The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
Armed with his 1913 Bradshaw's, Michael Portillo explores a very different Spain from the one he knows best and ventures across its border with Britain's oldest ally, Portugal.
In Galicia, Michael discovers the city of La Coruna, a fashionable destination for Edwardian Britons, for whom the principal attraction was the tomb of a British military hero. Michael uncovers the Celtic roots of the people and tries to master the bagpipes.
On the pilgrims' trail to Santiago de Compostela, Michael meets walkers from all over the world heading for the cathedral, and he is led into the archive to see one of the world's first guidebooks, dating from the 12th century.
Aboard the West Galician Railway, Michael hears how a 19th-century British railwayman sought his fortune in Galicia and ended up running the company. A visit to a sardine cannery has Michael scrubbing octopus tentacles, and setting sail with local fishermen to see if he can trap one.
Arriving at the ornately tiled Sao Bento station in Porto, he finds out about the birth of Britain's long alliance with the Portuguese. A glass of 1953 port awaits him at the city's Factory House, before he embarks on the Linha da Douro along the spectacular Douro Valley.
At Coimbra, Michael is moved by the mournful strains of the fado sung by university students, then boards the high-speed train to Lisbon.
Following in the footsteps of King Edward VII, who visited his cousin King Carlos in 1903, Michael explores the city from the Santa Justa lift to the harbour at Belem. An attempt to make Portugal's national sweetmeat proves challenging, but help is at hand.
At the Palace Square, Michael hears how turbulent events at the time of his guide saw the Portuguese royal family almost wiped out.
The golden age of the British monastery was during the medieval period, when monks transformed British society and rose to a position of immense power. Fighting back after centuries of defeat and neglect, a wave of new monasteries spread across the nation, with over 500 British monastic houses established by the 14th century. Far from the inward-looking recluses of legend, monks were exceptionally creative, and became pioneers in the fields of medicine, science, scholarship, industry, farming, art and music. They didn't turn their back on the medieval world, but helped transform it.
Yet as the monasteries mingled with the world outside their cloisters they began to take on its corruption. They had begun with a vow of poverty, but eventually came to own a third of the nation's land. This wealth, combined with the sins of individual monks, sealed their fate, and as the medieval period ended the monks were on the brink of a catastrophic and total collapse.
From Viking-ravaged Lindisfarne to the astonishing achievements of Durham and Peterborough cathedrals (both built for monks), from cutting-edge hospitals to the rediscovery of the oldest collection of two-part music in the world, this is a story of astonishing success and spectacular artistic achievement that proved too good to last.
Dr Jago Cooper reassesses the achievements of the Inca Empire. He begins in Peru, where evidence is still being uncovered that challenges preconceptions about its origins and significance. Venturing from the coast to the clouds, he reveals how the Inca transformed one of the most challenging landscapes in the world to ward off the worst effects of the climate, and created sophisticated systems of communication. He shows how one of many independent societies became a commanding empire - not through force, but by using subtle methods of persuasion.
Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He shows how 20th-century attention turned from civilisation and kings to the search for the common man against a background of science and competing political ideologies.
Dan Cruickshank and Charlie Luxton uncover the incredible hidden stories behind historic buildings as they are dismantled brick by brick, and meticulously resurrected in new locations.
Every year thousands of ordinary buildings are demolished, smashed down to make way for the new, but some are so special they are snatched from the bulldozers and carefully dismantled. When a new home can be found for them, they are lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt. These are not grand edifices, but everyday buildings that give an extraordinary insight into the lives of the people who lived and worked in them. Deep within their fabric are preserved astonishing stories about how we lived and worked.
Architectural designer Charlie Luxton explores how these vast and hugely complex jigsaw puzzles are pieced back together, trying his hand at the array of ancient crafts required. Meanwhile, architectural historian Dan Cruickshank investigates the building's history, proving that even seemingly humble buildings have incredible stories to tell.
This episode follows the construction of a fully working coal-fired Edwardian fish and chip shop at Beamish Museum. Charlie helps with the refurbishment of one of the world's oldest surviving frying ranges, and gets a horse-drawn fish and chip cart back on the road. Meanwhile, Dan discovers the surprising origins of our national dish and explores its rise from squalid back-street outlets to grand fish and chip palaces.
Cleopatra - the most famous woman in history. We know her as a great queen, a beautiful lover and a political schemer. For 2,000 years almost all evidence of her has disappeared - until now.
In one of the world's most exciting finds, archaeologists believe they have discovered the skeleton of her sister, murdered by Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
From Egypt to Turkey, Neil Oliver investigates the story of a ruthless queen who would kill her own siblings for power. This is the portrait of a killer.
TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2015
TUE 19:00 World News Today (b06cqkh2)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
TUE 19:30 Great Continental Railway Journeys (b05qjwhw)
Series 3 - Reversions
La Coruna to Lisbon - Part 2
Armed with his 1913 Bradshaw's, Michael Portillo explores a very different Spain from the one he knows best and ventures across its border with Britain's oldest ally, Portugal.
Beginning in Galicia, Michael discovers the elegant city of La Coruna, a fashionable destination for Edwardian Britons, for whom the principal attraction was the tomb of a British military hero. Michael uncovers the Celtic roots of the Galician people and tries to master the bagpipes but finds himself upstaged by a six-year-old.
On the pilgrims' trail to Santiago de Compostela, Michael meets walkers from all over the world heading for the cathedral, and he is led into the archive to see one of the world's first guidebooks, dating from the 12th century.
Aboard the West Galician Railway, Michael hears how a 19th-century British railwayman sought his fortune in Galicia and ended up running the company. A visit to a sardine cannery has Michael scrubbing octopus tentacles, and a taste for the cephalopod sees Michael set sail with local fishermen to see if he can trap one.
Arriving at the ornately tiled Sao Bento station in Porto, he finds out about the birth of Britain's long alliance with the Portuguese. A glass of 1953 port awaits him at the city's Factory House, before he embarks on the Linha da Douro along the spectacular Douro Valley.
At Coimbra, Michael is moved by the mournful strains of the fado sung by students of the university, then boards the high-speed train to the Portuguese capital Lisbon.
Following in the footsteps of King Edward VII, who visited his cousin King Carlos in 1903, Michael explores the city from the Santa Justa lift to the harbour at Belem. An attempt to make Portugal's national sweetmeat proves challenging, but help is at hand.
At the handsome Palace Square, Michael hears how turbulent events at the time of his guide saw the Portuguese royal family almost wiped out.
TUE 20:00 Canals: The Making of a Nation (b0685bp2)
The Workers
This is the story of the men who built our canals - the navigators or 'navvies'. They represented an 'army' of hard physical men who were capable of enduring tough labour for long hours. Many roved the countryside looking for work and a better deal. They gained a reputation as troublesome outsiders, fond of drinking and living a life of ungodly debauchery. But who were they? Unreliable heathens and outcasts, or unsung heroes who used might and muscle to build canals and railways? We focus on the Manchester Ship Canal - the swansong for the navvies and hailed as the greatest engineering feat of the Victorian Age. The navvies worked at a time of rising trade unionism. But could they organise and campaign for a better deal?
TUE 20:30 Hive Minds (b06csxcf)
Series 1
Trivium v Lutrophiles
Fiona Bruce presents the quiz show where players not only have to know the answers, but have to find them hidden in a hive of letters. It tests players' general knowledge and mental agility, as they battle against one another and race against the clock to find the answers.
Trivium play Lutrophiles in the first semi-final.
TUE 21:00 John Simpson: Stories from the Frontline (b06dl0nq)
BBC world affairs editor John Simpson takes viewers behind the scenes of reporting from the frontline. He and his guests - Jon Snow, Christiane Amanpour and Max Hastings - discuss the difficulties, moral ambiguities and challenges of this increasingly dangerous job, with a series of clips from conflicts in the Falklands, Bosnia, Iraq and Syria, highlighting some of the best work of the past 50 years.
TUE 22:00 Wheeler on America (b06dl0ns)
Lyndon Johnson's War
A look back at the classic series Wheeler on America from 1996. Charles Wheeler traces changes in US society since the liberal revolution in the 1960s. Along the way he looks at how President Johnson was destroyed by the Vietnam war, and a conspiracy by the Nixon presidential campaign.
TUE 22:55 Storyville (b03zq89v)
Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington
Moving and deeply personal documentary about Tim Hetherington, the award-winning British war photographer and film-maker killed in 2011 during the Libyan civil war. Director Sebastian Junger gracefully weaves together footage of Hetherington at work and emotional interviews with his family and colleagues to capture his collaborator and friend's compassion and intense curiosity about the human spirit.
The film maps a career in which Hetherington searched for the humanity within wartime, as evidenced in their Oscar-nominated film Restrepo, about an American platoon in Afghanistan. Hetherington's footage of rebel army life during Liberia's civil war conveys a rare sense of intimacy in sharp contrast to the violence surrounding him. Although he spent most of his time travelling to the centre of war zones, he was seeking truths rather than adventure.
A tribute to this remarkable, talented young man, Which Way is the Frontline from Here? also addresses fundamental questions about the very nature of conflict.
TUE 00:10 The Falklands Legacy with Max Hastings (b01fkc3v)
Thirty years after the Falklands War, journalist and military historian Max Hastings explores the conflict's impact and its legacy.
Hastings, who sailed with the Task Force in 1982 and reported on the Falklands campaign first-hand, looks at how victory in the South Atlantic revived the reputation of our armed forces and renewed Britain's sense of pride and its image abroad after years of decline as an imperial and military power.
Hastings examines how the Falklands provided a model of a swift and successful war that was matched by other conflicts Britain fought at the end of the 20th century. In contrast, the long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the British public sceptical about sending our armed forces in large numbers to war again.
The Falklands could well be the last popular war Britain fights, and certainly the country's last imperial hurrah.
TUE 01:10 Canals: The Making of a Nation (b0685bp2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
TUE 01:40 Hive Minds (b06csxcf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 today]
TUE 02:10 The Secret Life of Rubbish (b01p65qn)
Episode 2
With tales from old binmen and film archive that has never been broadcast before, this two-part series offers an original view of the history of modern Britain - from the back end where the rubbish comes out.
The second programme deals with the 1970s and 1980s, when two big ideas emerged in the waste management industry.
The first was privatisation of public services. We meet Ian Ross, who made millions by taking over the refuse collection contract from the council that had once employed him as a binman. 'It was scary', Ian Ross admits, 'but you have one chance don't you, and you've got to take it.'
The other idea that emerged was environmentalism. Ron England goes back to the supermarket car park in Barnsley, South Yorkshire where he set up the world's first bottle bank. 'Everyone said I was a crank', recalls Ron.
But the waste stream continued to expand. This was great news for the Earls of Aylesford. The present Earl shows how his palace was saved with money earned from the enormous landfill in the grounds.
This is the story of a society hooked on wastefulness - and of the people who clear up the mess.
TUE 03:10 Britain on Film (b01q6pzr)
Series 1
War and Peace
Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history.
This episode examines Look at Life's coverage of what was the most important political conflict of the era - the Cold War. With international tensions rising, the series recorded the enormous anti-nuclear protests in London; the experiences of British forces stationed in Berlin; and visited Eastern Europe, to observe everyday life for the people living behind the Iron Curtain.
WEDNESDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2015
WED 19:00 World News Today (b06cqkh7)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
WED 19:30 Great Continental Railway Journeys (b05qjwhy)
Series 3 - Reversions
Lyon to Marseille: Part 1
Michael Portillo follows in the footsteps of Edwardian travellers to trace a route recommended in his Bradshaw's guide, journeying from the heart of France to the Mediterranean coast.
His journey begins in the capital of cuisine, Lyon, where he finds out about the early 20th-century Meres Lyonnaises, to whom the city owes its gastronomic reputation. Ever keen to try his hand, Michael takes instruction from a top chef on how to make an omelette, but his efforts fail to impress.
At the Palais de la Bourse, Michael hears how, at the time of his guide, the city was still reeling from the assassination of the country's president and how a shocked French nation rallied in support of the Third Republic.
Cycling in tandem with his guide, Michael discovers Lyon's role in the country's most famous sporting event, the Tour de France. Forsaking the saddle, Michael takes to the skies and pilots a light aircraft as he learns of one of France's pioneering aviators.
In Avignon, Michael savours the scent of Provence in the region's lavender fields before relaxing with a glass of the city's famous tipple, Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Moving south to the city of Arles, he learns how its light and the famous mistral drew artists from all over Europe.
His journey ends at the gateway to the former French empire, Marseilles. In the vast port, Michael joins a pilot boat as it leads a supertanker to its berth.
WED 20:00 Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past (b01gk31g)
Episode 3
Dan Cruickshank and Charlie Luxton uncover the incredible hidden stories behind historic buildings as they are dismantled brick by brick, and meticulously resurrected in new locations.
Every year thousands of ordinary buildings are demolished, smashed down to make way for the new, but some are so special they are snatched from the bulldozers and carefully dismantled. When a new home can be found for them, they are lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt. These are not grand buildings, but everyday buildings that give an extraordinary insight into the lives of the people who lived and worked in them. Deep within their fabric are preserved astonishing stories about how we lived and worked.
Architectural designer Charlie Luxton explores how these vast and hugely complex jigsaw puzzles are pieced back together, trying his hand at the array of ancient crafts required. Meanwhile, architectural historian Dan Cruickshank investigates the building's history, proving that even seemingly humble buildings have incredible stories to tell.
A mysterious medieval building on the quayside at Haverfordwest was dismantled 30 years ago by a team of young apprentices. Charlie helps those same men reconstruct the seemingly fortified vaulted house at the Welsh National History Museum. Dan sets out to discover what the building actually was and uncovers stories of wealthy merchants, pirates and the English invasion of South Wales.
WED 21:00 Timeshift (b06csy8c)
Series 15
The Engine that Powers the World
The surprising story of the hidden powerhouse behind the globalised world, the diesel engine, a 19th-century invention that has become indispensable to the 21st century. It's a tortoise-versus-hare tale in which the diesel engine races the petrol engine in a competition to replace ageing steam technology, a race eventually won hands down by diesel.
Splendidly, car enthusiast presenter Mark Evans gets excitedly hands-on with some of the many applications of Mr Diesel's - yes, there was one - original creation, from vintage submarines and tractors to locomotive trains and container ships. You'll never feel the same about that humble old diesel family car again.
WED 22:00 Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race (b04lcxms)
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969, America went down in popular history as the winner of the space race. However, the real pioneers of space exploration were the Soviet cosmonauts.
This remarkable feature-length documentary combines rare and unseen archive footage with interviews with the surviving cosmonauts to tell the fascinating and at times terrifying story of how the Russians led us into the space age. A particular highlight is Alexei Leonov, the man who performed the first spacewalk, explaining how he found himself trapped outside his spacecraft 500 miles above the Earth. Scary stuff.
WED 23:00 Storyville (b04ndsb3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Sunday]
WED 00:20 Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past (b01gk31g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 today]
WED 01:20 The Inca: Masters of the Clouds (b04xdpjy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Monday]
WED 02:20 Timeshift (b06csy8c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2015
THU 19:00 World News Today (b06cqkhd)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
THU 19:30 Great Continental Railway Journeys (b05qjxcy)
Series 3 - Reversions
Lyon to Marseille: Part 2
Michael Portillo follows in the footsteps of Edwardian travellers to trace a route recommended in his Bradshaw's guide, journeying from the heart of France to the Mediterranean coast.
His journey begins in the capital of cuisine, Lyon, where he finds out about the early 20th-century Meres Lyonnaises, to whom the city owes its gastronomic reputation. Ever keen to try his hand, Michael takes instruction from a top chef on how to make an omelette, but his efforts fail to impress.
At the Palais de la Bourse, Michael hears how, at the time of his guide, the city was still reeling from the assassination of the country's president and how a shocked French nation rallied in support of the Third Republic.
Cycling in tandem with his guide, Michael discovers Lyon's role in the country's most famous sporting event, the Tour de France. Forsaking the saddle, Michael takes to the skies and pilots a light aircraft as he learns of one of France's pioneering aviators.
In Avignon, Michael savours the scent of Provence in the region's lavender fields before relaxing with a glass of the city's famous tipple, Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Moving south to the city of Arles, he learns how its light and the famous mistral drew artists from all over Europe.
His journey ends at the gateway to the former French empire, Marseilles. In the vast port, Michael joins a pilot boat as it leads a supertanker to its berth.
THU 20:00 Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders (b00wmpc0)
Suffer the Little Children
Ian Hislop continues his celebration of the dynamic and eccentric Victorian reformers who brought about the most remarkable period of social change in British history. Here Ian looks at the do-gooders' dramatic struggle to give youngsters a proper childhood, sending them to school instead of up chimneys, helping rather than hanging juvenile delinquents and raising the age of consent.
Dr Barnardo founded one of the most famous charities of his era. But his methods were decidedly dodgy: he was guilty of misleading advertising, photo-fakery and even child abduction. Yet, we owe our own concept of child protection - that children have rights independently from their parents - to Thomas Barnardo.
Indefatigable Bristol spinster Mary Carpenter's radical approach to helping young offenders was years ahead of its time. But even her patience ran out with some of the errant teenage girls at her pioneering reformatory school. Maverick newspaper editor WT Stead shocked the nation with his lurid expose of child prostitution - an exclusive which involved him buying a 13-year-old virgin for five pounds. His style and methods make today's tabloid newspapers seem tame. Stead managed to get the age of consent raised to 16, where it remains to this day.
Thanks to the Earl of Shaftesbury, children as young as five stopped being sent down mines. His lifetime's work for children is celebrated in the famous monument at Piccadilly Circus - not actually Eros (sexual love) but Anteros (selfless love).Charles Kingsley's best-selling The Water Babies was crucial in banning the practice of sending small boys up chimneys. To him children were innocent, not tainted with original sin. Yet after him, Victorians sentimentalized children to a degree which we today find hard to stomach.
Ian discovers how these Victorian do-gooders' ideas might have something to offer us today, with the help of Kids' Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh, Barnardo's boss Martin Narey and the current Lord Shaftesbury, 30-year-old former DJ Nicholas Ashley Cooper.
THU 21:00 The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms (p030s6b3)
Without us noticing, modern life has been taken over. Algorithms run everything from search engines on the internet to satnavs and credit card data security - they even help us travel the world, find love and save lives.
Mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy demystifies the hidden world of algorithms. By showing us some of the algorithms most essential to our lives, he reveals where these 2,000-year-old problem-solvers came from, how they work, what they have achieved and how they are now so advanced they can even programme themselves.
THU 22:00 Horizon (b01rbynt)
2012-2013
The Creative Brain: How Insight Works
It is a feeling we all know - the moment when a light goes on in your head. In a sudden flash of inspiration, a new idea is born.
Today, scientists are using some unusual techniques to try to work out how these moments of creativity - whether big, small or life-changing - come about. They have devised a series of puzzles and brainteasers to draw out our creative behaviour, while the very latest neuroimaging technology means researchers can actually peer inside our brains and witness the creative spark as it happens. What they are discovering could have the power to make every one of us more creative.
THU 23:00 Detectorists (b04jy45z)
Series 1
Episode 1
A new comedy about two friends - Andy and Lance - who go searching for their hearts' desire with a couple of metal detectors.
Following a chance encounter with a young history student, Lance and Andy embark on a journey towards the discovery of a lifetime. All they need to do is get permission from the local landowner, the mad one who is rumoured to have done away with his wife.
THU 23:30 Detectorists (b04kzw1l)
Series 1
Episode 2
Lance and Andy haven't told anyone that they are hot on the trail of the holy grail of metal detecting - the final resting place of King Sexred of the East Saxons. But members of the rival detecting club already seem to know all about it. Who is the mole?
THU 00:00 Archaeology: A Secret History (p0109k4g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 on Monday]
THU 01:00 Natural World (b00xxf9f)
2010-2011
Miracle in the Marshes of Iraq
It's the largest and most ambitious habitat recreation project ever known - to bring back to life one of the world's greatest marshlands. And it's happening in Iraq.
Considered to be the original Garden of Eden, the marshes were once Iraq's wildlife jewel, where man and nature thrived for 5,000 years. But in the 1990s, Saddam Hussein drained these gigantic wetlands and turned them into a desert, destroying a home to thousands of people and millions of birds.
Donning his body armour, film-maker David Johnson travels to the Mesopotamian marshes to follow the work of Azzam Alwash, the visionary Iraqi engineer at the centre of this extraordinary scheme to reflood hundreds of miles of desert and bring back life to the sands. This is a view of Iraq the world never sees, a world of huge reed beds and vast flocks of birds that fill the sky.
THU 02:00 Horizon (b01rbynt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]
THU 03:00 The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms (p030s6b3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRIDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2015
FRI 19:00 World News Today (b06cqkhy)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.
FRI 19:30 Leeds International Piano Competition (b06cvzqr)
2015
Part Two
Petroc Trelawny presents the second programme from the final of the Leeds International Piano competition. There are full concertos from two more of the six finalists, accompanied by Sir Mark Elder and the Halle Orchestra. With Petroc are international concert pianists Noriko Ogawa and Artur Pizarro, both former finalists at Leeds. There is also an interview with the competition's global ambassador, keyboard superstar Lang Lang. Young concert pianist Nicholas McCarthy is out and about reporting on how the competition impacts on the city of Leeds.
FRI 21:00 The Joy of Disco (b01cqt72)
Documentary about how a much-derided music actually changed the world. Between 1969 and 1979 disco soundtracked gay liberation, foregrounded female desire in the age of feminism and led to the birth of modern club culture as we know it today, before taking the world by storm. With contributions from Nile Rodgers, Robin Gibb, Kathy Sledge and Ian Schrager.
FRI 22:00 Hot Chocolate at the BBC (b06dl1c5)
Errol Brown, who died aged 71 in May 2015, was probably the most famous and ubiquitous black British pop star of the 70s and early 80s. He co-founded Hot Chocolate with Tony Wilson in 1970 and the band went on to have a hit every year between 1971 and 1984.
This compilation of BBC performances and rare interview extracts celebrates Errol and Hot Chocolate, showcasing their Top 10 hits alongside rarely seen early performances and cult fan favourites.
We journey through over 15 years of chart smashes showcasing all the infectious numbers - Every 1's a Winner, Emma, So You Win Again and It Started With a Kiss - and of course, The Full Monty scene-stealer You Sexy Thing, a song that was in the charts in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
There are reminders of just how many Top 10 moments they had, with Girl Crazy and No Doubt About It, the hit that got away - Mindless Boogie - and their first appearance on BBC television with Love Is Life. Hot Chocolate were that rarity, a 70s British pop band who largely wrote their own tunes and arrangements and a mixed race band who perhaps inadvertently helped foster an early sense of British multi-culturalism. In Errol, they had a frontman who was not only a great singer, songwriter and frontman, but also resolutely and undemonstratively always himself, at ease in his own skin.
FRI 23:00 TOTP2 (b007v15w)
Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special
Get your dancing shoes on for a show of disco mania as Steve Wright and the TOTP2 team take you back to the dancefloor for some boogie fever. The Bee Gees are here in all their glory, along with Gloria Gaynor, Liquid Gold, Sylvester, The Village People, The Weather Girls and The Three Degrees.
There's classic dance fodder from Chic, George McCrae, Hi-Tension, Heatwave, The JALN Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Tina Charles, The Gibson Brothers and Edwin Starr, disco pop from Blondie, Yazz, Boney M and Linx, while Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Infernal bring the story up to date.
And then there's the Disco Duck. Sorry...
FRI 00:30 Nile Rodgers: The Hitmaker Remastered (b01rk2tm)
The last two years have seen Nile Rodgers launched back into the limelight following the massive success of Daft Punk's single Get Lucky, his distinctive guitar work helping the French dance music duo to one of their biggest hits.
This 2013 documentary has been brought up to date to tell the story of his work with Daft Punk and how his band Chic has been introduced to a brand new audience.
As the co-founder, songwriter, producer and guitarist of Chic he helped define the sound of the 70s, as disco took the world by storm. But the music that had made Chic would also break them, thanks to the 'Disco Sucks' backlash. What could have been the end for Nile Rodgers would actually be a new beginning as a producer, helping create some of the biggest hits of the '80s for the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna and Duran Duran.
The ever-charismatic Rogers contributes an engaging and often frank interview to tell the tale of how, born to beatnik, heroin-addict parents in New York, he picked up a guitar as a teenager and embarked on a journey to learn his craft as a musician, before becoming one of disco's most successful artists.
In the '70s and '80s he lived the party lifestyle thanks to his success with Chic and as one of the music industry's hottest producers. Drugs and alcohol would become part of everyday life for Nile, contributing in part to the break-up of Chic in the early '80s. The band would reform in the mid '90s, but their return was quickly marked by tragedy with the death of Nile's long-time friend and musical partner Bernard Edwards in 1996.
The film recounts a captivating and moving story of a man who has been making hit music for nearly four decades and has found himself back in the limelight once again.
FRI 01:30 The Joy of Disco (b01cqt72)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 today]
FRI 02:30 Hot Chocolate at the BBC (b06dl1c5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
22:00 today]