Today, Eastern Orthodox Christianity flourishes in the Balkans and Russia, with over 150 million members worldwide. It is unlike Catholicism or Protestantism - worship is carefully choreographed, icons pull the faithful into a mystical union with Christ, and everywhere there is a symbol of a fierce-looking bird, the double-headed eagle. What story is this ancient drama trying to tell us?
In the third part of his journey into the history of Christianity, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch charts Orthodoxy's extraordinary fight for survival. After its glory days in the eastern Roman Empire, it stood right in the path of Muslim expansion, suffered betrayal by crusading Catholics, was seized by the Russian tsars and faced near-extinction under Soviet communism.
MacCulloch visits the greatest collection of early icons in the Sinai desert, a surviving relic of the iconoclastic crisis in Istanbul and Ivan the Terrible's cathedral in Moscow to discover the secret of Orthodoxy's endurance.
Classic drama. The past returns to haunt the present. A visitor brings joy and hope to Jessie Brown. Mr Carter oversees preparations for Lady Ludlow's garden party. Miss Matty is very shaken when she unexpectedly meets someone from her past. Caroline Tomkinson is determined to attract the attention of Dr Harrison, but she could have competition from young beauty Sophy Hutton.
Mark Lawson talks to actress Jane Horrocks about her life's work. Renowned for her performances as Little Voice and Bubble in Ab Fab, Jane tells how a young girl from Rawtenstall in Lancashire rose to fame and acclamation.
In a revealing interview, Jane explores how gender and age can affect career longevity as a performer. Currently starring as Annie Oakley in the Young Vic's Annie Get Your Gun, Jane details her backstage secrets for keeping focused and energetic for eight performances a week.
Atmospheric drama in which a young woman with psychiatric problems attempts suicide and then develops an unhealthy obsession with the doctor overseeing her physiotherapy.
Comedians Andy Hamilton and Reginald D Hunter host a series in which qualified professionals and experts submit their theories about life, the universe and everything for examination by a panel of Hamilton, Hunter and a guest celebrity, who then make a final decision on whether the theory is worth keeping.
The guest celebrity is broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan and the experts are Dr George McGavin and Andrew Keen.
Nicky Haslam, renowned socialite, bon viveur, wit and best friend to all is also one of the world's most respected and highly paid interior designers, whose clients include royalty, rock stars and Russians.
This documentary takes the viewer into a world to which few have access and most could hardly imagine, where apartments cost over 30 million pounds and people think nothing of spending four million to do up a house.
MONDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2009
MON 19:00 World News Today (b00p1p3z)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Tales from the Green Valley (b0078yy5)
August
Series in which five experts, archaeologists and historians, take on the challenge of running a farm for a year as it would have been in the reign of King James I.
August marks the team's final month and the biggest task is the wheat harvest. Everyone joins in, cutting it down with replicas of period sickles. It's then bundled and dried before they can bring it in by horse.
It's also the season to make rush lights using sheep fat, and they've got to try their hand at geese wrangling.
MON 20:00 The Thirties in Colour (b00csk9m)
Adventures in the Americas
Four-part series using rare, private and commercial colour film and photographs to give poignant and surprising insights into the 1930s.
One of the most prolific collectors of colour film in the period was the American industrialist Harry Wright. A self-made millionaire with a passion for film, he acquired and commissioned hundreds of films, which he screened for guests at the private cinema he had built in his home in Mexico City.
The programme examines Wright's extraordinary colour films of Africa and Central America, including his so-called Ethnographic Series of Unknown Mexican Indians, a unique visual record of the lives and customs of indigenous peoples living in the remote rural regions of Mexico.
MON 21:00 Gracie! (b00p1p41)
Singer and comedienne Gracie Fields from Rochdale was the nation's darling. Beginning on the cusp of World War II and at the phenomenal peak of her career, this heart-breaking love story tells of Gracie's relationship with Italian-born Hollywood director Monty Banks and its staggering repercussions.
MON 22:20 Amazing Gracie: The Gracie Fields Story (b0074qlt)
A look at the legacy of actress, singer and comedienne Gracie Fields who, during her lifetime, was a national institution. Through interviews and some previously unseen archive footage, the programme explores the extraordinary singing voice, comic genius and unique talent that made her arguably the greatest female entertainer Britain has ever produced.
'Our Gracie' was one of the world's first megastars: not so much a person as an event. The secret of her popularity lay in her relationship with her audience, as she goaded them into enjoyment, fed them the kind of cheek that passes for affection and appealed to a shared contempt for pretension.
Her films were sentimental and reassuring, but they also tapped into real social anxieties and reflected the spirit of a troubled pre-war decade. When the press began its lengthy campaign of vilification against her, after she moved to America during World War Two to prevent her Italian husband from being interned, the public, by and large, remained loyal. From her triumphant return to the London stage in the late 1940s until her death some 30 years later, she continued to maintain her place in the nation's heart.
Fields, although still a huge star in many people's living memory, encapsulates the spirit of a bygone age. It is too easy to say we don't make them like that anymore; the truth is, we no longer want to. Our national institutions are built on shakier foundations these days and the sheer uncomplicated pleasure that she delivered for the best part of a century seems a world away. This documentary reminds us of what we have lost.
MON 23:20 Travels with Vasari (b00fqvnc)
Episode 1
The first part of an 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.
MON 00:20 Travels with Vasari (b00fvgq8)
Episode 2
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.
MON 01:20 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.
MON 02:20 Gracie! (b00p1p41)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2009
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00p26x5)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Talking Landscapes (b0074m11)
The Yorkshire Dales
How have generations of Yorkshire families made a living from the bitter winds and stoney soils of the Dales? Aubrey Manning journeys high on the hillsides and deep underground to discover the key to this harsh landscape.
TUE 20:00 Life (b00p1n00)
Hunters and Hunted
Mammals' ability to learn new tricks is the key to survival in the knife-edge world of hunters and hunted. In a TV first, a killer whale off the Falklands does something unique: it sneaks into a pool where elephant seal pups learn to swim and snatches them, saving itself the trouble of hunting in the open sea.
Slow-motion cameras reveal the star-nosed mole's newly-discovered technique for smelling prey underwater: it exhales then inhales a bubble of air ten times per second. Young ibex soon learn the only way to escape a fox - run up an almost vertical cliff face - and young stoats fight mock battles, learning the skills that make them one of the world's most efficient predators.
TUE 21:00 Storyville (b00p26x7)
Survivors: The Horse Boy
Filmmaker Michel Orion Scott captures a magical journey into a little-known world, in a documentary which chronicles Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff's personal odyssey to make sense of their child's autism, and find healing for him and themselves in the unlikeliest of places.
TUE 22:00 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
Episode 8
Comedians Andy Hamilton and Reginald D Hunter host a series in which qualified professionals and experts submit their theories about life, the universe and everything for examination by a panel of Hamilton, Hunter and a guest celebrity, who then make a final decision on whether the theory is worth keeping.
The guest is broadcaster Clare Balding and the experts are David Ryan and Marcus Chown.
TUE 22:30 No Holds Bard (b00h6s1b)
Comedy following the lives of five people as they prepare to vie for the 2009 Cup O'Kindness, the trophy awarded to the champion in Robert Burns poetry recital. The film captures the ups and downs of each participant's progress as the pressure intensifies, the poems are recited and the champion is crowned.
Held in Alloway, the birthplace of Burns himself, this prestigious competition is the centrepiece of the annual celebrations devoted to the Bard's immortal memory. And this year it may prove memorable for all the wrong reasons.
TUE 23:35 Electric Proms (b00nn7vx)
2009
Dame Shirley Bassey
Trevor Nelson and Edith Bowman present highlights of Dame Shirley Bassey's special performance for the BBC Electric Proms from London's Roundhouse.
The British icon performs a set packed with classic tracks like Big Spender and Goldfinger and the premieres of songs from her album The Performance, produced by Bond composer David Arnold.
In her first major show after Glastonbury 2007, and her only live show in 2009, Dame Shirley is joined on stage by the BBC Concert Orchestra, with guest appearances by album collaborators David Arnold, James Dean Bradfield from Manic Street Preachers, singer-songwriter Tom Baxter and Sheffield crooner Richard Hawley.
TUE 00:35 The Andy Williams Show (b00n5bt9)
Duets
Compilation of the best duets selected from crooner Andy Williams's private archive of his weekly 1960s variety show on NBC. The show attracted the cream of the crop from the world of showbiz, from Bing Crosby and Ray Charles to Johnny Mathis and Ella Fitzgerald, who were more than happy to share the microphone with the king of easy listening.
Including Over the Rainbow with Judy Garland, and Andy at the piano with Ray Charles for What'd I Say.
TUE 01:35 Storyville (b00p26x7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 02:35 No Holds Bard (b00h6s1b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
TUE 03:35 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2009
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00p26yv)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Versailles Stories (b0074sgp)
Masters of Time
Series that goes behind the scenes of one of the world's most significant and magnificent tourist sites. Once the seat of absolute power in France, and scene of some of the key moments in European history, in the 21st century the Palace of Versailles has had to adapt to survive in the fast-moving and competitive world of international tourism.
It's a challenge the chateau is taking full on with the introduction of innovative events programmes and ingenious fund-raising schemes, and the judicious trial of new technology. As well as evolving to embrace the new, Versailles continues to preserve the old, employing ancient craft techniques and international expertise in an ongoing and never-ending process of restoration and conservation. But in a place with as much history as Versailles change is not always welcome, and relations between the old guard and the modernisers have to be carefully negotiated.
The series explores the chateau's many layers of history and its modern evolution through the stories of some of the people who work there today.
This episode goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the small army of expert and devoted - if often eccentric - craftsmen who work to restore everything from silk drapes and furniture to paintings and picture frames, and indeed the very stonework of the chateau. Even those parts of the chateau so high or remote that the only beneficiaries are birds are given loving and painstaking attention.
WED 20:00 Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby (b00bf5b8)
Breaking the Ice
Jonathan Dimbleby explores ten thousand miles of one of the world's most awe-inspiring countries. Summer 2006. Having lived through the Cold War, Jonathan makes his first stop in the city of Murmansk, which stands as a reminder to the years when England and Russia were close allies in a war of survival against the Nazis. But soon he is on the move, entering the strange and remote world of Karelia and savouring the sophisticated elegance of St Petersburg.
WED 21:00 The Great Contemporary Art Bubble Update (b00kmt51)
Art critic and film-maker Ben Lewis spent two years following the contemporary art market, from its heady peak in May 2008 until the crash and burn in October. Now, in a new and updated version of the film first broadcast in May 2009, he returns one year later, in October 2009, to discover a very different market.
The last five years had witnessed an unprecedented craze for contemporary art, in which works of art by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko sold for record-breaking prices of 30 million pounds upwards. It all climaxed in September 2008, when Damien Hirst sold 111 million pounds' worth of his art at an unprecedented auction at Sotheby's - the very day Lehman Brothers collapsed bringing down the financial markets of the western world. The bubble did not burst the night of the Hirst sale - but it proved to be a last hurrah.
The auctions in October and November 2008 were a disaster, and Ben was there too, filming the art world in shock. By early 2009, the contemporary art auction market was down 75 per cent, auction houses had recorded record losses and were rapidly downsizing.
In October 2009, Ben returns to find out what has been happening.
In this inside eye-witness journey into the art world, Ben visits auction houses, art fairs, galleries and the homes of billionaires across the world, searching for the reasons behind the greatest rise in financial value of art in history. He interviews leading dealers, art collectors and art market analysts and discovers an extraordinary world of unusual market practices, speculation, secrecy and a passionate enthusiasm for art.
WED 22:00 Flight of the Conchords (b0087fs1)
Series 1
Drive By
Comedy series about Kiwi folk musicians Bret and Jemaine as they to try to make it big in New York.
Bret is upset when he and Jemaine are racially harassed by a greengrocer. After a lesson from Dave in flipping the bird, the boys decide to take drastic action.
Features the songs Mutha Uckas, Leggy Blonde and Albi the Racist Dragon.
WED 22:30 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Tuesday]
WED 23:00 Wallander (b00m9jky)
Series 1
The Photographer
A woman is found dead after the opening of a war photographer's exhibition. Murder is suspected, as is the photographer. Wallander and his team of police investigate.
In Swedish with English subtitles.
WED 00:30 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00p1p30)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
WED 01:30 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 The Great Contemporary Art Bubble Update (b00kmt51)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WED 03:00 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b00p1p30)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
THURSDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2009
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00p270d)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Return to Pembrokeshire Farm (b00n1lvz)
Episode 2
Griff Rhys Jones continues with phase two of the restoration of his farm in Pembrokeshire. Work on the derelict miller's cottage is progressing well, but across the lane there is trouble at the mill, as Griff's plans meet local objections.
Meanwhile, Griff takes on another very unusual restoration project.
THU 20:00 Nicholas Crane's Britannia: The Great Elizabethan Journey (b00gsn8f)
A Journey Through the Borders and Scotland
Nicholas Crane visits parts of Britain that were largely unknown until William Camden wrote his encyclopaedic account of the British Isles. Britannia is an Elizabethan 'lost' masterpiece describing the mountains and rivers of Britain, its climate, its customs and people like it had never been seen before.
On the Scottish leg of a 5,000 mile journey, Nick discovers there's still gold in them hills, witches in Athol, Britain's only true remaining wilderness, and a spirit of independence that makes some Scots today as uncertain about union with England as their ancestors were in 1600.
THU 21:00 A History of Christianity (b00p270g)
Reformation: The Individual Before God
The Amish today are peaceable folk, but five centuries ago their ancestors were seen as some of the most dangerous people in Europe. They were radicals - Protestants - who tore apart the Catholic Church.
In the fourth part of the series, Diarmaid MacCulloch makes sense of the Reformation, and of how a faith based on obedience and authority gave birth to one based on individual conscience.
He shows how Martin Luther wrote hymns to teach people the message of the Bible, and how a tasty sausage became the rallying cry for Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli to tear down statues of saints, allow married clergy and deny that communion bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ. 'Jesus ascended into heaven', declared Zwingli. 'He's sitting at the right hand of the Father, not on a table here in Zurich.'.
THU 22:00 Gracie! (b00p1p41)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 23:20 The Thick of It (b00p270j)
Series 3
Episode 5
After weeks of trading bitter blows in the press, DoSAC minister Nicola Murray MP and her shadow Peter Mannion MP are invited onto BBC Radio 5Live for a debate on Richard Bacon's late-night phone-in programme.
Director of communications Malcolm Tucker and opposition PR guru Stewart Pearson decide to listen in the comfort of their respective offices, but when some breaking news threatens to make things difficult for the politicians, the programme quickly turns into a phone-in like no other. Malcolm and Stewart are left no choice but to start getting their people over to the studios.
THU 23:50 A History of Christianity (b00p270g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 00:50 Gracie! (b00p1p41)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 02:10 Return to Pembrokeshire Farm (b00p31y3)
Episode 2
Griff Rhys Jones continues with phase two of the restoration of his farm in Pembrokeshire. Work on the derelict miller's cottage is progressing well, but across the lane there is trouble at the mill, as Griff's plans meet local objections.
Meanwhile, Griff takes on another very unusual restoration project.
THU 02:40 A History of Christianity (b00p270g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00p27k9)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Transatlantic Sessions (b00809fv)
Series 3
Episode 3
Folk musicians come together in what have been called 'the greatest backporch shows ever'. Paul Brady hooks up with Scottish chanteuses Eddi Reader and Karen Matheson and a few others in a performance of his song, Rainbow. Also featured are Iris DeMent in a rare appearance in the UK, joining Joan Osborne and Bruce Molsky, with the instrumental talents of Sharon Shannon on accordion and Russ Barenberg on guitar.
FRI 20:00 Darcey Bussell's Ten Best Ballet Moments (b008l3dd)
Darcey Bussell, who retired from the Royal Ballet in 2007, introduces and demonstrates some of her favourite ballet moments with dancers Roberto Bolle and Jonathan Cope.
Featuring some of her own performances and archive highlights, with music ranging from Scott Joplin to Tchaikovsky.
The ballets include Giselle, The Nutcracker and a classic performance by Margot Fonteyn in Swan Lake.
FRI 21:00 Johnny Cash: The Story of Folsom Prison (b00p27kc)
Documentary which explores the most important day in the career of the legendary Johnny Cash.
Cash's concert at Folsom State Prison in California in January 1968 touched a raw nerve in the American psyche and made him a national hero at a troubled time in American history.
Using the stark images of rock photographer Jim Marshall, graphic techniques, archive footage and interviews with Merle Haggard, Cash's daughter Rosanne, band members Marshall Grant and WS 'Fluke' Holland, alongside former inmates of the prison, the film documents this explosive concert, the live album that followed and a transformative moment in the lives of Cash, the inmates of Folsom Prison and the American nation in the troubled year of 1968.
FRI 22:00 Later with Jools Holland and Johnny Cash (b0074q0q)
In a tribute to the late Johnny Cash, this one-off show finds Jools Holland playing host to the Man in Black himself. Cash performs a selection of his classics with a three-piece band. Other guests include Carleen Anderson, Pops Staples and June Carter Cash.
FRI 22:30 The Johnny Cash TV Show (b00p27kf)
Rock
The first chance for British viewers to see the pick of the guests and collaborations with the host on Johnny Cash's prime-time show for American TV from the early 1970s.
Among Cash's amazing array of guests are Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Louis Armstrong.
FRI 23:30 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.
FRI 00:00 Only Connect (b00m3zhp)
Series 2
Mathematicians v Cambridge Quiz Society - Semi-Final
Quiz show presented by Victoria Coren in which knowledge will only take you so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital.
In the first semi-final, three mathematicians pit their logical skills against the wits of the Cambridge Quiz Society. They compete to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly bereft of associations. How does Lord Kelvin of Largs link to George Orwell via the Ebola virus and India?
FRI 00:30 Johnny Cash: The Last Great American (b0074s4x)
Documentary profiling the life of legendary country music star Johnny Cash, who died in 2003 shortly after completing the retrospective Unearthed, a five-CD set of the acoustic performances with which he resurrected his career in the last decade of his life, and after losing his wife, June Carter Cash.
This first major retrospective of Cash's life, times and music features contributions from his daughter Rosanne Cash and son John Carter Cash, his longtime manager Lou Robin and fellow musicians including Little Richard, Cowboy Jack Clement, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard and Elvis Costello.
Cash was the son of a poor sharecropper from Kingsland, Arkansas, who sang folk, spiritual and country songs to himself while picking cotton in the fields. In the 50s he signed to Sam Phillips' Sun Records, scored his first hits and was part of the 'Million Dollar Quartet' with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
In the 60s, he created his famous 'Man in Black' persona, and became a huge country star with hits like Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, I Walk the Line and A Boy Named Sue, while torn between drug dependency, hellraising and a powerful spirituality. Cash had long since established himself as a man of the people with his prison concerts beginning with an incendiary performance at San Quentin in 1958.
He ended the decade by finally marrying June Carter - a member of hugely influential US country dynasty the Carter Family - launching his own national TV series from Nashville, befriending the Native American movement and opposing the war in Vietnam while playing concerts for the soldiers in the field.
After tough times in the 80s, Cash reignited his career with a new young audience in the 90s when he recorded with rap-rock producer Rick Rubin.
FRI 01:30 The Johnny Cash TV Show (b00bv3z3)
Country Gold
The pick of Johnny Cash's prime-time show for American television.
Cash performs some of his best-known songs and introduces some classic country guests including Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn and the Everly Brothers performing with their father, Ike.
FRI 02:30 Darcey Bussell's Ten Best Ballet Moments (b008l3dd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRI 03:30 We Need Answers (b00hw3yw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:30 today]