SATURDAY 03 MARCH 2012

SAT 19:00 Decisive Weapons (b0077gdw)
Series 1

The Longbow - Wood Against Steel

The longbow was the lethal weapon of the Middle Ages, a killing machine that could stop a fully-armoured knight dead in his tracks. Its simple form and devastating power made it the ideal weapon for the English when they invaded France in 1415 and, at Agincourt, faced a massive French army.

SAT 19:30 Decisive Weapons (b0077gm0)
Series 1

The Bayonet - Cold Steel

Series chronicling the impact of technology on war focuses on the bayonet, which remained an enduring symbol of British military grit for over 300 years - on home soil, across the Empire and in two world wars. Used by the English against the Scots at Culloden in 1746 with dramatic results, and as recently as the Falklands conflict in 1982, the bayonet has remained a mainstay in the British military arsenal. This bloodiest of weapons is still wielded as part of infantry training and serves as a reminder of the extent to which war boils down to hand-to-hand fighting.

SAT 20:00 Sicily Unpacked (b019hc62)
Episode 2

In the second part of this fascinating journey through Sicily, Andrew and Giorgio explore the legacy of Spain's 500-year occupation of the island and the influence this has had on art and culture.

It is Easter and Giorgio and Andrew get the chance to experience two of the island's most spectacular celebrations. On Good Friday in the city of Enna, hooded figures parade statues of the Madonna and Jesus. Then on Easter Sunday they go to Modica to see the Madonna Vasa Vasa procession, where a statue of the Madonna meets and kisses her son Jesus in front of a devoted crowd.

Andrew and Giorgio end Easter festivities with a traditional lunch courtesy of the Vannuccio family, who live in the countryside outside Modica. The sweet tooth of our presenters is indulged when they sample ice cream made exclusively with ingredients from Sicily. Further delights are served by the Bonajuto family, who for six generations have made exquisite chocolate inspired by techniques acquired from the Aztecs via their Spanish colonizers.

During the Spanish occupation, Caravaggio fled to Sicily from Rome. He is Andrew's favourite painter and together with Giorgio, he visits one of the great artist's masterpieces in Messina - a moving Nativity scene.

Giorgio and Andrew end this part of their journey in Marsala, where General Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived with his 1,000 soldiers to unify Italy in 1860.

SAT 21:00 Inspector Montalbano (b01d23pg)
The Mystery of the Terracotta Dog

A criminal turned state witness informs Montalbano of an arms stash in a cave just outside Vigata. Also uncovered in the cave is a secret chamber where the bodies of two lovers, killed sometime in the 1940s, were buried in a bizarre ritual. An intrigued Montalbano must challenge the Mafia and deal with the arms cache before he can investigate this second find.

In Italian with English subtitles.

SAT 22:45 Bee Gees: In Our Own Time (b08ktv7w)
Documentary following the fascinating, and at times turbulent, story of the Bee Gees, one of the most successful bands of all time. This is the story of three very close brothers, tied together by familial love and a natural aptitude and obsession for all things musical.

Born on the Isle of Man but raised in Manchester the Brothers Gibb, eldest brother Barry and twins Robin and Maurice were whisked to Australia by their parents at an impressionable age in search of a better life. Australia, for the Gibb family, was the start of a new adventure and a new career.

From childhood stardom to the first flashes of fame on the coat tails of 1960s Beatlemania, the Bee Gees enjoyed number one successes with hits like Massachusetts and I've Got To Get A Message to You.

The early 1970s saw a spell in the musical wilderness, but eventually led to the Bee Gees discovering a whole new musical direction and, more importantly, the discovery of Barry's unique falsetto voice. The phenomenon of Saturday Night Fever in 1977 brought the band worldwide success, and identified them as the band that defined disco.

A career as songwriters, and success with Barbra Streisand and number one hits like Islands in the Stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, meant a brief hiatus for the Bee Gees as a group. But, true to form, they returned with number one successes in the late 1980s with hits such as You Win Again.

The unexpected and sudden death of Maurice in 2003 meant the end of the Bee Gees as we know it, and the end of an era.

Bee Gees: In Our Own Time is the story of a consistently successful, talented and musically prolific band of brothers.

SAT 00:20 TOTP2 (b007v15w)
Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special

Get your dancing shoes on for a show of disco mania as Steve Wright and the TOTP2 team take you back to the dancefloor for some boogie fever. The Bee Gees are here in all their glory, along with Gloria Gaynor, Liquid Gold, Sylvester, The Village People, The Weather Girls and The Three Degrees.

There's classic dance fodder from Chic, George McCrae, Hi-Tension, Heatwave, The JALN Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Tina Charles, The Gibson Brothers and Edwin Starr, disco pop from Blondie, Yazz, Boney M and Linx, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Infernal bring the story up to date.

And then there's the Disco Duck. Sorry...

SAT 01:50 Top of the Pops (b01cqrvq)
24/02/77

Noel Edmonds presents Racing Cars, Barbara Dickson, Leo Sayer, the Real Thing, Heatwave, Bryan Ferry and ELO. Dance sequence by Legs and Co.

SAT 02:25 Sicily Unpacked (b019hc62)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SAT 03:25 Decisive Weapons (b0077gdw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SAT 03:55 Decisive Weapons (b0077gm0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

SUNDAY 04 MARCH 2012

SUN 19:00 Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey (b014hv2x)
Ohio-born actress, singer and TV star Doris Day is now 87 and about to release her first album in nearly two decades, My Heart. Day was one of the biggest box-office stars in American movie history, a huge TV star who began her careeer as a big band singer and is now best-known as an animal rights activist. In this 1992 documentary originally aired on PBS in the US and unavailable since, Doris appears in original interview footage to discuss her life and career. Hosted by actress and friend Betty White, the retrospective also includes footage from Doris's films along with comments from James Garner, Kirstie Alley, Doris's late son Terry Melcher, writer John Updike, singer Rosemary Clooney and others.

SUN 20:00 One Man and His Dog (b00x2r7r)
2010

Episode 2

The concluding part of the competition sees the final rounds of the Brace and the all important Singles round, only then will we know which of the National teams will be crowned One Man and His Dog Champions 2010.

SUN 21:00 The Golden Age of Canals (b01173hf)
Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.

Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.

Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, with help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatman Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.

There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beecheys in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.

There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.

All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.

SUN 22:00 RAPT (b016ltz7)
French thriller, based on a true story, about a wealthy industrialist who is brutally kidnapped. While he physically and mentally degenerates, the kidnappers, the police and the board of the company of which he is director negotiate a ransom of 50 million euros.

In French with English subtitles.

SUN 00:00 The Joy of Disco (b01cqt72)
Documentary about how a much-derided music actually changed the world. Between 1969 and 1979 disco soundtracked gay liberation, foregrounded female desire in the age of feminism and led to the birth of modern club culture as we know it today, before taking the world by storm. With contributions from Nile Rodgers, Robin Gibb, Kathy Sledge and Ian Schrager.

SUN 01:00 Disco at the BBC (b01cqt74)
A foot-stomping return to the BBC vaults of Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Later with Jools as the programme spins itself to a time when disco ruled the floor, the airwaves and our minds. The visual floorfillers include classics from luminaries such as Chic, Labelle and Rose Royce to glitter ball surprises by The Village People.

SUN 02:00 Bee Gees: In Our Own Time (b08ktv7w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:45 on Saturday]

MONDAY 05 MARCH 2012

MON 19:00 World News Today (b01d24df)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00q2q87)
Series 1

Carlisle to Glasgow

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, he travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

Michael's second epic journey takes him north, from Preston to Scotland, on one of the first railways to cross the border. On this fourth leg, he meets the wild clansmen of Carlisle, the Border Reivers, witnesses a wedding in Gretna Green and visits a secret World War I munitions factory.

MON 20:00 Ice Dogs (b01d24dh)
Episode 2

In the harshest winter in Siberian memory, Benedict Allen is in Siberia's remotest and most secretive province of Chukotka to learn from native hunters how to use a team of husky dogs to travel 1,500 kilometres into the Arctic and attempt to cross the Bering Strait into Alaska.

On the third leg, Benedict and his two native guides are hit by a massive storm and a wind chill of minus 60 in the frozen northern night. As they head north the weather becomes more extreme and the settlements even more bizarre. Benedict's dog team remains unconvinced by his leadership and a near fatal journey down an iced-up river fails to fill them with confidence.

Benedict and his team have struggled over 1,000 kilometres as they continue north through the Arctic winter towards the Bering Strait. One of his dogs has begun to listen to his commands, but with mountains ahead he needs his entire team's loyalty. If the dogs don't listen to him now they could all go over a cliff. At the most dangerous point Benedict discovers that one of his dogs has developed a potentially fatal neurosis and they are lucky to make it to the next settlement alive. Once there, the strain of the journey starts to show and his native guides begin to crack.

Originally broadcast in 2002.

MON 21:00 Dirk Gently (b01d24dk)
Series 1

Episode 1

Gently discovers the connection between two seemingly-unrelated cases - a client who believes the Pentagon are trying to kill him and another whose horoscopes appear to be coming true. When mysteries collide, Dirk is the only man for the job.

MON 22:00 Storyville (b01d24dm)
Knuckle: Bare Fist Fighting

Documentary which goes inside the secretive Traveller world - a world of long and bitter memories. Filmed over twelve years, the film chronicles a history of violent feuding between rival families, using remarkable access to document the bare-fist fights between the Quinn McDonaghs and the Joyce clans, who, though cousins, have clashed for generations. Vivid, violent and funny, the film explores the need for revenge and the pressure to fight for the honour of your family name.

MON 23:30 Ice Dogs (b01d24dh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

MON 00:25 Dirk Gently (b01d24dk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

MON 01:25 Storyville (b01d24dm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]

MON 02:55 Dirk Gently (b01d24dk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 06 MARCH 2012

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01d24hz)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

TUE 19:30 Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World (b00qfylw)
Series 1

High Tide

In the third programme in this epic four-part series on how the Navy has shaped modern Britain, Dan Snow sheds light on the evolution of Nelson's navy in the late 18th century. It was the most powerful maritime fighting force in the world, with highly trained crews and ambitious officers. He explores the national enterprise which supported it, and explains how the empire it helped create put Britain on the path to war with France.

Through the stories of naval heroes like Captain Cook, naval administrators like Charles Middleton and of course Admiral Nelson, Snow explores the elite training, the growing naval meritocracy and the years of tough experience which created a ruthless and professional 'band of brothers'. He looks at the impact of innovations such as the copper bottoming of the navy's ships and the introduction of a new tax - income tax - to pay for the fleet.

Pushing back the boundaries of the known world, the Navy's highly trained crews and ambitious officers laid claim to a burgeoning empire, but at a huge price. By 1800, Britain had been dragged into the greatest sequence of wars the nation had ever seen.

TUE 20:30 Timothy Spall: All at Sea (b01d24tt)
God's Own Coast

The Spalls are now in Yorkshire, and had been proudly steaming towards their final destination of London. But on the sea while travelling to Whitby, Tim is deeply troubled by strange engine noises. A failed engine at sea is incredibly dangerous so an engineer is called to Whitby to assess the problem. Tim is keen to see the town as this is where Bram Stoker based the opening of his novel, Dracula. Armed with his treasured antique walking cane, once owned by Stoker, Tim finds the hotel where Stoker stayed and looks for the part of the coastline featured in the novel.

Next is Scarborough, where Tim filmed The Damned United. It's high summer and Britain's first seaside resort is crammed with holidaymakers. Arriving at Spurn Head they are now completely alone - there's no harbour or marina here, no town or access to land. They are moored to a single buoy owned by the local lifeboat crew and are waiting patiently for the perfect sea conditions to take them out of the north of England and into the south. It's a big journey - as well as the North Sea they have to watch out for heavy sea traffic, the turbulence of the Wash and dangerous sandbanks.

In the dark of night arriving at the north Norfolk coast, a pilot boat guides them into the port of Wells-next-the-Sea. They soon discover it's a trip worth making as they explore this stunning coastline.

TUE 21:00 How to Build... (b00t3dc7)
Series 1

Britain's Secret Engineers

If you need to build a top-secret piece of equipment in the UK, there's one place many people choose to go: defence contractor QinetiQ.

We follow workers at this leading British company on a global journey, as they reveal a handful of their secretive projects. We meet the scientists and engineers building robots to defuse Afghanistan's deadly roadside bombs and learn how they're adapting them to help in dangerous civilian situations in the UK. We find out how British experts are using stealth technology to make wind turbines less visible to radar and, with unprecedented access, we follow the engineers racing to get Chinook helicopters ready for frontline service, including Afghanistan.

TUE 22:00 Storyville (b0074s91)
Murderball

Documentary exploring the sport of wheelchair rugby, unofficially known as murderball. Created by quadriplegic athletes and played with bone-breaking intensity, the game is as aggressive as the name suggests. It is an official event at the Paralympics and the film documents the fierce rivalry between the American and Canadian teams before and during the Athens games of 2004.

Filmmakers Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro document this fierce competition as well as the personal stories of the athletes who are passionate, driven and determined to win.

TUE 23:20 Catholics (b01cqrvv)
Children

'Show me the child of seven and I'll show you the man', goes the Jesuit proverb. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Richard Alwyn observes the truth of the saying in this film about children becoming Catholic.

Filmed throughout Lent and into summer 2011, it focuses on the children of St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School in Chipping, Lancashire. The tiny rural school has 33 pupils, six of whom are preparing to make their First Holy Communion.

Alwyn's lyrical, poignant film observes the essence of Catholicism being distilled into young children. Encouraged to celebrate the riches of the natural world and to remember those less fortunate than themselves, the children are also required to reflect on Christ's brutal death and resurrection. Occasionally, this graphic story of suffering might seem to threaten the children's infectious charm and innocence.

The local parish priest, Fr Anthony Grimshaw, now in his 70s, has a strong presence in the children's lives. To the younger ones he's the avuncular character who comes into school to read Winnie the Pooh. To the older ones, he is more 'on message', talking with them about faith and fielding questions about his belief in the existence of Satan in this world.

Around this observation of the Catholic life of the children and the school is the story of a handful of its pupils, aged seven and eight, preparing for their First Holy Communion. Here, the children are introduced to the bewildering mystery at the heart of the Catholic faith - when they believe bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

This beautiful film is full of the spirit of childhood and shows how being Catholic is a complex identity that can bring both agony and ecstasy.

TUE 00:25 Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World (b00qfylw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

TUE 01:25 Timothy Spall: All at Sea (b01d24tt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

TUE 01:55 How to Build... (b00t3dc7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUE 02:55 Catholics (b01cqrvv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:20 today]

TUE 03:55 Timothy Spall: All at Sea (b01d24tt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

WEDNESDAY 07 MARCH 2012

WED 19:00 World News Today (b01d26lq)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

WED 19:30 Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe (b00791vw)
The Romantic North

Francesco da Mosto gets romantic in Juliet's home town of Verona, witnesses the birth of western art, has a fashion makeover from Giorgio Armani, is invited into a closed convent to see the tomb of the most notorious woman in European history, and goes deep-sea diving in pursuit of a childhood dream.

WED 20:30 Venice 24/7 (b01d26ls)
Winter in Venice

With unprecedented access to Venice's emergency and public services this series goes behind the 15th-century facades to experience the real, living city. From daily emergencies to street sweeping, bridge maintenance to flood defence systems and a death-defying descent across St Mark's Square, this is Venice as you have never seen it before. This is Venice 24/7.

Venice is masked by sheets of snow. The emergency services negotiate choppy waters to deal with daily hazards as well as life-and-death emergencies. There is a sunken boat to save, an elderly lady with a suspected stroke and, in this city built on wood, the most dreaded call of all - fire. We see how Venice deals with thousands of tonnes of rubbish, turning it into power which is fed back into the city. Venice may be over 1,000 years old, but staying afloat requires 21st-century innovation.

WED 21:00 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01bgpm7)
Matilda and Eleanor

In the medieval and Tudor world there was no question in people's minds about the order of God's creation - men ruled and women didn't. A king was a warrior who literally fought to win power then battled to keep it. Yet despite everything that stood in their way, a handful of extraordinary women did attempt to rule medieval and Tudor England. In this series, historian Dr Helen Castor explores seven queens who challenged male power, the fierce reactions they provoked and whether the term 'she wolves' was deserved.

Eight hundred years ago, Matilda came within a hair's breadth of being the first woman to be crowned queen of England in her own right. Castor explores how Matilda reached this point and why her bid for the throne ultimately failed. Her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine was an equally formidable woman. Despite being remembered as the queen of courtly love, in reality during her long life she divorced one king and married another, only to lead a rebellion against him. She only finally achieved the power she craved in her seventies.

WED 22:00 Britain's Best Drives (b00j8cpm)
The Wye Valley and Forest of Dean

Actor Richard Wilson takes a journey into the past, following routes raved about in motoring guides of 50 years ago.

Using an Austin Cambridge to explore an area that claims to be the birthplace of British tourism, Richard learns about life before the Severn Bridge, finds out why thousands of tourists flocked to the Wye Valley in search of the 'picturesque' and discovers how ancient customs are still practised in the medieval Forest of Dean, with his trip culminating at a renowned viewpoint.

WED 22:30 Lowdown (b01d26lv)
Hart of Darkness

When a drug-addled singer poisons someone who has been stealing her act and then heads for rehab, Alex and Bob are sent undercover up the Yarra river to the clinic to get the scoop. Meanwhile, Bob is asking some serious questions about his own sexuality, which is beginning to make Alex uncomfortable.

WED 23:00 Story of Light Entertainment (b00792kf)
The Comics

In the 21st century comedy is firmly at the very heart of light entertainment and, far from struggling for their art, comedians stand to make a fortune if they hit the nation's funny bone. Laughter is now a very big business, but it wasn't always like this - back in the early days of music hall, the comic was the lowest of the low in the showbiz world.

This episode charts the comedian's meteoric rise to the top, examining the careers and lives of comedy legends past and present. From the music hall antics of Edwardian surrealist comic Little Titch to the modern-day surrealism of Little Britain, it presents a unique insight into the lives and minds of the finest comedians the UK has ever seen.

It traces the enormous influence the northern working men's clubs had on British comedy, examines the alternative comedy movement which fought against sexism and racism, and uncovers the private sadness and inner torment of many of the greatest laughter-makers from Frankie Howerd to Tony Hancock.

Stars appearing include Victoria Wood, Bruce Forsyth, Stanley Baxter, Jo Brand, Bernard Manning, Freddie Starr, Roy Chubby Brown and many more.

WED 00:30 Venice 24/7 (b01d26ls)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

WED 01:00 Inspector Montalbano (b01d23pg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Saturday]

WED 02:45 Britain's Best Drives (b00j8cpm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 today]

WED 03:15 Lowdown (b01d26lv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:30 today]

WED 03:45 She-Wolves: England's Early Queens (b01bgpm7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 08 MARCH 2012

THU 19:00 World News Today (b01d27l7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b08slbrh)
Citizen Astronomy

Amateur astronomers are scanning the night skies looking for asteroids, comets and supernovae, and making vital discoveries in our quest for knowledge. Meanwhile, space missions produce millions of images, but who is to say which ones are truly unusual and interesting? It's a job that computers struggle with, but one in which humans excel. This, more than ever, is the age of the amateur astronomer and Sir Patrick Moore tells us how we can all play a part whilst also enjoying the beautiful cosmos.

THU 20:30 James May at the Edge of Space (b00lc5ph)
James May always wanted to be an astronaut. Now, 40 years after the first Apollo landings, he gets a chance to fly to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane. But first he has to undergo three gruelling days of training with the US Air Force and learn to use a space suit to stay alive in air so thin it can kill in an instant. He discovers that during the flight there are only two people higher than him, and they are both real astronauts on the International Space Station.

THU 21:00 Catholics (b01d27lc)
Women

In the third of three films exploring Catholic identity, award-winning documentary filmmaker Richard Alwyn talks to Catholic women about how Catholicism has shaped their lives.

With remarkable behind-the-scenes access to Westminster Cathedral, this is a moving and intimate film in which Alwyn meets the female staff, volunteers and congregation of the cathedral. Set against the rhythm of cathedral life, Alwyn's meetings are brief but intense encounters that describe what it is to be a Catholic woman in Britain today.

Rose is second-in-charge of the cathedral's sacristy, preparing the altar for six daily masses and making sure the priests have all they need. It's like running a busy train station. A convert, Rose is the consummate 'handmaid of the Lord' for whom Catholicism is an anchor in life.

Jennie, on the other hand, is a cradle Catholic who feels her education by nuns was repressive, with an unspoken emphasis on sex - and especially abstaining from it. She feels her Catholic 'indoctrination' was a cross for her generation to bear. Despite that she staffs the cathedral's information desk once a week and feels her Catholicism is a valued part of her identity, having developed over the years into an appreciation of the spirit of faith more than the letter of the Church.

Elsewhere, Alwyn meets a retired doctor who feels alienated by the Catholic Church's teachings on Aids and contraception and its recent history of child abuse. No longer practising, she nonetheless feels her Catholic identity has provided her with an important moral compass for the chaos of life.

These and other encounters form the backbone of Alwyn's moving film. What emerges is a portrait of Catholicism as an identity that, whether positive or corrosive, is always tenacious and hard to leave behind. Once a Catholic...

THU 22:00 The Singing Detective (b0074qy8)
Who Done It

The young Philip Marlow returns to the country railway station following his mother's death in London. Forty years on, Marlow the hospital patient still dreams about the homecoming and the frightening figure of the scarecrow that now erupts into the ward.

THU 23:20 Dirk Gently (b01d24dk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]

THU 00:15 The Sky at Night (b08slbrh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THU 01:15 Horizon (b00qszch)
2009-2010

To Infinity and Beyond

By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.

Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity.

THU 02:20 How to Build... (b00t3dc7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]

THU 03:20 Catholics (b01d27lc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRIDAY 09 MARCH 2012

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01d28tg)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

FRI 19:30 Symphony (b0170bm6)
Beethoven and Beyond

Simon Russell Beale continues his journey into the world of the symphony with the story of the revolutionary later symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven and their phenomenal impact. We also meet Franz Schubert, whose two greatest symphonies were only discovered after his tragic early death, the obsessive French Romantic Hector Berlioz and the flamboyant pianist turned composer Franz Liszt. The music is performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Halle, conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

FRI 20:30 Transatlantic Sessions (b016c12b)
Series 5

Episode 4

The best of Nashville, Ireland and Scotland in a format that affords a unique insight into the sheer joy of making music. Recorded in an old hunting lodge at Glen Lyon near Aberfeldy in the Perthshire Highlands, top vocal and instrumental exponents of the country and Celtic traditions gather to rehearse and play together with no audience except themselves and a resident house band.

Music co-directors are Nashville's Jerry Douglas and Shetland's Aly Bain and artists include Sharon Shannon, Jim Murray, Mike McGoldrick, Danny Thompson, Donald Shaw, John McCusker, James Mackintosh, Iain Morrison, Eddi Reader, Donal Lunny, John Doyle, Sarah Jarosz, Russ Barenberg, Nollaig Casey, Alison Krauss, Sam Bush and Declan O'Rourke.

Leavening the intimacy of the music-making is a strong element of Highland scenic photography, while a greater emphasis on informal backstage conversations and stories serves to highlight the series' historic qualities of collaboration and performance.

FRI 21:00 Still Bill: The Bill Withers Story (b01d28tn)
You know the music - now meet the man. Still Bill is an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers, best known for his classics Ain't No Sunshine, Lean on Me, Lovely Day, Grandma's Hands and Just the Two of Us. With his soulful delivery and warm, heartfelt sincerity, Withers has written songs that resonate within the fabric of our times. Through concert footage, journeys to his birthplace and interviews with music legends, his family and closest friends, this documentary presents the story of an artist who has written some of the most beloved songs of our time and who truly understands the heart and soul of a man.

FRI 22:15 In Concert (b0074sny)
Bill Withers

Legendary soul singer-songwriter Bill Withers, at the height of his powers in a live concert for the BBC from 1974, performing hits such as Lean on Me, Ain't No Sunshine and Grandma's Hands.

FRI 22:45 Kings of 70s Romance (b007cjtw)
While teenage girls in the 1970s were screaming for Donny Osmond and David Cassidy, the more mature woman had fantasy figures of her own setting her heart a-flutter. Kings of 70s Romance tells the story of these - some might say unlikely - pin-ups. Whether it was Gilbert O'Sullivan or Barry White, Leo Sayer or David Soul - or for those with more exotic tastes, Demis Roussos - these were men whose lyrics conjured up images of candle-lit dinners, red roses, and cosy nights in with the man of your dreams. For millions of female fans their romantic music was the perfect soundtrack for dreams of escape from the day-to-day drudgery of life in 70s Britain. As well as our main contributors we feature comments form Gloria Hunniford and Martha Kearney.

FRI 23:45 Classic Soul at the BBC (b0074pvv)
A collection of some of the greatest soul performances from the BBC's archive, featuring Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Dusty Springfield, Isaac Hayes, Solomon Burke and Percy Sledge.

FRI 00:45 Still Bill: The Bill Withers Story (b01d28tn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRI 02:00 Classic Soul at the BBC (b0074pvv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:45 today]

FRI 03:00 Transatlantic Sessions (b016c12b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

FRI 03:30 Symphony (b0170bm6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]