SATURDAY 28 APRIL 2012
SAT 19:00 South Pacific (b00ks63z)
Endless Blue
A large part of the remote, blue wilderness of the South Pacific is a marine desert. Many animals that live in the ocean - among them sharks, whales and turtles - must go to extraordinary lengths to survive. Tiger sharks travel hundreds of miles to feast on fledging albatross chicks and, every year, sperm whales journey from one side of the South Pacific to the other in their search for food and mates. Theirs is a journey that can end in tragedy.
But the South Pacific is not all desert. New Zealand's super-rich coast supports huge pods of acrobatic dolphins; its coral reefs are some of the most diverse on earth; and there are few places richer in wildlife than the quirky Galapagos Islands, home to tropical penguins and surfing sea lions.
Using the greatest shipwreck story of all time - an event that inspired Moby Dick - the huge challenges of survival in this seemingly endless blue ocean are revealed.
SAT 20:00 Around the World in 60 Minutes (b00ymjkt)
A unique journey around the weird and wonderful planet that we call home.
When Yuri Gagarin was blasted into space he became the first human to get a proper look at where we live. 'The Earth is blue,' he exclaimed, 'how amazing!'. Suddenly our perspective on the world had changed forever. We thought we were going to explore the universe, yet the most extraordinary thing we discovered was our own home planet, the Earth.
So what would you see during just one orbit of the Earth? Starting 200 miles above the planet, this film whisks you around the planet to show what changes in the time it takes to circumnavigate the Earth just once. We hear from British-born astronaut Piers Sellers on what it's like to live and work in space, and also to gaze down and see how we are altering and reshaping our world.
We marvel at the incredible forces of nature that brings hundred-mile wide storms and reshapes continents, and also discover how we humans are draining seas and building cities in the middle of the desert. We also visit the wettest place on Earth, as well as the most volcanic.
Narrated by David Morrissey, this inspirational trip around the planet will make you view our home as you've never seen it before.
SAT 21:00 The Bridge (b01h221w)
Series 1
Episode 3
In Copenhagen, several homeless people have been poisoned. The perpetrator wants to draw attention to the problem of the increased number of people falling through the cracks of society. A homeless man is kidnapped and the only thing that can stop the murderer from killing him is a large sum of money from four landlords. So what is the price of a human being after all?
In Swedish and Danish with English subtitles.
SAT 22:00 The Bridge (b01h221y)
Series 1
Episode 4
The homeless man's survival becomes a race against time and depends completely on the four landlords' willingness to pay what the murderer demands. Saga and Martin have understood that they are dealing with someone who has really thought through his crimes, planning them down to the smallest detail. They wonder if they can catch the murderer off balance by doing something he doesn't expect.
In Swedish and Danish with English subtitles.
SAT 23:00 Parkinson: The Interviews (b01h22vh)
Series 1
Richard Burton
Michael Parkinson looks back at his unique interview with talented and troubled film star Richard Burton. Back in 1974, Burton was battling against alcoholism and had spent six weeks in hospital for treatment prior to the interview. Parkinson persuaded him to talk candidly about his career, love life and drink problems.
SAT 23:35 Top of the Pops (b01glqzy)
14/04/77
Jimmy Savile looks at the weekly pop chart from 1977 and introduces the Brothers, Cleo Laine & John Williams, Billy Ocean, Brendon, the Stylistics, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr, David Soul, Abba and a Legs & Co dance sequence.
SAT 00:10 The Kidnap Diaries (b01glr00)
Dramatised account of film-maker Sean Langan's kidnapping in 2008 while on a quest to become the first western journalist to film the Taliban training camps. In a bizarre meeting of East and West, the self-confessed adrenaline junkie strikes up an unlikely friendship with the deeply Islamic family holding him captive. As his captors become his hosts, he begins to question his own motives and discovers a common humanity across the vast cultural divide.
SAT 01:10 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b01gxkgw)
Sean Langan
In this in-depth interview Mark Lawson meets the award-winning journalist and filmmaker Sean Langan, whose kidnap by the Taliban in 2008 inspired BBC Four's hostage drama The Kidnap Diaries. Langan's professional life began as a TV entertainment presenter, but his investigative nose led him to document some of the most volatile and war-torn regions in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Armed with a camera and irrepressible courage, he has produced a series of enlightening documentaries including Afghan Ladies Driving School, African Railway, Langan Behind the Lines, Mission Accomplished and Fighting the Taliban.
SAT 02:10 Around the World in 60 Minutes (b00ymjkt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SAT 03:10 South Pacific (b00ks63z)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUNDAY 29 APRIL 2012
SUN 19:00 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (b00x1v7l)
2010
Why Elephants Can't Dance
How can a hamster survive falling from the top of a skyscraper, ants carry over 100 times their own body weight and geckos climb across the ceiling?
In the first of this year's Christmas lectures, Dr Mark Miodownik investigates why size matters in animal behaviour. He reveals how the science of materials - the stuff from which everything is made - can explain some of the most extraordinary and surprising feats in the animal kingdom.
By the end, you will understand why you will never see an elephant dance.
SUN 20:00 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjq6h)
Spark
Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.
Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments - a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution.
Episode one tells the story of the very first 'natural philosophers' who started to unlock the mysteries of electricity. They studied its curious link to life, built strange and powerful instruments to create it and even tamed lightning itself. It was these men who truly laid the foundations of the modern world. Electricity was without doubt a fantastical wonder. This is the story about what happened when the first real concerted effort was made to understand electricity - how we learned to create and store it, before finally creating something that enabled us to make it at will - the battery.
SUN 21:00 Tim (b0078szx)
A handsome young labourer with learning difficulties and a businesswoman 20 years his senior find themselves drawn to each other. The couple must face many hurdles through the course of their developing relationship as she tries to repress her desire for him, teach him to read and win the trust of his parents.
SUN 22:45 Mark Lawson Talks To... (b01h23h3)
Zoe Wanamaker
Mark Lawson talks to Zoe Wanamaker about inheriting a showbusiness name and making it even more celebrated in her own right. In this warm and funny interview, Wanamaker reveals insecurities about her looks and talents and also how her charismatic father, the American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, was a hard act to follow. An ex-patriot in Britain, he campaigned tirelessly and fundraised for decades to rebuild a recreation of Shakespeare's Globe in London. Zoe describes how, in spite of her parents' advice not to, she threw herself into the uncertain world of acting.
Zoe Wanamaker was born in America, but left at the age of three when her father was blacklisted by the McCarthyism sweeping the country in the 1950s. Zoe battled with undiagnosed dyslexia and struggled at school. She was allowed to drop maths on the grounds that "there was no point ... I was away with the fairies!".
Bitten by the acting bug at her Quaker boarding school, Zoë went to RADA and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. She enjoyed early success with a Tony award for her role in the American play Once in a Lifetime. Her breakthrough roles in television included the ITV series Love Hurts, co-starring Adam Faith.
Zoe recounts her first encounter with the power of television when she caused a minor car accident after someone spotted her in the street. But greater recognition awaited her as one of Britain's best-loved matriarchs, the dentist's wife Susan Harper in the top-rated BBC1 sitcom My Family, a part she played for over ten years opposite Robert Lindsay. Admitting she'll never retire, she now urges writers to consider including more parts for older women... "Well, over 40 would help!".
SUN 23:45 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (b00x1v7l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 today]
SUN 00:45 Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity (p00kjq6h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
SUN 01:45 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.
SUN 02:40 ... Sings Bacharach and David! (b01gxl5w)
The BBC have raided their remarkable archive once more to reveal evocative performances from Burt Bacharach and Hal David's astonishing songbook. Love songs from the famous songwriting duo were a familiar feature of 60s and 70s BBC entertainment programmes such as Dusty, Cilla and The Cliff Richard Show, but there are some surprises unearthed here too.
Highlights include Sandie Shaw singing Always Something There to Remind Me, Aretha Franklin performing I Say a Little Prayer, Dusty Springfield's Wishin' and Hopin', The Stranglers' rendition of Walk on By on Top of the Pops, The Carpenters in concert performing (They Long to Be) Close to You and Burt Bacharach revisiting his classic Kentucky Bluebird with Rufus Wainwright on Later...with Jools Holland.
MONDAY 30 APRIL 2012
MON 19:00 World News Today (b01h0d7j)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Petworth House: The Big Spring Clean (b01173rk)
Waking up the House
To finish his stint, Andrew battles an invasion of moths in one of Petworth's 35 bedrooms, before uncovering the house's many treasures once more and welcoming back an eager visiting public.
MON 20:00 Inside the Medieval Mind (b00b413s)
Belief
Leading authority on the Middle Ages, Professor Robert Bartlett, presents a series which examines the way we thought during medieval times. Our forebears believed they shared the world with the dead and that angels and demons battled for control of human souls. As the church's grip on our beliefs increased, men and women were dragged before religious courts and multitudes were killed in the name of God.
MON 21:00 The King & the Playwright: A Jacobean History (b01h23lr)
Equivocation
It's 1606, and in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot the authorities are cracking down on Catholics. Shakespeare's Macbeth captures the anxiety and obsessions of the time, with James continuing to focus on succession and legitimacy, while food riots in the Midlands create the climate for the gripping tragedy of Coriolanus.
MON 22:00 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01bgnmq)
Fugitive from the Fire
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 seems it hangs 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 its neighbours. The Natural History Museum's professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not for ever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies? Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events.
In episode two, Fortey focuses on the 'KT boundary'. 65 million years ago, a 10km-diameter asteroid collided with the Earth and saw the end of the long reign of the dinosaurs. He investigates the lucky breaks and evolutionary adaptations that allowed some species to survive the disastrous end of the Cretaceous Age when these giants did not.
MON 23:00 The Bridge (b01h221w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Saturday]
MON 00:00 Beautiful Minds (b01glqt3)
Series 2
Professor Richard Dawkins
Professor Richard Dawkins reveals how he came to write his explosive first book The Selfish Gene, a work that was to divide the scientific community and make him the most influential evolutionary biologist of his generation. He also explores how this set him on the path to becoming an outspoken spokesman for atheism.
MON 01:00 Petworth House: The Big Spring Clean (b01173rk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 01:30 Inside the Medieval Mind (b00b413s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
MON 02:25 Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures (b01bgnmq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
MON 03:25 The King & the Playwright: A Jacobean History (b01h23lr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 01 MAY 2012
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01h0d7p)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qgzdd)
Series 1
Coventry to Watford
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 remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
His journey takes him from Buxton along one of the first railway routes south to the capital, London. This time, Michael relives the Coventry Blitz, meets the last farmer with pure-breed Aylesbury ducks in Buckinghamshire and finds out how the trains helped to evacuate millions of children during World War II.
TUE 20:00 The Story of British Pathé (b013g7dm)
The Birth of the News
For more than half a century, the film and newsreel company British Pathé documented almost every aspect of everyday life in Britain and around the world. Covering everything from major world events and exotic foreign travelogues to the pageantry of state occasions and gritty social issues, the company amassed a unique documentary record of 20th-century life. This series delves into British Pathé's amazing treasure trove of images, beginning with the work of the buccaneering cameramen behind Pathé's newsreels - men who witnessed pivotal moments in history and created many of the conventions of news programming that we still use today.
TUE 21:00 Unnatural Histories (b011wzrc)
Yellowstone
As the world's first national park, Yellowstone has long served as a model for the protection of wilderness around the world. For Americans it has become a source of great national pride, not least because it encapsulates all our popular notions of what a wilderness should be - vast, uninhabited, with spectacular scenery and teeming with wildlife. But Yellowstone has not always been so. At the time of its creation in 1872, it was renowned only for its extraordinary geysers, and far from being an uninhabited wilderness it was home to several American Indian tribes.
This film reveals how a remote Indian homeland became the world's first great wilderness. It was the ambitions of railroad barons, not conservationists, that paved the way for a brand new vision of the wild, a vision that took native peoples out of the picture. Iconic landscape paintings show how European Romanticism crossed the Atlantic and recast the American wilderness, not as a satanic place to be tamed and cultivated, but as a place to experience the raw power of God in nature. Forged in Yellowstone, this potent new version of wilderness as untouched and deserving of protection has since been exported to all corners of the globe.
TUE 22:00 Ancient Apocalypse (b0074m6w)
The Maya Collapse
In the ninth century AD, the great Maya civilisation in Central America and southern Mexico all but disappeared. Millions died and great cities were abandoned to the jungle. Why this happened was a mystery, until science started unlocking the secrets of the past to reveal the brutality of nature.
TUE 22:50 The Bridge (b01h221y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Saturday]
TUE 23:50 The Story of British Pathé (b013g7dm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUE 00:50 Timeshift (b00rm508)
Series 9
Bread: A Loaf Affair
The aptly-named Tom Baker narrates a tale of aspiration, industrialisation and plain old-fashioned snobbery in a documentary which unwraps the story of the rise of the popular loaf and how it has shaped the way we eat.
Historically, to know the colour of one's bread was to know one's place in life. For centuries, ordinary people ate brown bread that was about as easy on the teeth as a brick. Softer, refined white bread was so expensive to make that it became the preserve of the rich. Affordable white bread was the baker's holy grail - but almost as soon as it became possible to achieve, dietary experts began to trumpet the virtues of brown. Not surprisingly, the British public proved reluctant to give up their white loaves, and even a war couldn't change their eating habits.
TUE 01:50 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qgzdd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 02:20 Unnatural Histories (b011wzrc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUE 03:20 Ancient Apocalypse (b0074m6w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 02 MAY 2012
WED 19:00 World News Today (b01h0d7x)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00qgzr9)
Series 1
St Pancras to Westminster
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 remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
His journey takes him from Buxton along one of the first railway routes south to the capital, London. This time, Michael explores one of the grandest railway stations and hotels in the country - St Pancras. He rides the world's first tube line to Smithfield market and climbs up the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament to hear Big Ben chime.
WED 20:00 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b0135m57)
The Luck of the Irish Sea
Untrained mariner Timothy Spall has spent a fortune on technology for his new challenge - the unpredictable Irish Sea - as he and his wife continue their mini-odyssey around Britain. From Cardiff they head west to Milford Haven at the end of the River Severn and all seems well. However, Captain Spall bungles his departure to Fishguard and ends up going nowhere at full speed due to the turning tides.
Shattered and in the dark of night, they eventually find Fishguard. They also visit Aberystwyth, a return home for his wife Shane, and then the 'discovery' of the trip so far, Porthdinllaen. Here they find the most beautiful cove they have ever seen, a beach pub and a ride in a lifeboat to see the stunning Welsh coastline in its full glory.
'Mr and Mrs Vasco de Gama' are back on their travels in this seductive and heartwarming series.
WED 20:30 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b013fj45)
Mad about the Buoys
Untrained mariner Timothy Spall has spent a fortune on technology for his new challenge - the unpredictable Irish Sea - as he and his wife continue their mini-odyssey around Britain.
Entering Liverpool means navigating their first big city since leaving London, but reaching dry land can be daunting in a small boat when dodging tankers and ferries. It's even more difficult when the coastguard sends him round in circles because he's on the wrong side of the marker buoys.
On his way to Glasson Dock in Lancashire, Tim is tricked again by another buoy. Misunderstanding his sea chart results in an unplanned dropped anchor in the middle of the Irish Sea, where they have to wait all night before he can enter the port.
Their next destination finds them in the company of royalty - Piel Island near Barrow-in-Furness has the unusual honour of having its own king and queen, a tradition which goes back centuries.
WED 21:00 Metalworks! (b01fhmhp)
The Golden Age of Silver
Dan Cruickshank visits Britain's finest country houses, museums and factories as he uncovers the 18th- and 19th-century fascination with silver. Delving into an unsurpassed era of shimmering opulence, heady indulgence and conspicuous consumption, Dan discovers the Georgian and Victorian obsession with this tantalising precious metal which represented status, wealth and excellent taste. He gives us a glimpse of some of the most extensive collections and exquisite pieces of silverware to have ever been made on British shores.
WED 22:00 Parkinson: The Interviews (b01h22vh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Saturday]
WED 22:40 Episodes (b00z1jr6)
Series 1
Episode 7
Sean and Beverly Lincoln are a happily married English couple, who are also the creators of a hit British TV show. Their life seems complete. That is until a hugely powerful and charismatic US network president persuades them to move to Los Angeles to recreate their show for American television.
After a night to remember - and bitterly regret - Beverly returns home to find her husband waiting with open arms. She desperately hopes to put the ugly chapter behind them.
The dreadful Pucks! pilot wraps and Sean and Beverly prepare to return to London. However, a final goodbye between Matt and Sean takes an unexpected turn involving a missing Jaguar, a red-nosed reindeer and the smell of cinnamon.
WED 23:10 Around the World in 60 Minutes (b00ymjkt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Saturday]
WED 00:10 The Disabled Century (b0077s2j)
Episode 1
A look at the experiences of those disabled while fighting for their country in the two world wars, and the harsh, often brutal realities that confronted the vast majority of disabled people in the early years of the century. It covers World War I heroes reduced to begging in the streets; Horace Blackburn's struggle to get work; Bill Surrey, in institutions for 77 years; Gladys Brooks, strapped to a steel frame for two and a half years; Snowy Harding, whose family could not afford a wheelchair; fighter ace Douglas Bader, who lost both legs; and the Guinea Pig Club.
WED 00:50 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b0135m57)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 01:20 Timothy Spall: Back at Sea (b013fj45)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
WED 01:50 Parkinson: The Interviews (b01h22vh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Saturday]
WED 02:30 Episodes (b00z1jr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:40 today]
WED 03:00 Metalworks! (b01fhmhp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 03 MAY 2012
THU 19:00 World News Today (b01h0d82)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b01h257p)
21/04/77
Tony Blackburn looks at the weekly pop chart from 1977 and introduces Delegation, David Dundas, Deniece Williams, Tavares, Leo Sayer, Elkie Brooks, Dead End Kids and Abba.
THU 20:00 The End of the World? A Horizon Guide to Armageddon (b00zj1c2)
Our understanding of the world around us is better now than ever before. But are we any closer to knowing how it is all going to end?
Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how scientists have tried to predict an impending apocalypse - from natural disaster to killer disease to asteroid impact - and to ask: when Armageddon arrives, will science be able to save us?
THU 21:00 After Life: The Strange Science of Decay (b012w66t)
Ever wondered what would happen in your own home if you were taken away, and everything inside was left to rot? The answer is revealed in this fascinating programme, which explores the strange and surprising science of decay.
For two months in summer 2011, a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden was left to rot in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In this resulting documentary, presenter Dr George McGavin and his team use time-lapse cameras and specialist photography to capture the extraordinary way in which moulds, microbes and insects are able to break down our everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old.
Decay is something that many of us are repulsed by. But as the programme shows, it's a process that's vital in nature. And seen in close-up, it has an unexpected and sometimes mesmerising beauty.
THU 22:30 The King & the Playwright: A Jacobean History (b01h23lr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 23:30 Top of the Pops (b01h257p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 00:10 Annie Nightingale: Bird on the Wireless (b011mb8d)
It's over 40 years since Annie Nightingale's very first show on Radio 1 - she was the station's first female DJ and is its longest-serving broadcaster. A lifelong champion of new music, first with punk, then new wave, acid house and dubstep, Annie is still at the cutting edge in her current incarnation as the 'Queen of the Breaks'.
In this film Annie takes us on a counter-cultural journey through the events, people and sounds that have inspired her career. Full of insightful anecdotes about her sonic adventures and the numerous pop-cultural shifts that have helped shape her idiosyncratic outlook and tastes, the film features exclusive contributions from some of the many artists Annie has worked with and admired, including Sir Paul McCartney and Mick Jones of The Clash. We also hear from the new generation of artists who confirm that she's an icon of the British music scene.
THU 01:10 The End of the World? A Horizon Guide to Armageddon (b00zj1c2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 02:10 After Life: The Strange Science of Decay (b012w66t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 04 MAY 2012
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b01h0d87)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 BBC Young Musician (b01h26ct)
2012
Woodwind Final
Clemency Burton-Hill presents highlights of the BBC Young Musician 2012 category finals from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, with behind-the-scenes access, profiles and performance from the finalists and all the latest news. With the keyboard, brass and strings winners already decided and through to the semi-final, the competition is hotting up and just two places are left up for grabs.
In the woodwind category final, five different instruments are represented: those more commonly seen at this stage of the competition such as the clarinet, played by Jordan Black, and the flute, played by Luke O'Toole, along with those less familiar - the saxophone, played by Lucinda Dunne, and bassoon, played by Charlotte Cox. Finally, making BBC Young Musician history, the recorder - played by Charlotte Barbour-Condini - makes an appearance for the first time in 12 years.
Only one of them can win through to the semi-final, with that all-important chance of a place in the final on May 13th at the Sage, Gateshead and a shot at the title of BBC Young Musician 2012.
FRI 21:00 Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop (b00nq7q9)
Fleetwood Mac are one of the biggest-selling bands of all time and still on the road. Their story, told in their own words, is an epic tale of love and confrontation, of success and loss.
Few bands have undergone such radical musical and personal change. The band evolved from the 60s British blues boom to perfect a US West Coast sound that saw them sell 40 million copies of the album Rumours.
However, behind-the-scenes relationships were turbulent. The band went through multiple line-ups with six different lead guitarists. While working on Rumours, the two couples at the heart of the band separated, yet this heartache inspired the perfect pop record.
FRI 22:00 Peter Green: Man of the World (b00k92x1)
Legendary blues guitarist BB King named Peter Green as one of the greatest exponents of the blues, and the 'only guitar player to make me sweat'. If Green had only written Black Magic Woman, his name would still have a place in blues rock history forever.
His three short years leading Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac saw the band established as one of the biggest-selling groups of the 1960s. Yet at the height of their fame Green left the group, with his life spiralling into turmoil as drug-induced mental health issues took control. Rumours of his demise began to spread, and sightings of him became notorious.
After years battling his mental illness, Green wrote and recorded again. Featuring archive performances and interviews with Carlos Santana, Noel Gallagher, founding members of Fleetwood Mac and Green himself, this film tells the story of one of blues rock's living legends.
FRI 23:30 Pearl Jam Twenty (b0170cl0)
In 1990 they started a band, their first album went gold, then sold 13 million copies. The band would go on to sell more than 60 million records worldwide and perform in nearly every major city in the world. Now they have opened their vault, with 20 years of rare and never-before-seen footage to tell their extraordinary story. From one of the great directors of our generation.
Told in big themes and bold colours with blistering sound, this is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam - part concert film, part intimate insider-hang, part testimonial to the power of music and uncompromising artists.
Carved from more than 1,200 hours of footage, live performances and recent interviews, the film chronicles the years leading up to Pearl Jam's formation, their rise to fame and the chaos that ensued soon thereafter.
Academy Award-winning director Cameron Crowe has assembled the best-of-the-best from Pearl Jam's past and present in a compelling narrative that recreates the visceral feeling of what it is to love music and feel it deeply.
After 20 years, nine bestselling albums, 60 million record sales and thousands of live performances across the globe, Pearl Jam has a devoted fanbase often compared to that of music legends like the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen and the Who, propelling them into superstardom and solidifying their position as one of the biggest, most magnetic touring acts in the world.
FRI 01:25 Fleetwood Mac: Don't Stop (b00nq7q9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:25 BBC Young Musician (b01h26ct)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]