Kirsty Wark presents the literary panel game, as writer Stella Duffy and Liberal Democrat MP Sir Menzies Campbell do battle against biographer and novelist Victoria Glendinning and art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon.
One moment Miss Froy was sitting there, on the train, London-bound from Tyrol. The next she had vanished. Some passengers claim she was never there, but Iris is certain she saw her. Was it her imagination?
Documentary in which Paul Merton explores Alfred Hitchcock's early British films.
These moody features - some silents such as The Lodger and others talkies like Blackmail - provided the essential cinematic DNA for his rise to prominence as Hollywood's 'master of suspense'.
Merton sees Hitchcock as a man immersed in the visual language of cinema, who understood how to use camera movement and lighting for dramatic effect. For Hitchcock, heavily influenced by the German expressionist cinema, the pictures would always be more important than the dialogue.
Using clips and previously unseen archive interviews with Hitchcock, Merton weaves together a playful narrative of the director's early career and macabre world, revealing a man with a great sense of humour.
He talks to those who knew and worked with Hitchcock, including actress Anna Massey, director Roy Ward Baker, Hitchcock's official biographer John Russell Taylor and the great cinematographer Gil Taylor, the latter about working on two Hitchcock films at either end of his career - Number Seventeen in 1932 and Frenzy in 1972.
Masterful psychological thriller about a young woman who marries a rich and handsome man after a whirlwind romance but finds that his household is obsessed with the memory of his dead first wife, Rebecca. She finds the hostile behaviour of the housekeeper particularly upsetting - until she makes a discovery that shows Rebecca in a different light.
Based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier, the film won a Best Picture Oscar.
Documentary telling the true story of five young British freestyle footballers' journey across the Americas to Argentina in the hope of meeting their hero, Diego Maradona, a coming-of-age road movie about a group of young men in pursuit of a lifelong dream.
The group is made up of urban youths, most of whom have never been abroad before. There is a devout Christian, a cheeky scouser, a failed footballer, a pampered teen and an asylum seeker from Somalia. These boys, ranging in age from 17 to 22, represent the diversity and attitude of British youth today. For them, Maradona epitomises everything they love about football, both the creator of their art and their inspiration during hard times in their lives. Along the way they find that it wasn't just Diego they were searching for, but something inside themselves as well.
SUNDAY 01 MARCH 2009
SUN 19:00 Wine (b00hvwrj)
The Faith
Documentary series about the wine industry charts the creation of the 2008 vintage at Margaux, one of the world's greatest wine estates.
Corinne Mentzelopoulos, daughter of a Greek supermarket tycoon, introduces us to the chateau her family has owned for the past 30 years, as everyone from vineyard worker to chief winemaker looks anxiously at a sky which appears hellbent on making the year a wretched one. One bottle of this cult wine can cost up to 1,000 pounds if the vintage is good, but the quality of the vintage is always in the lap of the weather gods.
Blessed by sunshine and a soaring economy in previous years, Margaux has turned itself into the world's luxury wine. From the inside, we track the meticulous cultivation of a top-notch brand, with Margaux's urbane director Paul Pontallier playing the role of chief evangelist as we follow him all the way to China where he is almost mobbed by devotees of Margaux.
SUN 20:00 Sissinghurst (b00j0c30)
Episode 3
Documentary series about the attempts of writer Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven to bring farming back into the heart of the estate and garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, their historic home which is owned by the National Trust and was moulded into its present form by Nicolson's grandmother Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson back in the 1930s.
It is March, and Adam and Sarah's quest to change the way Sissinghurst operates is proving difficult, as head gardener Alexis has raised objections to Adam's plans.
Sarah's ideas for transforming the restaurant are not being taken up, so she tries a new tactic and cooks a trial menu. Head chef Steve, trained in French cookery, is not persuaded by Sarah's more rustic ways. She invites Steve and catering manager Ginny to her gardening and cookery school in the hope that they will take her ideas more seriously.
Adam continues to research his book and visits Long Barn, Vita and Harold's first marital home, where Harold announced he had a sexually transmitted disease and confessed to his gay affairs. Adam's sister Juliet takes us to the bedroom where Vita slept and entertained a number of female visitors.
SUN 20:30 Sissinghurst (b00j2r7c)
Episode 4
Documentary series about the attempts of writer Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven to bring farming back into the heart of the estate and garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, their historic home which is owned by the National Trust and was moulded into its present form by Nicolson's grandmother Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson back in the 1930s.
It is April, and although work is now two months behind schedule there is progress on the farm project. Work has begun in earnest on what will be fruit and vegetable plot. Adam and Linda Clifford, lifelong residents of the estate, take drastic measures in an attempt to control the large rabbit population on the estate.
As the height of the garden-visiting season approaches, Sissinghurst's visitor numbers rapidly increase and car-park volunteers Brenda and Linda have their work cut out. The garden is looking beautiful in its spring glory, but nevertheless Adam feels Sissinghurst is losing more and more of its old authentic charm and takes the matter up with property manager Sally and head gardener Alexis.
Up in the tower, Vita's old workplace, Adam finds the Gladstone bag where she hid her confessional biography about her affair with Violet Trefusis, which culminated in her elopement to France, when she temporarily abandoned her two young sons.
SUN 21:00 Caravans: A British Love Affair (b00hw3s0)
Documentary about the love affair between the British and their caravans, which saw the country establish the world's largest caravan manufacturer and transformed the holiday habits of generations of families.
In telling the intriguing story of caravanning in Britain from the 1950s through to the present day, the film reveals how caravans were once the plaything of a privileged minority, but after World War II became a firm favourite with almost a quarter of British holidaymakers.
It explores how changes in caravanning across the years reflect wider changes in British society, in particular the increased availability of cars during the 1950s and 60s, but also the improved roads network and changing attitudes towards holidaymaking and leisure time.
Enthusiasts and contributors include Dorrie van Lachterop from the West Midlands and Christine Fagg from Hertfordshire, remarkable and adventurous women who started touring alone in their caravans during the 1950s.
SUN 22:00 Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock (b00j09r4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
SUN 23:00 The 39 Steps (b0074t6w)
Classic Hitchcock mystery based on John Buchan's novel. A man is pursued by the police for a murder he did not commit and by an international spy ring for information he does not possess. He finds himself fleeing across the desolate Scottish moors - handcuffed to a beautiful blonde.
SUN 00:25 Reputations (b0074llw)
Hitch: Alfred the Great
Two-part profile of Alfred Hitchcock. This edition traces his life from the streets of suburbia to the boulevards of Hollywood, exploring the childhood influences that turned an overweight loner into the master of suspense and revealing how he came to marry Alma Reville, a tough film professional who was her husband's severest critic and fiercest champion.
SUN 01:15 Wine (b00hvwrj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUN 02:15 Sissinghurst (b00j0c30)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUN 02:45 Sissinghurst (b00j2r7c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
SUN 03:15 Caravans: A British Love Affair (b00hw3s0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 02 MARCH 2009
MON 19:00 World News Today (b00j0g7q)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 The Sky at Night (b071cg2b)
The Fountains of Enceladus
Sir Patrick Moore talks to the scientists who are trying to unlock the secrets of the incredible ice geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, which spew out material into space.
Chris Lintott visits the Open University to find out the latest on our own moon, meeting scientists from the Japanese Kaguya mission and the Indian Chandrayaan mission, with its British instrument CIXS.
MON 20:00 Legends (b00hw49n)
The Beverley Sisters - Tickled Pink
Profile of singing trio the Beverley Sisters, charting their rise from their humble beginnings in London's East End to the huge stars they became in the 1950s, at the forefront of the television revolution.
Joy, Teddie and Babs are remembered for their sweet image, but behind the scenes they fought several battles about sexy costumes and saucy lyrics, many of which were banned as they were considered too risque for post-war Britain.
Not content with being amongst the highest paid female entertainers in Britain, they were the first British female group to have a top ten hit in America, married dashing sporting heroes, had children and were a constant staple of British television throughout their career.
Featuring interviews with Jimmy Tarbuck, Cannon and Ball, Max Clifford and the trio's daughters.
MON 21:00 Wine (b00j0g7v)
The Future
Documentary series about wine looks at the importance of the industry to South Africa's future and why, despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, it still hasn't decided what its identity should be.
Oupa Rangaka and Mark Solms are two unlikely wine producers. Six years ago, Oupa, a retired philosophy professor, didn't even drink wine, let alone make it. Today he and his family, including three-year-old grandson Kwena, are the only black people to own a vineyard in South Africa. Its survival depends on their ongoing relationship with Marks and Spencer and convincing the judges at London's International Wine Challenge that their pinotage passes muster.
Mark is a world-renowned neuroscientist who inherited the family business, and is struggling to reconcile his idealistic plans for the farm with the practical realities of post-apartheid South Africa.
Via the struggles of these two remarkable men, wine becomes a prism through which to view the current state of the Rainbow Nation.
MON 22:00 Storyville (b00j0g7x)
Bulletproof Salesman
Documentary about self-confessed war profiteer Fidelis Cloer, who, in a career spanning two decades of global turmoil, has supplied kings, presidents and the occasional dictator with the finest luxury armoured vehicles money can buy.
In his world, where security is a commodity that can be bought and sold, violence is to sales as the weather is to wheat futures. Always with an on eye on growth opportunities, Fidelis found himself the perfect war when the US invaded Iraq.
MON 23:00 Stage Fright (b00j307w)
Hitchcock crime thriller. Drama student Eve Gill embarks on a mission to prove the innocence of a friend, whom she is secretly in love with, when he is accused of murdering the husband of his mistress, a theatre entertainer.
MON 00:45 Reputations (b0074lmp)
Hitch: Alfred the Auteur
Two-part profile of Alfred Hitchcock. This second edition examines his output of the 50s and 60s. The groundbreaking thriller Psycho made him wealthy, while films such as Vertigo and Rear Window were hailed by Francois Truffaut as works of genius. But Hitchcock's obsession with control and his pursuit of the perfect blonde actress took on a new and damaging intensity.
MON 01:40 Legends (b00hw49n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
MON 02:40 The Sky at Night (b071cg2b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 03:10 Wine (b00j0g7v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 03 MARCH 2009
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00j0gf8)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Coal House (b00f31tg)
Coal House at War
Episode 3
Three Welsh families give up their 21st century creature comforts and time travel back to 1944 to face the hardships of life in World War II. It's not just the coal-mining men who are finding it hard to reach their targets. The women are struggling to impress at the factory and the children find it tough to keep the school standards.
TUE 20:00 Gladstone and Disraeli: Clash of the Titans (b00j0gfb)
Huw Edwards presents a documentary examining the relationship between Victorian prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, whose bitter personal rivalry dominated British politics for 40 years.
Disraeli was a peacock with an elegant wit and an outsider who made it to the top, while Gladstone was an insider and a stern moralist who chopped down trees and saved fallen women, and the two of them drove each other onwards and changed the face of British politics.
TUE 21:30 Early Doors (b0078s51)
Series 2
Episode 2
Comedy series set in a small Manchester public house. Ken the landlord is laid up with the flu as the police arrive to celebrate their successful drugs bust. Duffy is in no mood for celebrating and faces up to the prospect of single life, seeking solace in the bottom of his beer glass.
TUE 22:00 Mad Men (b00j0gfd)
Series 2
Three Sundays
Drama series which takes an unflinching look at the world of advertising in 1960s New York.
Sterling Cooper staffers are called in over the weekend to prepare for their American Airlines pitch. Peggy's family hosts lunch for their church's new priest. Roger Sterling is taken by the 'wife' of a client and wants to see more of her.
TUE 22:45 Party Animals (b00859vj)
Series 1
Episode 4
Drama series taking a look at Westminster from the ground up - the young researchers and advisers shouldering huge responsibility in a frantic, high-stakes world.
It's Jo's 40th and she asks Danny and Kirsty to organise an intimate birthday dinner for close friends. Kirsty has bigger ideas and uses the occasion as an excuse to network.
Scott is asked to help prevent a wealthy Russian client from being extradited and finds that he has bitten off more than he can chew. He resorts to desperate measures to get himself out of trouble.
TUE 23:35 We Need Answers (b00hw3yw)
Series 1
Wine
Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne lead a comic quiz show with a difference, adapted from their award-winning Edinburgh show. Jilly Goolden and Jay Rayner take part in a knock-about quiz to find out which one of them is the smartest, the funniest and the best at surreal physical challenges. All the questions come from the audience members and text-messaging services and are on the subject of wine.
TUE 00:05 Paul Merton Looks at Alfred Hitchcock (b00j09r4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
TUE 01:05 Partners in Art (b00hwvzl)
Bartok and Van Gogh
Innovative audio-visual concert presentation by David Robertson, the BBC Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductor, at the Barbican in London.
Performances of two 20th century works by Bartok, his Concerto for Two Pianos and Concerto for Orchestra, and images of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh are heard and seen together to illustrate the parallels that can be traced between Bartok's folk-derived music and the organic patterns and proportions of the natural world used in Van Gogh's art.
TUE 02:35 Gladstone and Disraeli: Clash of the Titans (b00j0gfb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 04 MARCH 2009
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00j0gnj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00hw3yp)
North Wales
Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of 50 years ago.
Richard takes the wheel of Ford Zodiac to drive the circular route from Caernarfon that loops through some of Snowdonia's most sensational scenery.
He gets a Welsh lesson at Caernarfon Castle, learns the significance of the Dinorwic slate quarry, drives the Llanberis Pass, meets 71-year-old human fly Eric Jones and takes a trip down memory lane at a former Butlins holiday camp.
WED 20:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007xmdn)
The End of the Affair
When the first motorways opened they did so to national celebration. But after the first 1,000 miles had been built, their impact on both town and country was becoming apparent and people started to protest.
Middle England rose up and disrupted public inquiries to voice their frustration at motorway building, but it continued and over time the frustration gave way to concerns about saving the planet. In the early 1990s that meant young people willing to risk everything to stop the motorways being built. The programme shows how people began to question the promises made by the motorway, and along the way found their voice of protest.
WED 21:00 Ford's Dagenham Dream (b00j0gnm)
Documentary which tells the story of a dream of happy families on wheels that the Ford Motor Company brought from Detroit to Dagenham, then sold to Britain.
From the 1950s onwards Ford revolutionised the cars we drove, producing dream cars for the average British family. In the 60s and 70s Ford sold dreams to boy racers too, but it came at a price. The mass production of motor cars required an army of assembly line workers who did jobs that were infamous for their soul-destroying monotony.
At its peak Dagenham was producing more than 3,000 cars every day and its most popular dream car, the Cortina, sold around five million in Britain alone. But the assembly line workers had a love-hate relationship with the cars they made and for some the dream became a nightmare.
Illustrated with powerful first person testimony and rare archive, this is the story of the rise and fall of Ford's Dagenham dream.
WED 22:00 The Yacoubian Building (b00j0gnp)
Drama, based on the novel by Alaa Al Aswany and set in the early 1990s, which offers a scathing portrayal of modern Egyptian society since the coup d'etat of 1952. Cairo's iconic Yacoubian building is a block of flats that has seen better days but still houses a diverse cast of characters.
WED 00:40 From A to B: Tales of Modern Motoring (b00j0gsl)
Looking at Him Looking at Me
Series about the British and their cars looks how women feel empowered by driving and how they have embraced the pleasures traditionally sought by men.
WED 01:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00hw3yp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:00 The Secret Life of the Motorway (b007xmdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 03:00 Ford's Dagenham Dream (b00j0gnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 05 MARCH 2009
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00j0gsn)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:40 The New Avengers (b00j2wzl)
Series 2
Angels of Death
Classic British secret agent adventure series. A great number of senior civil servants, members of parliament and intelligence personnel are dying suddenly, apparently of natural causes, and no link between all the deaths can be found. Then a dying British agent talks about 'angels of death' that kill from within.
THU 20:30 Britain's Best Drives (b00j0gsq)
North Cornish Coast
Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of 50 years ago.
Richard struggles to get to grips with a retro VW camper van as he drives the coast road from St Ives to Land's End.
He learns of St Ives's 1950s abstract art heyday and meets a 95-year-old painter still at work in Porthmeor Studios. He discovers why DH Lawrence was expelled from the county, hears legends of Cornish mermaids and gets to know his van on a blustery clifftop campsite.
THU 21:00 Touring Britain (b00j0gss)
The Classic Motorist's Way
Cultural historian David Heathcote uses two of the earliest Shell Guides to explore modern-day Britain.
The Guides are works of art in their own right and embrace the best of modernism and a love of the wild and unexplored. They used cutting edge art and photography and beautiful poetry and prose to entice the townies out to explore Britain in their newly-acquired automobiles.
The 1930s Shell Guide to Dorset was compiled by Paul Nash, one of the leading contemporary surreal war artists, while the Guide to Cornwall was edited by the young, ambitious poet John Betjeman, who took on the job to pay for his wedding expenses.
Heathcote's journey takes him through Dorset, exploring the wild and the ancient sites in Cerne Abbas and Badbury Rings. He also visits the seaside town of Swanage, which Nash disliked because of its grotesque over-development.
In Cornwall, Betjeman recommends that visitors should go to Tintagel in bad weather when the car park is empty, advice which Heathcote follows with spectacular results. The Guide takes him to quiet corners of Cornwall, old fishing villages and breathtakingly beautiful landscapes.
As he travels, Heathcote explores the themes of development which the Guides raise. Betjeman declared that traffic had spoilt everything by the 1960s, but Heathcote discovers a different, more optimistic view of the changes in Cornwall and he is still able to delight in many of the treasures that the Shell Guides recommended.
THU 22:00 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j0gsv)
Life on the Road
Novelist and raconteur Michael Smith explores Britain's modern obsession with cars and driving, as well as seeking to understand the effects it has on our daily lives. Whilst travelling to all corners of the UK, he questions why we love them, what they say about us and whether there is a car out there that even a stubborn non-driver like him could one day fall in love with.
Smith gets in the passenger seat with all manner of people who call the road their home, asking how they survive a life of perpetual motion while losing himself in the constant flow and undertow of the road.
THU 22:30 Ford's Dagenham Dream (b00j0gnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Wednesday]
THU 23:30 Gladstone and Disraeli: Clash of the Titans (b00j0gfb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Tuesday]
THU 01:00 Touring Britain (b00j0gss)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 02:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00j0gsq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
THU 02:30 Touring Britain (b00j0gss)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 03:30 Michael Smith's Drivetime (b00j0gsv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRIDAY 06 MARCH 2009
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00j0h7g)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Partners in Art (b00j0h7j)
Debussy and Monet
Innovative audio-visual concert presentation by David Robertson, the BBC Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductor, at the Barbican in London.
Performances of three of Debussy's most evocative masterpieces - Prelude a L'apres Midi, Jeux and La Mer - are combined with images of impressionistic painting by Monet and Japanese wood engravings by Hokusai, allowing one art form to illuminate the other and giving us a new way of hearing and seeing.
FRI 21:00 Legends (b00j0h7l)
The Andrews Sisters - Queens of the Music Machines
Profile of American close harmony singing trio the Andrews Sisters, one of best-selling female vocal groups in the history of popular music.
Collaborating with some of the great names of the swing era such as Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, they also enjoyed a long and successful recording partnership with Bing Crosby.
The film traces Patty, Maxene and LaVerne's journey from a poor Minneapolis background to international fame and includes archive footage of hits including Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. Mary Wilson of the Supremes and British burlesque group the Puppini Sisters are also featured.
FRI 22:00 Buck Privates (b00j0h7n)
A couple of dim-witted tie salesmen running from the law end up accidentally enlisting in the army during World War II. The first screen pairing of the legendary Abbott and Costello double act, also featuring the Andrews Sisters singing Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy.
FRI 23:20 Mad Men (b00j0gfd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Tuesday]
FRI 00:10 The New Avengers (b00j2wzl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:40 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 Legends (b00j0h7l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:00 Partners in Art (b00j0h7j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]