SATURDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2013

SAT 19:00 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00k3685)
Wheat

Documentary series about the history of 20th-century farming in Britain looks at wheat and tells how the country became self-sufficient in producing bread-making wheat after the Second World War.

Told through the working lives and home movie archives of three wheat-farming families from the east of England, it reveals how farmers went from horse power to machine power and how they used science and genetics to transform the size and yield of wheat and the rural landscape, with controversial outcomes for the countryside.

SAT 20:00 10 Things You Didn't Know About... (b008vrwk)
Avalanches

Iain Stewart travels across mountain ranges and glaciers to reveal ten remarkable stories about avalanches.

Over a million avalanches happen throughout the world each year, and yet we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the chaotic turbulence inside an avalanche. Scientists have had to put themselves right inside a raging avalanche to find out more.

Stewart shows how the deadliest avalanche in history killed 18,000 people in three minutes; how Hannibal's army was devastated by avalanches as he crossed the Alps to fight Rome; why an avalanche was key to one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time; and how global warming may increase the rate of ice avalanches in the future.

SAT 21:00 The Young Montalbano (b03b8pz3)
Series 1

New Year's Eve

A man is shot dead in his hotel room on New Year's Eve, so Montalbano spends his first New Year's Day in Vigata investigating a murder. The case presents several unusual conundrums, not least the fact that the victim was co-owner of the hotel.

In Italian with English subtitles.

SAT 22:50 imagine... (b00t15v1)
Summer 2010

Tom Jones - What Good Am I?

As he prepares to celebrate his 70th birthday, singing legend Sir Tom Jones is still recording, performing and collaborating with some of the biggest names in pop. In this episode of Imagine, Alan Yentob examines the extraordinary story of one of Britain's most recognisable pop icons.

In a frank and revealing interview, Sir Tom describes the dizzying ascent from his humble beginnings as a miner's son in south Wales to becoming a headline act in Las Vegas and recalls many of his most cherished moments from a career that enabled him to sing alongside Elvis, establish himself as a hairy-chested sex symbol and make one of the most successful comebacks in pop history.

SAT 23:55 BBC Four Sessions (b01mtrwf)
Tom Jones

Sir Tom Jones in a unique session of folk, blues and beyond from the beautiful LSO St Lukes in the City.

Jones and a special band put together by Ethan Johns, the producer of his last two albums Praise & Blame and Spirit in the Room, deliver songs of guilt, redemption and judgement drawn from those records and also collaborates with special guests Seasick Steve on Mississippi Fred McDowell's You Gotta Move, with 84 year-old American folk legend Tom Paley on the Mississippi Sheiks' Sitting on Top of the World and young Londoner Josh Osho on Big Bill Broonzy's Black Brown and White Blues.

Filmed more like a rehearsal in the round than a concert with Ethan Johns on guitar, Richard Causon on keys, Dave Bronze on bass, Jeremy Stacey on drums and The Staves - three young sisters from Watford - on backing vocals, this BBC FOUR Session finds Jones The Voice in masterful yet genial form, exploring his roots in the songs and styles of the American South in the 50s and 60s - early rock n roll, country, gospel, folk, blues and beyond.

SAT 01:10 Top of the Pops (b03b45h2)
Paul Burnett presents the weekly pop chart show featuring the Buzzcocks, Leo Sayer, Stephen Bishop, the Three Degrees, Abba, David Essex, 10cc and a Legs & Co dance sequence.

SAT 01:45 10 Things You Didn't Know About... (b008vrwk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

SAT 02:45 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00k3685)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 today]

SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2013

SUN 19:00 Mud, Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture (b00k9bms)
Beef

A look at how two of our finest native breeds of cattle, Hereford and Aberdeen Angus, reigned supreme before the Second World War and helped earn Britain a reputation as the 'stockyard of the world'. The programme also shows how, since then, both breeds have been transformed to a much larger size - from standing only to the stockman's waist to reaching his shoulder.

SUN 20:00 The Review Show (b03b8q6g)
Martha Kearney and guests Paul Morley, James Delingpole and AL Kennedy discuss the new film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Filth; an exhibition which draws parallels between Henry Moore and Francis Bacon; Dennis Kelly's debut play at the Royal Court Theatre; and Expo 58, the new comic novel by Jonathan Coe.

SUN 21:00 King Kong (b0074mrz)
Hollywood's most famous monster movie in which Kong, the giant gorilla, is taken from his prehistoric island home to be exhibited in the music halls of Manhattan. The brilliantly executed tale of beauty and the beast set new standards in film-making and provided some of cinema's most powerful and lasting images.

SUN 22:35 Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies (b03b45h4)
The Big Score

In a series celebrating the art of the cinema soundtrack, Neil Brand explores the work of the great movie composers and demonstrates their techniques. Neil begins by looking at how the classic orchestral film score emerged and why it's still going strong today.

Neil traces how in the 1930s, European-born composers such as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold brought their Viennese training to play in stirring, romantic scores for Hollywood masterpieces like King Kong and The Adventures of Robin Hood. But it took a home-grown American talent, Bernard Herrmann, to bring a darker, more modern sound to some of cinema's finest films, with his scores for Citizen Kane, Psycho and Taxi Driver.

Among those Neil meets are leading film-makers and composers who discuss their work, including Martin Scorsese and Hans Zimmer, composer of blockbusters like Gladiator and Inception.

SUN 23:35 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.

SUN 01:05 The Andy Williams Show (b00n5bt9)
Duets

Compilation of the best duets selected from crooner Andy Williams's private archive of his weekly 1960s variety show on NBC. The show attracted the cream of the crop from the world of showbiz, from Bing Crosby and Ray Charles to Johnny Mathis and Ella Fitzgerald, who were more than happy to share the microphone with the king of easy listening.

Including Over the Rainbow with Judy Garland, and Andy at the piano with Ray Charles for What'd I Say.

SUN 02:05 The Andy Williams Show (b00n806r)
Solo

A collection of the original American Idol's greatest hits and special performances from his weekly variety show, broadcast in the United States on NBC between 1962 and 1971. Including classic tracks Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses and Music To Watch Girls By.

SUN 02:35 Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies (b03b45h4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:35 today]

MONDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2013

MON 19:00 World News Today (b03b6gtb)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

MON 19:30 Nature's Microworlds (b01qhlfg)
Namib Desert

Steve Backshall takes us on a journey to the oldest desert in the world, the Namib in south west Africa, where the treacherous Skeleton Coast sees freezing waters meet a sea of spectacular dunes. With temperatures regularly reaching 60 degrees and with little to no rainfall, the animals that live here have to be tough. Steve tracks down these amazing animals, showing the clever tactics that each employs to combat the heat, before revealing the unique secret that allows life to survive here at all, in such a harsh environment.

MON 20:00 The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer (b01hlkcq)
In 1901, a group of divers excavating an ancient Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, off the southern coast of Greece, found a mysterious object - a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world's oldest computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics. Following the efforts of an international team of scientists, the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism are uncovered, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of the object that continues to mystify.

MON 21:00 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01qbz9k)
Lands of Gold

Through the mountains and jungles of Colombia, archaeologist Dr Jago Cooper goes in search of the truth behind one of the greatest stories ever told - the legend of El Dorado. His journey takes him from Bogota to the Caribbean coast, through territories once dominated by two cultures, the Muisca and the Tairona, who flourished for centuries before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. Dr Cooper reveals forgotten peoples who valued gold in a way the western world still struggles to understand, travelling to an astonishing lost city and meeting the last survivors of an ancient civilisation.

MON 22:00 10 Things You Didn't Know About... (b008vrwk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]

MON 23:00 Sex: A Horizon Guide (b039vj9x)
Sex is a simple word for a very complex set of desires. It cuts to the core of our passions, our wants, our emotions. But when it goes wrong, it can be the most painful thing of all. Professor Alice Roberts looks through 45 years of Horizon archive to see how science came to understand sex, strived to solve our problems with it and even helped us to do it better. Can science save the day when sex goes wrong?

MON 00:00 Tribe (b007zml8)
Series 3

Layap

Bruce Parry treks into the high mountains in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to live with the isolated Layap people - devout Buddhists and yak herders who are cut off from the outside world for six months a year by deep snow. Bruce begins a spiritual journey as he tries to understand the life of a devout Buddhist.

MON 01:00 The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer (b01hlkcq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

MON 02:00 Nature's Microworlds (b01qhlfg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

MON 02:30 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01qbz9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2013

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b03b6gth)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

TUE 19:30 Nature's Microworlds (b01qnp5c)
Yellowstone

In the spectacular Yellowstone where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall looks for the answer to a puzzle. Wolves and beavers have little to do with each other so why, when wolves were returned after an absence of 70 years, did the beaver population increase? The revelation is as magical as it is surprising.

TUE 20:00 A Pembrokeshire Farm (b007hzfj)
Episode 2

Documentary series following Griff Rhys Jones as he restores his 200-year-old farmhouse in Pembrokeshire. As Griff's restoration drama continues, nature decides to intervene.

TUE 20:30 Britain on Film (b03b8s51)
Series 2

The Home Front

Archive-based series on British life in the 1960s continues with an episode devoted to some of the most monumental challenges of the post-war period - how to tackle desperate housing shortages, rebuild shattered cities and meet the rising expectations of an increasingly affluent and consumerist nation. As these films show, 1960s Britain embraced ambitious solutions by building high-rise homes in our cities and New Towns in the country.

TUE 21:00 The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum (b01rrld8)
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill presents a documentary following the scientific investigation that shows what life was like in the small Roman town of Herculaneum, moments before it was destroyed by a volcanic eruption.

Just 10 miles from Pompeii, 12 vaults tell a new story about what life was like before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. They contain the skeletons of 340 people, 10 per cent of the local population, killed by the volcano. Amongst them are the first new skeletons to be found in the area for 30 years which are now the subject of a ground-breaking scientific investigation. The finds included a toddler holding his dog, a two-year-old girl with silver earrings and a boy embracing his mother.

Those found inside the vaults were nearly all women and children. Those found outside on the shoreline were nearly all men. Why?

It is revealed that the local population went to their deaths not as in often portrayed in Pompeii's popular myth, but more like the passengers of the Titanic, where women and children were put first.

Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill takes us to meet the scientists leading the forensic project - Luca Bondioli and Luciano Fattore - and then on a tour of the town. He uncovers houses, wooden furniture (including their beds and the only surviving baby's cradle from the Roman world), and food and human waste, preserved by a layer of ash up to five times deeper than Pompeii, as well as perfectly preserved court transcripts scratched on wooden tablets telling of slaves challenging their status in the town's courts. New scientific analysis has enabled us to unearth not just what they ate, but how they ate it, it seems they had a penchant for eating fish whole including their heads, a tradition, that has survived in Herculaneum to this day.

TUE 22:00 The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank (b01jv5nr)
Dan Cruickshank explores the mysteries and secrets of the bridges that have made London what it is. He uncovers stories of Bronze-Age relics emerging from the Vauxhall shore, of why London Bridge was falling down, of midnight corpses splashing beneath Waterloo Bridge, and above all, of the sublime ambition of London's bridge builders themselves.

TUE 23:00 Michael Wood on Beowulf (b00kpv23)
Historian Michael Wood returns to his first great love, the Anglo-Saxon world, to reveal the origins of our literary heritage. Focusing on Beowulf and drawing on other Anglo-Saxon classics, he traces the birth of English poetry back to the Dark Ages.

Travelling across the British Isles from East Anglia to Scotland and with the help of Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, actor Julian Glover, local historians and enthusiasts, he brings the story and language of this iconic poem to life.

TUE 00:00 The Viking Sagas (b0110gnv)
Hundreds of years ago in faraway Iceland the Vikings began to write down dozens of stories called sagas - sweeping narratives based on real people and real events. But as Oxford University's Janina Ramirez discovers, these sagas are not just great works of art, they are also priceless historical documents which bring to life the Viking world. Dr Ramirez travels across glaciers and through the lava fields of Iceland to the far north west of the country to find out about one of the most compelling of these stories - the Laxdaela Saga.

TUE 01:00 Britain on Film (b03b8s51)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]

TUE 01:30 A Pembrokeshire Farm (b007hzfj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

TUE 02:00 Nature's Microworlds (b01qnp5c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

TUE 02:30 The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum (b01rrld8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2013

WED 19:00 World News Today (b03b6gtn)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

WED 19:30 Nature's Microworlds (b01qsr4d)
The Deep Sea

Steve Backshall takes us to a place few have ever visited - the deep sea. 99 per cent of the space on Earth inhabited by life is under the ocean and almost 90 per cent of this is deeper than a kilometre, a place of perpetual darkness and crushing pressure. Far from being lifeless, the vast inner space of our planet contains an extraordinary array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque angler fish and vampire squid. Our journey from the sunlit surface waters to the deepest reaches of the abyss reveals how life persists in such a hostile world.

WED 20:00 Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls (b01jmt5t)
Act Three: At Work and At Play

Lucy Worsley explores the lives of some of the most remarkable women of the age, including writers, actresses, travellers and scientists.

Against a backdrop of religious and political turmoil, the rise of print culture, the rapid growth of London, the burgeoning scientific revolution and the country's flourishing trading empire, she meets a host of female mavericks who took advantage of the extraordinary changes afoot to challenge the traditional male bastions of society.

Women like Nell Gwyn, the most famous of a new generation of actresses; Aphra Behn, the first professional female writer; and Christian Davies, who disguised herself as a man to fight as a soldier - all of them gained notoriety and celebrity, challenging the inequalities of the age. As Lucy discovers, these women's attitudes, ambitions and achievements were surprisingly modern.

WED 21:00 Fabric of Britain (b03bgrvf)
Knitting's Golden Age

Documentary exploring how knitting rose from basic craft to the height of popular fashion in the 20th century. It's a craft that has given us scratchy jumpers, sexy bathing costumes and the infamous poodle loo cover, has sustained Britain through the hardships of war and shown a mother's love to generations of little ones. Today, knitwear has become a staple of every wardrobe thanks to a prince's golfing taste, The Beatles and 80s breakfast television. Warm-hearted and surprising, this is the story of the people's craft, and a very British one at that.

WED 22:00 Seamus Heaney: A Life in Pictures (b00jw8tr)
A tribute to Seamus Heaney using BBC Northern Ireland's rich and unique television archive. The programme explores how television has portrayed the late Co Derry poet and how he has used television as both writer and presenter.

WED 22:40 Kirsty Wark Talks To (b0074q4h)
Seamus Heaney

A tribute to Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner and one of the world's greatest poets. He talks to Kirsty Wark about his lifelong passion for poetry, living through the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and his fascination with the ancient past - settings that inspired his Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, his poems on the Dark Age 'bog people' and his translation of Sophocles' classical Greek drama Antigone, which received its premiere at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004.

WED 23:10 Something to Write Home About: Seamus Heaney (b007ctnx)
A tribute to Seamus Heaney, exploring his home ground, the boundaries and divisions and 'the possibility of true understanding'.

WED 23:40 Lost Kingdoms of South America (b01qbz9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]

WED 00:40 The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer (b01hlkcq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]

WED 01:40 Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls (b01jmt5t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

WED 02:40 Fabric of Britain (b03bgrvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2013

THU 19:00 World News Today (b03b6gtt)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

THU 19:30 Top of the Pops (b03b93q5)
David 'Kid' Jensen presents the weekly pop chart show featuring Mick Jackson, Dean Friedman, Boney M, Marshall Hain, Sham 69, the Boomtown Rats and a Legs & Co dance sequence.

THU 20:00 Norman Wisdom: His Story (b00vhmqq)
From street urchin to knight of the realm - the story of Norman Wisdom, who used to be one of the biggest film stars in the UK, portraying a man who rarely stepped out of character in public, and whose highly individual comic style hid the private tragedy of his early life.

The actor's life story is told through the people who knew him well - his son and daughter Nick and Jacqui Wisdom, his daughter-in-law Kim, film director Stephen Frears, actors Ricky Tomlinson, Leslie Phillips and Honor Blackman, and singer Dame Vera Lynn.

THU 21:00 Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies (b03b965y)
Pop Goes the Soundtrack

Composer Neil Brand explores how, in the second half of the 20th century, composers and film-makers embraced jazz, pop and rock to bring fresh energy and relevance to film scores.

He shows how in the 1960s, films as diverse as the James Bond movies, spaghetti westerns and Disney's musicals drew on the talents of pop arrangers and composers like John Barry, Ennio Morricone and the Sherman Brothers to create unforgettable soundtracks. But the role of the film composer would subsequently be challenged by directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, who showed that a soundtrack consisting of carefully chosen pop songs could be as effective as a specially written one.

Neil's journey sees him meet leading film-makers and composers including Martin Scorsese and composers Richard Sherman (Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book), Lalo Schifrin (Bullitt) and David Arnold (Casino Royale).

THU 22:00 Mean Streets (b00rwk9h)
A graphic portrayal of life in the underworld of the Little Italy district in New York City. The episodic narrative deals with the experiences and relationships of a petty hoodlum, his epileptic lover, and her unstable cousin who is on the run from a loan shark. Widely acknowledged as one of director Martin Scorsese's best films and a landmark of 1970s cinema.

THU 23:50 The Other Pompeii: Life and Death in Herculaneum (b01rrld8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]

THU 00:50 Top of the Pops (b03b93q5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:30 today]

THU 01:30 Britain on Film (b03b8s51)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Tuesday]

THU 02:00 Norman Wisdom: His Story (b00vhmqq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]

THU 03:00 Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made the Movies (b03b965y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRIDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2013

FRI 19:00 World News Today (b03b6gtz)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.

FRI 19:30 BBC Proms (b03bb112)
2013

Last Night from Around the UK

Josie D'Arby and Zeb Soanes present highlights from the Last Night of the Proms celebrations around the UK, giving a flavour of the individual nations' unique concert events.

Former Spice Girl Melanie C, Alfie Boe and violinist Jennifer Pike mark the return of the Scottish event to Glasgow Green. In Wales, set against the backdrop of Caerphilly Castle, featured performers include trumpeter Alison Balsom and West End stars John Owen Jones and Sophie Evans.

Soprano Katherine Jenkins, violinist Chloe Hanslip and Lithuanian accordion player Martynas entertain the crowds gathered on the spectacular quayside at the Titanic Visitor Centre in Belfast, and in London's Hyde Park, Bryan Ferry, tenor Joseph Calleja and Nigel Kennedy provide added sparkle to the festivities, drawing this summer's Proms season to a close.

FRI 21:00 The Joy of Country (b018jmrs)
This celebration of the history and aesthetic of country music tracks the evolution of the genre from the 1920s to the present, exploring country as both folk and pop music - a 20th century soundtrack to the lives of working-class Americans in the South, forever torn between their rural roots and a mostly urban future, between authenticity and showbiz.

Exploring many of the great stars of country from Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, director Andy Humphries's meditation on the power and pull of country blends brilliant archive and contributions from a broad cast that includes Dolly Parton, the Handsome Family, Laura Cantrell, Hank Williams III, kd lang and many more.

If you have ever wondered about the sound of a train in the distance, the keening of a pedal steel guitar, the lure of rhinestone or the blue Kentucky hills, and if you want to know why twang matters, this is the documentary for you.

FRI 22:05 Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy (b01pwxs8)
In 2011, Glen Campbell announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and that he would be bowing out with a final album and farewell tour across Britain and America. This documentary tells Campbell's remarkable life story, from impoverished childhood in Arkansas to huge success, first as a guitarist and then as a singer, with great records like Wichita Lineman and Rhinestone Cowboy. With comments from friends and colleagues, including songwriter Jimmy Webb and Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, it is a moving story of success, disgrace and redemption as rich as any of the storylines in Campbell's most famous songs.

The peak of Glen Campbell's career was in 1975, when he topped the charts around the world with Rhinestone Cowboy, but his musical journey to that point is fascinating. A self-taught teenage prodigy on the guitar, by his mid-twenties Campbell was one of the top session guitarists in LA, a key member of the band of session players now known as The Wrecking Crew. He played on hundreds of tracks while working for producers like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, including Daydream Believer by The Monkees, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling by The Righteous Brothers, Strangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra and Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley.

But Campbell always wanted to make it under his own name. A string of records failed to chart until, in 1967, he finally found his distinctive country pop sound with hits like Gentle on My Mind and By the Time I Get to Phoenix. The latter was written by Jimmy Webb, and together the two created a string of great records like Wichita Lineman and Galveston. Campbell pioneered country crossover and opened the way for artists like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

By the end of the 1960s, Campbell was the fastest rising star in American pop with his own television show and a starring role in the original version of True Grit. Over the following ten years, he had more success with Rhinestone Cowboy and Southern Nights, but his private life was in turmoil. Divorce, drink and drugs saw this clean-cut all-American hero fall from grace and a tempestuous relationship with country star Tanya Tucker was front-page news.

Despite a relapse in 2003, when he was arrested for drunk driving and his police mug shot was shown around the world, the last two decades have been more settled. He remarried, started a new family and renewed his Christian faith, and was musically rediscovered by a new generation. Like his friend Johnny Cash, he released acclaimed new albums with young musicians, covering songs by contemporary artists like U2 and The Foo Fighters. Therefore the diagnosis with Alzheimer's was all the more poignant, but his dignified farewell has made him the public face of the disease in the USA.

The film includes contributions by many of Campbell's friends and colleagues, including his family in Arkansas, fellow session musicians Carol Kaye and Leon Russell, long-time friend and collaborator Jimmy Webb, former Monkee Mickey Dolenz, broadcaster Bob Harris, lyricist Don Black and country music writer Robert Oermann.

FRI 23:05 An Evening with Glen Campbell (b01pyfht)
A special concert recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in 1977, where 80 musicians played new arrangements of Glen Campbell's hit songs.

FRI 00:25 Country at the BBC (b017zqwb)
Grab your partner by the hand - the BBC have raided their archive and brought to light glittering performances by country artists over the last four decades.

Star appearances include Tammy Wynette, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and, of course, Dolly Parton. All the greats have performed for the BBC at some point - on entertainment shows, in concert and at the BBC studios. Some of the rhinestones revealed are Charley Pride's Crystal Chandeliers from the Lulu Show, Emmylou Harris singing Together Again on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Billie Jo Spears's Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad from the Val Doonican Music Show.

We're brought up to date with modern country hits by kd lang, Garth Brooks, Alison Krauss and Taylor Swift, plus a special unbroadcasted performance from Later...with Jools Holland by Willie Nelson.

FRI 01:55 The Joy of Country (b018jmrs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]

FRI 03:00 Glen Campbell: The Rhinestone Cowboy (b01pwxs8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:05 today]