TUESDAY 30 MARCH 2010

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00rs21k)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 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 20:00 Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? (b00l7qdh)
Episode 1

King Henry VIII had a fascinating and enlightening relationship with art. He came to the throne as the Renaissance swept across Europe, yet England's new king never lost sight of the medieval chivalry of his forefathers. In the first of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks at the palaces, tapestries, music and paintings created in Henry's name and questions whether the art he commissioned compensates for the religious treasures he would come to destroy.


TUE 21:00 The Genius of Omar Khayyam (b00rs21m)
Filmed in part across Iran during the run up to the 2009 election and presented by Sadeq Saba.

Born almost 1000 years ago in Persia, Omar Khayyam was an astronomer, mathematician and poet. His contribution to algebra and geometry has sealed his reputation as one the greatest mathematicians of all time; and a lunar crater has been named after him for his advances in astronomy.

Omar Khayyam lived during a medieval golden age of science and learning in the East. He was among a group of pioneering scientists who were influenced by ideas from ancient Greece, India and China. The film reveals how Islam and the advancement of science went hand in hand.

In the West, Khayyam is best known for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam most famously translated by a Victorian man of letters called Edward Fitzgerald. Published in 1859, the same year as Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the film shows how and why the Rubaiyat became one of the most famous poems in the English language, attracting a who's who of literary admirers including Thomas Hardy, TS Eliot and Arthur Conan Doyle.

A decade after its success in England, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was published in America where its message of live for the day instantly captured the public imagination. Its popularity spawned all sorts of products including Omar tooth powder, playing cards, and the first illustrated editions of the Rubaiyat. America's favourite poet, Walt Whitman was a fan, and soldiers took miniature copies of the Rubaiyat to the battleground.

Omar Khayyam remains a significant figure in present day Iran, and the film explores why despite his apparent religious scepticism, Khayyam's philosophy continues to resonate with modern Iranians.


TUE 22:00 Storyville (b00rs21p)
Barbados at the Races

The Favourite

Four-part series looking at Barbados today through the lives, at work and at play, of the island's horse racing community. The series is centred on the Barbados Turf Club and follows the stories of a colourful cast of characters, from the big white owners at the top of the tree right down to the poor black exercise riders and grooms.

The Club and its racecourse have been based at the former British army garrison on the edge of the island's capital, Bridgetown, for over a hundred years. The quirky and, at times, spiritually-minded series looks at how the culture of Barbados today, its institutions and the mindset of its people, have been shaped by the colonial past and the legacy of slavery.

There are two big races a year at the Turf Club - the Gold Cup and the Derby. This programme follows the build up for the Derby through the eyes of those who have trained and groomed the clear favourite in preparation for this historic race.

Areutalkintome is on the verge of becoming only the sixth horse in over a century to complete the Triple Crown - all he has to do is win the Derby. As those around Areutalkintome face up to their role in his success, the programme becomes about more than just horse-racing. It is about chance, predictability, life, death, fate and faith.


TUE 22:30 The Antiques Rogue Show (b00gn6y7)
A compelling drama documentary about one of the world's prolific and most diverse art forgers. The Greenhalgh family lived by modest means on a council estate in Bolton but, tucked away in the garden shed, Shaun Greenhalgh was creating fake paintings, antiques and sculptures that would dupe the art world out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He was aided by his octogenarian parents, George and Olive (played by Peter Vaughan and Liz Smith), who concocted elaborate back stories for each forgery. Their trump card came with a fake Egyptian statue, supposedly passed down from George's grandfather, which they sold to Bolton Museum for nearly half a million pounds. Despite the windfall the family continued to live a frugal lifestyle, revelling instead in the satisfaction derived at deceiving the art experts.

Emboldened by their success, the family couldn't resist another audacious attempt - to pass off a fake Assyrian relief to the British Museum, a costly mistake that ultimately led the police to their door. But the real victim of the story is the son, Shaun Greenhalgh, touchingly portrayed by Jeremy Swift. Here was a man still living at home in his forties, who in a different family, in different circumstances could have been heralded as an artistic genius, but who instead languishes in prison on a four-and-a-half year stretch.


TUE 23:30 Kidult: My Kid Could Paint That (b00csk9p)
Documentary that gets to the heart of an extraordinary artworld cause célèbre.

In the span of only a few months, 4-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown - and sold over $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called 'a budding Picasso'. Inside Edition, The Jane Pauley Show, and NPR did pieces on her, and The Today Show and Good Morning America got in a bidding war over an appearance by the bashful toddler. There was talk of corporate sponsorship with the family fielding calls from The Gap and Crayola.

Then, five months into Marla's new life as a celebrity, and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. CBS's 60 Minutes aired an exposé suggesting strongly that the paintings were painted by her father, himself an amateur painter. As quickly as the public built Marla up, they tore her down. The New York Post asked whether 'the juvenile Jackson Pollock may actually be a full-fledged Willem de Frauding'. The Olmsteads were barraged with hate mail and ostracized, whilst sales of the paintings dried up and Marla's art dealer considered moving. Embattled, the Olmsteads themselves turned to a documentary filmmaker to clear their name.

Torn between his own responsibility as a journalist and the family's desire to see their integrity restored, the director finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a situation that can't possibly end well for him and them, and could easily end badly for both.


TUE 00:50 BBC Proms (b00ml7p3)
2009

Prom 40: Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Charles Hazlewood introduces the annual Proms performance of Beethoven's 9th, his life-affirming choral symphony, recorded earlier in the season with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, soloists Rebecca Evans, Caitlin Hulcup, Anthony Dean Griffey and James Rutherford, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus conducted by Ilan Volkov.

Stravinsky's ballet music Orpheus opens the programme.


TUE 02:50 It's Only a Theory (b00p26x9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]


TUE 03:20 The Genius of Omar Khayyam (b00rs21m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]