SATURDAY 21 MAY 2011
SAT 19:00 The Secret Life of Elephants (b00gtgd2)
Episode 1
First in a series of three programmes revealing the emotional and dramatic lives of elephants in Kenya's Samburu reserve.
As the day begins, there is great excitement in one elephant family when a new baby, named Breeze, is born. But her first few weeks look set to be the most dangerous of her life. Meanwhile, elephant experts Iain and Saba Douglas-Hamilton face the huge challenge of fitting a radio collar to a three-tonne female elephant with an entire herd looking out for her. Breeze faces her first big test, crossing a river, and the research team investigate when one of their best-known bull elephants is found dead in suspicious circumstances.
Back in the reserve, a young calf becomes injured and cannot keep up with his herd. His mother sticks with him, but will he survive without the support of a family? There is further tragedy when a matriarch dies. In unique footage, a herd of elephants visit her body, and appear to mourn her death.
SAT 20:00 Latin Music USA (b00qbzxs)
East Side Story
The first of a four-part series revealing the deep musical and social impact of Latin music in the USA.
The massive success of Santana's innovative Latin-blues at the Woodstock Festival leads back in time to the first Cuban immigrants arriving, with their Afro-Cuban music, into the States. Using feature film clips, rare archive and location filming, the programme examines how Afro-Cuban music has impacted - since early last century - on jazz, pop rhythms and dance styles.
From Cuban rumba to New York mambo, Latin music enthralled 1950s America, challenging racial attitudes and changing the stereotypes projected in movies like West Side Story. It influenced Hollywood, TV sitcoms and 60s rock 'n' roll, as the Beatles and many American R&B bands absorbed Latin rhythms into the wider worlds of rock music, fashion and culture.
Featuring Carlos Santana, Cachao, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie and the greatest names in Afro-Cuban music.
SAT 21:00 Wallander (b00rs406)
Series 2
The Revenge
Original Swedish TV adaptation of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander detective series.
Kurt Wallander has finally achieved his dream and bought a house by the sea, enjoying long summer evenings and strolls on the beach with his dog. But his peace and quiet is shattered when the town's power station blows up. As more acts of sabotage follow, Ystad is in chaos and Wallander fumbles in darkness as he tries to chase down the culprits.
In Swedish with English subtitles.
SAT 22:30 Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury (b01173hc)
The Kennet and Avon Canal
Seasoned stomper Julia Bradbury dons her walking boots once again to explore her own British backyard, travelling along the country's network of canals and their accompanying towpath trails. This sees her navigating Highland glens, rolling countryside and river valleys, as well as our industrial heartlands, following these magical waterways as they cut a sedate path through some of the country's finest scenery.
Julia starts this walk in the beautiful world heritage city of Bath, where the Kennet and Avon Canal provided a 19th-century 'canal superhighway' between the country's two most important ports, Bristol and London. But only forty years later the trade along the canal was usurped by rail travel, leaving the once great waterway neglected and derelict. Julia's 20-mile walk along what is arguably the most picturesque stretch of the canal tells the story of how the waterway was restored to its former glory after it was awarded the biggest ever lottery heritage grant. The walk ends at the spectacular Caen Hill flight of locks, listed as one of the seven wonders of British waterways.
SAT 23:00 Arena (b0074sgc)
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
Part 2
Martin Scorsese continues to explore the emotional, musical and intellectual journey of Bob Dylan's early career. The story turns dark. At 23, Dylan is already a newsworthy phenomenon and with that success comes expectations - from the old left to become a political activist, and from the media to articulate the concerns of America's youth. It's a role in which Dylan is completely uninterested. He is already on the move, finding a new musical vocabulary to capture the complexity of a seismic cultural shift. He injects a heightened sense of poetry into his writing and adds electricity to his music, electricity that now seems inevitable but at the time saw him labelled a sell-out and a traitor.
Scorsese delicately balances Dylan's internal world with signpost images from the external world. Dylan's music is the backdrop as the war in Vietnam escalates and the nightly news brings home images people would never have dreamed of seeing on their television sets. Scorsese takes the time to let viewers really see the music unfold in revelatory concert performances.
By 1966 Dylan's personal world has become one of constant touring and press conferences. By the end of the film it is plainly obvious that for Dylan there are some journeys from which there is No Direction Home.
SAT 00:30 Top of the Pops (b01173tc)
Dave Lee Travis introduces City Boy, Lee Garrett, Slik, Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, Paul Nicholas, the Wurzels, Gladys Knight and the Pips and Andrea True Connection.
SAT 01:10 Folk America (b00hd379)
Blowin' in the Wind
Three-part documentary series on American folk music, tracing its history from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s.
In the 1960s a new generation, spearheaded by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, took folk to the top of the charts and made it the voice of youthful protest. Whilst the northern folk revivalists helped bring civil rights to the south, the Newport Folk Festival brought the old music of the south to the college kids in the north. However, when Dylan turned up at Newport in 1965 with an electric guitar things would never be the same again.
With Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Robbie Robertson, Stephen Stills, Country Joe McDonald, Roger McGuinn, Odetta and Tom Paxton.
SAT 02:10 Latin Music USA (b00qbzxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SAT 03:10 The Secret Life of Elephants (b00gtgd2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUNDAY 22 MAY 2011
SUN 19:00 A History of Christianity (b00p5wrk)
Protestantism - The Evangelical Explosion
Diarmaid MacCulloch traces the growth of an exuberant expression of faith that has spread across the globe - Evangelical Protestantism. Today, it is associated with conservative politics, but the whole story is distinctly more unexpected. It is easily forgotten that the evangelical explosion has been driven by a concern for social justice and the claim that one could stand in a direct emotional relationship with God. It allowed the Protestant faith to burst its boundaries from its homeland in Europe. In America, its preachers marketed Christianity with all the flair and swashbuckling enterprise of American commerce. In Africa, it converted much of the continent by adapting to local traditions, and now it is expanding into Asia. But is Korean Pentecostalism and its message of prosperity in the here and now an adaptation too far?
SUN 20:00 The Secret Life of the National Grid (b00vtydr)
Pulling the Plug
Miners, nuclear scientists, politicians, environmentalists and even the City have all wrestled for control of the national electricity grid and the power that it has brought.
The final film in this history of the grid charts how it has been the battleground for conflicts that have changed and shaped Britain. Key players from the miners' strikes reveal why the industrial action of the 70s and 80s had such different impacts on electricity supply. The film also uncovers how Britain lost her lead in the field of nuclear power.
Contributors include former conservative cabinet minister Lord Jenkin, author Will Self and veterans of all the different fuels. They examine the cost of our love affair with power and consider the perils of life without it.
SUN 21:00 Enid (b00nxkm8)
Illuminating and surprising drama telling the story of arguably the most popular children's storyteller of all, Enid Blyton.
It reveals how Blyton became the writer who would capture more youthful imaginations than anyone else, following her career from ambitious, driven and as yet unpublished young woman to household name and moral guardian, while glimpsing her own childhood - a dark time, far from the carefree, happy idyll portrayed in her books.
Through marriages and children, the roles of Enid the wife (to Hugh and then Kenneth) and mother are portrayed, ones she struggled to fulfil while balancing them with her extraordinary output.
The film also uncovers a strong and resourceful woman; a woman who never really grew up; a woman who rewrote the endings of many chapters of her real life, sometimes with cruel and hurtful results; and a woman whose legacy has often been criticised but whose success cannot be argued with, who gave children the stories they wanted.
SUN 22:25 Bookmark (b0074mgt)
Enid Blyton
An imaginative study of the life of Enid Blyton, combining drama, animation and documentary.
SUN 23:05 Tangled Up with Dylan: The Ballad of AJ Weberman (b01174k6)
Documentary chronicling the life, times and crimes of notorious Bob Dylan obsessive and garbology inventor AJ Weberman. It's an irreverent and witty exploration into one man's obsessions, a bohemian life lived on the New York fringes and a uniquely twisted take on the American dream.
Bob Dylan once said 'I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now'. Author of the Dylan To English Dictionary, a Dylanologist and originator of garbology (the practice of rooting through rubbish in order to gain insight into prominent people's lives), Weberman has made it his life's work to understand Dylan.
At times both hilarious and disturbing, the film is not only a great companion piece to Scorsese's No Direction Home but an interesting observation on our unbalanced desires to know more about celebrities and how far we are willing to go to get that information or even become a part of their lives.
Weberman does not see himself as a stalker and insists that Dylan should be grateful that he is around: 'how was I to know I would have been to Dylan what Verlaine was to Rimbaud'. It's hard to see this as a tale of poet and critic, but rather a look at the bizarre relationship between the obsessed and the object of his obsession and how it can completely take over a man's life.
Beginning in the 1960s when Dylan was at the height of his early fame and regarded as something close to a prophet or a seer by the American counter-culture, Weberman has sought to try and climb inside Dylan's head by going through his rubbish. Back then he pursued his obsession relentlessly.
An amusing telephone conversation between Weberman and Dylan, recorded in the 1970s, punctuates the film in the form of animations, creating connections between Weberman's past and present.
The film also features an unforgettable cast of supporting characters close to Weberman, including New York street singer David Peel, former child dancer Jay Byrd and Aaron Kay aka 'The Pieman', and enjoys a vivid Americana soundtrack performed by cast members, adding an extra veneer of strangeness to Weberman and his universe.
SUN 00:25 Songwriters' Circle (b00z2rc1)
Fran Healy, Ron Sexsmith and Graham Gouldman
Continuing the unique series of shows celebrating classic songwriters and their songs held at West London's Bush Hall.
This show features three very different songwriters playing and talking about their songs that have been loved by many generations of music fans.
Fran Healy is best known as frontman of the best-selling British band Travis. He runs through many of their classics such as Driftwood and Writing to Reach You, along with a track from his recent solo album.
Canada's Ron Sexsmith, who is regarded by many as the songwriters' songwriter, reminds us of some of the songs he has written that other people have gone onto record, such as Whatever It Takes, which Michael Buble covered on his best-selling album, and Secret Heart, which has been covered by the likes of Rod Stewart, Feist and Nick Lowe.
Salford's Graham Gouldman, long time member of British band 10cc runs through songs he has co-written for them plus others for the likes of The Yardbirds and The Hollies.
SUN 01:35 Enid (b00nxkm8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
SUN 02:55 A History of Christianity (b00p5wrk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
MONDAY 23 MAY 2011
MON 19:00 World News Today (b011g6dt)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 A303: Highway to the Sun (b0116ly6)
The A303 is the road that passes Stonehenge on the way to the beaches of Devon and Cornwall. On the way, it whisks drivers through 5,000 years of remarkable moments in British history. And it is the star of this film made for armchair travellers and history lovers.
Writer Tom Fort drives its 92-mile length in a lovingly restored Morris Traveller. Along the way he has many adventures - he digs up the 1960s master plan for the A303's dreams of superhighway status, meets up with a Neolithic traveller who knew the road like the back of his hand, gets to know a section of the Roman 303, uncovers a medieval murder mystery and discovers what lies at the end of the Highway to the Sun.
MON 20:30 Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury (b011g6dw)
The Llangollen Canal
Seasoned stomper Julia Bradbury dons her walking boots once again to explore her own British backyard, travelling along the country's network of canals and their accompanying towpath trails. This sees her navigating Highland glens, rolling countryside and river valleys, as well as our industrial heartlands, following these magical waterways as they cut a sedate path through some of the country's finest scenery.
Julia's final walk takes her to north Wales, where 200 years ago the great engineer Thomas Telford had to overcome seemingly impossible challenges in order to access the valuable slate industries of Snowdonia. In doing so, he created a masterpiece of 19th-century engineering - an aqueduct 126 feet high and spanning 1,000 feet across the Vale of Llangollen. To find out why it has become a world heritage site, Julia follows the cut of the Llangollen Canal, starting at the picturesque Horseshoe Falls. Her six-mile walk takes her along the winding Dee Valley, ending on the aqueduct that Telford described as 'a stream through the skies'.
MON 21:00 Story of Light Entertainment (b0074tnd)
Pop and Easy Listening
Music had always been at the heart of variety, encompassing everything from operetta and balladeers to big bands and crooners, but in the 1950s rock 'n' roll and pop arrived on the scene, the concept of the teenager was born and things became more divided. Television didn't really know how to cope with pop - so the viewer in the 60s was fed a diet of Val Doonican and Engelbert Humperdinck, and Top of the Pops was predicted to be a flash in the pan.
During the 70s bona fide pop stars such as Cilla and Cliff hosted their own Saturday night shows until punk reared its head and split the scene once again. The 80s and 90s saw pop in the clutches of the young and cool, and families didn't gather round to watch shows like The Tube and The White Room, but a new century saw the situation change yet again.
Now, after years in the wilderness, pop has made a triumphant return to Saturday night TV screens. Popstars, Pop Idol and X Factor are light entertainment's success stories. This is the story of pop music's journey back to the heart of light entertainment.
Including interviews with Cliff Richard, Cilla Black, Nana Mouskouri, Englebert Humperdinck, Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman, Nigel Lythgoe, Marty Wilde and The Vernons Girls.
MON 22:30 The Night Shift (b011ks73)
Episode 9
Comedy series about three men working at Reykjavik petrol station. To the dismay of Daniel and Olafur, Georg takes on a new employee who looks like a younger version of himself.
MON 23:00 The Night Shift (b011ks75)
Episode 10
Despite warnings from his colleagues, Olafur continues to go along with what is clearly a money scam. Meanwhile, Georg has taken time off to attend a May Day demonstration, leaving Olafur in charge.
MON 23:25 Rubicon (b01173tf)
The Truth Will Out
The FBI puts the API in lockdown and prepares to polygraph test all its employees. Several of the team have reasons to fear exposure, but Will takes the opportunity to search Spangler's office. Katherine realises she is not safe in her own home.
MON 00:10 Julia Bradbury's Icelandic Walk (b0110grr)
Julia Bradbury heads for Iceland to embark on the toughest walk of her life. Her challenge is to walk the 60 kilometres of Iceland's most famous hiking route, a trail that just happens to end at the unpronounceable volcano that brought air traffic across Europe to a standstill in 2010. With the help of Icelandic mountain guide Hanna, Julia faces daunting mountain climbs, red hot lava fields, freezing river crossings, deadly clouds of sulphuric gas, swirling ash deserts and sinister Nordic ghost stories as she attempts to reach the huge volcanic crater at the centre of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier.
MON 01:10 A303: Highway to the Sun (b0116ly6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 02:10 Story of Light Entertainment (b0074tnd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
MON 03:40 Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury (b011g6dw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
TUESDAY 24 MAY 2011
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b011g7f7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Britain by Bike (b00t9r0n)
The Isle of Wight
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 Dawes Super Galaxy bicycle, Clare goes in search of the world he described with such affection.
Her journey to the Isle of Wight explores its unique sense of otherness - a strange power which could cure Dickens's writer's block, repel the deadly attentions of the Luftwaffe and give Victorian poet laureate Tennyson a comforting sense of his own death.
TUE 20:00 The Mountain That Had to Be Painted (b01173rm)
Documentary about the painters Augustus John and James Dickson Innes who, in 1911, left London for the wild Arenig Valley in north Wales. Over three years, they created a body of work to rival the visionary landscapes of Matisse.
TUE 21:00 imagine... (b00p36t8)
Winter 2009
Dame Shirley Bassey - The Girl from Tiger Bay
Alan Yentob gains an insight into the creative world of Dame Shirley Bassey in a programme first shown in 2009. After a triumphant Glastonbury appearance and a major illness at the age of 72, Dame Shirley tentatively re-enters the ring to confront her life in song.
Some of the best contemporary songwriters, including Gary Barlow, the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, Rufus Wainwright, Richard Hawley and KT Tunstall, along with James Bond composer John Barry and lyricist Don Black, have interpreted her life through song for an album produced by David Arnold.
The songs frame and explore the myth of Shirley Bassey, the girl from Tiger Bay, and the voice and the desire are not found wanting. A backstory profiling Shirley, complete with archive of her greatest performances, tells the story of what makes her the living legend that she is today.
TUE 22:00 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 23:00 Legends (b0074s0m)
James Last: Non Stop Dancing
James Last is one of the most successful bandleaders and arrangers in the history of popular music. In a career lasting more than 50 years, he has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.
This documentary goes behind the James Last phenomenon to ask why his music is loved by the public but often loathed by the critics. The music is often described as easy listening or happy music, but what is the James Last sound? Is it just a string of revamped Beatles hits, non-stop Abba medleys, updated classics and polka parties, or is his achievement in popular music being under-estimated and dismissed unfairly by the musical elite?
Influenced by jazz, swing, the Beatles and rock and roll in 1960's Hamburg, Last would soon become one of the most famous bandleaders of all time. This programme explores the music, the musicians and the life of the man who invented the non-stop party and re-invented the classics.
TUE 00:00 Night Music: Roger Whittaker (b011g7g4)
Roger Whittaker stars in a light entertainment special from 1982, with guest singer Dana.
TUE 00:35 imagine... (b00p36t8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 01:35 Electric Proms (b00nn7vx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
TUE 02:35 Britain by Bike (b00t9r0n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 03:05 The Mountain That Had to Be Painted (b01173rm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 25 MAY 2011
WED 19:00 World News Today (b011g7g0)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Justice (b00zj0v9)
The Good Life
In the final episode of Harvard professor Michael Sandel's famous series of lectures on the philosophy of justice, he raises two questions. Is it necessary to reason about the good life in order to decide what rights people have and what is just? And if so, how is it possible to argue about the nature of the good life?
Students explore these questions with a discussion about the relation of law and morality, as played out in public controversies over same-sex marriage and abortion.
Sandel concludes the series by making the point that, in many cases, the law can't be neutral on hard moral questions. Engaging rather than avoiding the moral convictions of our fellow citizens may be the best way of seeking a just society.
WED 20:00 The Highest Court in the Land: Justice Makers (b00xz0s5)
They are the UK's most powerful arbiters of justice and now, for the first time, four of the Justices of the Supreme Court talk frankly and openly about the nature of justice and how they make their decisions. The film offers a revealing glimpse of the human characters behind the judgments and explores why the Supreme Court and its members are fundamental to our democracy.
The 11 men and one woman who make up the UK Supreme Court have the last say on the most controversial and difficult cases in the land. What they decide binds every citizen. But are their rulings always fair, do their feelings ever get in the way of their judgments and are they always right?
In the first 14 months of the court they have ruled on MPs' expenses, which led to David Chaytor's prosecution, changed the status of pre-nuptial agreements and battled with the government over control orders and the Human Rights Act.
They explain what happens when they cannot agree and there is a divided judgment, and how they avoid letting their personal feelings effect their interpretation of the law. And they face up to the difficult issue of diversity; there is only one woman on the court, and she is the only Justice who went to a non-fee-paying school.
WED 21:00 Heath vs Wilson: The 10-Year Duel (b011g7g2)
Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are two very different men equally overlooked by history, but they were the political titans of the era in which Britain changed for ever. For ten years they faced each other in the House of Commons, and swapped in and out of Number Ten. They fought four general elections, three of which were amongst the most exciting of the century.
They were deliciously different and scorned one another, yet they were cast from the same mould. Both promised a revolution of meritocracy and dynamism in the British economy and society. Both utterly failed, but together they presided over a decade that redefined the nation: Britain ceased to be a world power and entered Europe; the postwar consensus in which they both believed was destroyed; Thatcherism and New Labour were born. The country they left behind was unrecognisable from the one they had inherited - and the one they had promised.
This documentary tells the story of their highly personal and political duel in the words of those who watched it blow by blow - their colleagues in the cabinet and government, and the journalists at the ringside. Set against a scintillating backdrop of the music and style of the 1960s and 70s (which was of no interest to either man) it brings the era, and its forgotten figureheads, vividly to life.
WED 22:30 Legends (b00tr86l)
Herb Alpert, Tijuana Brass and Other Delights
This is the story of deals on the beach, accidental pop stars, friendship, comebacks, multimillion dollar deals and new discoveries - the story of musician, producer, record industry mogul and artist, Herb Alpert.
Herb is probably best known as the trumpet player who created the Tijuana Brass and sold America, and the world, the sound of Mexico. Or the crooner that made the ladies swoon when he sang This Guy's in Love With You. From his first job working with soul legend Sam Cooke to creating A&M Records, Alpert's life reads like a wonderful story of dreams come true. This profile follows him today and platforms his music and artwork as he exhibits his sculptures for Hollywood's art elite. Contributors include Lou Adler, Quincy Jones, Richard Carpenter, Sting, Jam & Lewis and Stephen Fry.
WED 23:30 Wallander (b00rs406)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
WED 01:00 The Highest Court in the Land: Justice Makers (b00xz0s5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 02:00 Justice (b00zj0v9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:30 Heath vs Wilson: The 10-Year Duel (b011g7g2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 26 MAY 2011
THU 19:00 World News Today (b011g8pd)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b011g8pg)
From the year that sculpted pop, David Hamilton introduces performances from Showaddywaddy, Marmalade, Tina Charles, Robin Sarstedt, Mud, Cliff Richard, the Four Seasons, Sutherland Brothers and Quiver, the Rolling Stones and Peter Frampton.
THU 20:00 Herb Alpert and His Tijuana Brass (b00qsyx3)
Latin big band Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass play Something Special. Includes The Lonely Bull, What Now My Love, Up Cherry Street and Spanish Flea.
THU 20:25 The Carpenters at the BBC (b00cgxtq)
The Carpenters' debut BBC concert, recorded on their first British tour in September 1971. They perform hits including Close to You, Superstar and We've Only Just Begun, together with the odd Beatles' tune and a Bacharach/David medley. Karen's drumming and Richard's keyboards get instrumental support from their five-piece touring band and a 26-piece orchestra conducted by Johnny Pearson.
THU 21:00 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.
THU 22:00 Rubicon (b011g8pl)
Caught in the Suck
Miles and Tanya are taken on a secret mission with the CIA to help with a suspect's interrogation. When Will becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to find answers, Kale suggests he follows up Ed's research.
THU 22:45 Richard Clayderman in Concert (b011g7f9)
Richard Clayderman in concert with the New London Orchestra in 1983.
THU 23:45 Top of the Pops (b011g8pg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 00:25 The Carpenters at the BBC (b00cgxtq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:25 today]
THU 01:00 Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story (b007cllb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 02:05 This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting (b01173pk)
400 years of art history in 90 minutes? This film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, including artists, critics and academics, out into the countryside to take a look at how we have depicted our landscape in art, discovering how the genre carried British painting to its highest eminence and won a place in the nation's heart.
From Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad, the paintings reveal as much about the nation's past as they do the patrons and artists who created them. Famous names sit alongside lesser-known works, covering everything from the refined sensibilities of 18th-century Classicism to the abstract forms of the war-torn 20th century with a bit of love, loss, rivalry and rioting thrown in.
Contributions come from a cast as diverse as the works themselves, including filmmaker Nic Roeg, historian Dan Snow and novelist Will Self, who offer a refreshingly wide range of perspectives on a genre of art which we have made very much our own.
THU 03:35 Richard Clayderman in Concert (b011g7f9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:45 today]
FRIDAY 27 MAY 2011
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b011g93z)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 The Prince and the Composer: A Film about Hubert Parry by HRH The Prince of Wales (b011g941)
Sir Hubert Parry is simultaneously one of Britain's best-known and least-known composers. Jerusalem is almost a national song, regularly performed at rugby grounds, schools, Women's Institute meetings and the Last Night of the Proms, while Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is one of Britain's best-loved hymns. Everyone knows the tunes, yet hardly anyone knows much about the man who wrote them.
In this film, HRH The Prince of Wales, a longstanding enthusiast of Parry's work, sets out to discover more about the complex character behind it, with the help of members of Parry's family, scholars and performers. This feature-length documentary by the award-winning director John Bridcut offers fresh insight into the life and work of Hubert Parry through the unique perspective of HRH The Prince of Wales.
FRI 21:00 The Joy of Easy Listening (b011g614)
In-depth documentary investigation into the story of a popular music genre that is often said to be made to be heard but not listened to. The film looks at easy listening's architects and practitioners, its dangers and delights, and the mark it has left on modern life.
From its emergence in the 50s to its heyday in the 60s, through its survival in the 70s and 80s and its revival in the 90s and beyond, the film traces the hidden history of a music that has reflected society every bit as much as pop and rock - just in a more relaxed way.
Invented at the dawn of rock 'n' roll, easy listening has shadowed pop music and the emerging teenage market since the mid-50s. It is a genre that equally soundtracks our modern age, but perhaps for a rather more 'mature' generation and therefore with its own distinct purpose and aesthetic.
Contributors include Richard Carpenter, Herb Alpert, Richard Clayderman, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jimmy Webb, Mike Flowers, James Last and others.
FRI 22:30 Easy Listening Hits at the BBC (b011g943)
Compilation of easy listening tracks that offers the perfect soundtrack for your cocktail party. There's music to please every lounge lizard, with unique performances from the greatest easy listening artists of the 60s and 70s, including Burt Bacharach, Andy Williams, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, The Carpenters and many more.
FRI 23:30 Burt Bacharach... This Is Now (b011g945)
Dusty Springfield narrates a documentary profile of the songwriter who won an Oscar for the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid score, enjoyed stage success with Promises, Promises and whose classic songs continue to influence modern music. Featuring interviews with Dionne Warwick, Noel Gallager, Hal David, Herb Alpert, Elvis Costello, Cilla Black, Richard Carpenter, Carol Bayer Sager and Gillian Lynne.
FRI 00:20 Electric Proms (b072n18t)
2008 - Reversions
Burt Bacharach
Edith Bowman opens the Electric Proms 2008 in style, introducing legendary American songwriter Burt Bacharach at the Roundhouse in London's Camden Town. Accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, he is joined on stage by some of Britain's finest home-grown talent: Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum, who all ensure that this is an evening packed with classic, swooning tunes.
FRI 01:20 The Joy of Easy Listening (b011g614)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:50 Easy Listening Hits at the BBC (b011g943)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]