Ever since the early 1960s, Rick Stein has been in love with the blues and years later he is fascinated by the dishes ingrained in its lyrics - fried chicken and turnip greens, catfish and black-eyed peas, and the rest. In this film, Rick pays homage to the musicians who created this music and to the great dishes of the Mississippi Delta that go hand in hand with the blues.
How did an obscure Irish melody become one of the greatest songs of all time, recorded by music's biggest names? One hundred years after 'Danny Boy' was first published, the true story of its astonishing past is uncovered, while contributors including Gabriel Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Brian Kennedy and Barry McGuigan explain its enduring appeal and what it has come to symbolise.
Big Bill Broonzy would inspire a generation of musicians, yet he was not the man they believed him to be. This first, very intimate, biography of the pioneering bluesman uncovers the mystery of who Broonzy really was and follows his remarkable and colourful journey from the racist Deep South to the clubs of Chicago and all across the world. With contributions from: Pete Seeger, Ray Davies, Keith Richards, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and members of the Broonzy family. Broonzy's own words are read by Clarke Peters.
Drama. The true story of the French monks who refused to leave their monastery and continued with their vocation in a dangerous area of Algeria as tensions rise and the threat to their safety from fundamentalist terrorists increases.
Blues is usually described as the sound of racial suffering and feeling sad, but this documentary argues that the blues began as a form of black pop music. First appearing in the southern states of the USA around 1900, blues created by the poorest people in the richest nation on earth took America by storm. The film looks at the early years of the blues to discover how Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton used the latest media to bring their music to the public. With contributions from Keith Richards, Taj Mahal and Chuck D.
Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.
Includes the seminal slide guitar of Son House, the British R&B of The Kinks, the unmistakeable electric sound of BB King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, as well as less familiar material from the likes of Delaney and Bonnie, Freddie King and Long John Baldry.
MONDAY 02 DECEMBER 2013
MON 19:00 World News Today (b03k6766)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
MON 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfbzt)
Series 3
Berwick-upon-Tweed to Morpeth
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
He travels through some of northern England's most dramatic scenery, from Berwick-upon-Tweed, crossing the Pennines to the Lake District before completing the journey on the beautiful and unique Isle of Man.
Here, Michael discovers the unique cross-border history of Berwick-Upon-Tweed, hears the unique story of the Pitman Painters of Ashington and sees first-hand the perils of working on the rails in Victorian times.
MON 20:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b007794g)
Series 2
The Expert
Classic sitcom. Thelma has gone back to her mother, leaving Bob to bemoan his fate.
MON 20:30 Only Connect (b03k6ypx)
Series 8
Globetrotters v Bakers
A trio of seasoned travellers take on three bakers in the teams' last chance to make it the semi-finals, competing to draw together the connections between things which, at first glance, seem utterly random.
So join Victoria Coren Mitchell if you want to know what connects: entirely sacred, note correctly, enact a levy on pushpins and light-coloured bucket.
MON 21:00 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03knrvm)
Home Waters to High Seas
Shipwrecks are the nightmare we have forgotten - the price Britain paid for ruling the waves from an island surrounded by treacherous rocks. The result is a coastline that is home to the world's highest concentration of sunken ships. But shipwrecks also changed the course of British history, helped shape our national character and drove innovations in seafaring technology, as well as gripping our imagination.
In this three-part series, maritime historian Dr Sam Willis looks at how and why the shipwreck came to loom so large. He begins with the embarrassing story of the top-heavy Mary Rose, the freak wrecking of the Spanish Armada and the terrifying real-life disasters at sea that inspired two of the greatest of all castaway tales - Shakespeare's The Tempest and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
MON 22:00 Don't Ever Wipe Tears without Gloves (b03kp3h9)
Episode 1
In 1982, carefree student Rasmus arrives in Stockholm from rural Varmland having hidden his homosexuality all his life. Determined to make up for lost time he throws himself headlong into the gay scene and is taken under the wing of Paul, a bitchy but caring queen with a close group of gay friends.
Benjamin, a Jehovah's Witness doing his rounds, knocks on Paul's door and is immediately, correctly, identified by Paul as a homosexual. As part of coming to terms with his sexual identity and his crisis of faith Benjamin accepts an invitation to Paul's Christmas party, where he meets Rasmus. Rasmus and Benjamin fall in love immediately and form a close and powerful bond, despite Rasmus's indiscretions and Benjamin's religion.
Until now, news of an increase in HIV infection, still not fully understood, has been ignored by the group and the gay community as a whole. But soon they can ignore it no longer as AIDS begins to take its devastating, heartbreaking toll on families and friendships.
In Swedish with English subtitles.
MON 23:00 The Story of Music Hall with Michael Grade (b016fn23)
Michael Grade traces the raucous history of the music hall in a revelatory journey that takes him from venues such as Wilton's Music Hall in London to Glasgow's once-famous Britannia. Talking to enthusiasts and performers, Lord Grade discovers the origins of this uniquely British form of entertainment and revisits some of the great acts and impresarios, from Charles Morton and George Leybourne to Bessie Bellwood and Marie Lloyd.
Featuring Jo Brand and Alexei Sayle, with performances from Barry Cryer and many more, Grade hears about dudes, swells, mashers and serio-comics and hears how, in many a house, no turn was left unstoned.
MON 00:30 Narnia's Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis (b03jrw5j)
CS Lewis's biographer AN Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia - best-selling children's author and famous Christian writer, but an under-appreciated Oxford academic and an aspiring poet who never achieved the same success in writing verse as he did prose.
Although his public life was spent in the all-male world of Oxford colleges, his private life was marked by secrecy and even his best friend JRR Tolkien didn't know of his marriage to an American divorcee late in life. Lewis died on the same day as the assassination of John F Kennedy and few were at his burial - his alcoholic brother was too drunk to tell people the time of the funeral. Fifty years on, his life as a writer is now being remembered alongside other national literary heroes in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.
In this personal and insightful film, Wilson paints a psychological portrait of a man who experienced fame in the public arena, but whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.
MON 01:30 Only Connect (b03k6ypx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
MON 02:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b007794g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
MON 02:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfbzt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
MON 03:00 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03knrvm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
TUESDAY 03 DECEMBER 2013
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b03k676c)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfc6d)
Series 3
Bardon Mill to Wigton
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
Michael travels through some of northern England's most dramatic scenery, from Berwick-upon-Tweed, crossing the Pennines to the Lake District before completing the journey on the beautiful and unique Isle of Man.
Here, Michael gets his hands dirty following the example of Victorian archaeologists at Hadrian's Wall, discovers how the invention of the ticket machine made a big difference to 19th-century rail users, and sees how the Victorian railways first fuelled invention in Wigton.
TUE 20:00 Orbit: Earth's Extraordinary Journey (b01d7kd5)
Episode 1
Right now you're hurtling around the sun at 64,000 miles an hour (100,000km an hour). In the next year you'll travel 584 million miles, to end up back where you started.
Presenters Kate Humble and Dr Helen Czerski follow the Earth's voyage around the sun for one complete orbit, to witness the astonishing consequences this journey has for us all.
In this first episode they travel from July to the December solstice, experiencing spectacular weather and the largest tides on Earth. To show how the Earth's orbit affects our lives, Helen jumps out of an aeroplane and Kate briefly becomes the fastest driver on Earth.
TUE 21:00 The Joy of Logic (b03k6ypz)
A sharp, witty, mind-expanding and exuberant foray into the world of logic with computer scientist Professor Dave Cliff. Following in the footsteps of the award-winning The Joy of Stats and its sequel Tails You Win - The Science of Chance, this film takes viewers on a new rollercoaster ride through philosophy, maths, science and technology- all of which, under the bonnet, run on logic.
Wielding the same wit and wisdom, animation and gleeful nerdery as its predecessors, this film journeys from Aristotle to Alice in Wonderland, sci-fi to supercomputers to tell the fascinating story of the quest for certainty and the fundamentals of sound reasoning itself.
Dave Cliff, professor of computer science and engineering at Bristol University, is no abstract theoretician. 15 years ago he combined logic and a bit of maths to write one of the first computer programs to outperform humans at trading stocks and shares. Giving away the software for free, he says, was not his most logical move...
With the help of 25 seven-year-olds, Professor Cliff creates, for the first time ever, a computer made entirely of children, running on nothing but logic. We also meet the world's brainiest whizz-kids, competing at the International Olympiad of Informatics in Brisbane, Australia.
The film also hails logic's all-time heroes: George Boole who moved logic beyond philosophy to mathematics; Bertrand Russell, who took 360+ pages but heroically proved that 1 + 1 = 2; Kurt Godel, who brought logic to its knees by demonstrating that some truths are unprovable; and Alan Turing, who, with what Cliff calls an 'almost exquisite paradox', was inspired by this huge setback to logic to conceive the computer.
Ultimately, the film asks, can humans really stay ahead? Could today's generation of logical computing machines be smarter than us? What does that tell us about our own brains, and just how 'logical' we really are...?
TUE 22:00 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (b0074tjf)
Series 1
How It All Fits Together
Smiley recalls the past - his involvement with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman, and Karla - the legendary head of Moscow Circus.
TUE 22:45 4,000-Year-Old Cold Case: The Body in the Bog (b03js0gf)
A 4,000-year-old body is found preserved in an Irish peat bog, in Cashel, in Ireland's midlands. To scientists and historians, it could offer brand new clues to solve an ancient mystery - the hundreds of bodies found mummified in the boglands of northern Europe.
An international team of experts assemble to investigate this new find, led by Ned Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland. Ned is a veteran archaeologist, and has previously investigated some of Ireland's most famous bog bodies.
Will 'Cashel Man' help prove his theory these Irish victims were ancient kings? And what clues can the bog bodies of Europe offer to explain our ancestors' most macabre tradition, ritual murder?
Meanwhile, that question could be answered by the bog itself. New science has found clues to suggest these deaths may be explained by prehistoric climate change.
TUE 23:45 Timeshift (b01nj3xx)
Series 12
The British Army of the Rhine
The affectionate story of British servicemen and their families who had to make Germany a home from home in the decades after the Second World War. For nearly 70 years, generations would grow up on bases with special schools, shops, housing and even their own radio station, as parts of the Rhineland became little bubbles of Britishness.
Featuring a nostalgic soundtrack of German language versions of period pop hits and contributions from military historians such as Max Hastings and former BBC sports commentator Barry Davies - himself a former British Army of the Rhine soldier - as well as those of military wives and children.
Once the front line in the Cold War, the BAOR is now being called home as the Ministry of Defence begins preparations to finally pull British forces out.
TUE 00:45 Orbit: Earth's Extraordinary Journey (b01d7kd5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUE 01:45 Britain by Bike (b00t9r0n)
The Isle of Wight
Clare Balding sets out on a two-wheel odyssey to re-discover Britain from the saddle of a touring cycle.
In a six-part series, Clare follows the wheeltracks of compulsive cyclist and author Harold Briercliffe whose evocative guide books of the late 1940s lovingly describe by-passed Britain - a world of unspoiled villages, cycle touring clubs and sunny B roads.
Carrying a set of Harold's Cycling Touring Guides for company and riding his very own Dawes Super Galaxy bicycle, Clare goes in search of the world he described with such affection.
Her journey to the Isle of Wight explores its unique sense of otherness - a strange power which could cure Dickens's writer's block, repel the deadly attentions of the Luftwaffe and give Victorian poet laureate Tennyson a comforting sense of his own death.
TUE 02:15 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfc6d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
TUE 02:45 The Joy of Logic (b03k6ypz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
WEDNESDAY 04 DECEMBER 2013
WED 19:00 World News Today (b03k676j)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfd18)
Series 3
Cockermouth to Eskdale
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
Michael travels through some of northern England's most dramatic scenery, from Berwick-upon-Tweed, crossing the Pennines to the Lake District before completing the journey on the beautiful and unique Isle of Man.
Here, Michael drinks a Victorian brew drawn from the pure waters of Cockermouth, steps inside the hidden world of nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield, and travels into the wonders of a Japanese inspired, 19th-century garden.
WED 20:00 Timeshift (b00nf0nl)
Series 9
The Golden Age of Liners
Paul Atterbury embarks on an alluring journey into the golden age of ocean liners, finding out how these great ships made such a mark on the popular imagination and why they continue to enchant to this day.
Paul's voyage takes him around Britain and reveals a story of design, politics, propaganda, Hollywood glamour and tragedy. Along the way, he uncovers some amazing survivals from the liners of the past - a cinema in Scotland built from the interiors of the SS Homeric, a house in Poole in which cabins from the Mauretania are lovingly preserved - as well as the design inspiration behind the first great liners.
WED 21:00 Lionel Bart: Reviewing the Situation (b03kw1rv)
Documentary telling the larger-than-life story of Lionel Bart, the composer of Oliver! - one of the greatest musicals of the last fifty years. Drawing on his unseen personal archive and interviews with Barbara Windsor, Roy Hudd, Cameron Mackintosh, Marty Wilde and Ray Davies, it paints a vivid, poignant picture of the rise and fall of one of Britain's favourite songwriters.
WED 22:00 Storyville (b03kk0s2)
Fame in China
Documentary which chronicles the staging of the musical Fame by the senior class at China's top drama academy, China's first official collaboration with Broadway. It unfolds as a unique coming-of-age story with Chinese characteristics. Fame is their graduation showcase and much is at stake. During the eight-month process, the students compete for roles, strive to meet the expectations of the American director and prepare to graduate into a cutthroat and corrupt showbusiness.
Part of China's 'single-child' generation, they were spoiled growing up but now feel the pressure of fulfilling the failed dreams of their parents. They must confront complex social realities so different from their parents' generation and in the process of staging Fame, negotiate their own path to success in today's rapidly shifting China.
WED 23:20 Frozen Planet (b00zj35r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
WED 00:20 Edward VII: Prince of Pleasure (b00rq3y2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Saturday]
WED 01:20 The Man who Brought the Blues to Britain: Big Bill Broonzy (p01kc82z)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
WED 02:20 Great British Railway Journeys (b01bfd18)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
WED 02:50 Lionel Bart: Reviewing the Situation (b03kw1rv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 05 DECEMBER 2013
THU 19:00 World News Today (b03k676p)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 The Sky at Night (b08sldrx)
Comet Chasing
Astronomers always get excited about comets and in December they are looking forward to something rather special. The snappily-named Comet C/2012 S1 ISON has travelled from the very edges of our solar system on a one way ticket around the sun. As it heats up there is intense speculation about whether it will develop a beautiful tail or just break apart. On the Canary island of La Palma the team use both the Liverpool and Isaac Newton telescopes to go comet chasing.
THU 20:00 Ocean Giants (b013q50m)
Giant Lives
This episode explores the intimate details of the largest animals that have ever lived on our planet - the great whales. From the balmy waters of the Indian Ocean to the freezing seas of the Arctic, two daring underwater cameramen - Doug Allan, Planet Earth's polar specialist, and Didier Noirot, Cousteau's front-line cameraman - come face to face with fighting humpback whales and 200-ton feeding blue whales.
Teaming up with top whale scientists, Giant Lives discovers why southern right whales possess a pair of one-ton testicles, why the arctic bowhead can live to over 200 years old and why size truly matters in the world of whales.
THU 21:00 Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities (b03kp6hg)
Episode 1
Simon Sebag Montefiore traces the sacred history of Istanbul. Known as the 'city of the world's desire', it's a place that has been the focus of passion for believers of three different faiths - Paganism, Christianity and Islam - and for nearly 3,000 years its streets have been the battleground for some of the fiercest political and religious conflicts in history.
Montefiore uncovers the city's ancient Greek roots, maps its transformation into the imperial capital of a Christian empire by Emperor Constantine the Great and reveals how ecclesiastical clashes forced eastern and western churches apart.
THU 22:00 The Joy of Logic (b03k6ypz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
THU 23:00 Shipwrecks: Britain's Sunken History (b03knrvm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
THU 00:00 Horizon (b013pnv4)
2011-2012
Seeing Stars
Around the world, a new generation of astronomers are hunting for the most mysterious objects in the universe. Young stars, black holes, even other forms of life.
They have created a dazzling new set of supertelescopes that promise to rewrite the story of the heavens.
This film follows the men and women who are pushing the limits of science and engineering in some of the most extreme environments on earth. But most strikingly of all, no-one really knows what they will find out there.
THU 01:00 The Sky at Night (b08sldrx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:30 today]
THU 01:30 Ocean Giants (b013q50m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
THU 02:30 Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities (b03kp6hg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 06 DECEMBER 2013
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b03k676v)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Concerto at the BBC Proms (b01k763t)
Mozart Clarinet
Another chance to hear a live performance from the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, considered by some to be his finest work, recorded at the BBC Proms in 2006.
Gifted English clarinet soloist Julian Bliss, at the time only 17 years old, performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Jirà Behlohlávek.
FRI 20:00 BBC Four Sessions (b03kk1j5)
Bonnie Raitt
Filmed at Stoke Newington Town Hall in north London, this career-spanning concert features Bonnie Raitt and her road-tested band in sparkling form.
Raitt started out supporting blues artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, while championing the generation of singer-songwriters who emerged in the early 70s. Now in her 60s, she released her debut album in 1971 and her most recent album Slipstream in 2012.
This set roams across her career and includes signature songs like Love Has No Pride, Nick of Time and the bluesy Love Me Like a Man. The slide guitar-slinging, flame-haired queen of roots and blues rock is joined by frequent collaborator and songwriter Paul Brady on Marriage Made in Hollywood and there's even a bluesy romp through the old Elvis tune, A Big Hunk o' Love.
FRI 21:00 Blues America (b03kk1j7)
Bright Lights, Big City
After 1945, artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker rooted the blues firmly in the city, where it contributed to the musical desegregation of America by spawning rock 'n' roll. As the blues conquered the world and the music moved from black to white audiences, arguments developed about what was the real authentic blues. Robert Johnson returned from the dead to sell more records than any other blues artist. By the 21st century, the blues not only retained the earthiness of its roots but was also being celebrated in the White House. With contributions from Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Seasick Steve and Buddy Guy.
FRI 22:00 Later... with Jools Holland (b00k99g6)
Blues
Compilation of performances from many of the great blues artists who have featured on Later... and the Hootenanny since 1992, including BB King, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Seasick Steve, ZZ Top and many more.
FRI 23:00 In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey (b03kw2g3)
Canadian James Cullingham's documentary celebrates the iconoclastic American guitarist, composer and provocateur John Fahey, 1939-2001. Fahey is often considered the godfather of 'American primitive guitar', a style forged in the 60s from blues and old-time music that draws on the past without mimicking it.
Fahey rediscovered forgotten blues legends like Bukka White and Skip James in the early 60s before setting up his own independent label Takoma to release his own acoustic guitar music. He was a prankster mythologist who wove playful mythic stories around his albums and was dismissive of many folk revivalists. In later life Fahey was prone to depression and alcohol and lived in a motel for some time before enjoying a new lease of life in his last decade exploring 'industrial' music.
This cinematic exploration of Fahey's life, times and music features Pete Townshend, Chris Funk of the Decemberists and Joey Burns of Calexico. These stellar musicians, along with Fahey associates and friends such as the famous 'Dr Demento' and radio broadcaster Barry Hansen, explore the legacy of this profoundly influential artist. The film was recorded in the Washington DC area where Fahey was born, along the Mississippi Delta from Memphis to New Orleans, in Los Angeles, Toronto, Austin, New York and in Oregon, where Fahey spent his last two decades.
FRI 00:00 The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (b00xf8k7)
During the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Sister Rosetta Tharpe played a highly significant role in the creation of rock & roll, inspiring musicians like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. She may not be a household name, but this flamboyant African-American gospel singing superstar, with her spectacular virtuosity on the newly-electrified guitar, was one of the most influential popular musicians of the 20th century.
Tharpe was born in 1915, close to the Mississippi in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. At the age of six she was taken by her evangelist mother Katie Bell to Chicago to join Roberts Temple, Church of God in Christ, where she developed her distinctive style of singing and guitar playing. At the age of 23 she left the church and went to New York to join the world of show business, signing with Decca Records. For the following 30 years she performed extensively to packed houses in the USA and subsequently Europe, before her death in 1973.
In 2008 the state governor of Pennsylvania declared that henceforth January 11th will be Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day in recognition of her remarkable musical legacy.
FRI 01:00 Blues America (b03kk1j7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:00 Later... with Jools Holland (b00k99g6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
FRI 03:00 The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (b00xf8k7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:00 today]