Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin is far from being a household name, yet he designed the iconic clock tower of Big Ben as well as much of the Palace of Westminster. The 19th-century Gothic revival that Pugin inspired, with its medieval influences and soaring church spires, established an image of Britain which still defines the nation. Richard Taylor charts Pugin's extraordinary life story and discovers how his work continues to influence Britain today.
We see the rise of the jukebox musical as Bjorn Ulvaeus and Judy Craymer tell the story of the creation of Mamma Mia! Ben Elton and Brian May reveal how We Will Rock You defied the critics to become a smash hit. And as pop culture invaded musical theatre with celebrities like Jason Donovan taking leading roles, the Jerry Springer Opera proved a step too far for the moral majority.
Billy Elliot took inspiration from the doyenne of British musical theatre, Joan Littlewood, as the hit movie was recreated for the stage, while Andrew Lloyd Webber embraced the medium of television to find new stars.
Les Miserables is the world's best-loved musical. It has been seen by 57 million people and in 2010 celebrated its 25th anniversary with its two largest ever productions at London's O2 Arena. Matt Lucas, a lifelong fan of 'Les Mis', was invited to fulfil his dream of performing in these shows alongside more than 300 stalwarts from previous productions.
This documentary tells the story of a musical that many thought would fail, but which became a worldwide phenomenon with unforgettable songs like I Dreamed A Dream. We follow Matt as he prepares for the performance of a lifetime, we hear from those involved with the show's creation, including Cameron Mackintosh and Michael Ball, and of course we enjoy wonderful moments from the show itself.
Musical comedy. A seaside dramatic company is visited by a Hollywood director on the day leading lady Rita Monroe cannot perform. She is replaced by her shy and imaginitive understudy, on whom the responsibility to perform well and save the show falls. A colourful tale of theatre hopefuls with big musical numbers and references to early Hollywood musicals.
In June 2011, Paul Simon ended his So Beautiful or So What tour of small clubs and theatres in the United States by playing Webster Hall, a historic 1,400-person club in New York.
The set list was drawn from his legendary career and includes several songs that have not been performed live in many years. Kodachrome, Mother and Child Reunion, Gone at Last and The Obvious Child are just some of the highlights, along with songs from Simon's latest album So Beautiful or So What including Dazzling Blue, Rewrite, The Afterlife and the album's propulsive title track.
Joining Simon on stage are Vincent Nguini (guitar), Jim Oblon (guitar, drums), Mick Rossi (piano), Andrew Snitzer (saxophone, keyboard), Bakithi Kumalo (bass), Mark Stewart (guitar), Jamey Hadad (percussion) and Tony Cedras (multi-instrumentalist).
Ken Russell's classic 1962 biography of the composer Edward Elgar, which includes reconstructed events in his life using actors and was made for the 100th edition of the pioneering documentary strand, Monitor.
MONDAY 23 JANUARY 2012
MON 19:00 World News Today (b01b4v8r)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Climbing Great Buildings (b00ty47v)
Clifton Suspension Bridge
Dr Jonathan Foyle, architectural historian and novice climber, scales Britain's most iconic structures to reveal the buildings' secrets and tell the story of how our architecture and construction have developed over 1,000 years.
The next step of Jonathan's journey takes him to the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. Begun in 1835 by the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel when he was only 24 years old, it is one of the greatest feats of Victorian engineering in the world.
With unprecedented access to the bridge, aided by champion climber Lucy Creamer, Jonathan scales all over to the bridge to investigate the innovations and techniques used to build this incredible structure inspired by £1000 from a wine importer.
Jonathan climbs over 300 feet to investigate the revolutionary design and perches atop the massive and revolutionary chains that make it all possible. He descends 35 feet to discover Brunel's massive secret chambers in the towers that remained undiscovered until 2002, and he hangs exposed 245 feet above the river Avon to reveal the Victorian engineering which prevents disaster by expanding and contracting, just as Brunel devised.
MON 20:00 A Century of Fatherhood (b00sv2ry)
The Good Father
Series which tells the story of the revolution in modern fatherhood in Britain during the last hundred years. Using intimate testimony, rare archive footage and the latest historical research it reveals the important, and often misunderstood, role played by fathers.
The opening part explodes the popular myth of the tyrannical Victorian-style father, whose children were seen and not heard. The majority of men did not harshly punish their children: they were good and devoted dads who took their job as provider and protector of their family seriously.
Those who tragically lost their lives in the First World War are still fondly remembered by sons and daughters today. Some dads even took part in the fathercraft movement that began in 1920 and which encouraged dads to change nappies and to form close relationships with their children from the beginning.
MON 21:00 Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings (b01b4v8t)
Libraries Gave Us Power
Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings, and explores the medieval world they reveal. In this episode, the story of the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the magnificent courts of the Tudors. She investigates astrological texts created for Henry VII, and unwraps his will - still in its original, extravagantly decorated velvet and gold cover. She hears music written for Henry VIII, which went unperformed for centuries, and reads love notes between the king and Anne Boleyn, written in the margins of a prayer book. Nina also visits Bruges, the source of many of the greatest manuscripts, where this medieval art form collided with the artistic innovations of the Renaissance.
MON 22:00 Storyville (b01b6837)
Survivors
Survivors: Lust for Life
Heather Leach was a cheeky flame-haired documentary director living life to the full - maybe too full! But at the age of 30 she was suddenly diagnosed with a thyroid disease and then cancer. As part of Storyville's Survivors season, Lust For Life follows her battle with ill-health, despair and depression and her emergence to find a new way to live a cheekier and more fulfilling life.
MON 23:00 John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire (b00t3tj6)
Power and Privilege
John Sergeant continues his 3,000-mile journey along India's rail tracks, travelling north to south to discover how the railways not only shaped its history but also its future.
Starting in New Delhi, John reveals how the railways' extraordinary construction story began with locomotives and track being shipped from British shipyards. He visits Gwalior to discover the extent of collusion between the privileged maharajahs and the British Empire, and at Victoria Terminus he reveals the politics and the power behind its grand design.
But it is at Bhore Ghat - just outside Mumbai - where John discovers the 19th-century British engineers' crowning construction achievement and the extraordinary human cost that made it all possible. He concludes that today it is India's railways that continue to change the lives of its one billion people in ways that would have delighted its colonial architects.
MON 00:00 Pugin: God's Own Architect (b01b1z45)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 Jonathan Meades on France (b019m5yy)
Fragments of an Arbitrary Encyclopaedia
Jonathan Meades travels through Lorraine and explains why, although close to its eastern border, it has become the symbolic, or even mystical, heart of France and a stronghold of a romantic nationalism that is also expressed by such diverse means as typography, music, engineering, exquisite urbanism and, above all, a sensitivity to Germany's proximity.
MON 02:00 Storyville (b01b6837)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
MON 03:00 Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings (b01b4v8t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 24 JANUARY 2012
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01b4wmp)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Climbing Great Buildings (b00ty4v1)
St Pancras
Dr Jonathan Foyle, architectural historian and novice climber, scales Britain's most iconic structures dating from the Normans to the present day, to reveal the buildings' secrets and tell the story of how our architecture and construction has developed over 1,000 years.
The next step Jonathan's journey takes him to King's Cross St Pancras, a masterpiece of Victorian design, widely regarded as London's most stunning and romantic station.
With unprecedented access to St Pancras, aided by champion climber Lucy Creamer, Jonathan scales all over the buildings to investigate the innovations and techniques used to construct both the train terminal and the elegant Midland Hotel. On the Midland Hotel, Jonathan climbs over 240 feet up the immense clock tower to explain how Britain had different time zones until the advent of stations like St Pancras. He discovers water-powered elevators, why penthouses used to be on the ground floor, and how the hotel was almost doomed to failure by only providing nine bathrooms for 400 bedrooms.
And in the station he scales the incredible glass span roof that crosses the main terminal - the largest of its kind in the world - to reveal the brilliance of its construction, how St Pancras was built on beer and why it took a poet to save one of London's greatest landmarks from being torn down.
TUE 20:00 Botany: A Blooming History (b011s3dg)
A Confusion of Names
What makes plants grow is a simple enough question. The answer turns out to be one of the most complicated and fascinating stories in science and took over 300 years to unravel.
Timothy Walker, director of Oxford University Botanic Garden, reveals how the breakthroughs of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, Chelsea gardener Phillip Miller and English naturalist John Ray created the science of botany. Between them, these quirky, temperamental characters unlocked the mysteries of the plant kingdom, and they began to glimpse a world where bigger, better and stronger plants could be created. Nurseryman Thomas Fairchild created the world's first artificial hybrid flower - an entirely new plant that didn't exist in nature.
Today, botanists continue the search for new flowers, better crops and improved medicines to treat life-threatening diseases.
TUE 21:00 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01b4wmr)
The Great Dying
It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct, and there have been times when life's hold on earth has been so precarious it has seemed to hang on by a thread.
This series focuses on the survivors, the old-timers whose biographies stretch back millions of years, and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of their neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not forever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies?
In the opening episode, Professor Fortey focuses on 'the great dying' - a series of cataclysms over a million-year period 250 million years ago.
TUE 22:00 The World Against Apartheid: Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (b01b9hbg)
The Road to Resistance
Ten years in the making, this series explores how a violent and racist government was destroyed by the concerted efforts of men and women working on multiple fronts inside and outside South Africa for more than three decades. Featuring archive of the struggle never seen before on television and interviews with the major players, it is one of the most fascinating stories of the last century.
In this opening episode, Oliver Tambo leads citizens of the world in their condemnation of South Africa's cruel and racist new regime. The world reacts with horror when protesters are gunned down in the town of Sharpeville and the entire ANC leadership is forced underground or imprisoned. Nelson Mandela is jailed for life and ANC deputy president Oliver Tambo escapes into exile, embarking on what will become a 30-year journey to engage the world in the struggle to bring democracy to South Africa. With resistance inside South Africa effectively crushed by the brutal apartheid regime, the fate of the liberation struggle is in Tambo's hands.
TUE 23:00 Omnibus (b01b66rs)
Song of Summer: Frederick Delius
Based on Eric Fenby's 1936 memoir Delius As I Knew Him, this film traces the last years of Frederick Delius and Fenby's dedication in giving up five years of his life to helping the blind, paralysed composer set down the unfinished scores he could hear in his head. Perhaps the finest of the series of biographical films that Ken Russell made for the BBC in the 1960s, Song of Summer is an immensely moving story of sacrifice, idealism and musical genius.
TUE 00:15 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01b4wmr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 01:15 Botany: A Blooming History (b011s3dg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUE 02:15 The World Against Apartheid: Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (b01b9hbg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
TUE 03:15 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01b4wmr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 25 JANUARY 2012
WED 19:00 World News Today (b01b4wtp)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Climbing Great Buildings (b00ty4wj)
Glasgow School of Art
Dr Jonathan Foyle, architectural historian and novice climber, scales Britain's most iconic structures to reveal their secrets and tell the story of how our architecture and construction have developed over the last 1,000 years.
The next step of Jonathan's journey takes him to the Glasgow School of Art, built from 1897 by artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The school is considered to be one of Britain's most controversial, challenging and celebrated buildings.
With unprecedented access, Jonathan, aided by top climber Lucy Creamer, scales the school to reveal the myriad of influences, from medieval castles to Japanese heraldry, that Mackintosh used to create his modernist masterpiece. On his architectural treasure hunt, Jonathan scales over 90 feet to reveal how the building is modelled on a baronial castle, and how Mackintosh pokes fun at traditional architecture. He also investigates how nature and the Industrial Revolution combine when he explores one of the greatest rooms in Europe - the Mackintosh Library.
WED 20:00 John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire (b00t3tj6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Monday]
WED 21:00 Jonathan Meades on France (b01b8zkw)
A Biased Anthology of Parisian Peripheries
France granted independence to its colonies in the 1960s. That, anyway, is the official line. In fact, through such agencies as Francophonie which notionally promotes the French language and the secretive Francafrique which wields influence throughout much of Africa, the French state is in reality still a colonial power.
Jonathan inspects the Parisian palaces of tyrannical dynasties, the sites of political murders and the village where the Ayatollah Khomeini lived in exile.
WED 22:00 Outnumbered (b01537ms)
Series 4
Episode 4
There is a lot to discuss at Ben's parents' evening, including muggers, dangerous chemicals and re-enactments of the Great Plague. Mum still suspects that Jake is hiding something, and Karen decides which of the world's great religions to lead.
WED 22:30 Twenty Twelve (b0103pnd)
Series 1
Episode 4
Comedy series following the personal and professional challenges faced by those responsible for delivering the biggest show on earth, as the Olympic Deliverance team try to get through to the end of the day, the end of the week and the end of the year without all the wheels falling off at once.
Dave Wellbeck is an ex-athlete, double Olympic silver medallist and, in theory, a natural choice as brand ambassador for Raising the Bar, a scheme to get young people inspired by Olympic ideals. He is hard-working, conscientious and loyal, but the truth is that he has about as much charisma as a dimmer switch and his busy schedule of presentations in schools around the country is having the effect of switching young people off in their thousands. Ian and Siobhan have different views on how to deal with the problem.
Head of Sustainability Kay Hope is forced to stand her ground in the light of the discovery that there might not, after all, be enough wind to power the much-vaunted Olympic Park wind turbine.
WED 23:00 Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil (b019x4fm)
Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.
When at the BBC in the Sixties, Russell first established his name with brilliant documentaries on Elgar, Delius and Debussy. Not only did he bring alive their music with inspiring images, he also humanised them by using actors, something unthinkable in factual film-making at the time. His unfettered imagination soon led to feature films. Women In Love earned Glenda Jackson an Oscar and notoriety for a nude wrestling scene featuring Oliver Reed and Alan Bates. Although infamy dogged him with The Devils, he enjoyed considerable commercial success with The Boyfriend and his extravagant take on The Who's Tommy. Furiously creative to the end, Russell showed himself determined to pursue his original ideas, sometimes regardless of the personal cost.
WED 23:50 Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings (b01b4v8t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
WED 00:50 Borgen (b01b4v2f)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
WED 01:50 Borgen (b01b4v2h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Saturday]
WED 02:50 Outnumbered (b01537ms)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
WED 03:20 Twenty Twelve (b0103pnd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
WED 03:50 Jonathan Meades on France (b01b8zkw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2012
THU 19:00 World News Today (b01b4x1g)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b01b4x1j)
20/01/77
From January 1977, Noel Edmonds introduces Slade, Jesse Green, Leo Sayer, Gary Glitter, Silver Connection, Donna Summer, Thin Lizzy, the Drifters and Legs and Co.
THU 20:00 Airline: The Story of Pan Am (b017ctdh)
Documentary telling the story of how Pan American World Airways kickstarted the jet-age and shrank the globe. Real-life 'Pan Am girls' recall a high-life of luxury and glamour; rubbing shoulders with celebrity passengers, international romances and having to wear the now infamous girdle. Stars of the jet-age such as Robert Vaughn and Mary Quant remember the food, fashion and girls that made them regular Pan Am passengers.
Pan Am's success was largely due to its visionary founder Juan Trippe, who transformed a small mail carrier in to a global airline, pioneered flights for the masses and helped create the Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
Honor Blackman narrates the story of how Pan Am conquered the skies and left a legacy of affordable travel and a much smaller world.
THU 21:00 We'll Take Manhattan (b01b674s)
Winter 1962, and cockney photographer David Bailey and unknown model Jean Shrimpton are sent to New York for a prestigious Vogue photo shoot. This drama tells the story of a wild week, their love affair, terrible fights with their fashion editor - and how two young people with no such intention happened to change the world of fashion forever.
THU 22:30 David Bailey: Four Beats to the Bar and No Cheating (b01b4x1l)
From Vogue magazine fashion photographer to filmmaker, painter and sculptor, David Bailey is a cultural icon who has been at the cutting edge of contemporary art for 50 years. A working-class Londoner, he befriended the stars, married his muses and still captures the spirit and elegance of his times with his refreshingly simple approach and razor-sharp eye.
Approaching his 73rd year, Bailey is showing no sign of slowing up. In his London studio and his country home in Devon, he continues to create one of the most varied and pertinent collections of any modern artist.
Featuring interviews with art critic Martin Harrison, former wife Catherine Deneuve, current wife Catherine Dyer and close friend Jerry Hall, this is a portrait of a private man who bared the soul of the swinging sixties and seventies with his photographs and films. Grounded, honest, open and ferociously creative, Bailey makes art the way Count Basie played jazz - four beats to the bar and no cheating.
THU 23:25 Airline: The Story of Pan Am (b017ctdh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 00:25 Top of the Pops (b01b4x1j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:00 We'll Take Manhattan (b01b674s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THU 02:30 David Bailey: Four Beats to the Bar and No Cheating (b01b4x1l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:30 today]
THU 03:25 Airline: The Story of Pan Am (b017ctdh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
FRIDAY 27 JANUARY 2012
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01b4x2m)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Britten's Children (b0074rwp)
Benjamin Britten was one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, particularly in terms of the music that he wrote for and about children. In many ways Britten never stopped being a boy. Throughout his life Britten was close to children and had friendships with young boys. In this film Britten's world of childhood and the music it inspired are explored and some of the boys who were close to Britten talk for the first time about their relationships with him.
The late David Hemmings began his stage career as the boy Miles in Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw in 1954: in his last major interview, Hemmings discusses the time he spent with Britten. And the German schoolboy whom the 24-year-old composer fell in love with shortly before the Second World War talks about their relationship for the first time, after 65 years.
FRI 21:00 How the Brits Rocked America: Go West (b01b4x9g)
How the West Was Won
In the 1960s, arriving British groups were astounded by pizza, skyscrapers and real cowboys while America fell in love with a curious blend of swinging London and ye olde England.
FRI 22:00 The Beatles: The First US Visit (b00mq5bw)
The story of two remarkable weeks in 1964, when Beatlemania first ignited in America. From airport to hotel to TV studio, the pioneering Maysles brothers were at the Beatles' shoulders on their first US visit. The siblings filmed them off guard and off duty, in nightclubs, at photo shoots, press conferences, in limos and on trains. The footage includes a performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, when they played to 73 million television viewers, and their concert at the Washington Coliseum.
FRI 23:10 Vox Pop: How Dartford Powered the British Beat Boom (b017zwq8)
In the early 1960s British pop groups conquered the world. But as the Beatles, the Stones, the Shadows, the Dave Clark Five, the Yardbirds and many others took to the stage they had one thing in common - they shared the platform with Vox amplifiers. Some of the nation's top professional musicians including Queen's Brian May and Bruce Welch of the Shadows, along with the factory workers of the time, recount the story of how an unlikely small company in unglamorous Dartford hit the big time and defined the sound of the 60s in Britain. Presented by Iain Lee.
FRI 23:40 Electric Proms (b00850nd)
2007
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney performs a selection of old Beatles hits plus newer solo songs at the Roundhouse in London.
FRI 00:40 How the Brits Rocked America: Go West (b01b4x9g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 01:40 The Beatles: The First US Visit (b00mq5bw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 02:50 Electric Proms (b00850nd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:40 today]
FRI 03:50 Vox Pop: How Dartford Powered the British Beat Boom (b017zwq8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:10 today]