Classic sitcom about a father-and-son rag-and-bone team and their uneasy alliance. Harold reads a book on capitalism and comes to the conclusion that the business is not being run properly. He decides that in order to make large profits they must start buying goods in bulk.
Documentary series on 20th-century social history. Amateur film-making boomed in the 1930s and a legacy of celluloid gems resides in the country's film archives.
Award-winning film documenting Peter Sellers' turbulent rise from popular BBC radio performer to one of the world's most gifted comedic actors. Peter was raised by a domineering mother and a meek father, and at an early age discovered he liked to hide behind the emotional curtain of playing a character. In time, Sellers put this skill to use as an actor, and discovered that he had a great gift for comedy, but increasingly realised he had no sense of self.
A portrait of one of the world's greatest comic actors, with unprecedented access to his home-movie collection. On set, at home, on holiday or in stage-managed scenarios, they feature Peter Sellers's family, friends and colleagues. Including Anne Levy, Britt Ekland, Lynne Frederick, Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon, Orson Welles, Sophia Loren, Spike Milligan, Herbert Lom and Blake Edwards.
Four-part documentary series exploring the scientific, cultural, economic and political aspects of Protestantism. Through an examination of Calvinism, Puritanism and the Industrial Revolution, historian Tristram Hunt reveals how capitalism and the anti-global movement developed out of Protestantism and how these two great opposing legacies of Protestantism continue to battle it out.
How should art depict the relationship between man and God? How can art best express eternal values? Can you, and should you, portray the face of Christ? For over a thousand years these were some of the questions which taxed the minds of the greatest artists of the early West. In this three-part series, art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon sets out to unravel the mysteries of the art of the pre-perspective era. Why has this world been so frequently misunderstood and underrated? His journey takes him from the mysterious catacombs of ancient Rome to Coptic Egypt, to the Orthodox Christian world of Istanbul and then onwards to medieval Italy and France.
In the final part of this series Andrew Graham-Dixon examines early Christian art and the reasons for its evolution during the Renaissance. He also reveals just how far modern artists have been influenced by the pre-perspective view of the world.
TUESDAY 18 MARCH 2008
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b009kj72)
The latest news from around the world.
TUE 19:30 Pop Go the Sixties (b0088xvn)
Series 1
The Johnny Harris Orchestra
A colourful nugget of pop mined from the BBC's archive, as the Johnny Harris Band perform Satisfaction.
TUE 19:35 Batman (b009k7sd)
Series 2
The Greatest Mother of Them All
Crimebusting capers for the cloaked crusader and Robin. Ma Parker and her four fiendish children raid a Mother of the Year Awards ceremony and hold up the entire gathering.
TUE 20:00 Around the World in 80 Treasures (b0078w68)
Series 1
Mali to Egypt
Dan Cruickshankâs journey around the world reaches new heights of discomfort in the heat and dust of the desert. He takes in the astonishing cave paintings of the Dogon tribe before embarking on a love affair in Egypt with the most beautiful woman in history for whom he must brave two giant jackals.
In between, he witnesses the grotesque masks of Mali that connect the world of the living with the world of the dead, survives a power cut in the middle of the deepest, darkest chamber of the dead in the Great Pyramid outside Cairo, lives a day in the life of a Roman trader in Leptis Magna and identifies with Lawrence of Arabia in the desert of Libya.
One amazing surprise is the biggest mud building in the world, which cools down in the African sun by means of an installation of 104 saucepan lids on its roof - possibly the simplest ventilation system in the world but also the most ingenious. Finally, as he floats into the sunset down the Nile, he contemplates how it will feel to re-enter Europe after four months away.
TUE 21:00 Auntie's War on Smut (b009hff3)
Tongue-in-cheek journey through 20 years of censorship from the BBC after it issued a book of guidelines that would define its role and values for postwar Britain in 1948. Known by the colour of its cover, the 'Green Book' would keep a generation of errant writers and performers in check with bans on jokes about honeymoon couples, fig leaves and animal habits among others. Featuring contributions from writers and performers like Denis Norden, Nicholas Parsons, David Frost and Jonathan Miller.
TUE 22:00 Goodness Gracious Me (b0074920)
Series 2
Episode 5
British-Asian comedy sketch show. This programme includes period drama in Nehru and Jinnah: The Cambridge Years, and the further adventures of Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo.
TUE 22:30 The Hard Sell (b009hff5)
Toys
Phill Jupitus narrates a series looking at 50 years of British TV advertising. Britain's food and drink adverts have fed our minds, filled our bellies and quenched our thirst. The perfect adland recipe includes entertainment, persuasion and manipulation to steer Britain through home cooking and happy families to single living and tv dinners. Contributors include filmmaker Alan Parker, broadcaster Gregg Wallace, writer Joanna Blythman and Juan Cabral, the adman behind the Cadbury's Gorilla.
TUE 23:00 Nation on Film (b0074r1w)
Series 1
Selling Salvation
Documentary series on 20th-century social history. This edition examines how the Christian church in this country used film to offer salvation to the permissive society of the 1950s and 60s. Using a cross-section of rarely seen films, witnesses add their views on whether spreading a religious message via film succeeded or failed.
TUE 23:30 A Year in Tibet (b0094zlf)
Three Husbands and a Wedding
For twelve months, a television crew has followed a handful of ordinary Tibetan people living in and around Gyantse, Tibet's third largest town. The result is a unique and intimate portrait of life in one of the most mysterious and isolated societies on earth.
It is autumn in southern Tibet and everyone is pulling together to get in the harvest. Like all farmers, Dundan is worried most about hailstones flattening his crops. In the past his brother Tseden, the local shaman, protected the fields with his spells. Now the local government has installed guns to disperse the clouds and this has put Tseden out of a job.
In the nearby town of Gyantse, Rincheu, a local builder, struggles to find enough workers during the harvest to complete his all important first government commission.
In the monastery, the monks recover from a hectic visit by the highest ranking Buddhist Lama in Tibet. After a riotous time celebrating the success of the event, they go home to help with the harvest.
Tseden is also helping a local family to arrange their daughter's wedding. Despite months of preparation, nobody actually gets around to telling the bride she is going to be wed - nor does anybody mention that she is expected to marry her husband's brother as well.
TUE 00:30 Auntie's War on Smut (b009hff3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 01:30 BBC Proms (b007wvqw)
2007
Stravinsky's Petrushka - Prom 41
Verity Sharp introduces American jazz pianist Marcus Roberts and his trio for a reinterpretation with improvisation of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, accompanied by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Robert Spano. Stravinsky's Petrushka and three dance episodes from Bernstein's On the Town make up the programme.
TUE 03:25 Auntie's War on Smut (b009hff3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2008
WED 19:00 World News Today (b009hp14)
The latest news from around the world.
WED 19:30 Pop Go the Sixties (b008bxxs)
Series 1
Nana Mouskouri
A colourful nugget of pop mined from the BBC's archive.
WED 19:35 Batman (b009k7tp)
Series 2
Ma Parker
Fantasy adventure series. Batman thwarts the booby-trap, but has Ma Parker duped the Duo into recruiting more criminals for her gang? Batman and Robin break into jail, are captured and put into electric chairs.
WED 20:00 Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work (b008lxyh)
Inside the Firm
Documentary series providing insight into the work of The Queen and other members of the Royal Family over the course of a year. All four of The Queen's children talk frankly for the first time about their working roles, about the jobs which they were born into, and which will occupy the rest of their lives.
WED 21:00 The Curse of Steptoe (b009hp17)
Drama telling the moving story of life behind the scenes of Steptoe and Son. Two actors find themselves trapped together on the celebrated long-running sitcom.
WED 22:05 Comedy Playhouse (b009g7k8)
Series 1
The Offer
The very first episode of the classic sitcom, which was first broadcast in 1962. Harold has had an offer which would mean leaving the junk yard for ever. But his dad has other ideas and does all he can to keep up the family tradition.
WED 22:35 The Late Edition (b009hp19)
Series 4
Episode 19
Satirical comedy show, with host Marcus Brigstocke and guests.
WED 23:05 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b009hp1c)
Galton and Simpson
Galton and Simpson talk about their famous creations Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, how they met each other in hospital, and why they stopped working together.
WED 00:05 The Curse of Steptoe (b009hp17)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WED 01:15 The Late Edition (b009hp19)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:35 today]
WED 01:45 Selling Power: Admen and No 10 (b009hf6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
WED 02:45 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b009hp1c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:05 today]
WED 03:45 The Late Edition (b009hp19)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:35 today]
THURSDAY 20 MARCH 2008
THU 19:00 World News Today (b009hp68)
The latest news from around the world.
THU 19:30 Steptoe and Son (b009kld3)
Series 1
The Diploma
Classic rag-and-bone men sitcom. Harold is fed up with scraping a living and with Albert's constant criticism of his ability to do the rounds. He decides to follow a different vocation and takes a correspondence course in TV repairing.
THU 20:00 Himalaya with Michael Palin (b0074qx6)
A Passage to India
Michael Palin continues his Himalayan trek by travelling from K2 in Pakistan to Ladakh in India - a short distance as the crow flies but, due to politics, a huge loop. He passes through the Sikh city of Amritsar, with its Golden Temple, and through Shimla with its Vice Regal Lodge, Gaiety Theatre and cosy half-timbered teahouses. He then meets the 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamsala where the Tibetan government is in exile.
THU 21:00 A Year in Tibet (b009hp6b)
Faith, Hope and Charity
Documentary series following a year in the life of the society living in and around the Tibetan town of Gyantse.
The monks begin preparations for New Year, one of Tibet's biggest festivals. Lhakpa, a local rickshaw driver, struggles to earn money as winter approaches. He embarks on a scheme to buy and sell puppies, with disastrous consequences.
Hotel owner Jianzang gets involved in a court case which has a surprising outcome. In Tangmai, the doctor cannot cure Lhamo's crippling stomach pains.
THU 22:00 Ashes to Ashes (b00950pd)
Series 1
Episode 6
Drama series following the exploits of Life on Mars DCI Gene Hunt. Alex thinks she's close to death and has to keep her brain alive by solving the case - a raid at a Post Office. Gene believes the culprit is Chas Cale, a blagger he crossed swords with years ago. When Chas claims he's too old, Gene reflects on whether he too is over the hill. For once, Alex needs Gene to be strong for her. She fears she can't solve the case alone and is desperate not to die in 1981.
THU 22:55 Mad Men (b009hf6l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Sunday]
THU 23:45 Selling Power: Admen and No 10 (b009hf6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
THU 00:45 A Year in Tibet (b009hp6b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 01:45 Everest ER (b0074svy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:45 on Sunday]
THU 02:45 A Year in Tibet (b009hp6b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 21 MARCH 2008
FRI 19:00 Mozart's Requiem (b0074tn6)
Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, with soloists Carolyn Sampson, Ingeborg Danz, Mark Padmore and Alfred Reiter. Authentic performance expert Philippe Herreweghe conducts his own Orchestre des Champs-Elysees and Collegium Vocale Gent. Part of the 250th anniversary Mozart celebrations.
FRI 20:00 Sacred Music (b03d09b3)
Series 1
The Gothic Revolution
Documentary series in which actor and former chorister Simon Russell Beale explores the flowering of Western sacred music.
He begins his journey at Notre Dame in Paris, where an enigmatic medieval music manuscript provides the key to the early development of polyphony - music of 'many voices'. Featuring music performed by members of the award-winning choir The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers.
FRI 21:00 White Gospel (b009hpfr)
Documentary about white gospel, America's most enduring yet obscure musical subculture and Elvis Presley's favourite type of music. One of the foundations of country music, it taught generations of southerners the principles of harmony and produced its own legends and stars in talents such as The Louvin Brothers, Dottie Rambo and The Blackwood Brothers. A journey from the sound of ancient harmonies sung in remote country churches through to the modern fiery anthems of the religious right.
FRI 22:00 The Curse of Steptoe (b009hp17)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 23:10 Steptoe and Son (b0077zwr)
Series 1
The Holiday
Classic rag and bone men comedy. Harold has holiday plans, and they don't involve Albert or the annual trip to Bognor Regis. Albert attempts to change his son's mind by using emotional blackmail.
FRI 23:40 Batman (b009k7sd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:35 on Tuesday]
FRI 00:05 Batman (b009k7tp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:35 on Wednesday]
FRI 00:30 White Gospel (b009hpfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 01:30 Sacred Music (b03d09b3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRI 02:30 Mozart's Requiem (b0074tn6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
FRI 03:20 White Gospel (b009hpfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]