A special Proms performance of the Welsh National Opera's production of Wagner's midsummer comedy Die Meistersinger. A smash hit when it opened in Cardiff in June 2010, the stellar cast perform a concert staging at the Royal Albert Hall, with Bryn Terfel as the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs and Lothar Koenigs conducting. Wagner enthusiast Stephen Fry is in the presenter's box and Charles Hazlewood is backstage with the cast.
Oscar-winning thriller about the bigoted sheriff in a small Mississippi cotton town who finds himself forced into collaboration with a black homicide expert from Philadelphia.
Sparta, Mississippi is a small, quiet town broiling on a steamy September night. At the train station Virgil Tibbs, a solitary black man from out of town, is arrested for the murder of a rich northern industrialist. Police chief Gillespie has no experience of a murder inquiry and subjects Tibbs to a bigoted, insolent interrogation. But when Tibbs reveals himself to be a top city homicide cop, his is just the assistance Gillespie can do without.
Rich Hall sets his keen eye and acerbic wit on his homeland once again as he sifts truth from fiction in Hollywood's version of the southern states of the USA. Using specially shot interviews and featuring archive footage from classic movies such as Gone With the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire and Deliverance, Rich discovers a South that is about so much more than just rednecks, racism and hillbillies.
Drama about a Georgia farmer, convinced that there is buried treasure somewhere on his ranch, but hampered in his search by an acre of land designated for tithing. By dint of some careful manoeuvering, the borders become flexible but the price of greed is the disintegration of family unity.
SUNDAY 18 JULY 2010
SUN 19:00 The Department Store (b00fqpn0)
Peters
Filmmaker Richard Macer visits the high street independent department stores that are fighting back against the big brands.
He spends six months at a family-run shop which has just come out of administration. David and Caroline Whittle lost control of Peters when it couldn't compete with a new shopping centre, but now a private backer has given them one last chance to turn the store around. Things are going well until problems arise with the staff in the shop's cafe.
SUN 20:00 Inside John Lewis (b00rlz77)
Episode 2
In a television first, the BBC goes behind the scenes of John Lewis - one of Britain's biggest and best known department stores - as it tackles changing tastes, tougher competition and the worst recession for 80 years.
This edition sees the steps that are being taken by the business to boost sales and control costs; the fashion floors are being revamped, an enormous new shop is being built in Wales, a brand new distribution centre has opened in Milton Keynes and to control costs, the old warehouse in Stevenage is closing down. Jobs are being lost and there is a pervading sense of unease in the corridors of the London Head Office.
SUN 21:00 Secret Lives of the Artists (b00t4jx0)
Who Killed Caravaggio?
When Caravaggio died in 1610 , he was 39 years old, the most famous painter of his age and an exile from Rome after killing a man in a street fight. But his death has always been a mystery, with no body, no grave site, and conflicting stories of what happened.
In 2001, art critic Andrew Graham- Dixon went in search of the true story of the extraordinary life and mysterious death of one of the greatest painters in western art, travelling from Rome to Naples to Malta and Sicily, meeting experts and scouring archives on the way. He uncovered the painter's criminal record, a trail of violent incident, sexual intrigue and conspiracy, and came face to face with some of the most profoundly spiritual paintings ever painted.
Graham-Dixon has been researching and working on the story of the artist ever since. Caravaggio's art has never been more popular, and now he thinks he may have found some of the answers.
SUN 22:00 XXY (b00pcnr2)
Alex lives with her parents, whose reaction to her indeterminate gender has been to exile the family to a small island community in Uruguay. As she comes of age, her parents feel it is time for them to decide if she is to be a woman or a man. Her mother invites some old friends from Argentina to visit for the weekend, one of whom happens to be a surgeon. They also bring their teenage son, who knows nothing of Alex's story but is intrigued by this tomboy.
SUN 23:25 Merle Haggard: Learning to Live with Myself (b00t2cw8)
One of the true originals of American country music, 73-year-old Californian-born Merle Haggard has always felt and expressed America's contradictions in his life and his songs. This is the journey of the former Nixon poster boy of Okie from Muskogee renown to the now outspoken critic of the Bush era, as director Gandulf Hennig explores one of the greatest songbooks in American music.
Growing up in a suburb of Bakersfield, California, Haggard lost his father while aged just nine. He turned to a life of vagrancy and crime before seeing Johnny Cash while a San Quentin prison inmate in 1959 and rebuilding his life as a musician, picker and songwriter. Haggard went on to become one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music, writing songs from the perspective of the working man and the barstool, mixing prison songs like Sing Me Back Home with songs that reflected his confusion at a changing America, such as his biggest hit, 1969's Okie from Muskogee.
Hennig's film is the fruit of three years spent filming with Haggard on the road and at home, recounting the man they call Hag's life as a man and a musician while getting inside the soul of a person who has created his own unique blend of country, western swing, folk and blues.
Featuring extensive archive footage and interviews with Merle and his family, plus contributions from fellow musicians including Keith Richards, Robert Duvall, Kris Kristofferson, Lucinda Williams and Ray Price.
SUN 00:55 Kings of Country (b0074sf5)
Profile of the six most influential male country stars of the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s, with the help of a blistering soundtrack and rare archive performances that show these men created a blueprint for songwriting that is as resonant today as it was then.
These are the stories of men who weren't afraid to be cowboys in a rapidly changing world. Hank Williams, who battled with his wife and addictions before dying a superstar at 29; 'Gentleman' Jim Reeves, the crooner in cardigans killed in a plane crash; Willie Nelson, the outlaw who rewrote the country rulebook; George Jones, whose life of heartache and booze is like a classic country song; the fugitive Merle Haggard who swapped his crowbar for a guitar after seeing Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison; and the king of kings himself - Johnny Cash. The surviving kings themselves join family members and close friends in giving rare insights into the rise to fame of these country greats, while admirers such as Billy Connolly, Jack White, LeAnn Rimes, Lauren Laverne and Elvis Costello pay tribute to the men who changed music for good.
SUN 01:55 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.
SUN 02:55 The Department Store (b00fqpn0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUN 03:55 Secret Lives of the Artists (b00t4jx0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MONDAY 19 JULY 2010
MON 19:00 World News Today (b00t4kh1)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Science and Islam (b00gksx4)
The Language of Science
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Its legacy is tangible, with terms like algebra, algorithm and alkali all being Arabic in origin and at the very heart of modern science - there would be no modern mathematics or physics without algebra, no computers without algorithms and no chemistry without alkalis.
For Baghdad-born Al-Khalili, this is also a personal journey, and on his travels he uncovers a diverse and outward-looking culture, fascinated by learning and obsessed with science. From the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who did much to establish the mathematical tradition we now know as algebra, to Ibn Sina, a pioneer of early medicine whose Canon of Medicine was still in use as recently as the 19th century, Al-Khalili pieces together a remarkable story of the often-overlooked achievements of the early medieval Islamic scientists.
MON 20:30 On Hannibal's Trail (b00t4kh3)
Hitting the Road
History and travel documentary series in which three Australian brothers - Danny, Ben and Sam Wood - set out cycling on the trail of Hannibal, the ancient warrior who marched from Spain to Rome at the head of an invading army accompanied by elephants.
The brothers hit the road, cycling up the east coast of Spain, passing through the palms of Elche, the beaches of Benidorm and Valencia's zoo before arriving at Sagunto, where Hannibal's war against the Romans truly began. On the way, they meet Australian cycling champion Matthew Lloyd and they talk to the elephants - and their keepers.
MON 21:00 The Great British Outdoors (b00t4kh5)
Mud, midges, barbed wire - just why do us Brits love the great outdoors?
In this nostalgic look at life for campers, twitchers, ramblers and metal detectors, Mark Benton examines the history of the British fresh air freak.
MON 22:00 Screen One (b0074pv0)
Series 1
Ball Trap on the Cote Sauvage
Comedy drama set on a camp site in southern France, featuring a diverse assortment of characters.
MON 23:25 Ian Hislop's Scouting for Boys (b007hfx3)
Robert Baden-Powell's handbook Scouting for Boys, written in 1908, may be largely forgotten today, but it is one of the most influential and best-selling books of all time. In the 20th century, only the Bible, the Koran and the Thoughts of Chairman Mao sold more. But they had fewer jokes, no pictures and were useless at important stuff like tying knots.
In this entertaining and affectionate film, Ian Hislop uncovers the story behind the book which kick-started the Scout Movement - a work which is very eccentric, very Edwardian and very British.
Ian discovers that the book is actually very radical and addresses all sorts of issues that we think of as modern, such as citizenship, disaffected youth and social responsibility. He explores the maverick brilliance of Baden-Powell, a national celebrity after his heroism in the Boer War, and considers the book's candid focus on health and wellbeing - from the importance of what Baden-Powell called a 'daily rear' to his infamous warning on the dangers of masturbation.
Contributors include his grandson Lord Baden-Powell, minister for culture and former cub scout David Lammy, biographer Tim Jeal and Elleke Boehmer, editor of the re-issue of the original Scouting for Boys.
MON 00:20 The Great British Outdoors (b00t4kh5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MON 01:20 On Hannibal's Trail (b00t4kh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
MON 01:50 Secret Lives of the Artists (b00t4jx0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:50 The Great British Outdoors (b00t4kh5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 20 JULY 2010
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b00t4lqc)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Last Chance to See (b00mvbbx)
Series 1
Northern White Rhino
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine head to the ends of the earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction.
On a journey across Africa towards the war-torn Congo, the travellers encounter chimpanzees, gorillas and elephants, but are there any northern white rhinos still alive in the wild? The news is not good but there is some hope in the remarkable project under way to save the black rhino in Kenya.
TUE 20:30 Britain by Bike (b00t4lqf)
North Devon
Clare Balding sets out on a two-wheel odyssey to re-discover Britain from the saddle of a touring cycle.
In a six-part series, Clare follows the wheeltracks of compulsive cyclist and author Harold Briercliffe whose evocative guide books of the late 1940s lovingly describe by-passed Britain - a world of unspoiled villages, cycle touring clubs and sunny B roads.
Carrying a set of Harold's Cycling Touring Guides for company and riding his very own bicycle, Clare embarks on six iconic cycle rides to try and find the world he described - if it is still there.
Her first journey takes Clare to the rugged and beautiful Atlantic coast of north Devon - from Lynmouth, scene of Britain's worst flood disaster in the early 1950s, to Ilfracombe via Little Switzerland, and a hidden silver mine whose riches probably helped England win the Battle of Agincourt.
TUE 21:00 Britain Goes Camping (b00t5hcl)
Featuring the evocative memories and unseen archive of generations of enthusiasts, a documentary which tells the intriguing story of how sleeping under canvas evolved from a leisure activity for a handful of adventurous Edwardian gents to the quintessentially British family pastime that it is today.
TUE 22:00 Play For Today (b00jzj72)
Series 6
Nuts in May
Director Mike Leigh’s iconic tale of camping holidays and all the hazards involved. Their Morris packed to the gills, the punctilious Keith and the more spontaneous Candice-Marie arrive at a Dorset campground for ten nights of idyllic bliss.
It starts off pretty perfect; it's peaceful, they go sightseeing, eat vegetarian food and go in search of raw milk. Then a fellow with a loud radio pitches his tent near theirs. Things get worse when a couple arrive on a motorcycle, make noisy love in their tent and start an illegal campfire.
Will Keith and Candice-Marie find a peaceful corner or are they doomed to brawl with the noisy and unwashed? (1976)
TUE 23:20 Youth Hostelling: The First 100 Years (b00k9c1p)
Nation on Film documentary telling the story of youth hostelling, which was founded in 1909 in Germany and was established in Britain in 1930, through fascinating archive films discovered in a storeroom at the Youth Hostel Association's headquarters in Derbyshire.
The films chart the progress of the movement, as well as the nation's changing attitudes towards 'youth' and the countryside. The images show young people enjoying a new sense of freedom - hiking, rock climbing, folk singing and even the odd bit of skinny-dipping.
The collection includes everything from silent movies through to video, and all promote the YHA's central mission of encouraging young people to enjoy the benefits of the countryside. Most of the films have not been broadcast before, as they were originally shown in cinemas, hostels and community halls.
Contributors include Lord Puttnam, hostel workers, film-makers, actors and historians.
TUE 00:20 Britain Goes Camping (b00t5hcl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 01:20 Britain by Bike (b00t4lqf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
TUE 01:50 On Hannibal's Trail (b00t4kh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:20 Last Chance to See (b00mvbbx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 03:20 Britain Goes Camping (b00t5hcl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 21 JULY 2010
WED 19:00 World News Today (b00t4mnx)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Only Connect (b00qvkrm)
Series 3
Insurers v Gamblers
Quiz show presented by Victoria Coren in which knowledge will only take you so far, as patience and lateral thinking are also vital.
A team of insurance professionals face off against a trio of committed gamblers. Who will win the battle as they compete to draw together the connections between things, which, at first glance, seem utterly random - such as Prince of Darkness, Bambi, Grocer and Tarzan?
WED 20:00 The Great British Outdoors (b00t4kh5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
WED 21:00 Rich Hall's 'How the West Was Lost' (b00c4zvh)
Comedian Rich Hall goes west to find out what killed off that most quintessentially American of all film genres, the western.
Through films such as The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Little Big Man, The Wild Bunch and Unforgiven, Rich charts the rise and fall of America's obsession with its own creation myth - the Wild West. He explores how the image of the cowboy as a moral, straight-talking heroic figure was created by Hollywood but appropriated by Washington, as one president after another sought to associate themselves with this potent symbol of strength and valour.
From Tombstone to Texas, Montana to Wyoming, Rich travels across a landscape that is both actual and mythic in the minds of not just Americans, but all of us. With his customary wit and intelligence he unpicks the truth from the fiction of Hollywood's version of frontier life, draws parallels between popular western narratives and America's more questionable foreign policy, and celebrates the real heroes of the west - John Ford, John Wayne, Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn and Clint Eastwood.
Filmed on location in Arizona, Montana and Wyoming and incorporating interviews and archive clips of some of the best-loved westerns of all-time, the film is Rich Hall's personal salute to a genre of film he feels passionate about.
WED 22:30 Fort Apache (b0077zzm)
The first of John Ford's cavalry trilogy, in which a commanding officer, bitter at his demotion after the Civil War, takes his resentment out on the men of Fort Apache, a remote outpost in the Arizona desert.
He is determined to tighten up discipline but eventually shows his ignorance of American Indian behaviour when he leads his troops into a deadly confrontation.
WED 00:35 The Great British Outdoors (b00t4kh5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
WED 01:35 Youth Hostelling: The First 100 Years (b00k9c1p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:20 on Tuesday]
WED 02:35 Rich Hall's 'How the West Was Lost' (b00c4zvh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 22 JULY 2010
THU 19:00 World News Today (b00t4nbj)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 BBC Proms (b00t4nn1)
2010
Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony
Suzy Klein presents from the Royal Albert Hall as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, under their principal conductor Thierry Fischer, perform Prokofiev's audacious First Piano Concerto with soloist Alexander Toradze and Shostakovich's monumental Seventh Symphony, composed in 1941 while Leningrad lay under German siege.
THU 22:00 Beryl's Last Year (b007mw91)
The novelist Dame Beryl Bainbridge thinks she's going to die at the age of 71, because everyone in her family died when they were that age, from her mother and father to her grandparents, aunts and uncles. Opening with her 71st birthday, this uniquely personal film, made by Beryl's eldest grandson Charlie Russell, follows Beryl as she lives out her 'last year', prepares for her death and tries to write her final novel.
Beryl wants to make a record of her life before it's too late - from her volatile upbringing in Formby in the 1940s to her time as an actress in the Liverpool Playhouse and her failed relationships with several men. Beryl bases her novels on the events of her past, but she's having trouble remembering exactly who she was when she was her grandson's age.
During her 'last year' Beryl falls ill and Charlie has to consider the very real possibility of his grandmother dying. Beryl is told she has to give up smoking or her leg will fall off, but she has smoked for fifty years and when she stops she gets the worse case of writer's block she's ever had.
Full of the amazing true stories of Beryl's incredible life, from almost losing her virginity to a German POW to the time when she tried to kill herself, the film is a moving, frequently hilarious and unique insight into how one of Britain's greatest living authors goes about writing a book, confronting her past and facing up to her own mortality.
THU 23:00 Arena (b0074m6b)
According to Beryl
Dame Beryl Bainbridge takes an idiosyncratic tour of the last 20 years of writer and poet Samuel Johnson's turbulent life, leading us through the streets of Streatham, the riches of the City of London and into the dank crypt of a suburban church wherein lies the gigantic coffin of gluttonous Henry Thrale.
Thrale was one of the richest brewers in England and Johnson spent the better part of his last years as the house guest of Henry and his wife Hester, both in their brewery in Southwark and their country estate in Streatham Park. Hester cared for the great lexicographer through his constant bouts of melancholia and gout, creating a bond of which Johnson's friend Boswell was to become insanely jealous, until she finally abandoned him for the charms of her daughter Queeney's Italian singing teacher.
Bainbridge took the story of their fascinating relationship for her novel According to Queeney. Director Udayan Prasad had come across the Johnson/Thrale story quite independently and as he began to develop the film he discovered that Bainbridge had been writing a book on the same subject. He met with her and decided to join forces to tell this extraordinary tale.
Jim Carter and Suzannah Harker read extracts from the actual letters that Johnson and Mrs Thrale wrote to each other, while Beth Goddard and Beryl Bainbridge read from According to Queeney.
THU 00:00 Britain by Bike (b00t4lqf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Tuesday]
THU 00:30 On Hannibal's Trail (b00t4kh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
THU 01:00 Britain Goes Camping (b00t5hcl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 02:00 BBC Proms (b00t4nn1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
FRIDAY 23 JULY 2010
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b00t4nxg)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b00t4p6h)
2010
Beethoven Night with the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven Night was a regular and popular feature of the Proms from its very first season in 1895. Charles Hazlewood presents as this tradition is recreated by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Jiri Belohlavek, who perform two Beethoven overtures and his First and Fourth Piano Concertos with soloist Paul Lewis. Digital viewers can choose to watch Maestro Cam, available via the red button.
FRI 21:20 Glastonbury (b00t5hhv)
2010
Muse
Highlights of one of the outstanding sets of the 2010 festival at Worthy Farm. Teignmouth's Muse took to the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night and delivered a classic rock and roll performance packed full of their biggest tunes and all the pomp and circumstance they never leave home without, plus an extra special guest in the shape of The Edge from U2.
FRI 22:20 Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements (b00g8tfv)
Documentary about progressive music and the generation of bands that were involved, from the international success stories of Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson and Jethro Tull to the trials and tribulations of lesser-known bands such as Caravan and Egg.
The film is structured in three parts, charting the birth, rise and decline of a movement famed for complex musical structures, weird time signatures, technical virtuosity and strange, and quintessentially English, literary influences.
It looks at the psychedelic pop scene that gave birth to progressive rock in the late 1960s, the golden age of progressive music in the early 1970s, complete with drum solos and gatefold record sleeves, and the over-ambition, commercialisation and eventual fall from grace of this rarefied musical experiment at the hands of punk in 1977.
Contributors include Robert Wyatt, Mike Oldfield, Pete Sinfield, Rick Wakeman, Phil Collins, Arthur Brown, Carl Palmer and Ian Anderson.
FRI 23:50 Prog at the BBC (b00g8tfx)
Compilation of some of the greatest names and British bands in what they still dare to call prog rock, filmed live in the BBC studios in the early 1970s. Expect to see stadium names like Yes, Genesis and Emerson, Lake and Palmer alongside much-loved bands of the era including Caravan, Family, Atomic Rooster and more.
FRI 00:50 Glastonbury (b00t5hhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:20 today]
FRI 01:50 BBC Proms (b00t4p6h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]