Concluding the exploration of the extraordinary achievement of the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari, author of the monumental Lives of the Artists.
On a spectacular journey through Renaissance Italy, Andrew Graham-Dixon searches for the shadowy figure who wrote one of the most important books on art and looks at some dazzling works, including masterpieces of the early Renaissance by Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello.
Profile of Greek singer Nana Mouskouri, known as the White Rose of Athens and one of the best-selling female artists of all time.
The documentary features a revealing interview with Nana herself, rare archive footage and interviews with family and friends including Harry Belafonte, Julio Iglesias and Charles Aznavour.
There is also exclusive footage from her July 2008 farewell concert in Athens which, following a four year long world tour, marked her retirement from performing.
A vintage collection of Nana Mouskouri's performances from the BBC archive, including her entry in the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest and musical collaborations with Michel Legrand, Charles Aznavour and Cliff Richard.
Nana Mouskouri performs with her backing group the Athenians. Songs include Yalo Yalo, Colours, My Fisherman-my laddy-o and La Peregrinacion (Missa Criola) Serenade.
Charlie Brooker takes an irreverent look at all aspects of life on the small screen, including capsule reviews of the week's highs and lows.
In a writers' special, Brooker is joined by some of the best in the business to talk about how you make a TV programme actually happen. The people and pens behind Doctor Who, Father Ted, Peep Show, Life on Mars, Shameless and many more lead us through the joys and pitfalls of writing, with the added benefit of some of the best bits from the programmes.
John le Carre converses with Mark Lawson about his fragmented childhood, life in the diplomatic service, working with Alec Guinness and his book A Most Wanted Man. Le Carre worked as an intelligence officer in the 1970s before turning to writing full time. His personal experiences during the Cold War informed a string of best-selling espionage novels including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He also wrote the corporate corruption thriller The Constant Gardener, which became a Oscar-winning film.
MONDAY 08 DECEMBER 2008
MON 19:00 World News Today (b00fzjd7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 The Sky at Night (b06tld0g)
Other Worlds
Patrick Moore ponders the question of life beyond Earth, while Chris Lintott uses the Keck telescope and meets alien hunter Dr Jill Tarter from the SETI Institute.
MON 20:00 Beeching's Tracks (b00fw4n6)
London and South East
Edwina Currie takes a journey across London and the South East to examine the legacy left behind by one of the most notorious men in British railway history, Dr Beeching. She meets the people and places affected by his cuts and discovers how, 40 years later, they have turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
MON 20:30 Only Connect (b00fzjdk)
Series 1
Episode 13
Semi-final of the quiz show presented by Victoria Coren in which knowledge will only take players so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital. It is all about making connections between things which may appear, at first glance, not to be connected at all.
MON 21:00 Growing Babies (b00fvh1j)
War in the Womb
Laverne Antrobus investigates the theory of foetal-maternal conflict, an idea championed by Harvard evolutionary biologist Professor David Haig and controversially believed by some to be to blame for a wide range of behavioural and psychological disorders such as Tourettes, depression and autism.
On a biological level at least, the odyssey of pregnancy is dogged by conflict. It begins with the battle between 500 million sperm to reach the single egg, through the aggressive tactics employed by the cells of the placenta as they invade the wall of the uterus, to the escalation of hormones in later pregnancy that have been likened by some to a kind of hormonal cold war between mother and baby.
Antrobus discovers how the symptoms of pre-eclampsia in the mother are driven by the foetus lashing out for survival when the placenta begins to fail. She meets Dr Ananth Kuramanchi, the scientist who believes he has found the smoking gun of pre-eclampsia - a protein produced by foetal tissue that is capable of totally remodelling the maternal bloodstream to suit the foetus's goals.
Finally, Antrobus explores how conflict in the womb permeates the foetal genome as she investigates one of the most recent discoveries in genetics, genomic imprinting. She discovers how the genes of mother and father employ strategies of cunning and subterfuge to suit their own selfish ends.
MON 22:00 Wallander (b00g2j7h)
Series 1
Mastermind
Investigating a grisly local murder and the disappearance of a policeman's daughter, Kurt Wallander and his colleagues at the Ystad station begin to suspect the two are connected. As the investigation proceeds it seems that the criminal knows every move they will make and is practically controlling them. So begins a struggle to outwit a master criminal.
In Swedish with English subtitles.
MON 23:40 Growing Babies (b00fvh1j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MON 00:40 Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story (b007cllb)
The Carpenters were one of the biggest selling pop artists of the 1970s, but what seemed on the surface as the perfect, wholesome brother and sister duo hid a destructive complex truth that was unknown to the world.
Featuring behind the scenes footage, interviews with brother Richard, family and friends, this documentary traces the story that ended in tragedy with sister Karen's untimely death aged just 32.
MON 01:40 The Carpenters (b00cjn99)
1971 concert featuring the Carpenters performing Close to You, Help, Love is Surrender, Superstar, And When He Smiles, Rainy Days and Mondays, Sacre Bleu, A Bacharach and David Medley, For All We Know, Sometimes and We've Only Just Begun.
MON 02:20 The Carpenters: A World of Music (b00cjn9c)
Karen and Richard Carpenter concluded their 1976 British tour with this specially-recorded programme. Songs include There's A Kind of Hush, I Need to be in Love, Close to You, Strike up the Band, Top of the World, Only Yesterday, I Won't Last a Day Without You, Hurting Each Other, Superstar, Goodbye to Love, We've Only Just Begun and Yesterday Once More.
MON 03:10 The Sky at Night (b06tld0g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 03:40 Only Connect (b00fzjdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
TUESDAY 09 DECEMBER 2008
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00fztgd)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Versailles Stories (b0074sjg)
Fountains and Fireworks
Series exploring the history and modern evolution of one of France's great palaces through the stories of the people who work there today.
Louis XIV was a technological pioneer and nowhere is the legacy of his innovation more apparent than in the extraordinary and stunningly beautiful system of fountains at Versailles. Seven hundred jets are linked by a thirty five kilometre network of pipes, many of them still the originals designed and crafted by 18th century technicians. Now as then one of the main highlights for visitors to Versailles is the dramatic summer fountain display, the Grandes Eaux, incorporating water and music to extraordinary effect. But in the run up to this summer season the duration and frequency of the displays are under threat.
France is experiencing one of the worst droughts in living memory and the dedicated team of engineers responsible for keeping the fountains flowing is drawing on the very last reserves of water. The jewel in the crown of Louis' technological legacy is the Grandes Eaux Nocturnes, an evening pageant of water, music, historical drama and fireworks. But for the first time ever, the water shortage is such that the Nocturnes might not happen at all.
TUE 20:00 The Thirties in Colour (b00cwgxk)
End of an Era
Last in the four part series using rare, private and commercial colour film and photographs to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s.
It was Golden Age for international travel, a decade when advanced transport systems allowed people to journey all over the world. Travellers with the means recorded their experiences by using the new colour film technologies. Often unintentionally, their home movies captured defining moments at a time when the nations of Europe were about to be plunged into the disaster that was the Second World War.
The final episode features colour films shot by travelling film-makers in Europe, including footage shot on the streets of Berlin decked in red swastikas at the time of the Olympic Games, rare pictures of the Jewish quarter in Warsaw just weeks before the Nazi invasion and, in London, tourists wearing gas masks amid fears of imminent bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe.
TUE 21:00 Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures (b007x4y3)
Actor, writer, director and presenter Stephen Fry reveals the things he considers his guiltiest pleasures. These include darts, romantic novels by Georgette Heyer, the work of Richard Wagner and TV game show Countdown. With the help of entertaining clips and personal recollections, the programme provides an amusing insight into the mind of one of Britain's favourite comedy performers.
TUE 21:30 Only Connect (b00fzjdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
TUE 22:00 The Story of Asthma Island (b00fztgh)
Documentary about how Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the world and a seven-day boat trip from Africa, could hold the key to unlocking one of the great mysteries of modern medicine - the genetic basis for asthma.
Featuring Napoleanic garrisons, volcanic eruptions and ship-wrecks, the film uncovers the extraordinary history of Asthma Island, its unique people and the scientist who has spent his career trying to unravel the secrets of their past.
TUE 22:30 Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (b00fztgk)
Series 4
Episode 4
Charlie Brooker takes an irreverent look at all aspects of life on the small screen, including capsule reviews of the week's highs and lows.
Brooker takes a scalpel to 'mission' documentaries, the shows that begin with the presenter uttering 'I am on a mission to...' only to finish with a daft gimmick. After reviewing the current crop of mission documentaries, he goes on to make his own rather unusual version of the genre, highlighting the formats and tricks of the trade along the way.
TUE 23:00 Hancock and Joan (b009lv9j)
Drama which tells the story of comedian Tony Hancock's love affair with his friend's wife, and her fight to save the man and his career. Only months into her marriage to John Le Mesurier, Joan fell in love with Tony, who, despite his struggles with drink, remained charismatic and funny. They embarked on a passionate affair, but Tony's demons were never far away, and after months of turmoil Joan gave him an ultimatum: If he made a go of a new series in Australia and stayed sober, she would leave John for good. Tony left, determined to succeed.
TUE 00:25 Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (b00fztgk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
TUE 00:55 Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures (b007x4y3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 01:25 Only Connect (b00fzjdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:55 Hancock and Joan (b009lv9j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 today]
TUE 03:25 Only Connect (b00fzjdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
WEDNESDAY 10 DECEMBER 2008
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00fztl7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Nation on Film (b0074t4n)
Series 1
The Ramsden Collection
David Jason narrates the story of a newly-discovered amateur archive that sheds new light on life in post-war Britain.
For 20 years, husband and wife Betty and Cyril Ramsden recorded the world around them, capturing middle-class life in the north of England. Their rich celluloid legacy challenges the cliched view of 50s Britain as a decade of dreariness.
WED 20:00 Francesco's Venice (b0078ssj)
Sex
Francesco da Mosto continues his story of Venice with its most outrageous period of partying and licentiousness. This is the age of Casanova, the age of the courtesan - when Venice was the red-light district of Europe, attracting rich and hopeful dandies from across the continent.
Ostensibly the young men would come in search of art - and there was plenty for them, with Vivaldi, Canaletto and Canova at work in the city creating art on a scale never before seen. These were artists who responded directly to their public - Vivaldi churning out score after score as tourist-patrons demanded them, Canaletto painting the most upmarket postcards of the age for the growing number of rich visitors to the city, and Canova taking the human figure in marble to a level of perfection not seen since the time of Michelangelo.
Yet storm clouds were gathering and for the Venetians who saw them coming it could only seem as though the wrath of God was about to descend upon the city. The city had grown decadent and careless of its security. Guaranteed a safe haven for a thousand years by the hidden sandbanks of the lagoon, now new technology gave the enemies of Venice long-distance guns that could hit the city from beyond the shallows.
A new monster was rising in Europe - Napoleon Bonaparte, who saw Venice as rich pickings with which to fund his revolution. He would bring disaster to the city beyond any other it had known in its thousand-year history.
WED 21:00 The Medici: Makers of Modern Art (b00fztl9)
Documentary in which Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals how the Medici family transformed Florence through sculpture, painting and architecture, and created a world where masterpieces fetch millions today.
Without the money and patronage of the Medici we might never have heard of artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo or Botticelli. Graham-Dixon examines how a family of shadowy, corrupt businessmen, driven by greed and ambition, became the financial engine behind the Italian Renaissance.
WED 22:00 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (b00g2b1g)
Stylish drama revealing the conflicting emotions experienced by a young man who becomes closer to his estranged father, a thuggish and avaricious landlord, following the death of his mother. She was a concert pianist and her son is in danger of neglecting his own talent for music by following in his father's footsteps until he is persuaded to play again by a Chinese piano virtuoso.
WED 23:40 The Medici: Makers of Modern Art (b00fztl9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WED 00:40 Francesco's Venice (b0078ssj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 01:40 Nation on Film (b0074t4n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:10 Jazz Britannia (b0074r0m)
Stranger on the Shore
Terence Stamp narrates a series on the assimilation and development of jazz in Britain over the past 60 years. Two distinct scenes emerged in the late 1940s - trad jazz and modern jazz. Postwar Britain saw issues of class, race and the first stirrings of youth rebellion collide in the underground jazz clubs of Soho.
Key players included Ronnie Scott, Humphrey Lyttelton, Acker Bilk, Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriott, Chris Barber and Stan Tracey.
WED 03:10 The Medici: Makers of Modern Art (b00fztl9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 11 DECEMBER 2008
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00fztxw)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:40 The New Avengers (b00g29xd)
Series 1
Cat Amongst the Pigeons
A dying man warns Steed that an ecologist called Rydercroft is going to be killed at midday. Rydercroft is on an air journey and all possible steps are taken to protect his aircraft, but it still crashes. Soon the team find they are dealing with a completely new kind of enemy.
THU 20:30 Beeching's Tracks (b00g14g7)
North West
Stuart Maconie looks at the effect of the Beeching railway cuts in the 1960s and asks how much they are to blame for today's traffic problems in the North West.
THU 21:00 Growing Babies (b00fzty0)
Brainpower
Laverne Antrobus delves into the extraordinary world of foetal and infant neuropsychology as she tries to explain the curiosities of baby cognition. Babies just hours old can make complex inferences about people and objects, music and language, and even the principles of geometry and geography.
Antrobus asks how babies perceive the world around them, what they know and how they learn to process knowledge. She debates whether babies learn everything from experience or whether knowledge can be hardwired into their brilliant brains, an idea first postulated by psychologist Elisabeth Spelke when she unveiled theories about core knowledge.
Antrobus traces infant psychology back to some of the earliest theories and she meets researchers at Birkbeck College's Babylab who use hi-tech brain scanning equipment to delve deep inside the minds of babies. The theories here are slightly different. Denis Mareschal believes biased learning - babies' remarkable abilities to home in on key sources of information - is the key to intelligence.
The invention of the revolutionary 3D ultrasound has led to an unprecedented glut of revelations about foetal behaviour. Soon after the nervous system forms, the foetus begins ferociously practising for life after birth. Stimuli like sound and taste permeate the sanctity of the womb, shaping the character and personality of the growing foetus.
Dr Heidi Als's studies with premature babies reveal how vital the third trimester of pregnancy is for neurological development. While the brain is still learning to filter out unnecessary sensory stimulation, it relies on the womb to prevent it becoming overloaded. Premature babies don't have this luxury and their brains can often shut down when confronted by too many sensory stimuli.
THU 22:00 A Revolution in Childhood (b00byhz2)
Social experiment which follows 48 hours in the lives of 22 British children to see what they actually get up to. Martha Kearney and a panel of childhood experts examine the candid and intimate footage to determine if childhood in Britain really is in crisis.
THU 23:30 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (b00g2b1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:15 Growing Babies (b00fzty0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 02:15 A Revolution in Childhood (b00byhz2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
THU 03:45 Growing Babies (b00fzty0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 12 DECEMBER 2008
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00fzv3t)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Choir of the Year (b00fzv3w)
2008
Aled Jones and Josie D'Arby present the climax of the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year, the UK's largest amateur choral competition, from London's Royal Festival Hall.
After months of fierce competition between more than 200 singing groups, involving over 5,000 singers, the remaining six choirs compete for the ultimate victory. Includes a special guest appearance from Last Choir Standing winners, Only Men Aloud!
FRI 21:00 Legends (b00fzv3y)
Roy Orbison - The 'Big O' in Britain
Roy Orbison was the best singer in the world. That's what Elvis Presley said, and he should know.
To mark the 20th anniversary of Orbison's death, this programme celebrates the extraordinary talent of 'The Big O' and his relationship with his most loyal and enduring fans, British musicians and the British public. Through a combination of interview and archive, it charts Orbison's career in Britain, from the sell-out tour with the Beatles that sky-rocketed him to international superstardom, right up to the collaboration with lifelong friend George Harrison on the Travelling Wilburys project in the late 1980s. Effortlessly cool, musically sophisticated, Orbison was a rock and roll legend, whose legacy continues to captivate both the listeners and performers of today.
FRI 22:00 Roy Sings Orbison (b00g20wx)
Roy Orbison sings some of his greatest hits, including Only the Lonely, Crying, Penny Arcade, Blue Bayou, Running Scared, Candy Man, In Dreams, Mean Woman Blues, It's Over and Oh, Pretty Woman.
FRI 22:30 Who Is Kurt Wallander? (b00fzbmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
FRI 23:30 Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (b00fztgk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 00:00 The New Avengers (b00g29xd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:40 on Thursday]
FRI 00:50 The Avengers (b0074tbn)
Series 4
Honey for the Prince
Following the deaths of a friend and a fellow agent, Steed and Mrs Peel follow the trail to a company whose purpose is to bring people's fantasies to life.
FRI 01:40 Choir of the Year (b00fzv3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRI 03:10 Legends (b00fzv3y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]