SATURDAY 17 MAY 2014

SAT 19:00 BBC Young Musician (b0446h13)
2014

Semi-Final

BBC Young Musician 2014 reaches its penultimate stage, the semi-final. Over the past weeks there have been some outstanding performance from 25 talented and dedicated young musicians. Now the winners of the strings, percussion, woodwind, keyboard and brass category finals compete against each other for three places in the final at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh.

Making the all-important decisions are Jessica Cottis, assistant conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Michael Garvey, director of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales; composer Dobrinka Tabakova; and Meurig Bowen, director of the Cheltenham Music Festival. Classical guitarist Milos and trumpet player Alison Balsom (herself a BBC Young Musician Finalist in 1998) take us behind the scenes of the competition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, presenting extensive highlights from the semi-finalists' recital performances.


SAT 20:30 Sounds of the 70s 2 (b01jzy37)
Rock 'n' Roll Revisited - Get It On

A love of 50s rock 'n' roll runs through the pop of the 70s like a stripe through a stick of rock. This episode celebrates the rock 'n' roll revivalism and 50s retro leanings that characterise the decade from glam to AOR and all points in between. Revisiting the theatrical performances and fashions you'd be talking about in the playground the next day, from the likes of E.L.O, T-Rex, 10cc, Alvin Stardust, Mott the Hoople and Meatloaf's epic 1978 performance of Paradise by the Dashboard Light.


SAT 21:00 Wallander (b03jnm98)
Series 3

The Troubled Man

Attending a family meal at the home of his daughter Linda, Kurt Wallander is intrigued when Hakan von Enke, his son-in-law's father and a retired naval commander, is called away by an urgent phone call. It soon becomes clear that the call is related to the recovery of a body from the waters of the Stockholm archipelago - the same waters where, at the height of the Cold War, depth charges were exploded in an attempt to raise a submarine which had strayed into Swedish territorial waters. When Hakan goes missing, Wallander's investigations uncover a complicated international espionage.

In Swedish with English subtitles.


SAT 22:40 The Old Grey Whistle Test (b014vzy3)
70s Gold

The Old Grey Whistle Test was launched on 21 September 1971 from a tiny studio tucked behind a lift shaft on the fourth floor of BBC Television Centre. From humble beginnings, it has gone on to provide some of the best and most treasured music archive that the BBC has to offer.

This programme takes us on a journey and celebrates the musically mixed-up decade that was the 1970s, and which is reflected in the OGWT archive. There are classic performances from the glam era by Elton John and David Bowie, an early UK TV appearance from Curtis Mayfield, the beginnings of heavy metal with Steppenwolf's iconic Born to Be Wild anthem and the early punk machinations of the 'mock rock' New York Dolls. Archive from the pinnacle year, 1973, features Roxy Music, The Wailers and Vinegar Joe. The programme's finale celebrates the advent of punk and new wave with unforgettable performances from Patti Smith, Blondie, Iggy Pop and The Jam.

Artists featured are Elton John, Lindisfarne, David Bowie, Curtis Mayfield, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Steppenwolf, Vinegar Joe, Brinsley Schwarz, New York Dolls, Argent, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Captain Beefheart, Johnny Winter, Dr Feelgood, Gil Scott Heron, Patti Smith, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Cher & Gregg Allman, Talking Heads, The Jam, Blondie, Iggy Pop and The Specials.


SAT 00:10 The Comet's Tale (b008d2x7)
Ancient civilisations thought comets were gods. They believed them to be bringers of life or harbingers of doom - strange, magical, mysterious things that moved through the sky, fiery streaks of light that tore across the heavens.

Isaac Newton was the first to make sense of comets and to him they were the key to unlocking the secrets of gravity - nothing to do with an apple. Hundreds of years later, a new breed of space missions are visiting comets, travelling millions of miles to touch down on these tiny balls of rock flying through space at 20,000 mph. The spectacular images we now have are showing us what comets are really made of, where they come from, and their often surprising influence on events on Earth.

What they reveal is that our ancestors may have been right all along and that comets and meteors really are like gods, or at least they can exert tremendous influence over our world. They have brought terrible destruction to the Earth and may one day do so again. But they also may have brought life itself to the planet.


SAT 01:10 The Sky at Night (b043wcjp)
How Gravity Shapes the Universe

The universe is filled with spectacular objects, from gloriously-coloured nebulae to the swirling motion of a billion stars formed into a single galaxy. One force has created it all - gravity. The Sky at Night team steps away from the bright lights and travels to the Brecon Beacons AstroCamp to see how gravity shapes the universe, in all its spectacular glory.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock asks why so much of the night sky is filled with spheres and why not all these spheres are what they seem. Chris Lintott finds out about the newest moon in the solar system that has just formed in Saturn's rings, and how it could shed light on how the planets formed billions of years ago.

Plus, how to get great images of the night sky without using a telescope and what the shape of a galaxy tells you about its past.


SAT 01:40 The Horizon Guide to Space Shuttles (b0109cc7)
In 2011, after more than 30 years of service, America's space shuttle took to the skies for the last time. Its story has been characterised by incredible triumphs, but blighted by devastating tragedies - and the BBC and Horizon have chronicled every step of its career. This unique and poignant Horizon Guide brings together coverage from three decades of programmes to present a biography of the shuttle and to ask what its legacy will be. Will it be remembered as an impressive chapter in human space exploration, or as a fatally flawed white elephant?


SAT 02:40 The Search for Life: The Drake Equation (b00wltbk)
For many years our place in the universe was the subject of theologians and philosophers, not scientists, but in 1960 one man changed all that.

Dr Frank Drake was one of the leading lights in the new science of radio astronomy when he did something that was not only revolutionary, but could have cost him his career. Working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenback in Virginia, he pointed one of their new 25-metre radio telescopes at a star called Tau Ceti twelve light years from earth, hoping for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Although project Ozma resulted in silence, it did result in one of the most seminal equations in the history of science - the Drake Equation - which examined seven key elements necessary for extraterrestrial intelligence to exist, from the formation of stars to the likely length a given intelligent civilisation may survive. When Frank and his colleagues entered the figures, the equation suggested there were a staggering 50,000 civilisations capable of communicating across the galaxy.

However, in the 50 years of listening that has followed, not one single bleep has been heard from extraterrestrials. So were Drake and his followers wrong and is there no life form out there capable of communicating? Drake's own calculations suggest that we would have to scan the entire radio spectrum of ten million stars to be sure of contact.

The answers to those questions suggest that, far from being a one-off, life may not only be common in the universe but once started will lead inevitably towards intelligent life.

To find out about the equation's influence, Dallas Campbell goes on a worldwide journey to meet the scientists who have dedicated their lives to focusing on its different aspects.