcher has prepared for this dispute. In the background, she plays a role in a strategy that will eventually force the miners into a return to work and allow the government to claim a historic and transformative victory. The price is a sense of nation divided by class, region and economic fortunes.

The jeopardy of the Falklands and miners is surpassed by the threat of another enemy. At the 1984 Conservative Party conference, the IRA bomb her hotel in an attempt to kill her and her most senior colleagues. She has a narrow escape as close friends die or suffer terrible injuries.

This episode includes interviews with defence secretary John Nott, press secretary Bernard Ingham and cabinet members Norman Tebbit, Michael Heseltine and Malcolm Rifkind, senior civil servants Robin Butler, John Coles and Andrew Turnbull, personal assistant Cynthia Crawford, Downing Street administrator Janice Richards, Falklands commander Sir Julian Thompson, opposition leader Neil Kinnock and striking miner Chris Kitchen.


WED 22:00 The Falklands Play (b0074mv0)
Ian Curteis's once-controversial dramatisation of how the Thatcher government went to war against Argentina to regain the Falkland Islands. It charts the backroom manoeuvrings between Thatcher's government and the military, between the British and the Americans, and the Americans and the Argentineans that led to a breakdown in diplomacy, to war and to Britain's eventual victory.


WED 23:30 The Sky at Night (m002kx5k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Monday]


WED 00:00 How to Get Ahead (b03yfwk1)
At Renaissance Court

Writer, broadcaster and Newsnight arts correspondent Stephen Smith explores Renaissance Florence under the reign of Grand Duke Cosimo Medici. Cosimo's fledgling court prized the finer things in life and some of the greatest painters, sculptors and craftsmen in world history came to serve the Grand Duke. But successful courtiers had to have brains as well as brawn. The canniest of them looked to theorists like Niccolo Machiavelli for underhand ways to get ahead, whilst enlightened polymaths turned their minds to the heavens, and to ice cream.


WED 01:00 Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain (b0074n9t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


WED 01:30 The Channel Tunnel - Life on the Inside (m0008dpr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


WED 02:00 Archaeology: A Secret History (p0109jny)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


WED 03:00 Thatcher: A Very British Revolution (m0005pt1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER 2025

THU 19:00 Natural World (m0014tv4)
Short Versions

Penguin Post Office

Nature documentary looking at a post office in Antarctica that is surrounded by 3,000 gentoo penguins.


THU 19:05 The Mirror Crack'd (m001tw66)
The quiet English village of St Mary Mead is disrupted when a Hollywood film crew introduce inflated egos and cold-blooded murder. Miss Marple, of course, investigates.


THU 20:45 Angela Lansbury at the NFT (m002kx79)
In a programme first broadcast in 1973, actress Angela Lansbury talks to American columnist Rex Reed and answers questions from members of the audience at London's National Film Theatre. Featuring extracts from her films, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Harvey Girls, Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Manchurian Candidate and Black Flowers for the Bride.


THU 21:30 Mercury Prize (m002kx7c)
2025 Performances

Mercury Prize 2025: Album of the Year

Lauren Laverne presents the 2025 Mercury Prize Album of the Year from the Utilita Arena in Newcastle.

The shortlisted artists are: CMAT, Emma-Jean Thackray, FKA twigs, Fontaines D.C., Jacob Alon, Joe Webb, Martin Carthy, Pa Salieu, PinkPantheress, Pulp, Sam Fender and Wolf Alice. Their albums reflect the diverse nature of British and Irish music over the past year and cover a wide range of contemporary genres.

All the 12 shortlisted albums will be celebrated through live performance, culminating in the announcement of 2025’s overall winner, as selected by an esteemed panel of judges comprised of broadcasters, musicians and industry tastemakers.

Here’s a closer look at the shortlist:

Euro-Country from Irish alt-popstar Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, aka CMAT, explores identity and politics through a personal lens and is her second Mercury nod.

Jazz star Emma-Jean Thackray recorded and produced her second album, Weirdo, entirely herself in response to the tragic passing of her long-time partner. She says that making the album saved her life.

Eusexua is the third album from boundary-pushing artist FKA twigs, who was influenced by the techno scene in Prague, where she felt everyone was liberated to move freely and organically together.

Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. released their fourth album, Romance, in 2024, produced by James Ford. It’s been heralded their most ambitious record yet and leans into their love of nu-metal whilst exploring themes of love, desire and delusion.

Fife-born Jacob Alon released their tender debut album, In Limerence, in 2025, with vulnerable musings on obsession decorated by mesmerising guitar tunings and fingerstyle.

Welsh pianist Joe Webb is shortlisted for his debut, Hamstrings & Hurricanes, recorded as a trio at a farm in Wales over the space of a few days, with influences spanning Oscar Peterson and Oasis.

Folk hero Martin Carthy is the oldest artist to ever be shortlisted, with his Transform Me Then into a Fish, which includes songs originally performed by Martin 60 years ago. He joins his daughter Eliza Carthy and late wife Norma Waterson in their Mercury recognition.

Coventry’s Pa Salieu is shortlisted with mixtape Afrikan Alien, which was written during tough times in prison and celebrates freedom in spite of hardship. The British-Gambian rapper said, 'These bars were born in a cell and completed when I was released.'

Bath-born PinkPantheress is shortlisted for her mixtape Fancy That, which transcends conventions with short tracks and a wide range of samples. It fuses pop, DnB and electronica to create a unique sound, spearheaded by Pink’s light voice.

Pulp reunited in the studio for the first time in 24 years with their eighth album, More, recorded over a period of only three weeks in east London and dedicated to their late bass player Steve Mackey. The group could join PJ Harvey as the only acts to have won the Prize twice, having previously won in 1996.

Hometown hero Sam Fender is shortlisted for a second time with his chart-topping third album, People Watching, an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. Sam explores the stories and lives of everyday people through personal vignettes of his own community and beyond.

Completing the list are previous winners Wolf Alice, who return to the shortlist with The Clearing, their fourth album and fourth Mercury nod, making them the only artist to have ever achieved this feat. The band say this record was about ‘allowing a song to be still and just let the songwriting speak for itself’.


THU 22:45 The Blues Brothers (m002kvl8)
Jake Blues rejoins with his brother Elwood after being released from prison, but the duo have just days to reunite their old R&B band and save the Catholic home where the two were raised, outrunning the police as they tear through Chicago.


THU 00:50 How to Get Ahead (b03yfwk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 00:00 on Wednesday]


THU 01:50 Angela Lansbury at the NFT (m002kx79)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:45 today]


THU 02:30 Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore (b06s5x0t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:30 on Tuesday]

FRIDAY 17 OCTOBER 2025

FRI 19:00 Top of the Pops (m002kx4v)
Jo Whiley presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 7 August 1998 and featuring Ace of Base, Lucid, Brandy & Monica, Baby Bumps, Apollo 440 and Spice Girls.


FRI 19:20 Top of the Pops (m002kx4x)
Jayne Middlemiss presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 14 August 1998 and featuring Apollo 440, Hinda Hicks, Sash! feat Tina Cousins, Solid Harmonie, Placebo, Will Smith, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Boyzone.


FRI 19:50 Top of the Pops (b04m9r6z)
Andy Peebles presents pop chart programme, first broadcast on 11 October 1979 and featuring The Dooleys, The Headboys, Chic, Dr Hook, Viola Wills, Errol Dunkley, The Charlie Daniels Band, Cats UK, Dave Edmunds, Dana and The Police and dance sequences by Legs & Co.


FRI 20:30 Top of the Pops (b0bt4828)
Simon Bates and Steve Wright present the pop chart programme. First broadcast on 16 October 1986, this edition features Pet Shop Boys, Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman, Boris Gardiner, Marti Webb, Paul Hardcastle, Nick Berry and Status Quo.


FRI 21:00 Country Queens at the BBC (p028vwnv)
Classic female country stars in action on a variety of BBC studio shows and featuring Bobbie Gentry, Anne Murray, Emmylou Harris, Tammy Wynette, Billie Jo Spears, Crystal Gayle, Taylor Swift, Lucinda Williams with Mary Chapin Carpenter and more. A chronological celebration of country queens at the BBC, whether on Top of the Pops, OGWT, Later with Jools Holland, Parkinson or their own entertainment specials.


FRI 22:00 Coolidge and Kristofferson: Sounds Like Friday (m002kx4z)
Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge host an evening of song. With Billy Swan and Barbara Carroll. First broadcast in 1978.


FRI 22:45 Tammy (m002kx51)
Episode 3

Tammy is joined on stage at the Maltings Concert Hall by guests Richard Harding, Johnny McEvoy, The Tennessee Gentlemen and The Bill Clarke Five.

Songs include Staying Home Woman, I Don't Wanna Play House, Ways to Love a Man and Golden Ring.


FRI 23:10 Sisters in Country: Dolly, Linda and Emmylou (b081sx50)
Documentary which explores how Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris's careers took off in the 1970s with very distinct takes on country before they ended up uniting as close harmony singers and eventually collaborated on 1987's four-million-selling debut album, Trio.

In the 60s, country music was viewed by most of America as blue collar, and Dolly was country through and through. Linda Ronstadt's take on classic country helped make her the biggest female star in mid-70s America. Folkie Emmylou learned about country from mentor Gram Parsons and, after his death in 1973, she became a bandleader in her own right. It was Emmylou and Linda - the two west coast folk rockers - who voiced their mutual appreciation of Dolly, the mountain girl singer from Tennessee, when they became early students of her work.

The artists talk about uniting as harmony singers and eventually collaborating on their debut album, Trio. The album helped launch the mountain music revival that would peak with the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? In 2012, Linda Ronstadt was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which left her unable to sing, but 2016 saw unreleased songs from their sessions compiled to create a third Trio album. This is the story of how their alliance made them pioneers in bringing different music worlds together and raising the game for women in the country tradition.

Contributors: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Rodney Crowell, George Lucas, Peter Asher, Chris Hillman, Laura Cantrell, Robert K Oermann, John Boylan, Phil Kaufman, David Lindley, Albert Lee, Herb Pedersen, George Massenberg and Applewood Road.


FRI 00:10 Country Queens at the BBC (p028vwnv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:10 Coolidge and Kristofferson: Sounds Like Friday (m002kx4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]


FRI 01:55 Top of the Pops (m002kx4v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]


FRI 02:20 Top of the Pops (m002kx4x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:20 today]


FRI 02:50 Top of the Pops (b04m9r6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:50 today]


FRI 03:25 Top of the Pops (b0bt4828)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]